Draft:Political history of the United States

Colonial government

Main article: Colonial government in the Thirteen Colonies

Establishment and government of colonies

A number of English colonies were established in America and in the West Indies during the first half of the 17th century, with varying attributes. Some originated as commercial ventures, such as the Virginia Colony, while others were founded for religious reasons, such as Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts Bay Colony and Rhode Island Colony. The governments of the colonies also varied. Virginia became a crown colony, despite its corporate beginning, while Massachusetts and other New England colonies had corporate charters and a great deal of administrative freedom. Other areas were proprietary colonies, such as Maryland and Carolina, owned and operated by one or a few individuals.

In colonial North America, governors were chosen in a variety of ways, depending on how the colony was organized. In the crown colonies of Great Britain, France, and Spain, the governor was chosen by the ruling monarch of the colonizing power, or his designees; in British colonies, the Board of Trade was often the primary decision maker. Colonies based on a corporate charter, such as the Connecticut Colony and the Massachusetts Bay Colony, elected their own governors based on rules spelled out in the charter or other colonial legislation. In proprietary colonies, such as the Province of Carolina before it became a crown colony (and was divided into North and South), governors were chosen by the Lords Proprietor who controlled the colony.

The executive branch included an advisory council to the governor that varied in size ranging from ten to thirty members. Members served "at pleasure" rather than for life or fixed terms. Examples included Virginia Governor's Council and Massachusetts Governor's Council. The governor's council also functioned as the upper house of the colonial legislature. The lower house of a colonial legislature was a representative assembly. These assemblies were called by different names. Virginia had a House of Burgesses, Massachusetts had a House of Deputies, and South Carolina had a Commons House of Assembly. As in Britain, the right to vote was limited to men with freehold "landed property sufficient to ensure that they were personally independent and had a vested interest in the welfare of their communities".

Attempts to unite the colonies

Following the English Restoration in 1660, King Charles II sought to streamline the administration of these colonial territories. Charles and his government began a process that brought a number of the colonies under direct crown control. One reason for these actions was the cost of administration of individual colonies, but another significant reason was the regulation of trade. Throughout the 1660s, the English Parliament passed a number of laws to regulate the trade of the colonies, collectively called the Navigation Acts. The American colonists resisted these laws, particularly in the New England colonies which had established significant trading networks with other English colonies and with European countries and their colonies.

Following the English Restoration in 1660, King Charles II sought to streamline the administration of these colonial territories. The Dominion of New England was subsequently established as an administrative union of English colonies covering all of New England and the Mid-Atlantic Colonies, with the exception of the Delaware Colony and the Province of Pennsylvania. The region's political structure was one of centralized control similar to the model used by the Spanish monarchy under the Viceroyalty of New Spain. The dominion was unacceptable to most colonists because they deeply resented being stripped of their rights and having their colonial charters revoked. Governor Edmund Andros tried to make legal and structural changes, but most of these were undone and the Dominion was overthrown as soon as word was received that King James II had left the throne in England after the Glorious Revolution in England reached Boston in 1689, and the Puritans launched the 1689 Boston revolt and Leisler's Rebellion in New York deposed the dominion's government. After these events, the colonies that had been assembled into the dominion reverted to their previous forms of government, although some governed formally without a charter. King William III of England and Queen Mary II eventually issued new charters.

The Albany Congress, called together to discuss better relations with the Native American tribes and common defensive measures against the French threat from Canada in the opening stage of the French and Indian War, was the first time in the 18th century that American colonial representatives met to discuss some manner of formal union. The Albany delegates spent most of their time debating Benjamin Franklin's Albany Plan of Union to create a unified level of colonial government. The delegates voted approval of a plan that called for a union of 11 colonies, with a president appointed by the British Crown. Each colonial assembly would send 2 to 7 delegates to a "grand council," which would have legislative powers. The Union would have jurisdiction over Indian affairs. The plan was rejected by the colonies' legislatures, which were protective of their independent charters, and by the Colonial Office, which wanted a military command.

