Give me liberty access code

Research Paper (Give Me Liberty) By Eric Foner

Note: Before beginning this assignment, read through information contained in the Scholastic Dishonesty link in the course menu to the left.

The core assignment of this course is a documented research paper (1500-2000 words in length = approx. 6 - 8 pages double spaced, 12-point font).

The paper should support a thesis statement with information gained from research or investigation.
The paper will not be just a report presenting information, but will be a paper that carefully examines and presents your own historical interpretation of the topic you have chosen and your interpretation of the information you have gathered.
The paper may include consideration of problems and solutions, define key terms, or refute arguments against your thesis statement.
It will be important to choose a topic of interest to you.

Approach this assignment with an open and skeptical mind, then form an opinion based on what you have discovered.
You must suspend belief while you are investigating and let the discoveries shape your opinion. (This is a thesis-finding approach.)
Once you have found your thesis, write the paper to support it.
You will use some of the following critical thinking skills in this process:

Choosing an appropriate topic, limiting the topic
Gathering information, summarizing sources
Analyzing and evaluating sources
Defining key terms
Synthesizing information, comparing and contrasting sources
Testing a thesis, making a historical argument, using refutation
Amassing support for a position
Documenting sources
Because this may be a longer paper than you have written before and a complex process is involved, it is recommended that you complete this paper using the following steps:

Choose a topic related to U.S. History up to 1877 (Chapters 1-15) that you would truly like to explore and that you are willing to spend some time on. Your chosen topic should be focused. Pose a question that you really want to answer. You may want to begin with more than one topic in mind.
Do some preliminary reading on the topic(s). You may begin with the textbook, then further explore the information available. Refine your topic. Summarize your topic, your interest in the topic, the questions you want to answer, and a hypothesis you want to test.
Gather information from a variety of sources. Use a minimum of four sources for your paper, and at least one must be a primary source.
Examples of primary sources are ones that are used in our discussion forums 2 - 8.
They are sources that are contemporary to the times under investigation.
An example of a secondary source is our textbook, though the textbook also contains excerpts of primary sources, which you may use as a source in your paper.
Outline the results of your research and the plan for your paper (you are not required to submit the outline).
Write the final draft and be sure to include a Works Cited List, and use the correct MLA documentation style.
Grade Rubric

INTRODUCTION & THESIS: The paper makes a clear and effective statement (the thesis) about the chosen topic. /15

FOCUS AND DEVELOPMENT: Body of the paper focuses on this thesis and develops it fully, recognizing the complexity of issues. /30

SUPPORT AND SYNTHESIS: Uses sufficient and relevant evidence to support the thesis (and primary points), including facts, inferences, and judgments. Quotes, summarizes, and paraphrases accurately and effectively--appropriately introducing and explaining each quote. /30

CONVENTIONS: Uses MLA format correctly; includes a Works Cited list; is free of errors. /10

CORRECTNESS AND STYLE: Shows critical thinking and depth of understanding; uses appropriate tone; shows sophistication in language usage and sentence structure. /15

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. • www.NortonEbooks.com

FOURTH EDITION

GIVE ME LIBERTY!

Eric Foner

AN AMERICAN HISTORY

PRAISE FOR ERIC FONER’S GIVE ME LIBERTY!

“The book is inviting to students . . . well-organized and easy to read . . . I love the way Dr. Foner writes! The textbook comes alive with his scholarship and teaching experience.” —Marianne Leeper, Trinity Valley Community College

“I find that Foner strikes the perfect balance between political, legal, social, and cultural history. . . . [Give Me Liberty!] includes the most current or most relevant scholarship.” —David Anderson, Louisiana Tech University

“Often, history textbooks can seem to be disjointed retellings of facts and concepts that remind one of an encyclopedia. [Foner’s] freedom theme ties the material together well, which isn’t always easy with this kind of broad textbook. I do think it’s effective in tying the social and political together.” —James Karmel, Harford Community College

“Foner’s textbook is superb. It is well informed, elegantly written, and offers a kind of narrative and interpretive coherence that is rare among textbooks.” —Jeffrey Adler, University of Florida

“The theme of freedom is very clearly and adeptly integrated. . . . Give Me Liberty! provides a good model for students on how to investigate and carry through a theme in their own writings.” —Jim Dudlo, Brookhaven College, Dallas Community College District

“Give Me Liberty! offers a nice, comprehensive coverage of American history. I feel that equal weight is given to various topics. ‘Voices of Freedom’ is actually one of the major features of the book that prompted me to adopt the text. I am not aware of any other text on the market that has this superb feature. . . . [A] splendid approach.” —Jonathan A. Noyalas, Lord Fairfax Community College

“I’ve had a number of students in the last year comment on how easy the text is to use with the integrated focus questions and terms.” —Lauren Braun-Strumfels, Raritan Valley Community College

“Give Me Liberty! is visually appealing in many different ways. The manner in which the illustrations, maps, and pedagogical components are incorporated . . . makes the text more accessible and much less intimidating.” —Kent McGaughy, Houston Community College–NW Campus

“I appreciate the book’s terrifically accessible writing as well as its clear statement of themes. It has a wonderfully seamless and authoritative quality to its writing. I plan to continue to offer it to my students for many years to come.” —Beverly Gage, Yale University

G I V E M E

L I B E R T Y ! A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y

Fo u r t h E d i t i o n

�

B W . W . N O R T O N & C O M P A N Y

N E W Y O R K . L O N D O N

E R I C F O N E R

Fo u r t h E d i t i o n

�

G I V E M E

L I B E R T Y ! A N A M E R I C A N H I S T O R Y

W. W. Norton & Company has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton

and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education

division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, pub-

lishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars

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the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today—with a staff of 400

and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year—W. W. Norton &

Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.

Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2008, 2005 by Eric Foner

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

Fourth Edition

Editor: Steve Forman

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constitute an extension of the copyright page.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Foner, Eric.

Give me liberty! : An American history / Eric Foner.—Fourth edition.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-393-92026-0 (hardcover)

1. United States—History. 2. United States—Politics and government. 3. Democracy—United States—

History. 4. Liberty—History. I. Title.

E178.F66 2014

973—dc23

ISBN: 978-0-393-92026-0 2013029664

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

E R I C F O N E R is DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, where he earned his B.A. and Ph.D. In his teaching and scholarship, he focuses on the Civil War and Reconstruction, slavery, and nineteenth-century America. Professor Foner’s publications include Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War; Tom Paine and Revolutionary America; Nothing but Freedom: Emancipation and Its Legacy; Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863–1877; The Story of American Freedom; and Forever Free: The Story of Emancipation and Reconstruction. His history of Reconstruction won the Los Angeles Times Book Award for History, the Bancroft Prize, and the Parkman Prize. He has served as president of the Organization of American Historians and the American Historical Association. In 2006 he received the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching from Columbia University. His most recent book is The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery, winner of the Bancroft and Lincoln Prizes and the Pulitzer Prize for History.

�

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

Contents

ix

ABOUT THE AUTHOR ... vii LIST OF MAPS, TABLES, AND FIGURES ... xxxiii DEDICATION ... xxxvii PREFACE ... xxxix ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ... xlv

PA R T 1: A M E R ICA N COL ON I ES T O 17 6 3

1. A N E W W O R L D . . . 4 THE FIRST AMERICANS ... 6

The Settling of the Americas ... 6 ★ Indian Societies of the

Americas ... 8 ★ Mound Builders of the Mississippi River Valley ... 9 ★

Western Indians ... 10 ★ Indians of Eastern North America ... 10 ★ Native

American Religion ... 12 ★ Land and Property ... 12 ★ Gender

Relations ... 14 ★ European Views of the Indians ... 14

INDIAN FREEDOM, EUROPEAN FREEDOM ... 15 Indian Freedom ... 15 ★ Christian Liberty ... 16 ★ Freedom and

Authority ... 17 ★ Liberty and Liberties ... 17

THE EXPANSION OF EUROPE ... 18 Chinese and Portuguese Navigation ... 18 ★ Portugal and West

Africa ... 19 ★ Freedom and Slavery in Africa ... 20 ★ The Voyages of

Columbus ... 20

CONTACT ... 21 Columbus in the New World ... 21 ★ Exploration and Conquest ... 23 ★

The Demographic Disaster ... 24

THE SPANISH EMPIRE ... 24 Governing Spanish America ... 25 ★ Colonists in Spanish

America ... 25 ★ Colonists and Indians ... 26 ★ Justifications for

Conquest ... 27 ★ Spreading the Faith ... 28 ★ Piety and Profit ... 29 ★

Las Casas’s Complaint ... 29 ★ Reforming the Empire ... 30 ★ Exploring

North America ... 31 ★ Spanish Florida ... 33 ★ Spain in the

Southwest ... 33 ★ The Pueblo Revolt ... 34

THE FRENCH AND DUTCH EMPIRES ... 35 French Colonization ... 35

Voices of Freedom: From Bartolomé de las Casas, History of the Indies

(1528), and From “Declaration of Josephe” (December 19, 1681) ... 36

C O N T E N T S

x

Contents

New France and the Indians ... 38 ★ The Dutch Empire ... 41 ★ Dutch

Freedom ... 41 ★ Freedom in New Netherland ... 41 ★ The Dutch and

Religious Toleration ... 42 ★ Settling New Netherland ... 43 ★ New

Netherland and the Indians ... 44

REVIEW ... 47

2 . B E G I N N I N G S O F E N G L I S H A M E R I C A , 16 0 7–16 6 0 . . . 4 8

ENGLAND AND THE NEW WORLD ... 50 Unifying the English Nation ... 50 ★ England and Ireland ... 50 ★ England

and North America ... 51 ★ Spreading Protestantism ... 52 ★ The Social

Crisis ... 52 ★ Masterless Men ... 53

THE COMING OF THE ENGLISH ... 54 English Emigrants ... 54 ★ Indentured Servants ... 55 ★ Land and

Liberty ... 55 ★ Englishmen and Indians ... 56 ★ The Transformation of

Indian Life ... 57 ★ Changes in the Land ... 58

SETTLING THE CHESAPEAKE ... 58 The Jamestown Colony ... 58 ★ From Company to Society ... 59 ★

Powhatan and Pocahontas ... 59 ★ The Uprising of 1622 ... 60 ★

A Tobacco Colony ... 61 ★ Women and the Family ... 62 ★

The Maryland Experiment ... 63 ★ Religion in Maryland ... 64

THE NEW ENGLAND WAY ... 64 The Rise of Puritanism ... 64 ★ Moral Liberty ... 65 ★ The Pilgrims at

Plymouth ... 66 ★ The Great Migration ... 67 ★ The Puritan Family ... 68 ★

Government and Society in Massachusetts ... 68 ★ Church and State in

Puritan Massachusetts ... 70

NEW ENGLANDERS DIVIDED ... 70 Roger Williams ... 71 ★ Rhode Island and Connecticut ... 71 ★ The Trials

of Anne Hutchinson ... 72 ★ Puritans and Indians ... 73

Voices of Freedom: From “The Trial of Anne Hutchinson” (1637),

and From John Winthrop, Speech to the Massachusetts General Court

(July 3, 1645) ... 74

The Pequot War ... 76 ★ The New England Economy ... 77 ★

The Merchant Elite ... 78 ★ The Half-Way Covenant ... 78

RELIGION, POLITICS, AND FREEDOM ... 79 The Rights of Englishmen ... 79 ★ The English Civil War ... 80 ★

England’s Debate over Freedom ... 80 ★ English Liberty ... 81 ★

The Civil War and English America ... 82 ★ The Crisis in Maryland ... 82 ★

Cromwell and the Empire ... 83

REVIEW ... 85

Contents

xi

3 . C R E A T I N G A N G L O - A M E R I C A , 16 6 0 –17 5 0 . . . 8 6 GLOBAL COMPETITION AND THE EXPANSION OF ENGLAND’S EMPIRE ... 88

The Mercantilist System ... 88 ★ The Conquest of New

Netherland ... 88 ★ New York and the Rights of Englishmen and

Englishwomen ... 90 ★ New York and the Indians ... 90 ★ The Charter

of Liberties ... 91 ★ The Founding of Carolina ... 91 ★ The Holy

Experiment ... 92 ★ Quaker Liberty ... 93 ★ Land in Pennsylvania ... 94

ORIGINS OF AMERICAN SLAVERY ... 94 Englishmen and Africans ... 94 ★ Slavery in History ... 95 ★ Slavery in the

West Indies ... 95 ★ Slavery and the Law ... 97 ★ The Rise of Chesapeake

Slavery ... 98 ★ Bacon’s Rebellion: Land and Labor in Virginia ... 99 ★

The End of the Rebellion, and Its Consequences ... 100 ★ A Slave

Society ... 100 ★ Notions of Freedom ... 101

COLONIES IN CRISIS ... 101 The Glorious Revolution ... 102 ★ The Glorious Revolution in

