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Tema 52:
La evolución 
histórica de EEUU. 
De A. Lincoln a F.D. 
Roosevelt  

Madhatter Wylder 
14/06/2007 
 
 Tema 52:
La evolución histórica de Estados Unidos: De Lincoln a Roosevelt.
2

Table of contents
1. Timeline. _________________________________________________________________ 2
2. The civil war ______________________________________________________________ 5
2.1. Slavery & sectionalism. _________________________________________________________ 5
2.1.1. The Abolitionists. ____________________________________________________________________ 5
2.1.2. The Compromise of 1850. _____________________________________________________________ 6
2.1.3. A divided Nation. ____________________________________________________________________ 8
2.2. Secession and the Civil War. _____________________________________________________ 9
2.2.1 Lincoln’s peaceful reconstruction. ______________________________________________________ 10
2.2.2. Radical reconstruction. _______________________________________________________________ 11
2.2.3. The end of the reconstruction __________________________________________________________ 12

3. USA Growth and Transformation ____________________________________________ 12

3.1. Technology and Industrial change. ______________________________________________ 12
3.1.2. Corporations and cities. ______________________________________________________________ 13
3.1.3. Railroads, regulations and tariffs._______________________________________________________ 14

4. Discontent and reform______________________________________________________ 15

4.1. The struggles of labor. _________________________________________________________ 15
4.1.1. The reform impulse. _________________________________________________________________ 17
4.1.2. Roosevelt’s reforms. _________________________________________________________________ 17

5. War, Prosperity and Depression ______________________________________________ 19

5.1. War and neutral rights. ________________________________________________________ 19
5.1.1 United States enter the WW1. __________________________________________________________ 20
5.1.2. The League of Nations. ______________________________________________________________ 21
5.2. The booming 1920s. ___________________________________________________________ 21
5.2.1. Tension over immigration. ____________________________________________________________ 22
5.2.2. Clash of cultures. ___________________________________________________________________ 22
5.2.3. The great depression. ________________________________________________________________ 23

6. The New Deal and World War 2. _____________________________________________ 23

6.1. F.D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.________________________________________________ 23
6.1.1. Unemployment. ____________________________________________________________________ 24
6.1.2. Agriculture.________________________________________________________________________ 24
6.2. The World War 2. ____________________________________________________________ 26
6.2.1. Eve of the WW2. ___________________________________________________________________ 26
6.2.2. Japan, Pearl Harbor and war. __________________________________________________________ 27

Bibliography _______________________________________________________________ 28
Brief summary. _____________________________________________________________ 29

1. Timeline.
-1820: MISSOURI COMPROMISE: Missouri was admitted as a slave state & Maine as a free state. In addition, Congress
Causes of the Civil War.

banned slavery in the territory acquired by the Louisiana Purchase.

-1844: Samuel F. B. Morse had perfected electrical telegraphy.
-1845: Texas becomes a US (slave) State.
-1848: CALIFORNIA-fever. Democrats.
-1850: THE COMPROMISE OF 1850: California becomes a (free) US state, … Whigs.
-1854: KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT: Kansas and Nebraska were allowed to become either in free or slave states, against
the MISSOURI COMPROMISE.
14 F. PIERCE
-1857: Dred Scott, a MISSOURI slave, asked for liberation on the ground of his residence on a free-soil state (ILLINOIS).
15 J. BUCHANAN
The Supreme Court (dominated by Southerns) decided that he was not a citizen and that his master has the right to
carry his properties wherever he liked.
-1860: Abraham Lincoln is elected as the new president of the USA.
Republicans.
-1861: SOUTH CAROLINA secedes from the USA
Civil War.

st
February, 1 . Six more States seceded. 16 A. LINCOLN
th
February, 7 .The 7 States adopted a provisional constitution as the CONFEDERATE STATES.
th
April, 12 . The USA Civil War begins.
-1964: End of Civil War: General Lee surrenders.

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-1965: Lincoln is assassinated at Ford’s Theater by a Southern resentful by the South defeat.
th
December. 13 Amendment is ratified by the Congress. The slavery is abolished.
USA reconstruction.

-1866: Foundation of the KU KLUX KLAN (Tennessee) & the KNIGHTS OF THE WHITE CAMELLIA.
-1867: RECONSTRUCTION ACT: Congress divided the South into 5 districts & placed them under military rule. 17 Andrew JOHNSON
Purchase of ALASKA from Russia.
th
-1868: The 14 Amendment is ratified: All persons born in the US are US/State citizens.
st
-1869: NOBLE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR: 1 trade union to organize workers on a nationwide basis.
th
-1870: The 15 Amendment is ratified: US citizens can vote regardless their color, race …
-1872: AMNESTY ACT: Restoration of full political rights to almost all Confederate sympathizers.
st
-1876: Alexander Graham Bell exhibited the 1 telephone. 18 U. S. GRANT
-1873: SUPREME COURT: 14th Amendment give no new privileges to protect blacks from state power. 19 R. B. HAYES
st
-1874: MASSACHUSETTS passed 1 legislation limiting the working hours for women & child to 10/day. 20 James GARFIELD
-1877: Federal troops withdrew from the South, abandoning federal defense of black’s civil rights. 21 C. A. ARTHUR
March. GREAT RAIL STRIKE: Rail workers across the nation went out on strike due to a 10% pay cut.
Allow-to-do capitalism .

