U.S. History I: United States History 1607-1865 ... - Textbook Equity

In the beginning they came—in a trickle at first, and then a growing tide of humanity escaping
from the frustrations of life in the old country.
They saw—they liked what they saw, and more came and spread inward and up and down
the coasts, along rivers, into the valleys and over the mountains.
They conquered—they conquered their loneliness, they conquered the land, they conquered
the rivers and the fields and the forests, and they conquered the natives. And within 150
years the first part of the American story was ending, and a new chapter was beginning
The Plot Thickens
The second part of the story is that of revolution, which began when the frustrations of Europe
reached America’s shores. The new country and the old country had parted ways—
partly because of distance and the newness of life in America, but also because the old systems
did not work here. Life was different, labor was more valuable, land more plentiful,
opportunities less restricted. Although the differences between the Old World and the New
were not at first irreconcilable, they were sharp. Had relations been managed better from
the British side, and had Americans been less impatient, things might have been resolved
peacefully, although the eventual independence of America over time must be seen as having
been inevitable. In any case, the protest began, spread to open defiance and finally to
armed rebellion, and the war came.
The revolutionary war was not the bloodiest in American history in absolute terms, but in
terms of its impact on the population, the percentage of people who participated and died, it
was a great war. It was fought badly for the most part on both sides, and although George
Washington was not a great general on the model of Napoleon, Julius Caesar or Robert E.
Lee, he managed to hold the cause together until the British tired of the game. With help
from the French and pressure from the other European nations, the British let go of their
rebellious cousins.
The second part of this chapter was the creation of a government and a nation. Compared
with conditions which have accompanied most modern revolutions, the Americans had the
extraordinary luxury of a period of six years during which Europe ignored the new nation.
Absent any threats from without, America was allowed to find its own constitutional
destiny. The original government created, the Articles of Confederation, could not have
lasted as the nation expanded—there was too little power at the center; something more
substantial, more permanent, more profound was required, and in Philadelphia in 1787 what
has been called a “miracle” was wrought, and the Constitution was written.
Under Washington’s leadership the new ship of state found its way, though the waters were
often rough and choppy. Turmoil erupted in Europe just as the new government under the
Constitution began, and the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars threatened the stability
of the nation. But with firm hands on the helm, the ship kept on course and did not
founder.
The first great test came in 1800, when political power changed hands peaceably for the
first time in the modern world. So tense had been the politics in the 1790's that at least one
historian has opined that the nation might have descended into civil war, had Jefferson's
Republicans not won the election of 1800. With that victory a new phase of American history
began—the Jeffersonian-Jacksonian era.
During Jefferson’s two terms as president the nation spread and prospered, but also slowly
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