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Reconstruction or Industrialisation?

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  Quote Nick1986 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Reconstruction or Industrialisation?
    Posted: 07-Jun-2012 at 19:13
It has to be industrialisation. Without mass-produced guns and railroads it would have taken the whites centuries to conquer the West
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Apr-2007 at 19:08
i love you too!
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Apr-2007 at 16:55
Originally posted by pikeshot1600

Originally posted by es_bih

I presume someone wants a freebie paper by making a thread on a topic similar to it?
 
Hmmmm...it looks like that may be it.  There has been an unusual concentration on the "slave trade" 1808.  It may just be concentration on the subject of choice.
 
Are we accepting of papers these days written from internet discussion groups, or do we still need actual sources?  (Maybe that question should go unanswered Smile )
 
 
 
LOL
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Apr-2007 at 09:40
Originally posted by es_bih

I presume someone wants a freebie paper by making a thread on a topic similar to it?
 
Hmmmm...it looks like that may be it.  There has been an unusual concentration on the "slave trade" 1808.  It may just be concentration on the subject of choice.
 
Are we accepting of papers these days written from internet discussion groups, or do we still need actual sources?  (Maybe that question should go unanswered Smile )
 
 
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 22:22
I presume someone wants a freebie paper by making a thread on a topic similar to it?
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 19:24
no!, i ment, i want to state a few thing i read online...

I fowarded your response to someone i know that was a history monster! so he sent me this.., I dont understand half that is there! its crazY! i wanted for you to simplify this to me and explain to me whats going on.., what do you think? can you help? please please please
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 18:55
Well, SugarTEa, why ask questions when you know all about it?
 
Sorry to have so misled you. 
 
 


Edited by pikeshot1600 - 10-Apr-2007 at 19:16
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 17:25
Well i've been really getting into this thread... i wanted to state a few things..

The Act of Confederation and the Continental Congress failed for a series of signal faults in the governmental form. There was no coherent executive, separate from the authority of the legislature. The states could not be compelled to supply revenue, and there was no taxing power, so the Congress only had the funds which were voluntarily given in by the states upon which to operate. That accounted in large measure for the inability to keep a large and effective army in the field despite generous human and material resources. Without Washington, it is doubtful that the "nation" could have kept up a creditable military opposition to the Crown--and the people damned well knew it, too, which is one of the reasons why Washington was so highly respected. Finally, all that states has an equal vote in that Congress, which further hampered the revenue generating ability of the body, because small population states could not easily contribute an equal amount of revenue, and large population states were not going to agree to a formula which derived revenue based on population, while denying them proportional representation with which to have some control over the manner of the disbursement of the revenue.

The ability to organize finances and generate revenue were crucial to an effective government. Contrary to a popular and simple minded formula, the Congress created by the Constitution was not modeled on the English Parliament with its House of Commons and House of Lords. The only state delegation which arrived at the Constitutional Convention with a plan was Virginia. The Virginia plan called for a legislature of a single house, with representation proportional to population, and an executive committee. The former would have virtually made the small population states subservient to the large population states, and the latter would have created a weak executive unable to challenge the power of the purse strings in the legislature. The comprise worked out was to have a two house legislature. All money bills would originate in the House of Representatives, chosen on the basis of population proportion, while powers of sovereignty would reside in the Senate, where all states had equal representation. Therefore, appointments to the executive branch must be approved by the Senate, and treaties must be ratified by two thirds of the Senate--thereby preserving the sovereignty of the states as it existed before they were truly united by the Constitution. Finally, the Electoral College assured that small population states would have more of a voice in the choice of the chief magistrate (the President) than were implied merely by the population of each state.

When you write: The Confederation was a failure, too much particularism making it barely workable . . . i suspect you are just parroting something you read, and that you don't actually understand what that sentence implies. Either that, or you expressed yourself badly.