-1883: SUPREME COURT: 14th Amendment did not prevent individuals from practicing discrimination.
-1886: The AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR was organized as an association of trade unions.
March. HAYMARKET SQUARE INCIDENT: A bomb was thrown into a meeting in which a strike at the McCormick 22 G.CLEVELAND
Harvester Company was been discussed.
-1887: INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT: Forbid excessive transport charges & rate discrimination.
st
-1890: SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT: 1 measure passed to prohibit trusts. Contract or combinations that limited interstate 23 B. HARRISON
and foreign trade become illegal.
-1896: PLESSY VS. FERGUSON: separate but equal public spaces for blacks didn’t violate their rights. 24 G.CLEVELAND
-1898: SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR for the Independence of Cuba.
-1901: UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION resulted from Carnegie’s company & others merging.
September. The President of the USA is assassinated and T. Roosevelt assumes the presidency. 25 W. MCKINLEY
-1906: HEPBURN ACT: Strengthened the government's trust regulatory power more definitively. 26 T. ROOSEVELT
Progressivism.

March. PURE-FOOD LAW: Banned the use of any drugs or chemicals in prepared medicines & foods. 27 William H. TAFT
-1913: Ratified the 17th Amendment: Direct election of senators by the people
October. UNDERWOOD TARIFF: Rate reductions on imported raw materials, foodstuffs, cotton, iron …
December. FEDERAL RESERVE ACT: New organization of the banking system, divided into 12 districts, all
supervised by a Federal Reserve Board
-1914: CLAYTON ANTITRUST ACT: supplement to the SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT.
Summer. First world war.
-1915: SEAMEN'S ACT: improved living and working conditions on board ships.
-1916: WORKINGMAN'S COMPENSATION ACT: Payments to civil service workers for disabilities done at work.
28 W. WILSON
March. ADAMSON ACT: Established an eight-hour day for railroad labor.
-1917: President WILSON asks the congress for a declaration of War.
-1918: Wilson’s FOURTEEN POINTS: Formation of an association of nations.
Summer. Germany is defeated. They want to negotiate with Wilson on the basis of the 14 POINTS.
WW1.

TH TH
-1919: 18 & 19 AMENDMENT: Forbid the sale of alcoholic drinks; Women are allowed to vote.
June. The TREATY OF VERSAILLES is signed. The WW1 is officially over.
-1920: Creation of the League of Nations (ONU).
March. The Senate rejects both the VERSAILLES TREATY and the LEAGUE COVENANT.
November. Warren G. HARDING became the new president of the USA.
-1921: Adolf HITLER becomes leader of National Socialist 'Nazi' Party. 29 W. G. HARDING
-1924: IMMIGRATION QUOTA LAW: It limited the annual number of immigrants to 150,000. 30 Calvin COOLIDGE
-1929: The stock market crashed. 31 H. C. HOOVER
-1931: Japan invaded Manchuria.
-1933: The DRY LAW is cancelled.
January. Adolf HITLER becomes Chancellor of Germany.
AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ACT: Provide economic aid to farmers.
New Deal policies.

NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT created the NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION (NRA), which
set codes of fair competitive practice to generate more jobs and thus more buying.
November. CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS: Men in civil work camps across the country > $30/month.
-1935: NRA was declared unconstitutional.
NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT: Defined unfair labor practices & gave workers the right to
negotiate through unions.
Pre WW2.

32 F.D. ROOSEVELT
SOCIAL SECURITY ACT: Insurance sys for the aged, unemployed & disabled based on employer &
employee contributions
Italy attacked Ethiopia.
1935,36,37: NEUTRALITY ACTS: No American could legally sail on an aggressive ship; prohibition to trade
munitions and making loans to any country in war.
-1938: HITLER incorporated Austria into the German Reich
-1939: Poland is assaulted by the Nazis: England & France declare war to Germany > WW2
-1940: 1st peacetime RECRUITMENT BILL ever enacted in the USA.
th
-1941: Decembre, 7 . Japanese carrier-based planes attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor.
December, 8th. USA Congress declared a state of war with Japan.
WW2.

th
December, 11 . Germany & Italy declare the war to USA.
-1943: July. British & American forces invade Sicily.
November. D.D. EISENHOWER was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe.
-1944: June. Rome is liberated and an invasion army landed on the beaches of NORMANDY.
August. Paris is liberated.

