The history of the United States has developed from the implementation processes of an ideal democracy, the last 200 years. But yesterday's difficulties remain in the current agenda: a government with broad powers versus limited government, protection of individual rights versus majority rights, free trade and capitalism versus flexible labor guarantees and trade regulation, intervention in the affairs the world versus isolationism. Issues remain on the agenda but can not take away from the United States of America of its prominent place in the history of peoples.
The name United States of America was suggested by Thomas Paine and officer was used protocolizado from the Declaration of Independence, adopted on July 4, 1776. It is often said the United States for short.
Independence and Expansion
The official date of the founding of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress, representing the 13 British colonies secessionists, signed the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government suffered a big change in 1788 when the Articles of Confederation were replaced by the United States Constitution. The date on which each state adopted the Constitution tends to take as the date for the founding of the Union itself.
The City of New York was the federal capital for a year before the government moved to Philadelphia. In 1791, the states ratified the Bill of Rights, ten amendments to the Constitution forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a number of legal protections. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution." In 1800, the federal government moved to the newly founded Washington, DC.
In its effort to expand its territory to the west, the state began a cycle of Indian Wars that lasted until the late nineteenth century, depriving Americans of their native land. The Louisiana Purchase to France nearly doubled the size of the nation. The war of 1812 against Britain, which ended in a draw, helped to strengthen the American nationalism. The concept of Manifest Destiny was popularized during this time. The Oregon Treaty, signed in 1846 with Britain, led the U.S. to take control of the current American Northwest.
The U.S. intervention in Mexico in 1848 has resulted in the cession of California and much of the current Southwest American. The California Gold Rush of 1848-1849 further boost western migration. In half a century, up to 40 million buffalo were slaughtered for skins and meat and to facilitate the spread of the railroads. The loss of these animals, a vital economic resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to the native cultures.
Civil War and industrialization
Tensions between pro-slavery states and abolitionists, with the increase of disagreements in the relationship between the federal and state government provoked violent conflicts in the expansion of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, Republican candidate and a great abolitionist, was elected president in 1860. Before you take office, seven slave states declared their secession from the United States, forming the Confederate States of America. The federal government argued that secession was illegal, and soon the attack by the secessionists at Fort Sumter, thus starting the Civil War.
Following the Union victory in 1865, added three amendments to the constitution to guarantee freedom of the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves, making them citizens and giving them the right to vote. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in the powers of the federal government.
After the war was the assassination of President Lincoln, during the period known as Reconstruction in which they developed policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of new slaves.
Following the Union victory in 1865, added three amendments to the constitution to guarantee freedom of the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves, making them citizens and giving them the right to vote. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in the powers of the federal government.
After the war was the assassination of President Lincoln, during the period known as Reconstruction in which they developed policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of new slaves.
The Slaughter of Wounded Knee in 1890 was the last major armed conflict against Native American Indians. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents, the archipelago was annexed by the United States in 1898. Victory in the Hispano-American War that same year demonstrated that the United States was a world power and led to the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines. The Philippines gained independence in 1956, Puerto Rico remains a commonwealth of the United States.
After 1898, following the Hispano-American War United States was gradually becoming an increasing influence in the world.