America ... 103 ★ The Maryland Uprising ... 103 ★ Leisler’s

Rebellion ... 104 ★ Changes in New England ... 104 ★ The Prosecution

of Witches ... 105 ★ The Salem Witch Trials ... 105

THE GROWTH OF COLONIAL AMERICA ... 106 A Diverse Population ... 107 ★ Attracting Settlers ... 107 ★ The

German Migration ... 109 ★ Religious Diversity ... 110 ★ Indian Life in

Transition ... 111

Voices of Freedom: From Letter by a Swiss-German Immigrant to

Pennsylvania (August 23, 1769), and From Memorial against

Non-English Immigration (December 1727) ... 112

Regional Diversity ... 114 ★ The Consumer Revolution ... 115 ★ Colonial

Cities ... 115 ★ Colonial Artisans ... 116 ★ An Atlantic World ... 116

SOCIAL CLASSES IN THE COLONIES ... 118 The Colonial Elite ... 118 ★ Anglicization ... 119 ★ The South Carolina

Aristocracy ... 119 ★ Poverty in the Colonies ... 120 ★ The Middle

Ranks ... 121 ★ Women and the Household Economy ... 122 ★ North

America at Mid-Century ... 123

REVIEW ... 125

4 . S L A V E R Y, F R E E D O M , A N D T H E S T R U G G L E F O R E M P I R E T O 17 6 3 . . . 1 2 6

SLAVERY AND EMPIRE ... 128 Atlantic Trade ... 128 ★ Africa and the Slave Trade ... 130 ★ The Middle

Passage ... 130 ★ Chesapeake Slavery ... 132 ★ Freedom and Slavery in

the Chesapeake ... 133 ★ Indian Slavery in Early Carolina ... 133 ★ The

xii

Contents

Rice Kingdom ... 134 ★ The Georgia Experiment ... 134 ★ Slavery in

the North ... 135

SLAVE CULTURES AND SLAVE RESISTANCE ... 136 Becoming African-American ... 136 ★ African Religion in Colonial

America ... 136 ★ African-American Cultures ... 137 ★ Resistance to

Slavery ... 138 ★ The Crisis of 1739–1741 ... 139

AN EMPIRE OF FREEDOM ... 140 British Patriotism ... 140 ★ The British Constitution ... 140 ★ The

Language of Liberty ... 141 ★ Republican Liberty ... 141 ★ Liberal

Freedom ... 142

THE PUBLIC SPHERE ... 143 The Right to Vote ... 144 ★ Political Cultures ... 144 ★ Colonial

Government ... 145 ★ The Rise of the Assemblies ... 146 ★ Politics in

Public ... 146 ★ The Colonial Press ... 147 ★ Freedom of Expression

and Its Limits ... 148 ★ The Trial of Zenger ... 148 ★ The American

Enlightenment ... 149

THE GREAT AWAKENING ... 150 Religious Revivals ... 150 ★ The Preaching of Whitefield ... 151 ★

The Awakening’s Impact ... 151

IMPERIAL RIVALRIES ... 152 Spanish North America ... 152 ★ The Spanish in California ... 154 ★

The French Empire ... 155

BATTLE FOR THE CONTINENT ... 156 The Middle Ground ... 156 ★ The Seven Years’ War ... 157 ★ A World

Transformed ... 158 ★ Pontiac’s Rebellion ... 160 ★ The Proclamation Line

... 160 ★ Pennsylvania and the Indians ... 161

Voices of Freedom: From Pontiac, Speeches (1762 and 1763), and From

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus

Vassa, the African (1789) ... 162

Colonial Identities ... 164

REVIEW ... 166

PA R T 2 : A N E W N AT ION, 17 6 3 –18 4 0

5 . T H E A M E R I C A N R E V O L U T I O N , 17 6 3 –17 8 3 . . . 17 0 THE CRISIS BEGINS ... 171

Consolidating the Empire ... 172 ★ Taxing the Colonies ... 173 ★ The

Stamp Act Crisis ... 173 ★ Taxation and Representation ... 174 ★ Liberty

and Resistance ... 175 ★ Politics in the Streets ... 176 ★ The

Regulators ... 176 ★ The Tenant Uprising ... 178

Contents

xiii

THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION ... 178 The Townshend Crisis ... 178 ★ Homespun Virtue ... 179 ★ The Boston

Massacre ... 179 ★ Wilkes and Liberty ... 181 ★ The Tea Act ... 181 ★

The Intolerable Acts ... 181

THE COMING OF INDEPENDENCE ... 182 The Continental Congress ... 182 ★ The Continental Association ...

183 ★ The Sweets of Liberty ... 183 ★ The Outbreak of War ... 184 ★

Independence? ... 185 ★ Common Sense ... 186 ★ Paine’s Impact ... 187 ★

The Declaration of Independence ... 187

Voices of Freedom: From Thomas Paine, Common Sense (1776), and

From Jonathan Boucher, A View of the Causes and Consequences of

the American Revolution (1775) ... 188

The Declaration and American Freedom ... 190 ★ An Asylum for

Mankind ... 191 ★ The Global Declaration of Independence ... 192

SECURING INDEPENDENCE ... 193 The Balance of Power ... 193 ★ Blacks in the Revolution ... 193 ★

The First Years of the War ... 194 ★ The Battle of Saratoga ... 195 ★

The War in the South ... 197 ★ Victory at Last ... 199

REVIEW ... 203

6 . T H E R E V O L U T I O N W I T H I N . . . 2 0 4 DEMOCRATIZING FREEDOM ... 206

The Dream of Equality ... 206 ★ Expanding the Political Nation ... 206 ★

The Revolution in Pennsylvania ... 207 ★ The New Constitutions ... 208 ★

The Right to Vote ... 209 ★ Democratizing Government ... 209

TOWARD RELIGIOUS TOLERATION ... 210 Catholic Americans ... 211 ★ The Founders and Religion ... 211 ★ Separating

Church and State ... 212 ★ Jefferson and Religious Liberty ... 213 ★

The Revolution and the Churches ... 214 ★ Christian Republicanism ... 215

DEFINING ECONOMIC FREEDOM ... 215 Toward Free Labor ... 215 ★ The Soul of a Republic ... 216 ★ The Politics

of Inflation ... 217 ★ The Debate over Free Trade ... 218

THE LIMITS OF LIBERTY ... 218 Colonial Loyalists ... 218 ★ Loyalists’ Plight ... 219 ★ The Indians’

Revolution ... 221 ★ White Freedom, Indian Freedom ... 222

SLAVERY AND THE REVOLUTION ... 223 The Language of Slavery and Freedom ... 223 ★ Obstacles to

Abolition ... 224 ★ The Cause of General Liberty ... 225 ★ Petitions

for Freedom ... 225 ★ British Emancipators ... 226 ★ Voluntary

Emancipations ... 228 ★ Abolition in the North ... 228 ★ Free Black

Communities ... 229

xiv

Contents

Voices of Freedom: From Abigail Adams to John Adams, Braintree,

Mass. (March 31, 1776), and From Petitions of Slaves to the

Massachusetts Legislature (1773 and 1777) ... 230

DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY ... 232 Revolutionary Women ... 232 ★ Gender and Politics ... 232 ★ Republican

Motherhood ... 234 ★ The Arduous Struggle for Liberty ... 235

REVIEW ... 237

7. F O U N D I N G A N A T I O N , 17 8 3 –17 9 1 . . . 2 3 8 AMERICA UNDER THE CONFEDERATION ... 240

The Articles of Confederation ... 240 ★ Congress and the

West ... 242 ★ Settlers and the West ... 242 ★ The Land

Ordinances ... 243 ★ The Confederation’s Weaknesses ... 245 ★ Shays’s

Rebellion ... 246 ★ Nationalists of the 1780s ... 246

A NEW CONSTITUTION ... 247 The Structure of Government ... 248 ★ The Limits of Democracy ... 249 ★

The Division and Separation of Powers ... 250 ★ The Debate over Slavery

... 251 ★ Slavery in the Constitution ... 251 ★ The Final

Document ... 253

THE RATIFICATION DEBATE AND THE ORIGIN OF THE BILL OF RIGHTS ... 254

The Federalist ... 254 ★ “Extend the Sphere” ... 255 ★ The

Anti-Federalists ... 256 ★ The Bill of Rights ... 257

Voices of Freedom: From David Ramsay, The History of the American

Revolution (1789), and From James Winthrop, Anti-Federalist Essay

Signed “Agrippa” (1787) ... 260

“WE THE PEOPLE” ... 263 National Identity ... 263 ★ Indians in the New Nation ... 263 ★ Blacks and

the Republic ... 266 ★ Jefferson, Slavery, and Race ... 268 ★ Principles of

Freedom ... 269

REVIEW ... 271

8 . S E C U R I N G T H E R E P U B L I C , 17 9 1–18 15 . . . 2 7 2 POLITICS IN AN AGE OF PASSION ... 273

Hamilton’s Program ... 274 ★ The Emergence of Opposition ... 274 ★

The Jefferson-Hamilton Bargain ... 275 ★ The Impact of the

French Revolution ... 276 ★ Political Parties ... 277 ★ The Whiskey

Rebellion ... 278 ★ The Republican Party ... 279 ★ An Expanding Political

Sphere ... 279 ★ The Democratic-Republican Societies ... 280 ★ The Rights

of Women ... 281 ★ Women and the Republic ... 281

Contents

xv

Voices of Freedom: From Judith Sargent Murray, “On the Equality of

the Sexes” (1790), and From Address of the Democratic-Republican

Society of Pennsylvania (December 18, 1794) ... 282

THE ADAMS PRESIDENCY ... 284 The Election of 1796 ... 284 ★ The “Reign of Witches” ... 285 ★

The Virginia and Kentucky Revolutions ... 286 ★ The “Revolution of

1800” ... 287 ★ Slavery and Politics ... 288 ★ The Haitian Revolution

... 288 ★ Gabriel’s Rebellion ... 289

JEFFERSON IN POWER ... 290 Judicial Review ... 291 ★ The Louisiana Purchase ... 292 ★ Lewis and

Clark ... 294 ★ Incorporating Louisiana ... 294 ★ The Barbary Wars ... 295 ★

The Embargo ... 296 ★ Madison and Pressure for War ... 297

THE “SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE” ... 297 The Indian Response ... 298 ★ Tecumseh’s Vision ... 298 ★ The War of

1812 ... 299 ★ The War’s Aftermath ... 302 ★ The End of the Federalist

Party ... 303

REVIEW ... 305

9 . T H E M A R K E T R E V O L U T I O N , 18 0 0 –18 4 0 . . . 3 0 6 A NEW ECONOMY ... 308

Roads and Steamboats ... 309 ★ The Erie Canal ... 309 ★ Railroads and

the Telegraph ... 311 ★ The Rise of the West ... 312 ★ The Cotton

Kingdom ... 315 ★ The Unfree Westward Movement ... 317

MARKET SOCIETY ... 318 Commercial Farmers ... 318 ★ The Growth of Cities ... 319 ★ The Factory

System ... 319 ★ The Industrial Worker ... 323 ★ The “Mill Girls” ... 323 ★

The Growth of Immigration ... 324 ★ Irish and German Newcomers ...

324 ★ The Rise of Nativism ... 326 ★ The Transformation of Law ... 327

THE FREE INDIVIDUAL ... 328 The West and Freedom ... 329 ★ The Transcendentalists ... 330 ★

Individualism ... 330

Voices of Freedom: From Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The American Scholar”

(1837), and From “Factory Life as It Is, by an Operative” (1845) ... 332

The Second Great Awakening ... 334 ★ The Awakening’s Impact ... 335 ★

The Emergence of Mormonism ... 336

THE LIMITS OF PROSPERITY ... 337 Liberty and Prosperity ... 337 ★ Race and Opportunity ... 338 ★ The Cult

of Domesticity ... 339 ★ Women and Work ... 340 ★ The Early Labor

Movement ... 341 ★ The “Liberty of Living” ... 342

REVIEW ... 345

xvi

Contents

10 . D E M O C R A C Y I N A M E R I C A , 18 15 –18 4 0 . . . 3 4 6 THE TRIUMPH OF DEMOCRACY ... 348

Property and Democracy ... 348 ★ The Dorr War ... 348 ★ Tocqueville on

Democracy ... 349 ★ The Information Revolution ... 350 ★ The Limits of

Democracy ... 351 ★ A Racial Democracy ... 352 ★ Race and Class ... 353

NATIONALISM AND ITS DISCONTENTS ... 353 The American System ... 353 ★ Banks and Money ... 355 ★ The Panic of ...