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-1945: April. President ROOSEVELT dies suddenly. Harry TRUMAN becomes president of the USA.
rd
May. The German 3 Reich surrenders.
July. USA, UK & USSR met at POTSDAM (Berlin): POTSDAM DECLARATION: Japan would neither be
rd
destroyed nor slaved if it yielded before the 3 August. Tests of the atomic bomb in New Mexico.
th 33 Harry S. TRUMAN
August, 6 . The ENOLA GAY dropped an atomic bomb on the city of HIROSHIMA.
WW2.

th
August, 8 . Second atomic bomb was dropped, this time on NAGASAKI.
August, 14th. Japan agreed to the terms set at POTSDAM.
nd
September, 2 . Japan surrendered.
November. TRIALS OF NUREMBERG.

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2. The civil war

2.1. Slavery & sectionalism.
One issue intensified the regional and economic differences
between North and South: SLAVERY. Resenting the large profits amassed by
Northern businessmen from marketing the cotton crop, Southerners attributed
the backwardness(=”retraso”) of their own section to Northern enlargement.
Northerners, on the other hand, declared that slavery (the "peculiar institution,"
which the South regarded as essential to its economy) was wholly responsible
for the region's relative backwardness.
As far back as 1830, sectional lines had been steadily hardening on the
slavery question. In the North, abolitionist feeling grew more and more
powerful, fomented by a movement vigorously opposed to the
extension of slavery into the Western regions not yet organized as
states. To Southerners of 1850, slavery was a condition for which they
felt no more responsible than for their English speech or their
representative institutions. In some seaboard areas, slavery by 1850 was well
over 200 years old; it was an integral part of the basic economy of the region.
Political leaders of the South, the professional classes and most
of the clergy now no longer apologized for slavery but supported it.
Southern publicists insisted that the relationship btw capital & labor was more
human under the slavery system than under the wage system.

2.1.1. The Abolitionists.

In national politics, Southerners chiefly sought protection and
enlargement of the interests represented by the cotton-slavery system.
Expansion was considered a necessity because the wastefulness of cultivating a
single crop, cotton, rapidly exhausted the soil, increasing the need for new
fertile lands. Moreover, the South believed it needed new territory for additional
slave states to equilibrate the admission of new free states.
An earlier antislavery movement, an consequence of the American
Revolution, had won its last victory in 1808 when Congress abolished the
slave trade with Africa. Thereafter, opposition was largely by the Quakers,

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who kept up a mild but ineffectual protest, while the cotton gin and westward
expansion into the Mississippi delta region were creating an increasing demand
for slaves.
The abolitionist movement that emerged in the early 1830s was
combative, inflexible and insistent upon an immediate end to slavery.
This approach found a leader in WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON. Garrison's methods
awakened Northerners to the evil in an institution many had long come to
regard as unchangeable. He recognized no rights of the masters, acknowledged
no compromise, tolerated no delay. Other abolitionists, unwilling to subscribe to
his law-defying tactics, held that reform should be accomplished by legal and
peaceful means.

2.1.2. The Compromise of 1850.

Until 1845, it had seemed likely that slavery would be confined to
the areas where it already existed. It had been given limits by the
Missouri Compromise in 1820 and had no opportunity to break them.
Many Northerners
believed that if not allowed to
spread, slavery would
ultimately decline and die. To
justify their opposition to adding
new slave states, they pointed to
the statements of Washington and
Jefferson, and to the Northwest
Ordinance of 1787, which forbade
the extension of slavery into the
Northwest. TEXAS, which already
permitted slavery, naturally
entered the Union as a slave
state. But CALIFORNIA, NEW
MEXICO and UTAH did not have
slavery, and when the United

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States prepared to take over these areas in 1846, there were conflicting
suggestions on what to do with them. Extremists in the South urged
that all the lands acquired from Mexico be thrown open to slave
holders. Antislavery Northerners, on the other hand, demanded that all
the new regions be closed to slavery. One group of moderates suggested
that the Missouri Compromise line be extended to the Pacific with free
states north of it and slave states to the south.
In January 1848 the discovery of gold in CALIFORNIA precipitated a
mad movement of more than 80,000 settlers for the single year 1849.
CALIFORNIA became a crucial question, for clearly Congress had to determine
the status of this new region before an organized government could be
established. Now once again it was stopped a dangerous sectional
quarrel with a complicated and carefully balanced plan.
The compromise (as subsequently modified in Congress) contained a
number of key provisions: (1) that CALIFORNIA be admitted as a state
with a free-soil (slavery-prohibited) constitution; (2) that the remainder
of the new annexation be divided into the two territories of NEW MEXICO
and UTAH and organized without mention of slavery; (3) that the claims
of Texas to a portion of New Mexico be satisfied by a payment of $10
million; (4) that more effective machinery be established for catching
runaway slaves and returning them to their masters; and (5) that the
buying and selling of slaves (but not slavery) be abolished in the District
of Columbia. These measures (known in American history as the COMPROMISE
OF 1850) were passed.
For three years, the compromise seemed to settle nearly all
differences. Beneath the surface, however, tension grew. The new Fugitive
Slave Law deeply offended many Northerners, who refused to have
any part in catching slaves. Moreover, many Northerners continued to help
fugitives escape.

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2.1.3. A divided Nation.