The colonials thought of themselves as Englishmen, but felt wronged by the Crown, whatever the reasons for that feeling.--This completely abdicates the responsibility to understand why the revolution took place. It was not inevitable. A careful policy by George III might not only have prevented a revolution, but might even have never given the colonists any reason to consider rebellion. The date 1763 is significant because the Treaty of Paris ended two wars which were actually two sides of the same coin. The French and Indian War actually began first, in North America, when George Washington signed a document in which he acknowledged that he had killed a French ambassador--and he signed it because he didn't read French and didn't know what he was signing. Washington was only 22 years old, and commanded a small force of Virginia militia and a Royal American company which refused to take orders from a mere militia officer. A French officer named Jumonville had decided to scout the position, and he and a band of Indians had hidden in a grove near Washington's Fort Necessity. Indians with Washington warned him, and they went into the woods, and launched a surprise attack on Jumonville's little band, and Jumonville was killed. Subsequently, Jumonville's brother lead a force of French and Indians to attack Washington's little force in Great Meadows, and due his lack of experience, Washington agreed to terms of surrender, although, had he known it, Coulon the Villiers, the French commander, was on the point of withdrawing because he knew he could not successfully assualt the position. In the surrender document, Coulon de Villiers included an admission that a French ambassador (his brother Jumonville) had been murdered. There was a Dutchman with the American force, who translated the French document, and read assassinat (murder) as "killed," and Washington was honest enough to admit that Jumonville had been killed.

The French used this as an excuse to declare war in North America, but not in Europe. The unfortunate result for the French was that they lost their North American colony. In 1760, the same year that the French were finally defeated in Canada, George II died. Three years after the French and Indian War had begun in 1754, the Seven Years War had broken out in Europe. The Prussian King, Frederick II (known as Frederick the Great) had begun his career as King in 1740 by attacking Austria, and taking Silesia away from the new Archduchess of Austria, Maria Teresa, whose father had died a few months after Fredericks father. She never forgave him. She had an adviser named von Kaunitz who became her chancellor in the early 1750s. He worked tirelessly to form a coalition against Frederick, and for once, Frederick was caught napping--he didn't see it coming. In 1757, Kaunitz managed a seemingly impossible alliance between France and Austria (they were traditional enemies) to which he joined the Russian Empress, Elizabeth. For the next seven years, Frederick fought for the very life of his kingdom.

England supported Frederick, because they did not want to see France become powerful at the expense of Prussia, and because the King of England was still also the ruler of Hanover, which the French hoped to take away from them. The English sent troops to Hanover, and they spent literally millions to keep the Prussians in the fight. In his deepest, darkest hour, Frederick was the beneficiary of what must have seemed like a miracle. The Empress Elizabeth died, and her son (a congenital idiot) was a great admirer of Frederick (he used to run around the palace in a Prussian uniform), and he withdrew the Russians from the alliance. Frederick had a brief breathing spell--the Emperor Peter III was murdered six months later, at the instigation of his wife, Ekaterina, who was to become the Empress Catherine the Great. But Frederick improved on the opportunity, and marched with a Russian army, which had orders not to fight the Austrians. But the Austrians didn't know that, and Frederick was able to force the Austrians to come to terms.

Why should any of this be important to America? Well, the English Parliament had spent a fortune to keep the Prussians in the war, and had spent a good deal to fight the French in North America. They therefore needed to make up the revenue. It was pretty certain that a Parliament filled with land owners or their paid politicians was not going to vote to increase the property tax, and those members of Parliament who were not land owners were merchants or represented merchants, so they were not going to increase the excise. The fatal decision was that they would enforce the tax on sugar in North America, and that they would pass other revenue measures to get the money out of the Americans.

That was just part one, but i'll explain it before i go on to part two. There had always been a tax on sugar, and the Americans had always ignored it. Originally, the Sugar and Molasses Act had imposed a tax of six pence on a gallon of imported molasses, to assure that the molasses from English islands in the West Indies would be bought, and not molasses from the French islands. This was important, too, because New Englanders bought a whole hell of a lot of molasses, to make rum, which they then smuggled into Europe--and it made them rich. They'd make rum, sell some of it in England, but most of it was smuggled into England and Holland. Then they'd use the proceeds to buy cheap trade goods, and sail to West Africa, where they'd buy slaves. Then they'd sail for the West Indies, sell the slaves, buy molasses and begin the process all over again.

However, the English islands did not produce enough molasses to meet the demands of England and the colonies, so, for many generations, New Englanders had smuggled molasses, and had bribed local officials to look the other way. The Sugar Act of 1764 actually lowered the tax on molasses, but it also came with new enforcement measures. The Royal Navy sent ships to stop the smuggling, and admiralty courts were set up to try those accused of smuggling. Previously, if someone were actually caught, they would go before a local jury which inevitably let them off. The colonists howled.