1819 ... 355 ★ The Politics of the Panic ... 356 ★ The Missouri Controversy

... 356 ★ The Slavery Question ... 358

NATION, SECTION, AND PARTY ... 359 The United States and the Latin American Wars of Independence ... 359 ★

The Monroe Doctrine ... 360 ★ The Election of 1824 ... 361

Voices of Freedom: From President James Monroe, Annual Message

to Congress (1823), and From John C. Calhoun, “A Disquisition on

Government” (ca. 1845) ... 362

The Nationalism of John Quincy Adams ... 364 ★ “Liberty Is

Power” ... 365 ★ Martin Van Buren and the Democratic Party ... 365 ★

The Election of 1828 ... 366

THE AGE OF JACKSON ... 367 The Party System ... 367 ★ Democrats and Whigs ... 368 ★ Public and

Private Freedom ... 369 ★ Politics and Morality ... 370 ★ South Carolina

and Nullification ... 371 ★ Calhoun’s Political Theory ... 371 ★ The

Nullification Crisis ... 373 ★ Indian Removal ... 374 ★ The Supreme Court

and the Indians ... 374

THE BANK WAR AND AFTER ... 377 Biddle’s Bank ... 377 ★ The Pet Banks and the Economy ... 379 ★

The Panic of 1837 ... 380 ★ Van Buren in Office ... 380 ★ The Election

of 1840 ... 381 ★ His Accidency ... 382

REVIEW ... 384

PA R T 3 : SL AV E RY, F R E E DOM, A N D T H E

CR ISIS OF T H E U N ION, 18 4 0–18 7 7

11. T H E P E C U L I A R I N S T I T U T I O N . . . 3 8 8 THE OLD SOUTH ... 390

Cotton Is King ... 390 ★ The Second Middle Passage ... 391 ★ Slavery and

the Nation ... 391 ★ The Southern Economy ... 393 ★ Plain Folk of the Old

South ... 394 ★ The Planter Class ... 395 ★ The Paternalist Ethos ... 396 ★

Contents

xvii

The Code of Honor ... 396 ★ The Proslavery Argument ... 398 ★ Abolition

in the Americas ... 399 ★ Slavery and Liberty ... 400 ★ Slavery and

Civilization ... 400

LIFE UNDER SLAVERY ... 401 Slaves and the Law ... 401 ★ Conditions of Slave Life ... 402 ★ Free Blacks

in the Old South ... 403

Voices of Freedom: From Letter by Joseph Taper to Joseph Long

(1840), and From “Slavery and the Bible” (1850) ... 404

The Upper and Lower South ... 407 ★ Slave Labor ... 408 ★ Gang Labor and

Task Labor ... 408 ★ Slavery in the Cities ... 410 ★ Maintaining Order ... 410

SLAVE CULTURE ... 411 The Slave Family ... 412 ★ The Threat of Sale ... 412 ★ Gender Roles

among Slaves ... 413 ★ Slave Religion ... 413 ★ The Gospel of Freedom ...

414 ★ The Desire for Liberty ... 415

RESISTANCE TO SLAVERY ... 416 Forms of Resistance ... 416 ★ Fugitive Slaves ... 418 ★ The Amistad ... 419 ★

Slave Revolts ... 419 ★ Nat Turner’s Rebellion ... 420

REVIEW ... 423

12 . A N A G E O F R E F O R M , 18 2 0 –18 4 0 . . . 4 2 4 THE REFORM IMPULSE ... 425

Utopian Communities ... 426 ★ The Shakers ... 426 ★ Oneida ... 427 ★

Worldly Communities ... 428 ★ The Owenites ... 429 ★ Religion and

Reform ... 430 ★ The Temperance Movement ... 431 ★ Critics of

Reform ... 431 ★ Reformers and Freedom ... 432 ★ The Invention of the

Asylum ... 433 ★ The Common School ... 433

THE CRUSADE AGAINST SLAVERY ... 435 Colonization ... 435 ★ Blacks and Colonization ... 435 ★ Militant Abolitionism

... 436 ★ The Emergence of Garrison ... 437 ★ Spreading the Abolitionist

Message ... 437 ★ Slavery and Moral Suasion ... 439 ★ Abolitionists and the

Idea of Freedom ... 439 ★ A New Vision of America ... 440

BLACK AND WHITE ABOLITIONISM ... 441 Black Abolitionists ... 441 ★ Abolitionism and Race ... 442 ★ Slavery and

American Freedom ... 443 ★ Gentlemen of Property and Standing ... 443 ★

Slavery and Civil Liberties ... 445

THE ORIGINS OF FEMINISM ... 446 The Rise of the Public Woman ... 446 ★ Women and Free Speech ... 447 ★

Women’s Rights ... 448 ★ Feminism and Freedom ... 449

Voices of Freedom: From Angelina Grimké, Letter in The Liberator

(August 2, 1837), and From Frederick Douglass, Speech on July 5, 1852,

Rochester, New York ... 450

xviii

Contents

Women and Work ... 452 ★ The Slavery of Sex ... 453 ★ “Social

Freedom” ... 453 ★ The Abolitionist Schism ... 454

REVIEW ... 457

13 . A H O U S E D I V I D E D , 18 4 0 –18 6 1 . . . 4 5 8 FRUITS OF MANIFEST DESTINY ... 459

Continental Expansion ... 459 ★ The Mexican Frontier: New Mexico and

California ... 460 ★ The Texas Revolt ... 460 ★ The Election of 1844 ...

463 ★ The Road to War ... 464 ★ The War and Its Critics ... 465 ★ Combat

in Mexico ... 466 ★ Race and Manifest Destiny ... 468 ★ Redefining Race

... 469 ★ Gold-Rush California ... 469 ★ California and the Boundaries of

Freedom ... 470 ★ The Other Gold Rush ... 471 ★ Opening Japan ... 471

A DOSE OF ARSENIC ... 473 The Wilmot Proviso ... 473 ★ The Free Soil Appeal ... 474 ★ Crisis and

Compromise ... 474 ★ The Great Debate ... 475 ★ The Fugitive Slave

Issue ... 475 ★ Douglas and Popular Sovereignty ... 477 ★ The Kansas-

Nebraska Act ... 478

THE RISE OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY ... 479 The Northern Economy ... 479 ★ The Rise and Fall of the

Know-Nothings ... 481 ★ The Free Labor Ideology ... 483 ★ Bleeding

Kansas and the Election of 1856 ... 484

THE EMERGENCE OF LINCOLN ... 485 The Dred Scott Decision ... 485 ★ The Decision’s Aftermath ... 486 ★

Lincoln and Slavery ... 486 ★ The Lincoln-Douglas Campaign ... 487 ★

John Brown at Harpers Ferry ... 489

Voices of Freedom: From The Lincoln-Douglas Debates (1858) ... 490

The Rise of Southern Nationalism ... 492 ★ The Democratic Split ... 493 ★

The Nomination of Lincoln ... 494 ★ The Election of 1860 ... 494

THE IMPENDING CRISIS ... 495 The Secession Movement ... 495 ★ The Secession Crisis ... 496 ★ And the

War Came ... 497

REVIEW ... 501

14 . A N E W B I R T H O F F R E E D O M : T H E C I V I L W A R , 18 6 1–18 6 5 . . . 5 0 2

THE FIRST MODERN WAR ... 503 The Two Combatants ... 504 ★ The Technology of War ... 504 ★ The

Public and the War ... 506 ★ Mobilizing Resources ... 507 ★ Military

Contents

xix

Strategies ... 508 ★ The War Begins ... 509 ★ The War in the East,

1862 ... 509 ★ The War in the West ... 511

THE COMING OF EMANCIPATION ... 511 Slavery and the War ... 511 ★ The Unraveling of Slavery ... 513 ★

Steps toward Emancipation ... 513 ★ Lincoln’s Decision ... 514 ★

The Emancipation Proclamation ... 516 ★ Enlisting Black Troops ... 517 ★

The Black Soldier ... 518

THE SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION ... 519 Liberty and Union ... 520 ★ Lincoln’s Vision ... 520 ★ From Union to

Nation ... 521 ★ The War and American Religion ... 522 ★ Liberty in

Wartime ... 523 ★ The North’s Transformation ... 524 ★ Government and

the Economy ... 524 ★ The War and Native Americans ... 525

Voices of Freedom: From Letter of Thomas F. Drayton (April 17, 1861),

and From Abraham Lincoln, Address at Sanitary Fair, Baltimore

(April 18, 1864) ... 526

A New Financial System ... 528 ★ Women and the War ... 528 ★

The Divided North ... 530

THE CONFEDERATE NATION ... 531 Leadership and Government ... 531 ★ The Inner Civil War ... 532 ★

Economic Problems ... 533 ★ Southern Unionists ... 534 ★ Women and the

Confederacy ... 535 ★ Black Soldiers for the Confederacy ... 535

TURNING POINTS ... 536 Gettysburg and Vicksburg ... 536 ★ 1864 ... 537

REHEARSALS FOR RECONSTRUCTION AND THE END OF THE WAR ... 539

The Sea Islands Experiment ... 539 ★ Wartime Reconstruction in the

West ... 540 ★ The Politics of Wartime Reconstruction ... 541 ★ Victory

at Last ... 541 ★ The War and the World ... 543 ★ The War in American

History ... 544

REVIEW ... 547

15 . “ W H A T I S F R E E D O M ? ”: R E C O N S T R U C T I O N , 18 6 5 –18 7 7 . . . 5 4 8

THE MEANING OF FREEDOM ... 550 Blacks and the Meaning of Freedom ... 550 ★ Families in Freedom ... 550 ★

Church and School ... 551 ★ Political Freedom ... 551 ★ Land, Labor, and

Freedom ... 552 ★ Masters without Slaves ... 553 ★ The Free Labor Vision

... 554 ★ The Freedmen’s Bureau ... 555 ★ The Failure of Land Reform

... 556 ★ Toward a New South ... 556 ★ The White Farmer ... 557 ★

The Urban South ... 558 ★ The Aftermath of Slavery ... 559

xx

Contents

Voices of Freedom: From Petition of Committee in Behalf of the

Freedmen to Andrew Johnson (1865), and From A Sharecropping

Contract (1866) ... 560

THE MAKING OF RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION ... 562 Andrew Johnson ... 562 ★ The Failure of Presidential Reconstruction ...

563 ★ The Black Codes ... 563 ★ The Radical Republicans ... 564 ★ The

Origins of Civil Rights ... 565 ★ The Fourteenth Amendment ... 566 ★

The Reconstruction Act ... 566 ★ Impeachment and the Election of Grant

... 567 ★ The Fifteenth Amendment ... 568 ★ The “Great Constitutional

Revolution” ... 569 ★ Boundaries of Freedom ... 570 ★ The Rights of

Women ... 570 ★ Feminists and Radicals ... 571

RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION IN THE SOUTH ... 572 “The Tocsin of Freedom” ... 572 ★ The Black Officeholder ... 573 ★

Carpetbaggers and Scalawags ... 574 ★ Southern Republicans in Power

... 575 ★ The Quest for Prosperity ... 576

THE OVERTHROW OF RECONSTRUCTION ... 577 Reconstruction’s Opponents ... 577 ★ “A Reign of Terror” ... 577 ★ The

Liberal Republicans ... 579 ★ The North’s Retreat ... 580 ★ The Triumph of

the Redeemers ... 582 ★ The Disputed Election and Bargain of

1877 ... 582 ★ The End of Reconstruction ... 583

REVIEW ... 585

PA R T 4: T OWA R D A G L OBA L PR ESE NCE ,

18 7 0–19 2 0

16 . A M E R I C A’ S G I L D E D A G E , 18 7 0 –18 9 0 . . . 5 8 8 THE SECOND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION ... 589

The Industrial Economy ... 590 ★ Railroads and the National Market ...

591 ★ The Spirit of Innovation ... 592 ★ Competition and Consolidation

... 593 ★ The Rise of Andrew Carnegie ... 594 ★ The Triumph of John D.