The second gathering of elected representatives from British American colonies after the Albany Congress was in Stamp Act Congress of 1765. he Congress sought to devise a unified protest against new British taxes by the British Parliament, which passed the Stamp Act, requiring the use of specialty stamped British paper for legal documents and most other printed papers for virtually all business in the colonies. The delegates discussed and united against the act, issuing a Declaration of Rights and Grievances in which they claimed that Parliament did not have the right to impose the tax because it did not include any representation from the colonies. The economic issues prompted the British Parliament to repeal the Stamp Act, but it passed the Declaratory Act the same day, to express its opinion on the basic constitutional issues raised by the colonists; it stated that Parliament could make laws binding the American colonies "in all cases whatsoever."

Establishment of the United States

Preceding ideas and institutions

The American Enlightenment of the 18th century created a new emphasis on equality under the law, economic liberty, republicanism and religious tolerance. American republicanism emphasized consent of the governed, riddance of the aristocracy, and resistance towards corruption. It represented the convergence of classical republicanism and English republicanism (of 17th century Commonwealth men and 18th century English Country Whigs). The commitment of many Americans to these republican values contributed the American Revolution, as Britain was increasingly seen as corrupt and hostile to republicanism, and a threat to the established liberties the Americans enjoyed.

The committees of correspondence were, prior to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War, a collection of American political organizations that sought to coordinate opposition to British Parliament and, later, support for American independence. The brainchild of Samuel Adams, a Patriot from Boston, the committees sought to establish, through the writing of letters, an underground network of communication among Patriot leaders in the Thirteen Colonies. The committees were instrumental in setting up the First Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia.

American Revolution

The Intolerable Acts were a series of five punitive laws passed by the British Parliament in 1774 after the Boston Tea Party. The laws aimed to punish Massachusetts colonists for their defiance in the Tea Party protest of the Tea Act, a tax measure enacted by Parliament in May 1773. The Patriots viewed the acts as an arbitrary violation of the rights of Massachusetts, and in September 1774 they organized the First Continental Congress to coordinate a protest. The Congress's first action was the adoption of the Suffolk Resolves, a measure that included a declaration of grievances, called for a trade boycott of British goods, and urged each colony to set up and train its own militia. A less radical plan was then proposed to create a Union of Great Britain and the Colonies, but the delegates struck it from the record of their proceedings. They then agreed on a Declaration and Resolves that included the Continental Association, a proposal for an embargo on British trade. They also drew up a Petition to the King pleading for redress of their grievances and repeal of the Intolerable Acts. However, the King and Parliament rejected the appeals of the Congress.

Following the First Continental Congress, the British attempted to disarm the Americans, resulting in fighting at the Battle of Lexington on April 19, 1775 and in effect igniting the American Revolutionary War. In June, the Second Continental Congress formalized Patriot militias into the Continental Army and appointed George Washington its commander-in-chief. Congress sent the Olive Branch Petition to King George III in July 1775, but he rejected it, and the British Parliament declared the colonies to be in a state of rebellion in August. Each of the thirteen colonies also formed their own Provincial Congress, assuming power from former British-controlled colonial governments. On July 2, 1776, the Congress passed the Lee Resolution, which declared that the colonies considered themselves "free and independent states". Two days later, on July 4, 1776, the Congress unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration of Independence embodied the political philosophies of liberalism and republicanism and famously proclaimed that "all men are created equal".

The Treaty of Paris, signed in Paris by representatives of King George III on September 3, 1783, officially ended the American Revolutionary War and recognized the United States as an independent, sovereign nation. The treaty set the boundaries between British North America, later called Canada, and the United States, on lines the British labeled as "exceedingly generous". The terms were that the United States would gain all of the area east of the Mississippi River, north of present-day Florida, and south of present-day Canada. The Congress of the Confederation, operating as the legislative body of the newly established United States, ratified the Treaty of Paris on January 14, 1784, in Annapolis, Maryland, in the Old Senate Chamber of the Maryland State House, which made Annapolis the first peacetime capital of the new United States; the capital was subsequently moved to Philadelphia and then relocated to Washington, D.C. in 1800.