When George Frederick William, who would become King George III was a boy, his father, Frederick, Prince of Wales, died. King George II and the Prince of Wales had never gotten along, and the King's grandson, George, had lead a rather bleak and lonely life as a boy. He was thirteen when is father died (from an injury), and suddenly he was the heir to the throne. His mother, the Dowager Princess of Wales, did not like her father-in-law, and did not trust him, and she hired John Stuart, Earl of Bute, to be George's tutor and companion. The Earl of Bute was rather a misanthropic sort himself, and his friends were mostly army officers. George had never been "out in society," and Lord Bute now took him around to meet his military friends.

George II died in 1760, at the height of two wars on either side of the Atlantic, and George III took the throne, just 22 years of age. He made the Earl of Bute his Prime Minister as soon as he decently do so. It was a big mistake. The Earl of Bute was a firm believer in the divine right of Kings, and he despised the Americans. After the war, a lot of his buddies were out of a job, now that the war was over. In those days, England did not keep a large standing army, so when a war ended, officers (who were never paid much to begin with) were put on half-pay, so they could be called back if they were needed. That wasn't enough money to live in style (and for lower ranking officers, it wasn't even enough to live on). So the Earl of Bute and George came up with what they thought was a brillian way to find work for their friends, and to kill a second bird with the same stone. The war had pointed up the need for troops permanent stationed in America, so the Parliament authorized the raising of Royal American troops in the colonies. Additionally, the Lords of Trade (a committee appointed by Parliament to govern the colonies) had decided that the Americans should be prevented from crossing the mountains to the west, and that that region should be kept free of colonists. It was a practical, and a cynical decision. With the French out of the picture, the English had a good chance to corner the market on beaver pelts, a very rich product of North America. The Hudson's Bay Company, founded in 1670 by Charles II, had long been making a handful of people rich in England, and was virtually a sovereign power unto itself. Now, the region of the Great Lakes which the French had always exploited for furs was open to England, and a good many men in Parliament saw a chance to make themselves as rich as the Moncks and Churchills and others who had gotten in on the ground floor of the Hudson's Bay Company.

So, two things happened which pissed off Americans who had otherwise been loyal subjects, and who would have likely remained loyal subjects, had George III and Lord Bute not been such idiots. The Americans had spent a lot of blood and treasure to fight for George II in the French and Indian War. They deeply resented having a tax burden put on them to pay for the King's military ventures in Germany, which they saw as simply done to keep Hanover safe. They also resented all these officers and new companies of Royal Americans descending upon them when they had protected themselves for over 150 years without very damned much help from London, thank you very much.

Things went from bad to worse. Read about the Quartering Act, and the riots in New York as a result. Read about the Stamp Act, the Boston Port Act, and what the Americans called the "Intolerable Acts." The Americans howled about paying the Sugar tax, because they had always gotten away with not paying it before. But the Stamp Act was a different matter altogether, and they objected to it because they were not represented in the Parliament which had passed it. Parliament told them they were "virtually represented." Parliament repealed the Stamp Act, but they then passed the Declaratory Act, in which they stated that they were competent to legislate in any matters at all relating to the colonies.

Things went pretty rapidly from bad to worse. Just about everything the government in London could do to make matters worse, they did. Just about everything rabble-rousers like Sam Adams could do to imflame people's anger, they did. The revolution need never have happened, and a careful study of the period from 1763 to 1775 will teach anyone a good deal about practical politics, and the politics of rebellion.

When you continually refer to "the industrial revolution," you make it sound as though it were some discrete event which took place in America at some point between 1763 and 1877. It wasn't. The origins of the "industrial revolution" stretch back to 1200, when Europe began to get colder, and architecture and textile manufacture to deal with the situation became important. Several events took place between 1200 and the present (the "industrial revolution" has never ended) which were significant, and had nothing to do with North America. The use of steam engines to pump water from deep mines beginning in 1712 is often cited as the beginning of the "industrial revolution," while other people point to the use of steam engines in cotton and wool mills in the 1760s--something else which has nothing to do with North America. Others point to the proliferation of railroads--something which becomes important in North America after 1877, at the end of Grant's second term as President.

History teachers throw around phrases like "particularism" and "industrial revolution" because they aren't really well educated in the subjects they teach, and they want to make it simple for students who don't care about the subject. The students don't care because the text books are badly written and their teachers are too ignorant to make it interesting to them.

You could spend the rest of your life reading enough to understand the period 1763-1877 in American history. Probably, though, if your textbook and teacher are slinging around terms such as "particularism" and "industrial revolution," the best thing you can do is throw them right back, and learn to make it look as though you know what you're writing about.
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 16:26
Hey PikeShot..., check it..