Rockefeller ... 597 ★ Workers’ Freedom in an Industrial Age ... 598 ★

Sunshine and Shadow: Increasing Wealth and Poverty ... 599

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE WEST ... 600 A Diverse Region ... 601 ★ Farming on the Middle Border ... 602 ★

Bonanza Farms ... 603 ★ The Cowboy and the Corporate West ... 604 ★

Conflict on the Mormon Frontier ... 605 ★ The Subjugation of the Plains

Indians ... 605

Voices of Freedom: From Ira Steward, “A Second Declaration of

Independence” (1879), and From Andrew Carnegie, “Wealth”

(1889) ... 606

Contents

xxi

“Let Me Be a Free Man” ... 608 ★ Remaking Indian Life ... 610 ★ The

Dawes Act ... 611 ★ Indian Citizenship ... 612 ★ The Ghost Dance and

Wounded Knee ... 613 ★ Settler Societies and Global Wests ... 614

POLITICS IN A GILDED AGE ... 615 The Corruption of Politics ... 615 ★ The Politics of Dead Center ... 616 ★

Government and the Economy ... 617 ★ Reform Legislation ... 618 ★

Political Conflict in the States ... 619

FREEDOM IN THE GILDED AGE ... 620 The Social Problem ... 620 ★ Freedom, Inequality, and Democracy ... 620 ★

Social Darwinism in America ... 621 ★ Liberty of Contract ... 622 ★ The

Courts and Freedom ... 623

LABOR AND THE REPUBLIC ... 624 “The Overwhelming Labor Question” ... 624 ★ The Knights of Labor and the

“Conditions Essential to Liberty” ... 625 ★ Middle-Class Reformers ... 626 ★

Progress and Poverty ... 627 ★ The Cooperative Commonwealth ... 627 ★

Bellamy’s Utopia ... 627 ★ Protestants and Moral Reform ... 628 ★ A Social

Gospel ... 629 ★ The Haymarket Affair ... 629 ★ Labor and Politics ... 631

REVIEW ... 633

17. F R E E D O M ’ S B O U N D A R I E S , A T H O M E A N D A B R O A D , 18 9 0 –19 0 0 . . . 6 3 4

THE POPULIST CHALLENGE ... 636 The Farmers’ Revolt ... 636 ★ The People’s Party ... 637 ★ The Populist

Platform ... 638 ★ The Populist Coalition ... 638 ★ The Government and

Labor ... 641 ★ Populism and Labor ... 642 ★ Bryan and Free Silver ... 642 ★

The Campaign of 1896 ... 643

THE SEGREGATED SOUTH ... 645 The Redeemers in Power ... 645 ★ The Failure of the New South

Dream ... 645 ★ Black Life in the South ... 646 ★ The Kansas

Exodus ... 647 ★ The Decline of Black Politics ... 648 ★ The Elimination

of Black Voting ... 648 ★ The Law of Segregation ... 649 ★ Segregation

and White Domination ... 650 ★ The Rise of Lynching ... 651 ★ Politics,

Religion, and Memory ... 652

REDRAWING THE BOUNDARIES ... 653 The New Immigration and the New Nativism ... 654 ★ Chinese Exclusion

and Chinese Rights ... 654 ★ The Emergence of Booker T. Washington ...

656 ★ The Rise of the AFL ... 656 ★ The Women’s Era ... 657

BECOMING A WORLD POWER ... 659 The New Imperialism ... 659 ★ American Expansionism ... 660 ★ The Lure

of Empire ... 660 ★ The “Splendid Little War” ... 661 ★ Roosevelt at San

Juan Hill ... 662 ★ An American Empire ... 664 ★ The Philippine War ... 666

xxii

Contents

Voices of Freedom: From Josiah Strong, Our Country (1885), and From

“Aguinaldo’s Case against the United States” (1899) ... 668

Citizens or Subjects? ... 670 ★ Drawing the Global Color Line ... 671 ★

“Republic or Empire?” ... 671

REVIEW ... 675

18 . T H E P R O G R E S S I V E E R A , 19 0 0 –19 16 . . . 6 7 6 AN URBAN AGE AND A CONSUMER SOCIETY ... 678

Farms and Cities ... 678 ★ The Muckrakers ... 680 ★ Immigration as a

Global Process ... 680 ★ The Immigrant Quest for Freedom ... 682 ★

Consumer Freedom ... 683 ★ The Working Woman ... 684 ★ The Rise

of Fordism ... 685 ★ The Promise of Abundance ... 686 ★ An American

Standard of Living ... 687

VARIETIES OF PROGRESSIVISM ... 688 Industrial Freedom ... 688 ★ The Socialist Presence ... 689 ★ The Gospel of

Debs ... 690 ★ AFL and IWW ... 691 ★ The New Immigrants on Strike ... 691

Voices of Freedom: From Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and

Economics (1898), and From John Mitchell, “A Workingman’s

Conception of Industrial Liberty” (1910) ... 692

Labor and Civil Liberties ... 695 ★ The New Feminism ... 695 ★ The Rise

of Personal Freedom ... 696 ★ The Birth-Control Movement ... 697 ★

Native American Progressivism ... 698

THE POLITICS OF PROGRESSIVISM ... 698 Effective Freedom ... 698 ★ State and Local Reforms ... 699 ★ Progressive

Democracy ... 700 ★ Government by Expert ... 701 ★ Jane Addams and

Hull House ... 701 ★ “Spearheads for Reform” ... 702 ★ The Campaign

for Woman Suffrage ... 703 ★ Maternalist Reform ... 704 ★ The Idea of

Economic Citizenship ... 705

THE PROGRESSIVE PRESIDENTS ... 705 Theodore Roosevelt ... 706 ★ Roosevelt and Economic Regulation ... 706 ★

John Muir and the Spirituality of Nature ... 707 ★ The Conservation

Movement ... 707 ★ Taft in Office ... 708 ★ The Election of 1912 ... 709 ★

New Freedom and New Nationalism ... 710 ★ Wilson’s First Term ... 710 ★

The Expanding Role of Government ... 711

REVIEW ... 713

19 . S A F E F O R D E M O C R A C Y : T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S A N D W O R L D W A R I , 19 16 –19 2 0 . . . 7 14

AN ERA OF INTERVENTION ... 716 “I Took the Canal Zone” ... 717 ★ The Roosevelt Corollary ... 718 ★ Moral

Imperialism ... 719 ★ Wilson and Mexico ... 720

Contents

xxiii

AMERICA AND THE GREAT WAR ... 721 Neutrality and Preparedness ... 722 ★ The Road to War ... 723 ★

The Fourteen Points ... 724

THE WAR AT HOME ... 726 The Progressives’ War ... 726 ★ The Wartime State ... 726 ★ The

Propaganda War ... 727 ★ “The Great Cause of Freedom” ... 728 ★

The Coming of Woman Suffrage ... 728 ★ Prohibition ... 730 ★ Liberty in

Wartime ... 731 ★ The Espionage Act ... 732 ★ Coercive Patriotism ... 733

WHO IS AN AMERICAN? ... 734 The “Race Problem” ... 734 ★ Americanization and Pluralism ... 734

Voices of Freedom: From Eugene V. Debs, Speech to the Jury before

Sentencing under the Espionage Act (1918), and From W. E. B. Du Bois,

“Returning Soldiers,” The Crisis (1919) ... 736

The Anti-German Crusade ... 738 ★ Toward Immigration Restriction ... 739 ★

Groups Apart: Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, and Asian-Americans ... 739 ★ The

Color Line ... 740 ★ Roosevelt, Wilson, and Race ... 741 ★ W. E. B. Du Bois

and the Revival of Black Protest ... 742 ★ Closing Ranks ... 743 ★ The Great

Migration and the “Promised Land” ... 743 ★ Racial Violence, North and

South ... 744 ★ The Rise of Garveyism ... 745

1919 ... 746 A Worldwide Upsurge ... 746 ★ Upheaval in America ... 746 ★ The Great

Steel Strike ... 747 ★ The Red Scare ... 748 ★ Wilson at Versailles ... 748 ★

The Wilsonian Moment ... 749 ★ The Seeds of Wars to Come ... 752 ★

The Treaty Debate ... 753

REVIEW ... 755

PA R T 5 : DE PR ESSION A N D WA RS,

19 2 0–19 5 3

2 0 . F R O M B U S I N E S S C U L T U R E T O G R E A T D E P R E S S I O N : T H E T W E N T I E S , 19 2 0 –19 3 2 . . . 7 5 8

THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA ... 760 A Decade of Prosperity ... 760 ★ A New Society ... 761 ★ The Limits of

Prosperity ... 762 ★ The Farmers’ Plight ... 763 ★ The Image of Business ...

764 ★ The Decline of Labor ... 765 ★ The Equal Rights Amendment ... 766 ★

Women’s Freedom ... 767

BUSINESS AND GOVERNMENT ... 769 The Retreat from Progressivism ... 769 ★ The Republican Era ... 769 ★

Corruption in Government ... 770 ★ The Election of 1924 ... 770 ★

Economic Diplomacy ... 771

xxiv

Contents

Voices of Freedom: From André Siegfried, “The Gulf Between,”

Atlantic Monthly (March 1928), and From Majority Opinion, Justice

James C. McReynolds, in Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) ... 772

THE BIRTH OF CIVIL LIBERTIES ... 774 The “Free Mob” ... 775 ★ A “Clear and Present Danger” ... 776 ★

The Court and Civil Liberties ... 776

THE CULTURE WARS ... 777 The Fundamentalist Revolt ... 777 ★ The Scopes Trial ... 779 ★ The

Second Klan ... 780 ★ Closing the Golden Door ... 781 ★ Race and the Law

... 783 ★ Pluralism and Liberty ... 784 ★ Promoting Tolerance ... 785 ★

The Emergence of Harlem ... 786 ★ The Harlem Renaissance ... 787

THE GREAT DEPRESSION ... 788 The Election of 1928 ... 788 ★ The Coming of the Depression ... 789 ★

Americans and the Depression ... 791 ★ Resignation and Protest ... 792 ★

Hoover’s Response ... 792 ★ The Worsening Economic Outlook ... 794 ★

Freedom in the Modern World ... 795

REVIEW ... 797

2 1. T H E N E W D E A L , 19 3 2 –19 4 0 . . . 7 9 8 THE FIRST NEW DEAL ... 800

FDR and the Election of 1932 ... 800 ★ The Coming of the New

Deal ... 802 ★ The Banking Crisis ... 803 ★ The NRA ... 804 ★ Government

Jobs ... 805 ★ Public-Works Projects ... 806 ★ The New Deal and

Agriculture ... 807 ★ The New Deal and Housing ... 808 ★ The Court and

the New Deal ... 810

THE GRASSROOTS REVOLT ... 810 Labor’s Great Upheaval ... 810 ★ The Rise of the CIO ... 812 ★ Labor and

Politics ... 813 ★ Voices of Protest ... 814 ★ Religion on the Radio ... 815

THE SECOND NEW DEAL ... 815 The WPA and the Wagner Act ... 816 ★ The American Welfare State ...

817 ★ The Social Security System ... 818

A RECKONING WITH LIBERTY ... 818 FDR and the Idea of Freedom ... 819

Voices of Freedom: From Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Fireside Chat”

(1934), and From John Steinbeck, The Harvest Gypsies: On the Road to

the Grapes of Wrath (1938) ... 820

The Election of 1936 ... 822 ★ The Court Fight ... 823 ★ The End of the

Second New Deal ... 824

THE LIMITS OF CHANGE ... 824 The New Deal and American Women ... 825 ★ The Southern Veto ... 826 ★

The Stigma of Welfare ... 827 ★ The Indian New Deal ... 827 ★ The New

Contents

xxv

Deal and Mexican-Americans ... 828 ★ Last Hired, First Fired ... 829 ★

A New Deal for Blacks ... 829 ★ Federal Discrimination ... 830

A NEW CONCEPTION OF AMERICA ... 831 The Heyday of American Communism ... 831 ★ Redefining the People ...

832 ★ Promoting Diversity ... 833 ★ Challenging the Color Line ... 834 ★

Labor and Civil Liberties ... 835 ★ The End of the New Deal ... 836 ★

The New Deal in American History ... 837

REVIEW ... 839

2 2 . F I G H T I N G F O R T H E F O U R F R E E D O M S : W O R L D W A R I I , 19 4 1–19 4 5 . . . 8 4 0

FIGHTING WORLD WAR II ... 842 Good Neighbors ... 842 ★ The Road to War ... 844 ★ Isolationism ... 844 ★

War in Europe ... 845 ★ Toward Intervention ... 846 ★ Pearl Harbor ... 847 ★

The War in the Pacific ... 848 ★ The War in Europe ... 849

THE HOME FRONT ... 852 Mobilizing for War ... 852 ★ Business and the War ... 853 ★ Labor in

Wartime ... 855 ★ Fighting for the Four Freedoms ... 855 ★ Freedom

from Want ... 856 ★ The Office of War Information ... 857 ★ The Fifth

Freedom ... 858 ★ Women at Work ... 859 ★ The Pull of Tradition ... 860

VISIONS OF POSTWAR FREEDOM ... 860 Toward an American Century ... 860 ★ “The Way of Life of Free Men” ...