In 1854 the old issue of slavery in the territories was renewed.
The region that now comprises KANSAS and NEBRASKA was being rapidly
settled, increasing pressure for the establishment of territorial, and
eventually, state governments.
Under terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the entire region
was closed to slavery. The Compromise of 1850, however, accidentally
reopened the question. Dominant slave-holding elements in MISSOURI,
objected to letting KANSAS become a free territory, for their state would
then have three free-soil neighbors (ILLINOIS, IOWA & KANSAS). Missourians
in Congress, backed by Southerners, blocked all efforts to organize the region.
At this point, a Democratic senior
senator from Illinois created a storm by
proposing a bill, the KANSAS-NEBRASKA
ACT, which infuriated all free-soil
supporters. Douglas argued that the
COMPROMISE OF 1850 substitutes the
MISSOURI COMPROMISE. His plan called
for two territories, KANSAS and NEBRASKA,
and permitted settlers to carry slaves
into them. The inhabitants
themselves were to determine
whether they should enter the
Union as free or slave states.
This Senator was accused of
currying favor with the South in
order to gain the presidency in
1856. Angry debates marked the
progress of the bill. The free-soil
press violently denounced it. Northern
clergymen attacked it. Yet in May 1854, the KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT
passed the Senate amid the boom of cannon fired by Southern enthusiasts.

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The immediate results were crucial. The Whig Party, which had no
clear political ideas about the question of slavery expansion died, and a
powerful new organization arose, the REPUBLICAN PARTY, whose primary
demand was that slavery be excluded from all the territories. The new
Republican Party gain power in a great part of the North. At this time appeared
a tall, lanky Illinois attorney, Abraham Lincoln.
The migration of both Southern slave holders and antislavery
families into Kansas resulted in armed conflict, and soon the territory
was being called "bleeding Kansas."

2.2. Secession and the Civil War.

In the presidential election of 1860 the REPUBLICAN PARTY nominated
Abraham Lincoln as its candidate. Lincoln won only 39 percent of the
popular vote, but had a clear majority of 180 electoral votes, carrying all 18
free states. Lincoln's election made South Carolina's secession from the
Union a inevitable conclusion. Once the election returns were certain, a
special South Carolina convention declared "that the Union now subsisting
between South Carolina and other states under the name of the ‘United States
of America’ is hereby dissolved." By February 1, 1861, six more Southern
states had seceded. On February 7, the seven states adopted a
provisional constitution for the CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA. The
remaining southern states as yet remained in the Union.
On March, 1861, Abraham Lincoln become the president of the
United States. In his inaugural address, he refused to recognize the
secession, considering it legally void. His speech closed with a plea for
restoration of the bonds of union. But the South turned deaf ears, and
on April 12, guns opened fire on the federal troops stationed at Fort
Sumter in the Charleston, South Carolina. A war had begun in which
more Americans would die than in any other conflict before or since.
In the seven states that had seceded, the people responded promptly to
the appeal of the new president of THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA,
Jefferson Davis. Each side entered the war with high hopes for an early
victory. In material resources the North enjoyed a decided advantage.

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Twenty-three states
with a population of
22 million were against
eleven States
inhabited by 9 million.
The industrial lead of
the North exceeded
even its preponderance
in population, providing
it with abundant facilities
for manufacturing
arms and ammunition,
clothing and other
supplies. Similarly, the
network of railways in the North enhanced federal military prospects.
The South had certain advantages as well. The most important was
geography: they were fighting a defensive war on its own territory. The
South also had a stronger military tradition, and hence the region initially
with the more experienced military leaders.

2.2.1 Lincoln’s peaceful reconstruction.

For the North, the war produced a still greater hero in Abraham
Lincoln. In 1864 he had been elected for a second term as president,
defeating as his Democratic opponent. Three weeks later, two days after Lee's
surrender (end of the War), Lincoln delivered his last public address, in
which he presented a generous reconstruction policy.
On April 14, the president was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a
Virginia actor embittered by the South's defeat. Lincoln died in a downstairs
bedroom of a house across the street from Ford's on the morning of April 15.
The first great task confronting the victorious North (now under the
leadership of Lincoln's vice president, Andrew Johnson) was to determine
the status of the states that had seceded. Lincoln had already set the
stage. In his view, the people of the Southern states had never legally

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seceded; they had been misled by some disloyal citizens into a defiance
of federal authority. And since the war was the act of individuals, the
federal government would have to deal with these individuals and not
with the states. Thus, in 1863 Lincoln proclaimed that if in any state 10
percent of the voters of record in 1860 would form a government loyal
to the U.S. Constitution, he would recognize the government so created
as the state's legal government. Throughout the summer of 1865 Johnson
proceeded to carry out Lincoln's reconstruction program, with minor
modifications. In December of 1865, Congress ratified the 13th Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery.