There are missing links between Washington's administration after 1787 and the defeat of Quincy Adams in 1828. These were important years. Why? How much did the emerging politics of a novel government affect the newly-minted Americans? Who was it that brought victory to Jefferson in 1800?
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 15:15
yeah man, i hope there is a world recognized historian as a member or something hahaha...
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 15:01
SugarTEa,
 
Whoa!  I think you might want to take (or audit) a course in 19th century American history.  Many, many questions there....and good questions.
 
I can try to address a few:
 
The colonials thought of themselves as Englishmen, but felt wronged by the Crown, whatever the reasons for that feeling.  The governments of the colonies were not uniform, and evolved by necessity over the century and a half before the war for independence.  They colonials did what they had to do in the 17th century as they could not "call home" for advice when a problem or a conflict arose.  However, English common law, in substance, obtained in all the English colonies.  After independence, why not continue what had worked for them before?
 
The Confederation was a failure, too much particularism making it barely workable (I don't think it would have lasted long anyway).  A Constitutional movement, and the Convention, were a way of addressing the questions of governance by attempting to get as much concensus as possible.  Writing it all down seemed helpful, major collective issues were addressed, it gained acceptance, and most local issues were left to the several states to deal with as they had before.
 
Jackson's election was more symbolic than substantive, BUT, it did show that a "new American" was 1) electable, and 2) acceptable to the republic.  This new American was often self-made; up-by-the-bootstraps, often not from privilege or wealth, and the election of Jackson reflected the shift of all influence away from the northeast states, and even Virginia.  The Westerners now had to be taken into consideration.
 
Someone else will have to address the Bank issues.
 
I don't know where you are, but Americans have been dealing with the Manifest Destiny (a newspaper phrase) question for a long time.  Frankly, the country was going to grow.  It had to grow where it could, and it did so.  California was habitable in 1850; Colorado and Nevada and Arizona not so much.  The trade of the Orient could only be accessed by the ports of the west coast.  It was going to happen, and nothing was going to stop it.  So, I guess the phrease was actually quite correct. 
 
Maybe others can also chime in on all this and your questions.  It is a good thread.
 
 
 
 
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 14:53
Mahrabbal..., also i wrote that last response because That last post is almost unreadable, and I haven't the faintest idea of what your point is nor how it relates to the question I had at hand. The focus in on 1763-1877. You are all over the map
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 14:36
okay, i understand about the civil war mostly..., but i have another question for maharbbal...

what about before 1865, like from 1763-1865..., how would you characterize the  societal and political changes in America? What would you say were the primary factors and influences that determined these changes? Were they simple modifications of existing structures and traditions or did they represent a radical departure from earlier periods?
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  Quote Maharbbal Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 14:09
Ok I don't the begining of the slightest answer to your numerous and specific questions but here is understanding for the causes of the civil war and the main point of socio-economic change in the US from 1830 to 1900: the new bipolaristation of the country (East coast/West coast as opposed to North/South).

Indeed the US are particular in the sense that 1)they have no urban history roughly before the 1750s as opposed to the other continents and thus are path-dependency-free 2) are a unified country and thus no more than one or two major city can live on its administrative captation of the country's wealth.

In this type of things the first comer take it all. See for instance cities like Paris, London or even Bagdad or Tokyo have never seen their position as the country's #1 administrative, political, industrial, commercial capitale contested by another town. This is because of the law of the increasing returns (one factory settle in a point A so this same point A will have a comparative advantage as a location for any footloose industry, etc).

Only California was sufficiently new, afar and different to slowly rise as a competitor to the NE region. On the contrary, the economic and cultural environment of the South never gave it a chance to concurence the North's lead. Yet it wasn't ready to see its wealth fading away without standing a good fight ie a good war.

A bit as if all the US economy was suddenly shifting to Mexico, the US would fight to try to get back by military means what it failed to conserved by economic one.
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 13:45
[/QUOTE]This is a good topic, because the period you indicate made the US what it is.
 
There was not that much change from 1760 to about the 1830s.  Economic activity and interests revolved mostly around agriculture, and on the east coast, trade.  Major changes in society, and also in politics were centered in the expanding population and its movement west of the Allegheny mountains.  A large part of this movement was down the Ohio River to the new western territories, and away from New England and the commercial interests there, and from the landed interests of the South.  Most of the migrants west were freehold farmers, and concerned for their interests, not those of the "cocked hats" of the East.
 
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was the first westerner elected president, indicating a change was underway.
 