861 ★ An Economic Bill of Rights ... 862 ★ The Road to Serfdom ... 863

THE AMERICAN DILEMMA ... 863 Patriotic Assimilation ... 864 ★ The Bracero Program ... 865 ★ Mexican-

American Rights ... 865 ★ Indians during the War ... 866 ★ Asian-

Americans in Wartime ... 866 ★ Japanese-American Internment ... 867 ★

Blacks and the War ... 869 ★ Blacks and Military Service ... 869 ★ Birth

of the Civil Rights Movement ... 870 ★ The Double-V ... 871 ★ What the

Negro Wants ... 871

Voices of Freedom: From Henry R. Luce, The American Century

(1941), and From Charles H. Wesley, “The Negro Has Always Wanted

the Four Freedoms,” in What the Negro Wants (1944) ... 872

An American Dilemma ... 874 ★ Black Internationalism ... 875

THE END OF THE WAR ... 876 “The Most Terrible Weapon” ... 876 ★ The Dawn of the Atomic Age ...

877 ★ The Nature of the War ... 878 ★ Planning the Postwar World ... 878 ★

Yalta and Bretton Woods ... 879 ★ The United Nations ... 880 ★ Peace, but

Not Harmony ... 880

REVIEW ... 883

xxvi

Contents

2 3 . T H E U N I T E D S T A T E S A N D T H E C O L D W A R , 19 4 5 –19 5 3 . . . 8 8 4

ORIGINS OF THE COLD WAR ... 886 The Two Powers ... 886 ★ The Roots of Containment ... 887 ★ The Iron

Curtain ... 887 ★ The Truman Doctrine ... 887 ★ The Marshall Plan ... 889 ★

The Reconstruction of Japan ... 890 ★ The Berlin Blockade and NATO ...

890 ★ The Growing Communist Challenge ... 891 ★ The Korean War ...

891 ★ Cold War Critics ... 895 ★ Imperialism and Decolonization ... 896

THE COLD WAR AND THE IDEA OF FREEDOM ... 896 The Cultural Cold War ... 897 ★ Freedom and Totalitarianism ... 897 ★

The Rise of Human Rights ... 898 ★ Ambiguities of Human Rights ... 899

THE TRUMAN PRESIDENCY ... 901 The Fair Deal ... 901 ★ The Postwar Strike Wave ... 901 ★ The Republican

Resurgence ... 902 ★ Postwar Civil Rights ... 902 ★ To Secure These

Rights ... 904 ★ The Dixiecrat and Wallace Revolts ... 904 ★ The 1948

Campaign ... 905

THE ANTICOMMUNIST CRUSADE ... 906 Loyalty and Disloyalty ... 907 ★ The Spy Trials ... 908 ★ McCarthy and

McCarthyism ... 909 ★ An Atmosphere of Fear ... 909 ★ The Uses of

Anticommunism ... 910 ★ Anticommunist Policies ... 911

Voices of Freedom: From Will Herberg, Protestant, Catholic, Jew

(1955), and From Henry Steele Commager, “Who Is Loyal to America?”

in Harper’s (September 1947) ... 912

The Cold War and Organized Labor ... 914 ★ Cold War Civil Rights ... 914

REVIEW ... 917

PA R T 6 : W H AT K I N D OF N AT ION?

19 5 3–20 12

2 4 . A N A F F L U E N T S O C I E T Y, 19 5 3 –19 6 0 . . . 9 2 2

THE GOLDEN AGE ... 924 A Changing Economy ... 924 ★ A Suburban Nation ... 925 ★ The Growth

of the West ... 926 ★ A Consumer Culture ... 927 ★ The TV World ... 928 ★

A New Ford ... 929 ★ Women at Work and at Home ... 931 ★

A Segregated Landscape ... 932 ★ Public Housing and Urban Renewal

... 933 ★ The Divided Society ... 933 ★ Religion and Anticommunism ...

934 ★ Selling Free Enterprise ... 935 ★ People’s Capitalism ... 936 ★

The Libertarian Conservatives ... 937 ★ The New Conservatism ... 937

Contents

xxvii

THE EISENHOWER ERA ... 938 Ike and Nixon ... 938 ★ The 1952 Campaign ... 939 ★ Modern

Republicanism ... 940 ★ The Social Contract ... 941 ★ Massive Retaliation

... 941 ★ Ike and the Russians ... 942 ★ The Emergence of the Third World

... 943 ★ The Cold War in the Third World ... 944 ★ Origins of the Vietnam

War ... 945 ★ Mass Society and Its Critics ... 946 ★ Rebels without a

Cause ... 947 ★ The Beats ... 948

THE FREEDOM MOVEMENT ... 949 Origins of the Movement ... 949

Voices of Freedom: From Martin Luther King Jr., Speech at

Montgomery, Alabama (December 5, 1955), and From The Southern

Manifesto (1956) ... 950

The Legal Assault on Segregation ... 952 ★ The Brown Case ... 953 ★

The Montgomery Bus Boycott ... 954 ★ The Daybreak of Freedom ... 955 ★

The Leadership of King ... 956 ★ Massive Resistance ... 956 ★ Eisenhower

and Civil Rights ... 957 ★ The World Views the United States ... 958

THE ELECTION OF 1960 ... 959 Kennedy and Nixon ... 959 ★ The End of the 1950s ... 960

REVIEW ... 963

2 5 . T H E S I X T I E S , 19 6 0 –19 6 8 . . . 9 6 4 THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION ... 966

The Rising Tide of Protest ... 966 ★ Birmingham ... 966 ★ The March on

Washington ... 968

THE KENNEDY YEARS ... 969 Kennedy and the World ... 969 ★ The Missile Crisis ... 970 ★ Kennedy and

Civil Rights ... 971

LYNDON JOHNSON’S PRESIDENCY ... 972 The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ... 972 ★ Freedom Summer ... 973 ★ The

1964 Election ... 974 ★ The Conservative Sixties ... 975 ★ The Voting

Rights Act ... 976 ★ Immigration Reform ... 976 ★ The Great Society ... 977 ★

The War on Poverty ... 977 ★ Freedom and Equality ... 978

THE CHANGING BLACK MOVEMENT ... 979 The Ghetto Uprisings ... 979 ★ Malcolm X ... 981 ★ The Rise of Black

Power ... 981

VIETNAM AND THE NEW LEFT ... 982 Old and New Lefts ... 982 ★ The Fading Consensus ... 983 ★ The Rise of the

SDS ... 984 ★ America and Vietnam ... 985 ★ Lyndon Johnson’s War ... 986

Voices of Freedom: From Young Americans for Freedom, The Sharon

Statement (September 1960), and From Tom Hayden and Others,

The Port Huron Statement (June 1962) ... 988

xxviii

Contents

The Antiwar Movement ... 990 ★ The Counterculture ... 991 ★

Personal Liberation and the Free Individual ... 992 ★ Faith and the

Counterculture ... 992

THE NEW MOVEMENTS AND THE RIGHTS REVOLUTION ... 994

The Feminine Mystique ... 994 ★ Women’s Liberation ... 995 ★ Personal

Freedom ... 996 ★ Gay Liberation ... 997 ★ Latino Activism ... 997 ★ Red

Power ... 998 ★ Silent Spring ... 998 ★ The New Environmentalism ... 999 ★

The Rights Revolution ... 1000 ★ Policing the States ... 1001 ★ The Right

to Privacy ... 1002

1968 ... 1002 A Year of Turmoil ... 1002 ★ The Global 1968 ... 1004 ★ Nixon’s

Comeback ... 1005 ★ The Legacy of the Sixties ... 1005

REVIEW ... 1007

2 6 . T H E T R I U M P H O F C O N S E R V A T I S M , 19 6 9 –19 8 8 . . . 10 0 8

PRESIDENT NIXON ... 1009 Nixon’s Domestic Policies ... 1010 ★ Nixon and Welfare ... 1010 ★

Nixon and Race ... 1011 ★ The Burger Court ... 1012 ★ The Court and

Affirmative Action ... 1013 ★ The Continuing Sexual Revolution ... 1013 ★

Nixon and Détente ... 1014

VIETNAM AND WATERGATE ... 1016 Nixon and Vietnam ... 1016 ★ The End of the Vietnam War ... 1017 ★

Watergate ... 1018 ★ Nixon’s Fall ... 1019

THE END OF THE GOLDEN AGE ... 1020 The Decline of Manufacturing ... 1020 ★ Stagflation ... 1020 ★ The

Beleaguered Social Compact ... 1021 ★ Labor on the Defensive ... 1022 ★

Ford as President ... 1023 ★ The Carter Administration ... 1023 ★ Carter

and the Economic Crisis ... 1024 ★ The Emergence of Human Rights

Politics ... 1025 ★ The Iran Crisis and Afghanistan ... 1026

THE RISING TIDE OF CONSERVATISM ... 1028 The Religious Right ... 1028 ★ The Battle over the Equal Rights

Amendment ... 1029 ★ The Abortion Controversy ... 1030 ★ The Tax

Revolt ... 1031 ★ The Election of 1980 ... 1032

THE REAGAN REVOLUTION ... 1033 Reagan and American Freedom ... 1033

Voices of Freedom: From Redstockings Manifesto (1969), and From

Jerry Falwell, Listen, America! (1980) ... 1034

Reaganomics ... 1036 ★ Reagan and Labor ... 1037 ★ The Problem of

Inequality ... 1037 ★ The Second Gilded Age ... 1038 ★ Conservatives

Contents

xxix

and Reagan ... 1039 ★ Reagan and the Cold War ... 1040 ★ The Iran-

Contra Affair ... 1042 ★ Reagan and Gorbachev ... 1042 ★ Reagan’s

Legacy ... 1042 ★ The Election of 1988 ... 1043

REVIEW ... 1045

2 7. G L O B A L I Z A T I O N A N D I T S D I S C O N T E N T S , 19 8 9 – 2 0 0 0 . . . 10 4 6

THE POST-COLD WAR WORLD ... 1048 The Crisis of Communism ... 1048 ★ A New World Order? ... 1049 ★

The Gulf War ... 1050 ★ Visions of America’s Role ... 1051 ★ The Election

of Clinton ... 1051 ★ Clinton in Office ... 1052 ★ The “Freedom Revolution”

... 1053 ★ Clinton’s Political Strategy ... 1053 ★ Clinton and World Affairs

... 1055 ★ The Balkan Crisis ... 1055 ★ Human Rights ... 1056

A NEW ECONOMY? ... 1056 The Computer Revolution ... 1057 ★ The Stock Market Boom and Bust

... 1058 ★ The Enron Syndrome ... 1059 ★ Fruits of Deregulation ... 1060 ★

Rising Inequality ... 1060

Voices of Freedom: From Bill Clinton, Speech on Signing of NAFTA

(1993), and From Global Exchange, Seattle, Declaration for Global

Democracy (December 1999) ... 1062

CULTURE WARS ... 1064 The Newest Immigrants ... 1065 ★ The New Diversity ... 1067 ★ African-

Americans in the 1990s ... 1070 ★ The Role of the Courts ... 1071 ★ The

Spread of Imprisonment ... 1071 ★ The Burden of Imprisonment ... 1072 ★

The Continuing Rights Revolution ... 1073 ★ Native Americans in 2000

... 1073 ★ Multiculturalism ... 1074 ★ The Identity Debate ... 1074 ★

Cultural Conservatism ... 1075 ★ “Family Values” in Retreat ... 1076 ★

The Antigovernment Extreme ... 1077

IMPEACHMENT AND THE ELECTION OF 2000 ... 1078 The Impeachment of Clinton ... 1078 ★ The Disputed Election ... 1079 ★

The 2000 Result ... 1080 ★ A Challenged Democracy ... 1080

FREEDOM AND THE NEW CENTURY ... 1081 Exceptional America ... 1081 ★ Varieties of Freedom ... 1083

REVIEW ... 1085

2 8 . A N E W C E N T U R Y A N D N E W C R I S E S . . . 10 8 6 THE WAR ON TERRORISM ... 1088

Bush before September 11 ... 1088 ★ “They Hate Freedom” ... 1089 ★

The Bush Doctrine ... 1090 ★ The “Axis of Evil” ... 1091 ★ The National

Security Strategy ... 1091

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Contents

AN AMERICAN EMPIRE? ... 1092 Confronting Iraq ... 1092 ★ The Iraq War ... 1093

Voices of Freedom: From The National Security Strategy of the United

States (September 2002), and From President Barack Obama, Speech on

the Middle East (2011) ... 1094

Another Vietnam? ... 1096 ★ The World and the War ... 1096

THE AFTERMATH OF SEPTEMBER 11 AT HOME ... 1097

Security and Liberty ... 1097 ★ The Power of the President ... 1099 ★

The Torture Controversy ... 1100 ★ The Economy under Bush ... 1101

THE WINDS OF CHANGE ... 1102 The 2004 Election ... 1102 ★ Bush’s Second Term ... 1103 ★ Hurricane

Katrina ... 1103 ★ The New Orleans Disaster ... 1104 ★ The Immigration

Debate ... 1105 ★ Islam, America, and the “Clash of Civilizations”

... 1106 ★ The Constitution and Liberty ... 1107 ★ The Court and the

President ... 1108 ★ The Midterm Elections of 2006 ... 1110 ★

The Housing Bubble ... 1111 ★ The Great Recession ... 1112 ★

“A Conspiracy against the Public” ... 1113 ★ The Collapse of Market

Fundamentalism ... 1114 ★ Bush and the Crisis ... 1115

THE RISE OF OBAMA ... 1116 The 2008 Campaign ... 1117 ★ Obama’s First Inauguration ... 1118 ★

Obama in Office ... 1118

OBAMA’S FIRST TERM ... 1120 The Continuing Economic Crisis ... 1120 ★ Obama and the World ... 1121 ★

The Republican Resurgence ... 1122 ★ The Occupy Movement ... 1123 ★

The 2012 Campaign ... 1124

LEARNING FROM HISTORY ... 1126

REVIEW ... 1129

A P P E N D I X DOCUMENTS

The Declaration of Independence (1776)...A-2 ★ The Constitution of

the United States (1787)...A-5 ★ From George Washington’s Farewell

Address (1796)...A-16 ★ The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and

Resolutions (1848)...A-21 ★ From Frederick Douglass’s “What, to the

Slave, Is the Fourth of July?” Speech (1852)...A-24 ★ The Gettysburg

Address (1863)...A-27 ★ Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address

(1865)...A-28 ★ The Populist Platform of 1892...A-29 ★ Franklin D.

