Vocabulary Study

1. Explain the meaning of the following words and word-combinations as they are used in the texts. Translate them into Russian:

to establish a settlement	to adopt coercive techniques to fill the ranks
accession to the throne	the redcoats
a joint stock company	to state the rights and grievances
a key occurrence	to pass punitive measures
a massive influx	to bring the insurgent colonists into line
to assume a mature form	a ragtag army
a rapid population growth	a paternalistic ideology
redemption	to pass an ordinance of secession amid jubilation and cheering
indentured servitude	to put down the Confederate insurrection
to codify laws	the crux of the matter

2. Scan the texts below and copy out proper names. Use the Internet or library resources to find out about these rulers, leaders, parties, etc. and share this information with your classmates.

Reading

Read the texts below and be ready to summarize them and answer comprehension questions.

The English were slow to establish settlements in North America. Their first colonization efforts were stimulated by their hostility to Spain, when Henry VIII proclaimed himself head of the Church of England. The accession to the throne in 1558 of a protestant, Elizabeth, left the nations bitter enemies. The English were trying to find some base for attacks on New Spain, which had already founded its colonies in the New World. Two Englishmen, Sir H. Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh, persuaded the Queen that New World colonies would serve as bases for attacks on New Spain. But their attempts at colonization in Newfoundland and in present day North Carolina failed. However, two decades later a new monarch, James I, author­ized the chartering of a joint stock company to colonize Virginia, the name Raleigh had given to the English New World.

The most important aspect of the first 50 years of English colonization was the meeting of Europeans and Native Americans. The key occurrence of the next century was the importation of more than two hundred thousand Africans into North America. That massive influx of black slaves and the geographical patterns it took, has dramatically influenced the development of American society ever since.

Many other major events also marked the years between 1650 and 1750. New colonies were founded, populating the gap between the widely separated New England and other settlements. England also took over the coastal outposts established by other European nations. As English settlements spread to the north, west, and south, they moved onto territory controlled by powerful Indian native tribes of the interior. Colonists and Native Americans went to war and for the most part the colonists emerged victorious. After a century and a half of English colonization the American provinces assumed a mature form.

One of the most striking characteristics of the mainland colonies in the 18th century was their rapid population growth. In 1700 only 250,000 people resided in the colonies; by 1775 it had become 2.5 million. Immigration accounted for a considerable share of growth, but most of it resulted from natural increase. European immigration flooded England's mainland colonies. Some of the immigrants were from overpopulated and distressed areas of Europe, especially Scot­land, Northern Ireland, and Germany. They found in America opportunities undreamed of in their homelands. Many Germans arrived in America as redemptioners. Under that form of indentured servitude, immigrants paid as much as possible of the cost of their passage before sailing from Europe. After they landed in the colonies, the rest of the fare had to be "redeemed". They were indentured for a term of service proportional to the amount of money they still owed. The term extended from one year to over three, but was more likely to be four. The largest groups of white non-English emigrants were the Scots and Irish who fled economic distress and religious discrimi­nation. They moved west and south. If they could not afford to buy land, they squatted on land belonging to native tribes.

When 18-century immigrants came to the New World, they found themselves at the bottom of the social scale. By the time they arrived, American society was already dominated by wealthy, native-born families. Unlike their 17-century predecessors, the new non-English immigrants had little opportunity to improve then circumstances dramatically. They could only accumulate a modest amount of property over a lifetime of hard work. Increasing social stratification – a widening gap between rich and poor – was most noticeable in the cities.

A majority of colonists, black and white, were now native born, and the colonies were beginning to develop a distinctive identity of their own. Colleges had been founded, newspapers established, social clubs and literary societies formed, a regular postal service begun, roads built, laws codified, and histories of the colonies written. The colonies could no longer be seen as extensions of England. Individually and collectively, they had become quite different.

(from “What it is like in the USA”)

Comprehension Questions:

• How did the English at first see the possible use of the New World?