By the 1840s, the next major change was underway - the immigration of large numbers of Welsh, and especially Irish newcomers.  The potato blight in Ireland was a spur to immigration, and the developing iron founding industry in the northeast US needed labor, particularly miners.  this changed the character of the population in a couple of ways - Irish were overwhelmingly Catholic, and changed the size and the makeup of cities, and those cities were in the North to start.  Population growth was starting to leave the South behind.
 
The nature of the US Constitution allocates political power mostly according to population, but the number of new states also had an impact.  Were these states to be "slave" states, or free?  Opinion on that had changed overall to the point that the South saw its influence deteriorating.  Both economic and social factors were driving the North/West and the South apart.  compromise, which had worked for decades, failed in 1860, and the Civil War resulted.  That ended southern political power until recent times. 
 
I have always thought of the Civil War as the true American Revolution; the war for independence being a civil war among Englishmen to validate what already existed - that we had run our own affairs independent of the English Crown (3,000 mile and several months away) for 150 years.  I don't know what others think.
 
Anyway, the War industrialized the US of necessity, and the entire nature of America changed from 1865 to about 1880.  People who had never been 20 miles from home in an agricultural society became somewhat more mobile.  Some moved west; more came as immigrants and found work in the shops and factories and mines and on the railroads that were not there much before 1860. 
 
The industrialization of the 1860s was war-related.  In the 1870s and 1880s, not so.  But the basis was there.  The modern US had been born by about 1880, we just didn't know it til about 1900.
 
Hope this helps. [/QUOTE]

Hmm...
I was reading over this post which was very helpful, But I noticed a few things and was pondering a few questions in my head. Your approach so far in dealing with the War of American Independence is very thin. the "societal and political changes in America" thereafter largely stem from that struggle and the political changes from it. The Colonists believed that their ancient English Rights had been violated, but what drove them to that conclusion? With independence, why did the Colonists not set up a governing system similar to that of England? Think Enlightenment and the changes that had occurred in England/Europe from the middle 17th century onward.

What happened in the lives of Americans in the wake of Independence? What about the resulting failures of the Confederation, to address the problems of the newly independent States, and how the economy was affected? Even more Revolutionary was the Constitution. Why did the Founders feel it was necessary? What other choices might they have tried? How did the Constitution come to assume the form that it did?The Founders tended to be well-educated men of property. How did that affect their thinking when drafting a new government? The U.S. Constitution was based largely on a Roman model, but even so represented an entirely new way of structuring government. The strengths and weaknesses of that structure are with us still. In the early Republic, say up until 1828, Americans were still trying to adapt themselves to new ways of governing. The rise of a two-Party system wasn't intentional, but wasn't it inevitable?

!!!!Why was Jackson's election so important to the direction that later followed?!!!! How and why was Jacksons war against the Bank so important, and how did that affect the American social and political environment.
Why didn't slavery die out as the Founders believed that it would? What drove American expansion into the Northwest Territories, into Florida and into Texas? You seem to be saying that it was population pressure. Is that all it was, or did Americans somehow begin to dream of Manifest Destiny? Why didn't compromise over slavery work (think both politics and social expectations)??..


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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 10-Apr-2007 at 09:55
Originally posted by SugarTEa

There was not that much change from 1760 to about the 1830s.

SO You think the Slave Trade in 1808 had nothing to do with any shaping of America? Or maybe actually King Phillips War?

If so, why?
[/QUOTE]
 
Congress prohibited the IMPORTATION of slaves in 1807.  Slavery still existed where it had before until 1865.  Economic realities did not encourage further prohibition until the exertions of the war made it inevitable politically.
 
I am not expert on economic history, but I recall that general trends in Southern agriculture around 1800 were making slave labor uneconomical...far too labor intensive (not wages, but too many people to feed).  Then, the development and distribution of the cotton gin had the effect of making the production of cotton fiber profitable enough to keep the economic, and social, model of the South as it had been.  (EDIT:  I mean the dominant social/political model, not the huge number of small freeholders in the South who did their own farming...you can't eat cotton) 
 
So, to a small degree industrial change (actually technological change) had an effect on RETARDING Southern development.  While in the mid-19th century, the North was beginning to develop industries like ferrous metals, mining and railroads, the South was developing only minimally.  Immigration fueled population growth, factories and capital were created in the North, and the South remained almost totally agrarian and underdeveloped.
 