Roosevelt’s First Inaugural Address (1933)...A-32 ★ From The

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Program for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

(1963)...A-35 ★ Ronald Reagan’s First Inaugural Address (1981)...A-36 ★

Barack Obama’s First Inaugural Address (2009)...A-39

TABLES AND FIGURES Presidential Elections...A-42 ★ Admission of States...A-50 ★ Population

of the United States...A-51 ★ Historical Statistics of the United States:

Labor Force—Selected Characteristics Expressed as a Percentage

of the Labor Force, 1800–2010...A-52 ★ Immigration, by Origin...A-52 ★ Unemployment Rate, 1890–2013...A-53 ★ Union Membership as a

Percentage of Nonagricultural Employment, 1880–2012...A-53 ★ Voter

Participation in Presidential Elections 1824–2012...A-53 ★ Birthrate,

1820–2011...A-53

GLOSSARY ★ ... A-55

CREDITS ★ ... A-79

INDEX ★ ... A-85

List of Maps, Tables, and Figures

xxxiii

M A P S CHAPTER 1 The First Americans...7 Native Ways of Life, ca. 1500...11 The Old World on the Eve of American Colonization,

ca. 1500...19 Voyages of Discovery...22 Early Spanish Conquests and Explorations in the

New World...32 The New World—New France and New Netherland,

ca. 1650...39

CHAPTER 2 English Settlement in the Chesapeake, ca. 1650...58 English Settlement in New England, ca. 1640...72

CHAPTER 3 Eastern North America in the Seventeenth and Early

Eighteenth Centuries...89 European Settlement and Ethnic Diversity on the

Atlantic Coast of North America, 1760...108

CHAPTER 4 Atlantic Trading Routes...129 The Slave Trade in the Atlantic World,

1460–1770...131 European Empires in North America, ca. 1750...153 Eastern North America after the Peace of Paris,

1763...159

CHAPTER 5 The Revolutionary War in the North, 1775–1781...196 The Revolutionary War in the South, 1775–1781...198 North America, 1783...201

CHAPTER 6 Loyalism in the American Revolution...220

CHAPTER 7 Western Lands, 1782–1802...241 Western Ordinances, 1784–1787...244 Ratification of the Constitution...262 Indian Tribes, 1790...264

CHAPTER 8 The Presidential Election of 1800...287 The Louisiana Purchase...293 The War of 1812...301

CHAPTER 9 The Market Revolution: Roads and Canals, 1840...310 The Market Revolution: Western Settlement,

1800–1820...313 Travel Times from New York City in 1800 and

1830...314

The Market Revolution: The Spread of Cotton Cultivation, 1820–1840...316

Major Cities, 1840...320 Cotton Mills, 1820s...321

CHAPTER 10 The Missouri Compromise, 1820...357 The Americas, 1830...360 The Presidential Election of 1824...364 The Presidential Election of 1828...366 Indian Removals, 1830–1840...375 The Presidential Election of 1840...382

CHAPTER 11 Slave Population, 1860...392 Size of Slaveholdings, 1860...397 Distribution of Free Blacks, 1860...406 Major Crops of the South, 1860...409 Slave Resistance in the Nineteenth-Century Atlantic

World...417

CHAPTER 12 Utopian Communities, Mid-Nineteenth

Century...428

CHAPTER 13 The Trans-Mississippi West, 1830s–1840s...462 The Mexican War, 1846–1848...467 Gold-Rush California...470 Continental Expansion through 1853...472 The Compromise of 1850...476 The Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854...478 The Railroad Network, 1850s...480 The Presidential Election of 1856...485 The Presidential Election of 1860...494

CHAPTER 14 The Secession of Southern States, 1860–1861...505 The Civil War in the East, 1861–1862...510 The Civil War in the West, 1861–1862...512 The Emancipation Proclamation...515 The Civil War, 1863...536 The Civil War, Late 1864–1865...542

CHAPTER 15 The Barrow Plantation...553 Sharecropping in the South, 1880...557 The Presidential Election of 1868...568 Reconstruction in the South, 1867–1877...581 The Presidential Election of 1876...582

CHAPTER 16 The Railroad Network, 1880...592 U.S. Steel: A Vertically Integrated Corporation...596 Indian Reservations, ca. 1890...611 Political Stalemate, 1876–1892...617

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List of Maps, Tables, and Figures

CHAPTER 17 Populist Strength, 1892...640 The Presidential Election of 1896...644 The Spanish-American War: The Pacific...663 The Spanish-American War: The Caribbean...663 American Empire, 1898...665

CHAPTER 18 The World on the Move, World Migration

1815–1914...682 Socialist Towns and Cities, 1900–1920...690 The Presidential Election of 1912...710

CHAPTER 19 The Panama Canal Zone...717 The United States in the Caribbean,

1898–1941...718 Colonial Possessions, 1900...720 World War I: The Western Front...725 Prohibition, 1915: Counties and States That Banned

Liquor before the Eighteenth Amendment (Ratified 1919, Repealed 1933)...731

Europe in 1914...750 Europe in 1919...751

CHAPTER 20 The Presidential Election of 1928...790

CHAPTER 21 Columbia River Basin Project, 1949...801 The Presidential Election of 1932...802 The Tennessee Valley Authority...807 The Dust Bowl, 1935–1940...808

CHAPTER 22 World War II in the Pacific, 1941–1945...849 World War II in Europe, 1942–1945...851 Wartime Army and Navy Bases and

Airfields...854 Japanese-American Internment, 1942–1945...868

CHAPTER 23 Cold War Europe, 1956...892 The Korean War, 1950–1953...894 The Presidential Election of 1948...905

CHAPTER 24 The Interstate Highway System...930 The Presidential Election of 1952...939 The Presidential Election of 1960...960

CHAPTER 25 The Presidential Election of 1964...974 The Vietnam War, 1964–1975...987 The Presidential Election of 1968...1004

CHAPTER 26 Center of Population, 1790–2010...1011 The Presidential Election of 1976...1023 The Presidential Election of 1980...1032 The United States in the Caribbean and Central

America, 1954–2004...1041

CHAPTER 27 Eastern Europe after the Cold War...1050 The Presidential Election of 1992...1052 Maps of Diversity, 2000...1066 The Presidential Election of 2000...1080

CHAPTER 28 U.S. Presence in the Middle East, 1947–2012...1098 Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip...1099 The Presidential Election of 2008...1117 The Presidential Election of 2012...1126

T A B L E S A N D F I G U R E S CHAPTER 1 Table 1.1 Estimated Regional Populations:

The Americas, ca. 1500...31 Table 1.2 Estimated Regional Populations:

The World, ca. 1500...31

CHAPTER 3 Table 3.1 Origins and Status of Migrants to British

North American Colonies, 1700–1775...107

CHAPTER 4 Table 4.1 Slave Population as Percentage of Total

Population of Original Thirteen Colonies, 1770...135

CHAPTER 7 Table 7.1 Total Population and Black Population of

the United States, 1790...267

CHAPTER 9 Table 9.1 Population Growth of Selected Western

States, 1800–1850...315 Table 9.2 Total Number of Immigrants by Five-Year

Period...324 Figure 9.1 Sources of Immigration, 1850...326

CHAPTER 11 Table 11.1 Growth of the Slave Population...393 Table 11.2 Slaveholding, 1850...394 Table 11.3 Free Black Population, 1860...407

CHAPTER 14 Figure 14.1 Resources for War: Union versus

Confederacy...506

List of Maps, Tables, and Figures

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CHAPTER 16 Table 16.1 Indicators of Economic Change,

1870–1920...590 Figure 16.1 Railroad Mileage Built, 1830–1975...591

CHAPTER 17 Table 17.1 States with over 200 Lynchings,

1889–1918...652

CHAPTER 18 Table 18.1 Rise of the City, 1880–1920...681 Table 18.2 Immigrants and Their Children as Percentage

of Population, Ten Major Cities, 1920...683 Table 18.3 Percentage of Women 14 Years and Older

in the Labor Force, 1900–1930...684 Table 18.4 Percentage of Women Workers in Various

Occupations, 1900–1920...685 Table 18.5 Sales of Passenger Cars, 1900–1925...686

CHAPTER 19 Table 19.1 The Great Migration...744

CHAPTER 20 Figure 20.1 Household Appliances,

1900–1930...762 Figure 20.2 The Stock Market, 1919–1939...765 Table 20.1 Selected Annual Immigration Quotas

under the 1924 Immigration Act...782

CHAPTER 21 Figure 21.1 The Building Boom and Its Collapse,

1919–1939...809 Figure 21.2 Unemployment, 1925–1945...824

CHAPTER 22 Table 22.1 Labor Union Membership...855

CHAPTER 24 Figure 24.1 Real Gross Domestic Product per Capita,

1790–2000...925 Figure 24.2 Average Daily Television Viewing...929 Figure 24.3 The Baby Boom and Its Decline...931

CHAPTER 25 Figure 25.1 Percentage of Population below Poverty

Level, by Race, 1959–1969...978

CHAPTER 26 Figure 26.1 Median Age at First Marriage,

1947–1981...1013 Table 26.1 Rate of Divorce: Divorces of Existing

Marriages per 1,000 New Marriages, 1950–1980...1014

Table 26.2 The Misery Index, 1970–1980...1021 Figure 26.2 Real Average Weekly Wages,

1955–1990...1022 Figure 26.3 Changes in Families’ Real Income,

1980–1990...1038

CHAPTER 27 Figure 27.1 U.S. Income Inequality,

1913–2003...1060 Table 27.1 Immigration to the United States,

1960–2010...1065 Figure 27.2 Birthplace of Immigrants,

1990–2000...1067 Figure 27.3 The Projected Non-White Majority:

Racial and Ethnic Breakdown...1069 Figure 27.4 Unemployment Rate by Sex and Race,

1954–2000...1070 Table 27.2 Home Ownership Rates by Group,

1970–2000...1070 Figure 27.5 Institutional Inmates as a Percentage of

the Population by Sex and Race, 1850–2010...1072

Figure 27.6 Change in Family Structure, 1970–2010...1076

Figure 27.7 Women in the Paid Workforce, 1940–2010...1077

CHAPTER 28 Figure 28.1 The Housing Bubble...1111 Figure 28.2 Portrait of a Recession...1112 Figure 28.3 Income Gains, 1947–2009...1121

For my mother,

Liza Foner (1909–2005),

an accomplished artist

who lived through

most of the twentieth century

and into the twenty-first

�

�

Preface

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P R E F A C E

Give Me Liberty! An American History is a survey of American history from the earliest days of European exploration and conquest of the New World to the first decades of the twenty-first century. It offers students a clear, con- cise narrative whose central theme is the changing contours of American freedom.