Independent United States

During the American Revolution, the 13 American states replaced their colonial governments with republican constitutions based on the principle of separation of powers, organizing government into legislative, executive, and judicial branches. These revolutionary constitutions endorsed legislative supremacy by placing most power in the legislature, which was viewed as most representative of the people, including power traditionally considered as belonging to the executive and judicial branches. State governors lacked significant authority, and state courts and judges were under the control of the legislative branch at the time.

The Articles of Confederation established a loose confederation of states with a weak confederal government. The document provided clearly written rules for how the states' unification, known as the Perpetual Union, would be organized. Little changed procedurally once the Articles of Confederation went into effect, as ratification did little more than constitutionalize what the Continental Congress had been doing. That body was renamed the Congress of the Confederation, whose members were chosen by their state legislatures and where each state was entitled to one vote. Congress's powers were limited to waging war and directing foreign affairs. It could not levy taxes or tariffs, and it could only request money from the states and could not force delinquent states to pay.

Since the Articles could only be amended by a unanimous vote of the states, each state had effective veto power over any proposed change. A super majority (nine of thirteen state delegations) was required for Congress to pass major legislation such as declaring war, making treaties, or borrowing money. The Confederation had no executive or judicial branches, which meant the Confederation government lacked effective means to enforce its own laws and treaties against state non-compliance. It soon became evident to nearly all that the Confederation government, as originally organized, was inadequate for managing the various problems confronting the United States. As the government's weaknesses became apparent, especially after Shays' Rebellion, some prominent political thinkers in the fledgling union began asking for changes to the Articles.

In September 1786, delegates from five states met at the Annapolis Convention and invited all states to a larger convention to be held in Philadelphia in 1787. The Confederation Congress later endorsed this convention "for the sole and express purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation". This Constitutional Convention took place in Philadelphia from May 25 to September 17, 1787. Although the convention was intended to revise the Articles of Confederation, the intention from the outset of many of its proponents, chief among them James Madison of Virginia and Alexander Hamilton of New York, was to create a new Frame of Government rather than fix the existing one. Several broad outlines were proposed and debated, most notably Madison's Virginia Plan and William Paterson's New Jersey Plan. The Virginia Plan was selected as the basis for the new government, and the delegates quickly reached consensus on a general blueprint of a federal government with three branches (legislative, executive, and judicial) along with the basic role of each branch. The result of the convention was the creation of the Constitution of the United States.

The Constitution's first three articles embodied the doctrine of the separation of powers, whereby the federal government was divided into three branches: the legislative, consisting of the bicameral Congress (Article I); the executive, consisting of the president and subordinate officers (Article II); and the judicial, consisting of the Supreme Court and other federal courts (Article III). Article IV, Article V, and Article VI embodied concepts of federalism, describing the rights and responsibilities of state governments, the states in relationship to the federal government, and the shared process of constitutional amendment. Article VII established the procedure subsequently used by the 13 states to ratify it. Since the Constitution was ratified in 1789, the first ten amendments, known collectively as the Bill of Rights, offered specific protections of individual liberty and justice and place restrictions on the powers of government within the U.S. states.

Political history of the early United States, 1789-

Upon taking office in 1789, President Washington nominated his wartime chief of staff Alexander Hamilton to the new office of Secretary of the Treasury. Hamilton wanted a strong national government with financial credibility. Hamilton proposed the ambitious Hamiltonian economic program that involved assumption of the state debts incurred during the American Revolution, creating a national debt and the means to pay it off and setting up a national bank. The Federalist Party supported Hamilton's vision of a strong centralized government and agreed with his proposals for a national bank and heavy government subsidies and was the first political party in the United States. Parties were generally considered to be divisive and harmful to republicanism at the time and no similar parties existed anywhere in the world.