• What are the two major aspects of the first period of the English colonization of North America?

• Why were some immigrants indentured for a term of service?

The American Revolution

Some friction always marred the relationship between the colonies and the mother country, Britain, preceding the outbreak of war. Britain, in the wars against France and Spain, relied heavily on American enlistments. But British officers had to adopt coercive techniques to fill the ranks, as the Americans were reluctant to fight. The British also wanted wagons and supplies from American farmers and merchants, and also to house troops in private homes. A large number of British regulars – redcoats – were sent to the colonies. The redcoats were stationed in private homes and they required many supplies. All that angered the Americans.

The Native Americans were also angry with the British, as after the British won the victory in 1760 they refused to pay the rent for the forts in the tribal territory. They also permitted white settlers to move further west. Thus, the British signaled their disregard for native claims to the interior. The Pontiac uprising of Native Americans showed that the native people were not going to give in without a struggle. The uprising was suppressed but it showed that Britain would not find it easy to govern the huge territory it had just acquired from France. The boundaries of the colonies' territory were outlined to prevent future clashes between natives and colonists. The colonists were forbidden to move onto native lands. But many whites had already established farms west of the line that had been agreed to, and the policy was doomed to failure from the outset.

At the beginning of 1760, England was seeking new sources of money for covering the immense war debt, and so they decided to tax the colonies. The new taxes were to be levied on goods like sugar, paper, glass and tea. The British also introduced some posts of British officials in America and suspended the New York legislature for not providing firewood and candles to British troops stationed permanently in America.

These measures drew a quick response. In 1766 an Organization "Sons of Liberty" was created in New York, and together with other organizations it broadened the base of the resistance movement. They urged citizens not to buy imported goods. An increasing number of Americans found themselves aligned with a united cause.

Even women, who had generally remained outside of politics, joined in the formal resistance movement. In towns throughout America young women calling themselves Daughters of Liberation worked at their spinning wheels in public in an effort to spur other women to make home-spun clothing and end the colonies’ dependence on English cloth. They also took the lead in boycotting tea. In Boston more than 300 matrons publicly promised not to drink tea. Young women from well-to-do families sat publicly at spinning wheels all day eating only American food and drinking herbal tea. They publicly pledged to support resistance to British measures.

As a result, colonial imports from England dropped dramatically. In 1770 all the duties were repealed but the tea tax. But restlessness in the colonies did not cease, however. The Americans felt they were being trampled upon by the presence of unnecessary troops, customs officers on the American soil and the English courts.

At the head of the opposition was Samuel Adams. In 1772, he induced the Boston town meeting to select a "committee of corre­spondence" to state the rights and grievances of the colonists, to communicate with other towns on these matters, and to request them to draft replies. Quickly, the idea spread. Committees were set up in virtually all the colonies, and out of them soon grew the bases of effective revolutionary organizations.

In 1773 Britain furnished Adams and his co-workers with an issue to organize around. The powerful East India Company, finding itself in critical financial straits, appealed to the British government and was granted a monopoly on all tea exported to the colonies. This eliminated the independence of colonial merchants.

Steps were taken to prevent the East India Company from executing its design. The answer of the patriots led by Samuel Adams was violence. On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of 60 men disguised as Native Americans boarded the ships and dumped the cargo into the harbor. Three hundred forty two chests of tea floated in the morning's ebbing tide. Punitive measures were passed. The British Parliament condemned the Boston "Tea Party" as an act of vandalism and advocated legal measures to bring the insurgent colonists into line.

The newly adopted laws – called by the colonists "Coercive Acts" – closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for. New British officials were appointed, and many more British troops were stationed in the colonies. But the resistance of the colonists grew.