2.2.2. Radical reconstruction.

By July 1866, the Congress passed a 14th Amendment to the
Constitution, which states that "All persons born or naturalized in the United
States and subject to the jurisdiction are citizens of the United States and
of the states in which they reside," thus repudiating the DRED SCOTT ruling
which had denied slaves their right of citizenship. All the Southern
state legislatures, except Tennessee, refused to ratify the amendment. In
addition, Southern state legislatures passed black codes, which aimed to re-
impose oppression on the black people.
In response, certain groups in the North advocated intervention to
protect the rights of blacks in the South. In the RECONSTRUCTION ACT of March
1867, Congress, ignoring the governments that had been established in the
Southern states, divided the South into five districts and placed them
under military rule. Escape from permanent military government was
open to those states that established civil governments, ratified the
14th Amendment and adopted black suffrage. The amendment was
ratified in 1868.
The 15th Amendment, passed by Congress the following year and
ratified in 1870 by state legislatures, provided that the rights of citizens of
the United States to vote shall not be denied account of race, color …

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2.2.3. The end of the reconstruction

As time passed, it became more and more obvious that the
problems of the South were not being solved by cruel laws and
continuing rancor against former Confederates. In May 1872, Congress
passed a general AMNESTY ACT, restoring full political rights to all but
about 500 Confederate sympathizers.
Gradually Southern states began electing members of the
Democratic Party into office, intimidating blacks from voting or attempting
to hold public office. By 1876 the Republicans remained in power in only
three Southern states. The Republicans promised to end Radical
Reconstruction, thereby leaving most of the South in the hands of the
Democratic Party. In 1877 the president withdrew the remaining government
troops, tacitly abandoning federal responsibility for enforcing blacks'
civil rights.

3. USA Growth and Transformation

Between two great wars (the Civil and the 1st World War) the USA came
of age. In a period of less than 50 years it was transformed from a rural
republic to an urban state. Great factories and steel mills, transcontinental
railroad lines, flourishing cities and vast agricultural holdings marked the land.
With this growth came corresponding problems. Nationwide,
businesses came to dominate whole industries, either independently or in
combination with others. Working conditions were often poor.

3.1. Technology and Industrial change.

War needs had enormously stimulated manufacturing, speeding
an economic process based on the exploitation of iron, steam and
electric power, as well as science and invention. In 1844, Samuel F. B.
MORSE had perfected electrical telegraphy, and distant parts of the
continent were linked by a telegraphy network. In 1876 ALEXANDER GRAHAM
BELL exhibited a telephone instrument. The rotary press and paper-
folding machinery made it possible to print 240,000 eight-page newspapers
in an hour. Thomas Edison's lamp eventually lit millions of homes.

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3.1.1. Andrew Carnegie.

ANDREW CARNEGIE was largely responsible for the great advances
in steel production. Carnegie acquired commanding control not only of new
mills, but also of coke and coal properties, iron ore from Lake Superior, a fleet
of steamers on the Great Lakes, a port town on Lake Erie and a connecting
railroad. His business, allied with a dozen others, could command
favorable terms from railroads and shipping lines. Nothing
comparable in industrial growth had ever been seen in America before.
Though Carnegie long dominated the industry, he never achieved a
complete monopoly over the natural resources, transportation and
industrial plants involved in the making of steel. In the 1890s, new
companies challenged him & he was persuaded to merge his holdings with an
organization that eventually would embrace most US iron and steel properties.

3.1.2. Corporations and cities.

The UNITED STATES STEEL CORPORATION, which resulted from this
merger in 1901, illustrated a process under way for 30 years: the
combination of independent industrial enterprises into centralized
companies. In the 1870s, businessmen began to fear that overproduction
would lead to declining prices and falling profits. They realized that if they
could control both production and markets, they could bring
competing firms into a single organization. The CORPORATION and the
TRUST were developed to achieve these ends.
A CORPORATION is a business or organization formed by a group of
people, and it has rights and legal responsibilities separate from those
of the individuals involved. A TRUST is a business organization
consisting of a number of firms or corporations often united, under an
agreement creating a trust. Often, this combination is formed for the purpose
of controlling or monopolizing a trade, industry, or business. The Standard Oil
Company, founded by JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, was one of the earliest and
strongest corporations. Soon aggressive individual businessmen began to mark
out industrial domains for themselves. The trend towards merging was
manifest in other fields, particularly in transportation & communications.

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In this new industrial order, the city was the nerve center,
bringing to a focus all the nation's dynamic economic forces: vast
accumulations of capital, business and financial institutions, spreading railroad
yards, smoky factories, & armies workers. Villages, attracting people from the
countryside, grew into towns & towns into cities almost overnight.