I am extremely gratified by the response to the first three editions of Give Me Liberty!, which have been used in survey courses at many hundreds of two- and four-year colleges and universities throughout the country. The comments I have received from instructors and students encourage me to think that Give Me Liberty! has worked well in their classrooms. Their comments have also included many valuable suggestions for revisions, which I greatly appreciate. These have ranged from corrections of typographical and factual errors to thoughts about subjects that needed more extensive treatment. In making revisions for this Fourth Edition, I have tried to take these suggestions into account. I have also incorporated the find- ings and insights of new scholarship that has appeared since the original edition was written.

The most significant changes in this Fourth Edition reflect my desire to inte- grate the history of American religion more fully into the narrative. Today, this is

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a thriving subfield of American historical writing, partly because of the increased prominence in our own time of debates over the relations between government and religion and over the definition of religious liberty—issues that are deeply rooted in the American experience. Changes relating to this theme may be found through- out the book, but some of the major additions seeking to illuminate the history of American religion are as follows:

Chapter 1 includes a new discussion of religious toleration and its limits in the seventeenth-century Dutch colony of New Netherland, which became New York after being seized by Great Britain in 1664. Chapter 2 expands the previous discus- sion of the complex relationship between church and state in Puritan New England. Chapter 4 examines the religious traditions brought to the American colonies by enslaved Africans. In Chapter 6, I have added a discussion of the Christian Repub- licanism of the era of the American Revolution, a set of ideas that linked public virtue in the new nation with religious conviction despite the separation of church and state. Chapter 9 now includes an extended discussion of the emergence of the Church of Latter-Day Saints (or the Mormon Church) and their experience of perse- cution, despite which they’ve become one of the largest and most rapidly growing denominations in the United States.

A further discussion of conflict between Mormons and other settlers in the West occurs in Chapter 16. That chapter also includes an expanded discussion of the Ghost Dance, an Indian religious movement of the late nineteenth century, and a new section on the role of Protestant leaders in the era’s moral reform campaigns. In Chapter 17, a new section discusses the religious dimensions of the revised “mem- ory” of the Civil War that rose to prominence in the 1890s. In Chapter 18, I have added a discussion of the spiritual elements in the early environmental movement, especially in relation to the career of the pioneer conservationist John Muir. The rise of religious fundamentalism, and its use of modern media like the radio to spread its message, is examined in Chapter 21. In Chapter 24, there is a new section on reli- gion and the anticommunist crusade of the 1950s. Chapter 25 now contains a sec- tion on religious movements that arose in connection with the counterculture of the 1960s. Finally, I have added to Chapter 28, the book’s final chapter, a new section on how the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, led to profound controversy over the role of Islam in American life, a debate that continues to this day.

As in the Second and Third Editions, the Voices of Freedom sections in each chapter include two documents illustrating the contested history of freedom in the United States. I have changed a number of them to reflect the new emphasis on the history of American religion. I have also revised the end-of-chapter bibliographies to reflect current scholarship.

The Fourth Edition sports a bright, award-winning design featuring enhanced pedagogy to give students more guidance as they move through chapters. New topic flags function as chapter outlines on the page. They provide easy visual cues that correspond to major points in the narrative and are handy tools for review. The chronology at the beginning of the chapter and the end-of-chapter review pages, including review questions and key terms with page references, have been revisited

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for the Fourth Edition. The aim of the pedagogy, as always, is to offer students guid- ance through the material without getting in the way of the presentation.

I have also added new images in each chapter to expand the visual represen- tation of key ideas and personalities in the text. Taken together, I believe these changes enhance the purpose of Give Me Liberty!: to offer students a clear, concise, and thematically enriched introduction to American history.

Americans have always had a divided attitude toward history. On the one hand, they tend to be remarkably future-oriented, dismissing events of even the recent past as “ancient history” and sometimes seeing history as a burden to be overcome, a prison from which to escape. On the other hand, like many other peoples, Ameri- cans have always looked to history for a sense of personal or group identity and of national cohesiveness. This is why so many Americans devote time and energy to tracing their family trees and why they visit historical museums and National Park Service historical sites in ever-increasing numbers. My hope is that this book will convince readers with all degrees of interest that history does matter to them.

The novelist and essayist James Baldwin once observed that history “does not refer merely, or even principally, to the past. On the contrary, the great force of his- tory comes from the fact that we carry it within us, . . . . [that] history is literally pres- ent in all that we do.” As Baldwin recognized, the force of history is evident in our own world. Especially in a political democracy like the United States, whose govern- ment is designed to rest on the consent of informed citizens, knowledge of the past is essential—not only for those of us whose profession is the teaching and writing of history, but for everyone. History, to be sure, does not offer simple lessons or immedi- ate answers to current questions. Knowing the history of immigration to the United States, and all of the tensions, turmoil, and aspirations associated with it, for exam- ple, does not tell us what current immigration policy ought to be. But without that knowledge, we have no way of understanding which approaches have worked and which have not—essential information for the formulation of future public policy.

History, it has been said, is what the present chooses to remember about the past. Rather than a fixed collection of facts, or a group of interpretations that cannot be challenged, our understanding of history is constantly changing. There is noth- ing unusual in the fact that each generation rewrites history to meet its own needs, or that scholars disagree among themselves on basic questions like the causes of the Civil War or the reasons for the Great Depression. Precisely because each gen- eration asks different questions of the past, each generation formulates different answers. The past thirty years have witnessed a remarkable expansion of the scope of historical study. The experiences of groups neglected by earlier scholars, includ- ing women, African-Americans, working people, and others, have received unprec- edented attention from historians. New subfields—social history, cultural history, and family history among them—have taken their place alongside traditional politi- cal and diplomatic history.

Give Me Liberty! draws on this voluminous historical literature to present an up-to-date and inclusive account of the American past, paying due attention to the

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experience of diverse groups of Americans while in no way neglecting the events and processes Americans have experienced in common. It devotes serious atten- tion to political, social, cultural, and economic history, and to their interconnec- tions. The narrative brings together major events and prominent leaders with the many groups of ordinary people who make up American society. Give Me Liberty! has a rich cast of characters, from Thomas Jefferson to campaigners for woman suf- frage, from Franklin D. Roosevelt to former slaves seeking to breathe meaning into emancipation during and after the Civil War.

Aimed at an audience of undergraduate students with little or no detailed knowledge of American history, Give Me Liberty! guides readers through the com- plexities of the subject without overwhelming them with excessive detail. The unifying theme of freedom that runs through the text gives shape to the narrative and integrates the numerous strands that make up the American experience. This approach builds on that of my earlier book, The Story of American Freedom (1998), although Give Me Liberty! places events and personalities in the foreground and is more geared to the structure of the introductory survey course.

Freedom, and the battles to define its meaning, has long been central to my own scholarship and undergraduate teaching, which focuses on the nineteenth century and especially the era of the Civil War and Reconstruction (1850–1877). This was a time when the future of slavery tore the nation apart and emancipation produced a national debate over what rights the former slaves, and all Americans, should enjoy as free citizens. I have found that attention to clashing definitions of freedom and the struggles of different groups to achieve freedom as they understood it offers a way of making sense of the bitter battles and vast transformations of that pivotal era. I believe that the same is true for American history as a whole.

No idea is more fundamental to Americans’ sense of themselves as individuals and as a nation than freedom. The central term in our political language, freedom— or liberty, with which it is almost always used interchangeably—is deeply embed- ded in the record of our history and the language of everyday life. The Declaration of Independence lists liberty among mankind’s inalienable rights; the Constitution announces its purpose as securing liberty’s blessings. The United States fought the Civil War to bring about a new birth of freedom, World War II for the Four Free- doms, and the Cold War to defend the Free World. Americans’ love of liberty has been represented by liberty poles, liberty caps, and statues of liberty, and acted out by burning stamps and burning draft cards, by running away from slavery, and by demonstrating for the right to vote. “Every man in the street, white, black, red, or yellow,” wrote the educator and statesman Ralph Bunche in 1940, “knows that this is ‘the land of the free’ . . . ‘the cradle of liberty.’ ”

The very universality of the idea of freedom, however, can be misleading. Free- dom is not a fixed, timeless category with a single unchanging definition. Indeed, the history of the United States is, in part, a story of debates, disagreements, and struggles over freedom. Crises like the American Revolution, the Civil War, and the Cold War have permanently transformed the idea of freedom. So too have demands by various groups of Americans to enjoy greater freedom. The meaning of freedom

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has been constructed not only in congressional debates and political treatises, but on plantations and picket lines, in parlors and even bedrooms.

Over the course of our history, American freedom has been both a reality and a mythic ideal—a living truth for millions of Americans, a cruel mockery for others. For some, freedom has been what some scholars call a “habit of the heart,” an ideal so taken for granted that it is lived out but rarely analyzed. For others, freedom is not a birthright but a distant goal that has inspired great sacrifice.

Give Me Liberty! draws attention to three dimensions of freedom that have been critical in American history: (1) the meanings of freedom; (2) the social conditions that make freedom possible; and (3) the boundaries of freedom that determine who is enti- tled to enjoy freedom and who is not. All have changed over time.

In the era of the American Revolution, for example, freedom was primarily a set of rights enjoyed in public activity—the right of a community to be governed by laws to which its representatives had consented and of individuals to engage in religious worship without governmental interference. In the nineteenth century, freedom came to be closely identified with each person’s opportunity to develop to the fullest his or her innate talents. In the twentieth, the “ability to choose,” in both public and private life, became perhaps the dominant understanding of freedom. This devel- opment was encouraged by the explosive growth of the consumer marketplace (a development that receives considerable attention in Give Me Liberty!), which offered Americans an unprecedented array of goods with which to satisfy their needs and desires. During the 1960s, a crucial chapter in the history of American freedom, the idea of personal freedom was extended into virtually every realm, from attire and “lifestyle” to relations between the sexes. Thus, over time, more and more areas of life have been drawn into Americans’ debates about the meaning of freedom.

A second important dimension of freedom focuses on the social conditions nec- essary to allow freedom to flourish. What kinds of economic institutions and rela- tionships best encourage individual freedom? In the colonial era and for more than a century after independence, the answer centered on economic autonomy, enshrined in the glorification of the independent small producer—the farmer, skilled craftsman, or shopkeeper—who did not have to depend on another person for his livelihood. As the industrial economy matured, new conceptions of economic freedom came to the fore: “liberty of contract” in the Gilded Age, “industrial freedom” (a say in corporate decision-making) in the Progressive era, economic security during the New Deal, and, more recently, the ability to enjoy mass consumption within a market economy.

The boundaries of freedom, the third dimension of this theme, have inspired some of the most intense struggles in American history. Although founded on the premise that liberty is an entitlement of all humanity, the United States for much of its history deprived many of its own people of freedom. Non-whites have rarely enjoyed the same access to freedom as white Americans. The belief in equal oppor- tunity as the birthright of all Americans has coexisted with persistent efforts to limit freedom by race, gender, class, and in other ways.

Less obvious, perhaps, is the fact that one person’s freedom has frequently been linked to another’s servitude. In the colonial era and nineteenth century, expanding

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freedom for many Americans rested on the lack of freedom—slavery, indentured servitude, the subordinate position of women—for others. By the same token, it has been through battles at the boundaries—the efforts of racial minorities, women, and others to secure greater freedom—that the meaning and experience of freedom have been deepened and the concept extended into new realms.

Time and again in American history, freedom has been transformed by the demands of excluded groups for inclusion. The idea of freedom as a universal birth- right owes much both to abolitionists who sought to extend the blessings of liberty to blacks and to immigrant groups who insisted on full recognition as American citizens. The principle of equal protection of the law without regard to race, which became a central element of American freedom, arose from the antislavery struggle and the Civil War and was reinvigorated by the civil rights revolution of the 1960s, which called itself the “freedom movement.” The battle for the right of free speech by labor radicals and birth-control advocates in the first part of the twentieth century helped to make civil liberties an essential element of freedom for all Americans.

Although concentrating on events within the United States, Give Me Liberty! also, as indicated above, situates American history in the context of developments in other parts of the world. Many of the forces that shaped American history, includ- ing the international migration of peoples, the development of slavery, the spread of democracy, and the expansion of capitalism, were worldwide processes not con- fined to the United States. Today, American ideas, culture, and economic and mili- tary power exert unprecedented influence throughout the world. But beginning with the earliest days of settlement, when European empires competed to colonize North America and enrich themselves from its trade, American history cannot be understood in isolation from its global setting.

