Unformatted text preview: U.S. History I: United States History 1607-1865
Text for History 121 Northern Virginia Community College
Extended Learning Institute
Third Edition
Revised and Updated, June 2010 Associate Professor Henry J. Sage
Academic American History
10509 Old Colchester Road
Lorton, Virginia 22079
Copyright © Henry J. Sage, 2007-2010 i This text by Henry J. Sage is published by Academic American History through Lulu,
Inc., an online, print-on-demand service ( ). The text is based on the
web site created by the author at Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC),
1995-2008. The history content is also located at , a
web site maintained by the author.
This edition of the text is structured for History 121, Early American History, taught
online through the NVCC Extended Learning Institute. It may be updated and augmented during the course of each semester. Announcements about all updates affecting NVCC courses will be posted on the course web site and linked from the NVCC
Blackboard course management system. The content parallels From Colonies to
Free Nation: United States History 1607-1865, also available through Lulu.
Students who purchase this text should be aware that while all course content is
contained herein, they should nevertheless check for announcements in Blackboard
regularly for additions or changes in assignments. Links to additional support pages
may be found on the course web site at .
Email the author/instructor: [email protected] H.J. Sage
Copyright © 2007-2010 Henry J. Sage
Printed in the United States of America.
All rights reserved. Published by
Academic American History
10509 Old Colchester Road
Lorton, Virginia 22079
About the Author: Henry J. Sage is professor emeritus of history at Northern Virginia Community College. He received his B.S. in Engineering in 1962 from the United States Naval Academy. He earned a Diplom in German Language, Culture and History from the University of
Heidelberg in 1968, an M.A. in History from Clark University in 1974, and an M.A. in American
Literature from the University of Maryland in 1986. He has taught history at The College of the
Holy Cross, the University of Maryland (Far East Division) and at George Mason University. Mr.
Sage served in the Marine Corps until his retirement in 1981. His tours of duty included Marine
Corps Headquarters; the Pentagon; Marine Corps Schools, Quantico, Virginia; U.S. Army Artillery School, Fort Sill, Oklahoma; 1st Marine Division, Vietnam; 2d Marine Division, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; 3rd Marine Division, Okinawa, Japan; the Navy ROTC unit at the College of
the Holy Cross, Worcester, Massachusetts.
Cover Photo: The San Jacinto Memorial near Houston, Texas, taken by the author. ii Preface
Welcome to Academic American History: Early American History, 1607-1865. This textbook
is the print version of course content published on the Academic American History web site,
. The site contains links to information about recommended
readings, historic sites and other sources of historic interest.
This text is offered as a convenience for online students, for whom this is the only required
text. The alternative to using this text involves downloading and printing identical material
from the web site. To save you time, Lulu publishing prints the book to order for each buyer. The link for this and other texts by the author is . As the author I
add a small royalty fee, which goes toward maintenance of the Academic American History
web site and donations to Northern Virginia Community College.
This volume is not a rigorously researched and constructed formal textbook. Rather, it is the
product of my thirty plus years of teaching American history at several different colleges
and universities, starting at the College of the Holy Cross in 1971. My lectures, and this
text, have been influenced by America’s finest historians. The documentation in this book is
necessarily slender, for to reassemble a bibliographic record of those years would be quite a
challenge.
Where materials from any work are quoted directly, the source is clearly indicated. They
generally refer to authors whose ideas have struck me as particularly interesting. On the
companion web site you will find useful links and recommended books that I have found especially helpful in understanding American history. Most of the graphics have come from
open source locations on the Web such as Google images and various government sites
such as the Library of Congress and the National Archives. I have also included my own
photographs where appropriate.
Much of what you will find here is the product of my own thinking and necessarily includes
opinions with which others may disagree. It is essentially what my students heard during
my years of teaching in the classroom. It also includes their thoughts and ideas, expressed
in class discussions and in examinations and essays written over the years. My online students at Northern Virginia Community College continue to make valuable contributions. In
addition to their formal and informal submissions, they have provided invaluable proofreading assistance and have made many suggestions, all of which have been given careful consideration. Many student ideas have been included in the text.
It is a pleasure to acknowledge the editorial contribution of Katherine Kappus. Her careful
editing and useful suggestions have improved this edition immeasurably. As a history
teacher in Fairfax County, Virginia, Katy viewed the text not only from the point of view of a
skilled editor, but also from the perspective of students who will be using this book. I am
very grateful for her assistance.