3.1.3. Railroads, regulations and tariffs.

Railroads became increasingly important to the expanding
nation. Rail lines extended cheaper rates to large companies,
disadvantaging small shippers. Moreover, while competition drop transport
charges between cities with several rail connections, rates were excessive
between points served by only one line. These practices stimulated state
efforts at regulation. In 1887 President Grover CLEVELAND signed the
INTERSTATE COMMERCE ACT, which forbade excessive charges and rate
discrimination, and created an Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) to
guard against violations of the act.
The president was also active in combating the high tariff1, which,
adopted originally as an emergency war measure, had come to be
accepted as permanent national policy under the Republican
presidents who dominated the politics of the era. CLEVELAND, a Democrat,
regarded excessive protecting tariffs as responsible in large measure
for an oppressive increase in the cost of living and for the rapid
development of trusts. The tariff became the main issue of the
presidential election campaign in 1888, and Republican candidate
Benjamin HARRISON, a defender of protectionism, won.
During this period, public antipathy toward the trusts increased.
The nation's gigantic corporations, subjected to bitter attack through the 1880s
became a hotly debated political issue. To break the monopolies, the
SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT (1890) was the 1st measure passed by the U.S.
Congress to prohibit trusts. The act declared illegal every contract or
combination that limited interstate and foreign trade under a fine of

1
Also called CUSTOMS DUTY, a tax levied on a products traded across a border of a country or
that of a group of countries that have formed a customs union.

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$5,000 & imprisonment for one year. A decade later, the effective application of
T. ROOSEVELT’s administration baptized him as "trust-buster."
3.2. The divided South.
Intransigent white Southerners, who resisted Reconstruction through
their positions in the national government in Washington, found ways to stress
state control to maintain white dominance. Several Supreme Court
decisions reinforced the views of these Southerners. In 1873 the Supreme
Court found that the 14th Amendment conferred no new privileges or
immunities to protect African Americans from state power. In 1883,
furthermore, it ruled that the 14th Amendment did not prevent individuals
from practicing discrimination. And in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) the
Court found that "separate but equal" public accommodations for
African Americans, such as trains & restaurants, didn’t violate their rights.
Soon the principle of segregation by race extended into every
area of Southern life, from railroads to restaurants, hotels, hospitals
and schools. With the complicity of two major parties, calls for racial justice
attracted little support, and segregationist laws remained common in the South
well into the second half of the 20th century.

4. Discontent and reform

4.1. The struggles of labor.
The life of a 19th-century American industrial worker was far
from easy. Even in good times, wages were low, hours long and working
conditions unsafe. Little of the prosperity which the growth of the
nation had generated went to its workers. The situation was worse for
women and children, who made up a high percentage of the work force in
some industries and often received but a fraction of the wages a man could
earn. At the same time, the technological improvements continually
reduced the demand for skilled labor.
Before 1874, when Massachusetts passed the nation's first
legislation limiting the working-hours of women & child to 10/day,
virtually no labor legislation existed in the country. It was not until the

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1930s that the federal government would become actively involved. Until then,
the field was left to the state and local authorities.
The “allow-to-do” 2 capitalism, which dominated the second half of
the 19th C, was supported by the judiciary system which again and again
ruled against those who challenged the system. The "SOCIAL DARWINISM," as it
was known, had many supporters who argued that any attempt to regulate
business was equivalent to impede the natural evolution of species.
Yet the costs of this indifference to the victims of capital were high. Most
industrial staff still worked a 10-hour day (12 hours in the steel industry), yet
earned from 20%-40% less than the minimum considered necessary for a
decent life.
The first major effort to organize workers' groups on a nationwide basis
appeared with The NOBLE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR in 1869. They grew
slowly until they succeeded in facing the great railroad baron, Jay Gould, in
an 1885 strike. The Knights of Labor soon fell into decline, however, and
their place in the labor movement was gradually taken by the
AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR. Their objectives were: increasing wages,
reducing hours and improving working conditions. Labor's goals resulted
in the most violent labor conflicts in the nation's history. The first of
these occurred with the GREAT RAIL STRIKE of 1877, when rail workers
across the nation went out on strike in response to a 10-percent pay
cut. Attempts to break the strike led a wide-scale destruction in several cities.
The second was the HAYMARKET SQUARE INCIDENT (1886). Someone threw a
bomb into a meeting called to discuss an ongoing strike at the McCormick
Harvester Company in Chicago. In the resulting fight, nine people were killed
and some 60 injured. Next came the Homestead strike of 1892 at Carnegie's
steel works. A group of 300 Pinkerton detectives the company had hired to
break a bitter strike by the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and Tin
Workers were fired upon and 10 were killed. The National Guard was called in
as a result, non-union workers hired and the strike broken. Unions were not let
back into the plant until 1937.

2
Policy based on minimum of governmental interference in the economic affairs of the States.

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4.1.1. The reform impulse.

Theodore Roosevelt, vice president at the moment, assumed the
presidency in 1901 after the president’s assassination. Roosevelt's accession
coincided with a new epoch in American political life. A small republic had
become a world power. The country's political foundations had endured the
vicissitudes of foreign and civil war, the tides of prosperity and depression.
In response to the excesses of 19th-century capitalism and
political corruption, a reform movement arose, called PROGRESSIVISM. The
Progressives saw their work as a democratic crusade against the
abuses of urban political bosses and corrupt magnates. Their goals were
greater democracy & social justice. Almost all the notable figures (politics,
philosophy & literature) of the time were connected with the reform movement.