Freedom is the oldest of clichés and the most modern of aspirations. At various times in our history, it has served as the rallying cry of the powerless and as a jus- tification of the status quo. Freedom helps to bind our culture together and exposes the contradictions between what America claims to be and what it sometimes has been. American history is not a narrative of continual progress toward greater and greater freedom. As the abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson noted after the Civil War, “revolutions may go backward.” Though freedom can be achieved, it may also be taken away. This happened, for example, when the equal rights granted to former slaves immediately after the Civil War were essentially nullified during the era of segregation. As was said in the eighteenth century, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

In the early twenty-first century, freedom continues to play a central role in American political and social life and thought. It is invoked by individuals and groups of all kinds, from critics of economic globalization to those who seek to secure American freedom at home and export it abroad. I hope that Give Me Liberty! will offer beginning students a clear account of the course of American history, and of its central theme, freedom, which today remains as varied, contentious, and ever- changing as America itself.

Acknowledgments

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

All works of history are, to a considerable extent, collaborative books, in that every writer builds on the research and writing of previous scholars. This is especially true of a textbook that covers the entire American experience, over more than five centuries. My greatest debt is to the innumerable historians on whose work I have drawn in preparing this volume. The Suggested Reading list at the end of each chap- ter offers only a brief introduction to the vast body of historical scholarship that has influenced and informed this book. More specifically, however, I wish to thank the following scholars, who generously read portions of this work and offered valuable comments, criticisms, and suggestions:

Wayne Ackerson, Salisbury University Mary E. Adams, City College of San Francisco Jeff Adler, University of Florida David Anderson, Louisiana Tech University John Barr, Lone Star College, Kingwood Lauren Braun-Strumfels, Raritan Valley Community College James Broussard, Lebanon Valley College Michael Bryan, Greenville Technical College Stephanie Cole, The University of Texas at Arlington Ashley Cruseturner, McLennan Community College Jim Dudlo, Brookhaven College Beverly Gage, Yale University Monica Gisolfi, University of North Carolina, Wilmington Adam Goudsouzian, University of Memphis Mike Green, Community College of Southern Nevada Vanessa Gunther, California State University, Fullerton David E. Hamilton, University of Kentucky Brian Harding, Mott Community College Sandra Harvey, Lone Star College–Cy Fair David Hsiung, Juniata College James Karmel, Harford Community College Kelly Knight, Penn State University Marianne Leeper, Trinity Valley Community College Jeffrey K. Lucas, University of North Carolina at Pembroke Lillian E. Marrujo-Duck, City College of San Francisco Kent McGaughy, HCC Northwest College James Mills, University of Texas, Brownsville Gil Montemayor, McLennan Community College Jonathan Noyalas, Lord Fairfax Community College Robert M. O’Brien, Lone Star College–Cy Fair

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Acknowledgments

Joseph Palermo, California State University, Sacramento Ann Plane, University of California, Santa Barbara Nancy Marie Robertson, Indiana University–Purdue University Indianapolis Esther Robinson, Lone Star College–Cy Fair Richard Samuelson, California State University, San Bernadino Diane Sager, Maple Woods Community College John Shaw, Portland Community College Mark Spencer, Brock University David Stebenne, Ohio State University Judith Stein, City College, City University of New York George Stevens, Duchess Community College Robert Tinkler, California State University, Chico Elaine Thompson, Louisiana Tech University David Weiman, Barnard College William Young, Maple Woods Community College

I am particularly grateful to my colleagues in the Columbia University Department of History: Pablo Piccato, for his advice on Latin American history; Evan Haefeli and Ellen Baker, who read and made many suggestions for improve- ments in their areas of expertise (colonial America and the history of the West, respectively); and Sarah Phillips, who offered advice on treating the history of the environment.

I am also deeply indebted to the graduate students at Columbia University’s Department of History who helped with this project. Theresa Ventura offered invaluable assistance in gathering material for the new sections placing American history in a global context. April Holm provided similar assistance for new cover- age in this edition of the history of American religion and debates over religious freedom. James Delbourgo conducted research for the chapters on the colonial era. Beverly Gage did the same for the twentieth century. Daniel Freund provided all- round research assistance. Victoria Cain did a superb job of locating images. I also want to thank my colleagues Elizabeth Blackmar and Alan Brinkley for offering advice and encouragement throughout the writing of this book.

Many thanks to Joshua Brown, director of the American Social History Project, whose website, History Matters, lists innumerable online resources for the study of American history. Nancy Robertson at IUIPUI did a superb job revising and enhancing the in-book pedagogy. Monica Gisolfi (University of North Carolina, Wilmington) and Robert Tinkler (California State University, Chico) did excel- lent work on the Instructor’s Manual and Test Bank. Kathleen Thomas (Univer- sity of Wisconsin, Stout) helped greatly in the revisions of the companion media packages.

At W. W. Norton & Company, Steve Forman was an ideal editor—patient, encouraging, and always ready to offer sage advice. I would also like to thank Steve’s assistant, Justin Cahill, for his indispensable and always cheerful help on all aspects of the project; Ellen Lohman and Debbie Nichols for their careful

Acknowledgments

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copyediting and proof reading work. Stephanie Romeo and Donna Ranieri for their resourceful attention to the illustrations program; Hope Miller Goodell and Chin- Yee Lai for their refinements of the book design; Mike Fodera and Debra Morton- Hoyt for splendid work on the covers for the Fourth Edition; Kim Yi for keeping the many threads of the project aligned and then tying them together; Sean Mintus for his efficiency and care in book production; Steve Hoge for orchestrating the rich media package that accompanies the textbook; Jessica Brannon-Wranowsky for the terrific new web quizzes and outlines; Nicole Netherton, Steve Dunn, and Mike Wright for their alert reads of the U.S. survey market and their hard work in help- ing establish Give Me Liberty! within it; and Drake McFeely, Roby Harrington, and Julia Reidhead for maintaining Norton as an independent, employee-owned pub- lisher dedicated to excellence in its work.

Many students may have heard stories of how publishing companies alter the language and content of textbooks in an attempt to maximize sales and avoid alien- ating any potential reader. In this case, I can honestly say that W. W. Norton allowed me a free hand in writing the book and, apart from the usual editorial corrections, did not try to influence its content at all. For this I thank them, while I accept full responsibility for the interpretations presented and for any errors the book may contain. Since no book of this length can be entirely free of mistakes, I welcome readers to send me corrections at ef17@columbia.edu.

My greatest debt, as always, is to my family—my wife, Lynn Garafola, for her good-natured support while I was preoccupied by a project that consumed more than its fair share of my time and energy, and my daughter, Daria, who while a ninth and tenth grader read every chapter as it was written and offered invaluable suggestions about improving the book’s clarity, logic, and grammar.

Eric Foner New York City

July 2013

G I V E M E

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A M E R I C A N C O L O N I E S

T O 1 7 6 3

T he colonial period of American history was a time of enormous change, as the people of four continents—North America, South America, Europe, and Africa—were suddenly and unexpectedly thrown into contact with one another. The period also initiated a new era in the history of freedom. It was not, however, a desire for freedom that drove early European explorations of North and South America. Contact between Europe and the Americas began as a by-product of the quest for a sea route for trade with Asia. But it quickly became a contest for power between rival empires, who moved to conquer, colonize, and exploit the resources of the New World.

At the time of European contact, the Western Hemisphere was home to tens of millions of people. Within the present border of the United States there existed Indian societies based on agriculture, hunting, or fishing, with their own languages, religious practices, and forms of government. All experienced wrenching changes after Europeans arrived, including incorporation into the world market and epidemics of disease that devastated many native groups.

The colonies that eventually came to form the United States originated in very different ways. Virginia, the first permanent colony to be established, was created by a private company that sought to earn profits through exploration for gold and the development of transatlantic trade. Individual proprietors— well-connected Englishmen given large grants of land by the king—established Maryland and Pennsylvania. New York, which had been founded by the Dutch, came into British hands as the result of a war. Religious groups seek- ing escape from persecution in England and hoping to establish communities rooted in their understanding of the principles of the Bible founded colonies in New England.

In the seventeenth century, all the British colonies experienced wrenching social conflicts as groups within them battled for control. Relations with Indi- ans remained tense and sometimes violent. Religious and political divisions in England, which experienced a civil war in the 1640s and the ouster of the king in 1688, reverberated in the colonies. So did wars between European powers, which spilled over into North America. Nonetheless, after difficult begin- nings, Britain’s mainland colonies experienced years of remarkable growth in

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population and economic activity. By the eighteenth century, the non-Indian population of Britain’s North American colonies had far outstripped that of the colonies of France and Spain.

In every colony in British America, well-to-do landowners and merchants dominated economic and political life. Nonetheless, emigration to the colonies offered numerous settlers opportunities they had not enjoyed at home, includ- ing access to land, the freedom to worship as they pleased, and the right to vote. Every British colony had an elected assembly that shared power with a governor, who was usually appointed from London. Even this limited degree of self-government contrasted sharply with the lack of representative institu- tions in the Spanish and French empires. All these circumstances drew thou- sands of English emigrants to North America in the seventeenth century, and thousands more from Ireland, Scotland, and the European continent in the eighteenth century.

Yet the conditions that allowed colonists to enjoy such freedoms were made possible by lack of freedom for millions of others. For the native inhabit- ants of the Western Hemisphere, European colonization brought the spread of devastating epidemics and either dispossession from the land or forced labor for the colonizers. Millions of Africans were uprooted from their homes and transported to the New World to labor on the plantations of Brazil, the Caribbean, and England’s North American colonies. Even among European immigrants, the majority arrived not as completely free individuals but as indentured servants who owed a prearranged number of years of labor to those who paid their passage.

In colonial America, many modern ideas of freedom did not exist, or existed in very different forms than today. Equality before the law was unknown—women, non-whites, and propertyless men enjoyed far fewer rights than landowning white male citizens. Economic freedom, today widely identified with participation in an unregulated market, meant independence— owning land or a shop and not relying on another person for a livelihood. Most colonies had official churches, and many colonists who sought religious liberty for themselves refused to extend it to others. Speaking or writing critically of public authorities could land a person in jail.

Nonetheless, ideas about freedom played a major role in justifying Euro- pean colonization. The Spanish and French claimed to be liberating Native Americans by bringing them advanced civilization and Roman Catholicism. England insisted that true freedom for Indians meant adopting English ways, including Protestantism. Moreover, the expansion of England’s empire occurred at a time when freedom came to be seen as the defining characteristic of the English nation. Slavery existed in every New World colony. In many, it became the basis of economic life. Yet most Britons, including colonists, prided themselves on enjoying “British liberty,” a common set of rights that included protection from the arbitrary exercise of governmental power.

Thus, freedom and lack of freedom expanded together in the colonies of British North America that would eventually form the United States.

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C H A P T E R 1

T he discovery of America,” the British writer Adam Smith announced in his celebrated work The Wealth of Nations (1776), was one of “the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind.” Historians no longer use the word “discovery” to describe the European exploration, conquest, and colonization of a hemi- sphere already home to millions of people. But there can be no doubt that when Christopher Columbus made landfall in the West Indian islands in 1492, he set in motion some of the most pivotal developments in human history. Immense changes soon followed in both the Old and New Worlds; the consequences of these changes are still with us today.

The peoples of the American continents and Europe, previously unaware of each other’s existence, were thrown into continuous interaction. Crops new to each hemisphere crossed the Atlantic, reshaping diets and transforming the natural environment. Because of their long isolation, the inhabitants of North and South America had developed no immunity to the germs that also accom- panied the colonizers. As a result, they suffered a series of devastating epidem- ics, the greatest population catastrophe in human history. Within a decade of Columbus’s voyage, a fourth continent—Africa—found itself drawn into the new Atlantic system of trade and population movement. In Africa, Europeans found a supply of unfree labor that enabled them to exploit the fertile lands of the Western Hemisphere. Indeed, of approximately 10 million men, women, and children who crossed from the Old World to the New between 1492 and 1820, the vast majority, about 7.7 million, were African slaves.

From the vantage point of 1776, the year the United States declared itself an independent nation, it seemed to Adam Smith that the “discovery” of America had produced both great “benefits” and great “misfortunes.” To the nations of western Europe, the development of American colonies brought an era of “splen- dor and glory.” The emergence of the Atlantic as the world’s major avenue for trade and population movement, Smith noted, enabled millions of Europeans to increase the “enjoyments” of life. To the “natives” of the Americas, however, Smith went on, the years since 1492 had been ones of “dreadful misfortunes” and “every sort of injustice.” And for millions of Africans, the settlement of America meant a descent into the abyss of slavery.

Long before Columbus sailed, Europeans had dreamed of a land of abun- dance, riches, and ease beyond the western horizon. Once the “discovery” of this New World had taken place, they invented an America of the imagination, projecting onto it their hopes for a better life. Here, many believed, would arise unparalleled opportunities for riches, or at least liberation from poverty. Euro- peans envisioned America as a religious refuge, a society of equals, a source of power and glory. They searched the New World for golden cities and fountains of eternal youth. Some sought to establish ideal communities based