The First Continental Congress was convened in Philadelphia in 1774. They defied the British authority and in that they enjoyed great support of their countrymen and women. Their plan was to define their grievances and develop a plan for resistance. The king ordered General Cage to enforce the acts of Parliament. The first clashes were at Concord and Lexington. Cage intended to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock, both of whom had been sent to England to stand trial for their lives. But the whole countryside had been alerted by Paul Revere and other messengers. When the British vanguard approached Lexington at dawn on April 19, they found a group of 70 militiamen drawn up before them on the town common. After the first shots, by the evening of April 20, as many as 20,000 American militiamen had gathered around Boston. For nearly a year the two armies stared at each other.

Meanwhile, Britain dispatched to America the largest single force Great Britain had ever assembled anywhere: 370 transport ships carrying 32,000 troops and tons of supplies, accompanied by 73 naval vessels and 13,000 sailors. They hoped for a quick victory. The British captured all the American ports at once but they could not stop commerce along the coastline of 1,500 miles. And besides, only five percent of the population lived in cities. They adopted the same strategy they had used in Europe – capturing major cities, but this tactic did not work here because of America's essentially rural character.

The Second Continental Congress in May 1775 authorized pur­chases of military supplies from Europe and strengthening the militia. George Washington was selected commander-in-chief of the army.

The Second Continental Congress named a committee composed of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and others to draft a declaration of independence. The draft of the declaration was before Congress on June 28. On July 4, 1776, it was adopted. It laid out statements of principle that have served ever since as the ideal to which Americans adhere, at least nominally.

Meanwhile, war was raging. At first, the American troops performed unsuccessfully and were defeated at New York City. But the redcoats stationed in various places went on a rampage of rape and plunder. That was a powerful cause for rallying those who were still doubtful to the cause of independence.

Both farmers and Native Americans were involved in the fighting. Native tribes were often divided between the two warring sides. The French saw their chance of avenging their defeat by the British in the Seven Years' War, and King Louis XVI aided the American revolutionaries with money and supplies. The British could not focus their attention on the American mainland only as they had also to fight the French in the West Indies and elsewhere. Spain entered the war in 1779 as an ally of France. All that magnified Britain's problems. After many defeats, the British Parliament voted to cease offensive operations in America and start peace negotiations. But for more than a year guerilla warfare between patriots and loyalists continued.

The fighting ended after the signing of a preliminary peace treaty in Paris in November 1782. Under the treaty of 1783 the Americans were granted unconditional independence. The native tribes which had sided with the English, who had promised to protect native lands from white encroachment, found themselves sacrificed to European power politics.

The war lasted for eight years. In 1775 the American troops had been an inexperienced ragtag army. They accomplished their goal through persistence and commitment rather than brilliance on the battle-fields. Ultimately, the Americans simply wore their enemy down.

(from “What it is like in the USA”)

Comprehension Questions:

• Why were the Indians angry with the British?

• What formed the base for the liberation movement?

• How did the women behave and what was the purpose of such behavior?

• What liberties were the colonies granted by the treaty of 1783?

The Civil War

The opposition of the North and the South did not come about overnight. In the north, the abolitionist sentiment grew more and more powerful as new territories were acquired, and they were thought of only in the context of slave-free organization. It was important at that stage because those territories were not yet organized into states.

By 1850, slavery in the South was well over 200 years old, and had become an integral part of the basic economy of the region. In 15 southern and Border States, the black population was approximately half as large as the white, while in the north it was an insignificant fraction.

From the middle 1840s, the issue of slavery overshadowed every­thing else in American politics. The south, from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and beyond, was a relatively compact political unit that agreed on all fundamental policies affecting cotton culture and slavery. The majority of southern planters came to regard slavery as necessary and permanent. Cotton culture, using only primitive implements, was singularly adapted to the employment of slaves. It involved work nine months of the year and permitted the use of women and children as well as men.

Among the wealthiest and the oldest families a paternalistic ideology prevailed. They saw themselves as custodians of the welfare of society and of the black families who depended on them. The paternalistic planter saw himself not as an oppressor but as the benevolent guardian of an inferior race.