My students have also written hundreds of excellent papers from which I have gleaned additional knowledge about our country’s past. This work is dedicated to them. H.J. Sage
Lorton, Virginia
January 2010
iii Contents
This text is arranged into four chronological sections according to the History 121 syllabus.
The documents for each section are at the end of that section. Additional references and resources can be found on the course web site, .
Course Description viii Part 1: Colonial American History, 1607-1763
Introduction to American History
Prehistory: The Age of Discovery
Prehistory Continued: Native Americans
Introduction to Colonial American History
Early European Explorations
English Colonization of North America
The American Colonies. Virginia: The London Company
Bacon’s Rebellion
The Protestant Reformation
The New England Colonies
Massachusetts Bay: A Puritan Commonwealth
Additional New England Colonies
Middle Colonies: New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland
The Southern Colonies
Slavery in the Colonial World
Religion and Early American History
The Enlightenment and America
Women in Colonial America
The American Colonies and the British Empire
British Mercantilism
The Glorious Revolution of 1688
Colonial Wars and Wars for Empire 1
5
7
12
13
14
22
25
26
29
31
35
37
40
41
43
46
48
50
51
55
56 Documents of Colonial American History
John Smith on the Virginia Colony
Letter from an Indentured Servant
John Winthrop “Modell of Christian Charity”
William Bradford’s History of Plymouth Plantation
The Mayflower Compact
The Fundamental Orders of Connecticut, 1639
Mary Jemison’s “Captivity” Story
Gottlieb Mittelberger’s Journey to Pennsylvania
Jonathan Edwards: Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God
Three Poems of Anne Bradstreet
Maryland Toleration Act
A Letter from New England
The Middle Passage from Africa
Virginia Slave Statues, 1660-1669 iv 59
62
64
68
72
73
76
79
81
83
85
87
88
90 Part 2: Era of the American Revolution, 1763-1800
Introduction
Background
A Century of Imperial War: The Second Hundred Years War
The French and Indian War
Summary of Conditions in 1763
The Stamp Act Crisis, 1765
The “Boston Massacre”
The Boston Tea Party and Coercive Acts
The First Continental Congress
The Revolution Begins, 1775
The Second Continental Congress
Early Fighting: The War in the North
Washington as a Military Commander
The Move for Independence
The Saratoga Campaign, 1777
The Battle of Monmouth, 1778
The War in the West and South
The Final Showdown at Yorktown, 1781
The Treaty of Paris
America under the Articles of Confederation: 1783–1789
The Northwest Ordinance
The Constitutional Convention of 1787
Ratification of the Constitution
The New Republic: The United States, 1789–1800
George Washington as President
Hamilton and Financial Reform
America and the French Revolution
The Rise of Political Parties
Foreign Affairs under Washington
The Adams Administration
The Election of 1800 92
93
95
98
100
102
104
105
105
107
109
110
111
113
114
118
118
118
120
124
130
131
135
138
142
143
144
145
148
151
153 Documents of the American Revolution Era
James Otis: Against Writs of Assistance
Resolutions of the Stamp Act Congress, 1765
The Boston Port Act, March 31, 1774
Resolves of the Continental Congress, October 14, 1774
Patrick Henry, “Liberty or Death”
COMMON SENSE—Thomas Paine, 1776
The Virginia Bill of Rights, George Mason
Blacks Petition Against Taxation Without Representation, 1780
A Bill For Establishing Religious Freedom In Virginia
From James Madison’s notes on the Constitutional Convention
George Mason’s Speech of August 22, 1787, on Slavery
Concluding Remarks by Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, etc.