First party system, 1787–1828

Main article: First Party System

As the Federalists moved to amend the Articles, eventually leading to the Constitutional Convention, they applied the term anti-federalist to their opposition. The Anti-Federalists were composed of diverse elements that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government and which later opposed the ratification of the 1787 Constitution. Though the Constitution was ratified and supplanted the Articles of Confederation, Anti-Federalist influence helped lead to the passage of the Bill of Rights. With the passage of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the Anti-Federalist movement was exhausted. Some activists joined the Anti-Administration Party that James Madison and Thomas Jefferson were forming about 1790–91 to oppose the policies of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton; this group soon became the Democratic-Republican Party.

The Republicans and the opposing Federalist Party each became more cohesive during Washington's second term, partly as a result of the debate over the Jay Treaty. Though he was defeated by Federalist John Adams in the 1796 presidential election, Jefferson and his Republican allies came into power following the 1800 elections. As president, Jefferson presided over a reduction in the national debt and government spending, and completed the Louisiana Purchase with France. Madison succeeded Jefferson as president in 1809 and led the country during the largely inconclusive War of 1812 with Britain. After the war, Madison and his congressional allies established the Second Bank of the United States and implemented protective tariffs, marking a move away from the party's earlier emphasis on states' rights and a strict construction of the United States Constitution. The Federalists collapsed after 1815, beginning a period known as the Era of Good Feelings.

Lacking an effective opposition, the Republicans split into rival groups after the 1824 presidential election: one faction supported President John Quincy Adams, while another faction backed General Andrew Jackson. Jackson has ran for president and won a plurality of the popular and electoral vote, but no candidate won the electoral majority. With the help of Henry Clay, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams in a contingent election. Jackson's supporters alleged that there was a "corrupt bargain" between Adams and Clay and began creating their own political organization that would eventually become the Democratic Party, while supporters of Adams became known as the National Republican Party, which itself later merged into the Whig Party.

Second party system, 1828–

Main article: Second Party System

Jackson ran again in 1828, defeating Adams in a landslide. In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act. This act, which has been described as ethnic cleansing, displaced tens of thousands of Native Americans from their ancestral homelands east of the Mississippi and resulted in thousands of deaths. Jackson faced a challenge to the integrity of the federal union when South Carolina threatened to nullify a high protective tariff set by the federal government. He threatened the use of military force to enforce the tariff, but the crisis was defused when it was amended. In 1832, he vetoed a bill by Congress to reauthorize the Second Bank of the United States, arguing that it was a corrupt institution. After a lengthy struggle, the Bank was dismantled.

By the end of the 1820s, attitudes and state laws had shifted in favor of universal white male suffrage. This so-called Jacksonian democracy was characterized by a democratic spirit. It built upon Jackson's equal political policy, subsequent to ending what he termed a monopoly of government by elites. Jacksonian democracy also promoted the strength of the presidency and the executive branch at the expense of the United States Congress, while also seeking to broaden the public's participation in government. The Jacksonians demanded elected, not appointed, judges and rewrote many state constitutions to reflect the new values. In national terms, they favored geographical expansionism, justifying it in terms of manifest destiny. There was usually a consensus among both Jacksonians and Whigs that battles over slavery should be avoided.Jackson's expansion of democracy was largely limited to European Americans, and voting rights were extended to adult white males only, however.

Manifest Destiny remained heavily divisive in politics, causing constant conflict with regards to slavery in these new states and territories. Sectional politics over slavery in the United States were preventing annexation because Texas, formerly a slavery-free territory under Mexican rule, would have been admitted as a slave state, upsetting the balance of power between Northern free states and Southern slave states. In the 1844 United States presidential election, Democrat James K. Polk was elected on a platform of expanding U.S. territory to Oregon, California (also a Mexican territory), and Texas by any means. This was followed by the 1846 Oregon boundary dispute and the 1845 annexation of Texas as a slave state, culminating in the 1846 Mexican–American War. In contrast, the large majority of Whigs and prominent Republicans (such as Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant) rejected the concept and campaigned against these actions.