The owner enjoyed a monopoly on force and violence. The master wielded virtually absolute authority on his plantation. The courts did not recognize the word of slaves. American slaves hated their oppres­sors, and contrary to some whites' perception, they were not grateful to their oppressors. The overwhelming practice was one of antagonism and resistance.

The Union in Crisis. The 1850s

President Lincoln was unalterably opposed to the extension of slavery to the other territories though he readily acknowledged its rights to exist in the southern states.

As the Americans were moving westward the prospect of slaves in the territories broadened, the moral dispute over slavery moved to matters of basic American liberties. The planters also wanted to reopen the African slave trade and to acquire territory in the Caribbean. Fear of the sinister Slave Power transformed the abolitionist impulse into a broader and more influential antislavery movement.

In the election of 1860 the Democratic Party split in half. Political leaders in the North and in the South tragically misjudged each other.

Lincoln and other prominent Republicans believed that southerners were bluffing when they threatened secession; they expected a pre-Union majority in the society to assert itself. On their side, Southern leaders had become convinced that northerners were not taking them seriously, and that a posture of strength was necessary to win respect for their position.

Meanwhile, the Union was being destroyed.

On December 20, 1860 South Carolina passed an ordinance of secession amid jubilation and cheering. After that they quickly called conventions and passed secession ordinances in six other states: Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.

By February 1861, these states had joined with South Carolina to form a new government: the Confederate States of America. Choosing Jefferson Davis as their president, they began to function independently of the United States.

The South and the North in the War

Lincoln's call for troops to put down the Confederate insurrection stimulated an outpouring of loyalty that unified the classes. And in the South a half-million men volunteered to fight; there were so many would-be soldiers that the government could not arm them all. As 1861 faded into 1862 the North undertook a massive buildup of troops in northern Virginia following a few military failures. The North also moved to blockade southern ports in order to choke off the Confederacy's avenues of commerce and supply.

Both soldiers and civilians were beginning to recognize the enormous costs of this war. As the spring of 1862 approached, southern officials, worried about the strength of their armies, instituted a draft. It was the first conscription law in American history.

As the war developed the southern armies moved into heavier fighting. Most of the combat centered in Virginia. Meanwhile the southern economy was developing along new lines. A large bureaucracy sprang up to administer the military and economic operations. Over 70,000 civilians were needed to run the Confederate war machine. The mushrooming bureaucracy expanded the cities. New housing construction was stimulated. The traditionally agricultural South was also developing its industries in order to supply the army. Mass poverty descended on the South. Inflation became a major problem as prices rose by almost 7,000 per cent.

People saw that the wealthy curtailed only their luxuries, while many poor families went without necessities. They saw that the government favored the upper class. Until last year of the war, for example, prosperous southerners could avoid military service by furnishing a hired substitute. Anger at such discrimination exploded when in October 1862 the Confederate Congress exempted from military duty anyone who was supervising at least 20 slaves. The so-called "twenty nigger law" became notorious. Immediately, pro­tests arose from every corner of the Confederacy. Dissention spread as growing numbers of citizens concluded that the struggle was "a rich man's war and a poor man's fight".

Meanwhile war production promoted the development of heavy industry and business in the North. At the highest level of government there was lack of clarity about the purpose of the war. Through the first several months of struggle Davis and Lincoln studiously avoided references to slavery, the crux of the matter. Not wishing to antagonize non-slaveholders, Davis told southerners that they were fighting for constitutional liberty. Lincoln, hoping that a pro-Union majority would assert itself in the South, recognized that mention of slavery would end any chance of coaxing the states which had seceded, back into the Union. Moreover, many Republicans were not vitally interested in the slavery issue. An early presidential stand making the abolition of slavery and not the preservation of the Union the war's objective would have split the party.