I don't think the Act of 1807 had much impact on the "shaping" of America.  America started to shape with the movement away from the east coast of population (politics), and with the creeping industrialization (economy) that began to change the whole society up through the Civil War.  The more profound "shaping" was in the several decades after 1860.
 
About King Phillip's War, I have no idea.
 
 


Edited by pikeshot1600 - 10-Apr-2007 at 10:11
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2007 at 22:26
There was not that much change from 1760 to about the 1830s. [/QUOTE]
SO You think the Slave Trade in 1808 had nothing to do with any shaping of America? Or maybe actually King Phillips War?

If so, why?
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  Quote pikeshot1600 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2007 at 20:30
Originally posted by SugarTEa

oh ok, i understand now...

Another question though..  1760s to 1880s, In America, what were main societal and political changes during this time?
 
This is a good topic, because the period you indicate made the US what it is.
 
There was not that much change from 1760 to about the 1830s.  Economic activity and interests revolved mostly around agriculture, and on the east coast, trade.  Major changes in society, and also in politics were centered in the expanding population and its movement west of the Allegheny mountains.  A large part of this movement was down the Ohio River to the new western territories, and away from New England and the commercial interests there, and from the landed interests of the South.  Most of the migrants west were freehold farmers, and concerned for their interests, not those of the "cocked hats" of the East.
 
In 1828, Andrew Jackson was the first westerner elected president, indicating a change was underway.
 
By the 1840s, the next major change was underway - the immigration of large numbers of Welsh, and especially Irish newcomers.  The potato blight in Ireland was a spur to immigration, and the developing iron founding industry in the northeast US needed labor, particularly miners.  this changed the character of the population in a couple of ways - Irish were overwhelmingly Catholic, and changed the size and the makeup of cities, and those cities were in the North to start.  Population growth was starting to leave the South behind.
 
The nature of the US Constitution allocates political power mostly according to population, but the number of new states also had an impact.  Were these states to be "slave" states, or free?  Opinion on that had changed overall to the point that the South saw its influence deteriorating.  Both economic and social factors were driving the North/West and the South apart.  compromise, which had worked for decades, failed in 1860, and the Civil War resulted.  That ended southern political power until recent times. 
 
I have always thought of the Civil War as the true American Revolution; the war for independence being a civil war among Englishmen to validate what already existed - that we had run our own affairs independent of the English Crown (3,000 mile and several months away) for 150 years.  I don't know what others think.
 
Anyway, the War industrialized the US of necessity, and the entire nature of America changed from 1865 to about 1880.  People who had never been 20 miles from home in an agricultural society became somewhat more mobile.  Some moved west; more came as immigrants and found work in the shops and factories and mines and on the railroads that were not there much before 1860. 
 
The industrialization of the 1860s was war-related.  In the 1870s and 1880s, not so.  But the basis was there.  The modern US had been born by about 1880, we just didn't know it til about 1900.
 
Hope this helps.
 
 


Edited by pikeshot1600 - 10-Apr-2007 at 10:13
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  Quote SugarTEa Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 09-Apr-2007 at 02:06
oh ok, i understand now...

Another question though..  1760s to 1880s, In America, what were main societal and political changes during this time?
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06-Apr-2007 at 00:55
Originally posted by SugarTEa

Why was the Civil War caused by the Industrialization?


 
The Industrialization was partially the cause of the American Civil War due to split consensus and polarization of two interest groups of vast political importance, the north had its industrialists who found no favor in slavery nor in following the Jeffersonian dream of an agrarian nation, they were factory owners, they saw the potential in industrializing, and in turn improving their financial lot as well. On the other hand the south had largely an agrarian mind set, the Jeffersonian model *excluding the slavery AFAIK* followed a simple national theory. Cities should be minuscule and few and far between, agrarianism should be dominant in the new young nation, the United States and its citizens should be agrarian based, the cities serve administrative functions. That is a typical  outlook of many in the pre-Industrialization age. He falsely foresaw that the agrarian based economy would be dominant, therefore, the United States should follow that route. In the south such a theory found acceptance, as the plantations and individual lots supported that theory, to them they saw themselves and their industry as the future, of course just like the Industrial barons of the north, the agrarian ones of the south looked to their own pockets. Such a drastic change would mean that the significance of their industry would reduce, with that of course their income as well; not to mention their political influence. The two camps defiantly lobbied. Both won in the lobby category as the Civil War sparked off, the agrarians in the end lost, and the United States is the Industrial power of the world today.
 
PS: I am not claiming that to be the main, or only reason, just one of the major reasons for the start of the Civil War.
 
 
 
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