Patrick Henry's Opening Speech in the Virginia Ratifying Convention
The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions v 155
156
158
159
161
164
168
170
171
172
173
175
177 Part 3: Jeffersonian and Jacksonian Democracy
The Age of Jeffersonian Democracy
The Louisiana Purchase
Jefferson’ Second Term
America in the Age of Napoleon
James Madison as President
The War of 1812
The Treaty of Ghent
The James Monroe Administration
Regional Issues, 1815 to 1860
The Monroe Doctrine
The Second Generation of Political Leaders
The Marshall Court and U.S. Business
The Missouri Compromise
The 1824 Election & John Quincy Adams as President
American Economic Growth 1820-1860
The Age of Jacksonian Democracy
The Election of 1828
Jackson and the Bank
The Nullification Crisis of 1832
The Cherokee Removal
Martin Van Buren as President
Tocqueville's America 180
185
189
190
194
197
200
202
204
209
210
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216
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238
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241 Documents of American History 1800-1840
Thomas Jefferson’s First Inaugural Address
Jefferson’s Embargo, 1807
James Madison’s War Message to Congress, 1812
The Monroe Doctrine
John Marshall’s Greatest Decisions
South Carolina’s Protest Against the Tariff of 1828
South Carolina Ordinance of Nullification
Andrew Jackson’s Proclamation to South Carolina
Daniel Webster’s Union Address
Andrew Jackson's Bank Veto
Excerpts from Tocqueville’s Democracy in America 243
246
247
249
251
258
259
260
263
266
268 Part 4: Expansion and War: The United States 1840-1865
Introduction
The John Tyler Administration
The Webster-Ashburton Treaty
Texas and the Mexican War
Manifest Destiny and Mexico
The Mexican-American War
The Oregon Boundary Dispute
The Election of 1848
Social and Cultural Issues in the Antebellum Period
The Age of Reform
The Women’s Movement: Seneca Falls
The Ante-Bellum South: Life on the Plantation
Approach to Civil War, America in the 1850s vi 274
276
280
281
284
288
292
293
296
297
300
304
312 The Compromise of 1850
The Rise of Stephen Douglas
The Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
House Dividing, 1857-1860: The Rise of Abraham Lincoln
The Dred Scott Decision
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
John Brown’s Raid
The Election of 1860 and the Secession Crisis
The Civil War, 1861-1865
1861: Rebellion in the South
The Blue and the Gray
First Battle of Bull Run
The Trent Affair
Shiloh
The Ironclads Monitor and Virginia (Merrimack)
McClellan’s Peninsular Campaign
Antietam: The First Turning Point
Emancipation
Fredericksburg
Chancellorsville
Gettysburg: The Second Turning Point
Vicksburg: The Decisive Turning Point
The New York City Draft Riots
Chickamauga and Chattanooga
Sherman’s Campaigns in Georgia and South Carolina
President Lincoln Assassinated
Women in the Civil War & Other Issues
Additional Reading on the Civil War 313
320
323
326
327
328
330
331
335
337
339
342
343
345
346
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349
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362
365
366
370 Documents 1840-1865
Texas Declaration of Independence
President Polk’s war Message
William Lloyd Garrison
Views of Slavery
1850 Compromise Debates
Dred Scott v. Sandford
John Brown’s Final Speech
1860 Republican Platform
Secession Resolutions
Abraham Lincoln’s First Inaugural Address
Confederate States of America Constitution
Vice President Stephens’ “Cornerstone” Speech
Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation
Emancipation Proclamation
Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address
General Sherman’s Letter to Atlanta
Letter of Sullivan Ballou to his Wife vii 373
377
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380
383
393
394
395
397
400
403
405
407
409
411
413
415 History 121: U.S. History I
Course Description & Objectives
History 121 is taught through the NVCC Distance Learning Center (Extended Learning Institute.) All materials for this course, including the contents of this text, can be accessed from the History 121 Course
Home Page. This is a fully online course, so you will need regular access to a computer with an Internet
connection. You will not have to attend any class meetings. You will have to take two proctored exams at
any NVCC campus testing center. Proctoring at other locations can be arranged. (See the ELI web site
for details.) You will also use the Blackboard component of the course for online discussions, quizzes and
exams. You will be enrolled automatically in Blackboard when the course officially begins.
The Course is divided into four chronological sections as follows:
• Part 1 (1607-1763) covers exploration and colonization and examines the lives of colonists and
how they interacted with the new landscape of America and with the British Empire. It continues
through the French and Indian War to the beginning of the period of the American Revolution. • Part 2 (1763-1800) begins with an exploration of the background events of the American Revolution, the conduct of the war independence, and the granting of freedom to the new nation in 1783.