In August 1861 Congress passed its first confiscation act. The law confiscated all property used for "insurrectionary purposes". A second confiscation act – July 1862 – was much more drastic; it confiscated the property of all those who supported the rebellion, even those who merely resided in the South and paid Confederate taxes. Their slaves were "forever free of their servitude, and not again to be held as slaves".

Lincoln took a stronger stand on slavery in 1864. He proposed the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution for "abolishing and prohibiting slavery forever" which went to the States for ratification. In 1865 Lincoln was re-elected and considered allowing the defeated southern states to re-enter the Union.

Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation stimulated a vital infusion of manpower into the Union armies. Beginning in 1863, blacks shouldered arms for freedom and the Union. Their participation was crucial to the Northern victory.

After many victories and defeats on both sides the end finally came in April 1865. Lincoln did not live to see the last victory. On the evening of April 14, he went to Ford's theatre in Washington, where an assassin named John Booth shot him at point-blank range. Lincoln died the next day. The Union lost its wartime leader.

The costs of the Civil War were enormous.

Reconstruction. 1865–1877

Reconstruction of the Union held many promises. Black men and women in the South could move to their new home in Florida. Black refugees quickly poured into these lands. By 1865 40 thousand freedmen were living in their new home. But the opposition to the Reconstruction in the South steadily grew. In 1869 Ku-Klux-Klan added organized violence to the whites' resistance. Despite federal efforts to protect them, black people were intimidated at the polls, robbed of their earnings, beaten, or murdered. By the early 1870s the failure of the Reconstruction was apparent. The Military Reconstruc­tion Act of 1867 called for new governments in the South; it barred from political office those Confederate leaders who were listed in the Fourteenth Amendment. But the law required no redistribution of land and guaranteed no basic changes in southern social standards.

Terrorism against blacks was widening. Nighttime visits, whippings, beatings, and murder became common. In time, however, the Klan's purpose became not only economic (to keep the slaves) but also openly political and social. Klansmen also attacked white Republicans and school teachers who were aiding the freedmen. No one who helped to raise the status of the blacks was safe. Then in 1871 the actions of Ku-Klux-Klan moved Congress to pass two acts directed against the K.K.K.' violence. These acts permitted the use of martial law, but they were unsuccessful in combating the Klan's activities.

The Klan's terror frightened many voters and weakened local party organization, but it did not stop Reconstruction. Throughout the South conventions met and drafted new constitutions. New governments were set up, and Republicans won majorities nearly everywhere. But they failed to break down the social structure or the distribution of wealth and of power. Freedmen were exploited during the Reconstruction as well. Without land of their own, they were dependent on white landowners. Then the retreat from Reconstruction began. The rights of black citizens were insecure. Under the new interpretation of the 15th Amendment blacks were actually denied suffrage on the grounds that they lacked education, property or a grandfather who had been qualified to vote before the Reconstruction Act. In 1872 an Amnesty Act was adopted which pardoned the rebels.

After 1877 thousands of blacks gathered up their possessions and migrated to Kansas. They were disappointed people who were searching for their share in the American dream.

Thus the nation ended over 15 years of bloody civil war without establishing full freedom for black Americans.

(from “What it is like in the USA”)

Comprehension Questions:

• What is meant by “paternalistic ideology”?

• What was the impact of the war on the southern economy?

• What did the “twenty nigger law” stipulate?

• What role did the Blacks play in the war?

• Why did Reconstruction fail?

• What were the activities of the KKK?

Discussion

Comment on the following quotation:

• The history of liberty is a history of resistance (Woodrow Wilson, President of the USA, 1913–1921).

Practice

Make a presentation about any historical character (or event) of America.

Discussion

1. Using your background knowledge and information from library resources and the Internet, prepare a report about the Great Depression of the 1930s.

2. Compare the Great Depression of the 1930s and the Global financial crisis of 2008–2010 using the following factors: reasons, consequences, damage caused.

Section 3. POLITICAL STRUCTURE