4.1.2. Roosevelt’s reforms.

By the early 20th century, most of the larger cities and more than half the
states had established an eight-hour day on public works. Equally
important were the workmen's compensation laws, which made employers
legally responsible for injuries sustained by employees at work.
ROOSEVELT initiated a policy of increased government supervision in
the enforcement of antitrust laws. Later, extension of government
supervision over the railroads prompted the passage of major regulatory bills.
His striking personality and his "trust-busting" activities captured the
imagination of the ordinary individual, and approval of his progressive measures
cut across party lines. He was reelected in 1904. Encouraged by a sweeping
electoral triumph, Roosevelt applied fresh determination to the cause of reform.
In June 1906 Congress passed the HEPBURN ACT. It strengthened the
Interstate Commerce Commission, defining the government's regulatory
power more definitively. Other congressional measures were PURE-FOOD LAW of
1906, which prohibited the use of any "deleterious drug, chemical or
preservative" in prepared medicines and foods.
Conservation of the nation's natural resources, putting an end to
wasteful exploitation of raw materials and the reclamation of wide stretches of
neglected land were among the other major achievements of the Roosevelt era.

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4.1.3. Taft and Wilson.

Roosevelt's popularity was at its peak in 1908, but he was unwilling to
break the tradition by which no president had held office for more
than two terms. Instead, he supported WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT, who won
the election. TAFT continued the prosecution of trusts & the 17th
Amendment, ratified in 1913, mandated the direct election of senators by the
people, replacing the system whereby they were selected by state legislatures.
In 1912, WOODROW WILSON, Democrat, campaigned against Taft and against
Roosevelt who, rejected as a candidate by the Republican convention, had
organized a third party, the Progressives. WILSON defeated both rivals.
Under his leadership, the new Congress enacted one of the most
notable legislative programs in American history. Its first task was tariff
revision: The UNDERWOOD TARIFF, signed on October 3, 1913, provided
substantial rate reductions on imported raw materials and foodstuffs,
cotton and woolen goods, iron and steel, and removed the duties from
more than a hundred other items. The second item on the Democratic
program was a reorganization of the currency system. The FEDERAL
RESERVE ACT of December 23, 1913, was one of Wilson's most enduring
legislative accomplishments. It imposed upon the existing banking system a
new organization that divided the country into 12 districts, with a
Federal Reserve Bank in each, all supervised by a Federal Reserve Board.
These banks were to serve as depositories for the cash reserves of
those banks that joined the system. The third important task was trust
regulation. The CLAYTON ANTITRUST ACT (1914) was a supplement to the
SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT. It prohibited exclusive sales contracts, local price
cutting to freeze out competitors ... The SEAMEN'S ACT of 1915, improved
living and working conditions on board ships. The Federal
WORKINGMAN'S COMPENSATION ACT in 1916 authorized payments to civil
service employees for disabilities incurred at work. The ADAMSON ACT of
the same year established an eight-hour day for railroad labor. Wilson
was one of the nation's foremost political reformers.

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4.2. Overseas Empire.

The last decades of the 19th century were a period of imperial
expansion for the USA, as it extended its influence, and at times its domain,
over widely scattered areas in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans and into Central
America. Internationally, it was a period of imperialist madness, as European
powers raced to carve up Africa and competed for influence and trade in Asia.
America's first venture beyond her continental borders was the
purchase of Alaska from Russia in 1867. The Spanish-American War
(1898) marked a turning point in American history. Within a few years
after the war ended, the USA was exercising control or influence over
islands in the Caribbean Sea, the mid-Pacific and close to the Asian
mainland.
Having overseas possessions was a new experience for the USA.
Consequently, the new territories were encouraged to move toward
democratic self-government, a political system with which none of them
had any previous experience.
The United States found itself in a familiar colonial role when it
suppressed an armed independence movement in the PHILIPPINES in
the first decade of its occupation. American involvement in the Pacific area was
not limited to the Philippines, however. 1898 also saw the beginning of a new
relationship with the HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. PUERTO RICO, the island lying east
of Cuba, followed an apprenticeship similar to that of Cuba and the Philippines.
In 1917 the U.S. Congress granted Puerto Ricans the right to elect all of their
legislators. In the referendum of 1952, the citizens chose a commonwealth
status with USA.

5. War, Prosperity and Depression

5.1. War and neutral rights.
To the American public, the outbreak of war in Europe came as a
shock. Its economic and political effects were fast and deep. By 1915 U.S.
industry was prospering again with munitions orders from the Western
Allies.

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In February 1915, German military leaders announced that they

would attack all merchant shipping on the waters around the British
Isles. President WILSON warned that the USA would not give up its
traditional right, as a neutral, to trade on the high seas. Anxious to
avoid a possible declaration of war by the United States, Germany issued
orders to its submarine commanders to give warning to ocean-going
vessels before firing on them. However, some Americans were killed in
different German attacks to ally vessels.