It then proceeds to the story of the writing of the United States Constitution and the development
of the new nation under Presidents Washington and Adams. It ends with the election of 1800. • Part 3 (1800-1840) covers the events of the Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe
and John Quincy Adams administrations and concludes with a discussion of Jacksonian America
under Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin van Buren. It includes the War of 1812 and explores a time of economic progress as well as democratic growth and reform. • Part 4 (1840-1865) begins with a period identified with Manifest Destiny and expansion across
the continent to the Pacific coast. It includes the Texas fight for independence, the MexicanAmerican War and the opening of California. The section next proceeds through the turmoil of the
1850s as the Southern states move toward secession. It concludes with the conduct and results
of the Civil War. Each section requires one quiz or exam and one written project, general instructions for which are included below. In addition students are required to make at least one site visit to an actual historic location
or museum during the course, which will be the subject for one or more essays.
Course Objectives:
•
•
•
•
• Understand the character of the men and women who settled America and created a new nation;
Appreciate the causes, effects and meaning of the American Revolution;
Examine and understand the United States Constitution;
Study the forces that both unified and divided the young Republic;
Comprehend the causes, conduct and legacy of the American Civil War. Although we will examine the experiences of all segments of American society from colonial times
through 1865, we will emphasize the major political events and figures. We will spend extra time on the
American Revolutionary War and Civil War periods and will study the United States Constitution in considerable detail. At the end of the course students should have a deeper understanding of America and its
people, a fuller appreciation of how this nation has been shaped by its past, and realistic expectations for
America 's future. viii INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN HISTORY
“I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of
experience.”
—Patrick Henry, 1775
“If you don't know history, you don't know anything; you're a leaf that doesn't know it's
part of a tree.”
—Michael Crichton in Timeline
“A nation that forgets its past can function no better than an individual with amnesia.
—David McCullough
“History is our collective memory. If we are deprived of our memory we are
in danger of becoming a large, dangerous idiot, thrashing blindly about, with
only the dimmest understanding of the ideals and principles that formed us
as a people, and that we have constantly to reinterpret and affirm if we are
to preserve a sense of our own identity.”
—Page Smith, from A People’s History of the United States Why Study History?
Henry Ford once said, “History is more or less bunk.” To an industrialist who revolutionized
the automobile industry by discarding old methods and creating new ones, the past may
have seemed irrelevant. But it is clear that Henry Ford understood thoroughly what had occurred in industrial America before his time when he developed the assembly line and produced an automobile that most working Americans could afford. Whether he was aware of it
or not, Henry Ford used his understanding of the past to create a better future. (In fact,
what Henry Ford really meant was that history as being taught in the early 1900s was
bunk.)
Ford’s opinion aside, history is about understanding. It would be easy to say that “in these
critical times” we need to know more about our history as a nation. But even a cursory
study of America’s past reveals that relatively few periods in our history have not found us
in the midst of one crisis or another—economic, constitutional, political, or military. We have
often used the calm times to prepare for the inevitable storms, and in those calm times we
ought to try to predict when the next storm will arise, or at least consider how we might
cope with it.
Because the best predictor of the future is the record of the past, we can learn much of
value even when the need for such learning is not immediately apparent. Once the inevitable crisis is upon us, it may be difficult to reflect soberly on what we can learn from the
past. As philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel said, “Amid the pressure of great
events, a general principle gives no help.” A modern version of that dictum, often used in a
military context, goes something like this: “It’s hard to remember that your mission is to
drain the swamp when you’re up to your butt in alligators.” In any case, without looking
backward, we may find the road ahead quite murky.
No matter how much American history keeps presenting us with trying new situations, we
discover from looking backward even to colonial times that we have met comparable chal- 1 lenges before. Conditions change, technology provides new resources, populations grow and
shift, and new demographics alter the face of America. Yet no matter how much we change
as a nation, we are still influenced by our past. The Puritans, the early settlers, founding
fathers, pioneer men and women, Blacks, Native Americans, Chinese laborers, Hispanics,
Portuguese, eastern Europeans, Jews, Muslims, Vietnamese—all kinds of Americans from
our recent and distant past—still speak to us in clear voices about their contributions to the
character of this great nation and the ways in which we have tried to resolve differences
among ourselves and with the rest of the world.
Everything we are and hope to be as Americans is rooted in our past. Our religious, political,
social and economic development proceeded according to a pattern—whether random or
cyclical—and those patte...
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