5.1.1 United States enter the WW1.

On January 22, 1917, the German government gave notice that
unrestricted submarine warfare would be resumed. When 5 U.S.
vessels had been sunk by April, Wilson asked Congress for a declaration of
war.
The U.S. Navy was crucial in helping the British break the
submarine blockade. President WILSON contributed greatly to an early end
to the war by defining the war aims of the Allies, and by insisting that
the fight was not against the German people but against their
autocratic government. His famous Fourteen Points, submitted to the
Senate in January 1918 as the basis for a just peace, constituted the keystone
of Wilson's arch of peace: The first 5 points proposed peace public
agreements, not in secret (Freedom in the seas, elimination of economic
frontiers & reduction of weapons); The next 8 points talked about the
territorial reorganization of the countries. The last point, the most
important one, was the creation of a general association of nations to
afford mutual guarantees of political independence.
By the summer of 1918 the Germany's armies were being beaten back. The
German government appealed to Wilson to negotiate on the basis of
the FOURTEEN POINTS.

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5.1.2. The League of Nations.

It was Wilson's hope that the final treaty would have the character
of a negotiated peace, but he feared that the passions aroused by the
war would cause the Allies to make severe demands. He was right.
In the end, there was little left of Wilson's proposals for a
generous and lasting peace but the League itself. Wilson made the
political mistake of not taking with him a leading member of the
opposition Republican Party to Paris on his Peace Commission. When
he returned to ask for American adherence to the League, he refused
to make even the moderate concessions necessary to win ratification
from a predominately Republican Senate.
Wilson carried his case to the people on a tour throughout the
country. On September 25, 1919, physically destroyed by the rigors of
peacemaking and the pressures of the wartime presidency, he suffered a
health condition at Pueblo, Colorado, from which he never fully recovered.
In March 1920, the Senate rejected both the VERSAILLES TREATY and the
LEAGUE COVENANT. As a result, the LEAGUE OF NATIONS, without the
presence of the USA or Russia, remained a weak organization.

5.2. The booming 1920s.

In the presidential election of 1920, the overwhelming victory of the
Republican nominee, Warren G. HARDING, was final evidence of the
general repudiation of WILSON's internationalism and idealism. The
1920 election was also the first in which women throughout the nation
voted for a presidential candidate (the 19th Amendment).
Governmental policy during the 1920s was eminently conservative.
It was based upon the belief that if government did what it could to foster
private business, prosperity would eventually encompass most of the
rest of the population. Republican policies were intended to create the most
favorable conditions for U.S. industry. The TARIFF ACTS of 1922 and 1930
brought tariff to new heights, guaranteeing USA manufacturers in one
field after another a monopoly of the domestic market.

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5.2.1. Tension over immigration.

Restriction of foreign immigration during the 1920s marked a
significant change in U.S. policy. Immigration had rise a lot in the late 19th
C and it has arrived to its maximum in the early 20th century. Anti-
immigration sentiment was codified in a series of measures,
culminating in the IMMIGRATION QUOTA LAW of 1924 and a 1929 act. These
laws limited the annual number of immigrants to 150,000, to be
distributed among peoples of various nationalities in proportion to the number
of their compatriots already in the United States in 1920.

5.2.2. Clash of cultures.

Some Americans expressed their discontent with the character
of modern life in the 1920s by focusing on family and religion.
Perhaps the most dramatic manifestation was the fundamentalist
crusade against the Darwinian science of biological evolution because
of biblical reasons. In the 1920s, bills to prohibit the teaching of
evolution began appearing in Midwestern and Southern state
legislatures.
Another example of a fundamental clash of cultures was Prohibition. In
1919 the 18TH AMENDMENT to the Constitution was enacted, prohibiting
the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages.
Prohibition, although intended to eliminate the saloon from American society,
served to create thousands of illegal drinking places and a new and
increasingly profitable form of criminal activity. Prohibition, sometimes referred
to as the noble experiment, was rescinded in 1933.
The common thread linking such disparate phenomenon as the
resurgence of fundamentalist religion was a reaction to the social and
intellectual revolution of the time: variously referred to as the JAZZ AGE.
Many were shocked by the changes in the manners, morals and
fashion of American youth, especially on college campuses.

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5.2.3. The great depression.

In October 1929 the stock market crashed, destroying 40% of the
paper values of common stock. The Depression deepened and many lost
their life savings. Business houses closed their doors, factories shut down and
banks failed. By 1932 around the 25% of Americans were unemployed.
The core of the problem was the immense disparity between the
country's productive capacity and the ability of people to consume.
Innovations in productive techniques during and after the war raised the output
of industry beyond the purchasing capacity of U.S. citizens. The wealthy and
middle class savings had been drawn into frantic speculation in stocks.
The presidential campaign of 1932 was chiefly a debate over the
causes and possible remedies of the Great Depression. The election
resulted in a smashing victory for F.D. Roosevelt to Hoover, president up
to the moment. The USA was about to enter a new era of economic and
political change.

6. The New Deal and World War 2.

6.1. F.D. Roosevelt and the New Deal.
In 1933 the new president, FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT, brought an air of
confidence and optimism to the USA citizens with his program, known as
the NEW DEAL. In a certain sense, the NEW DEAL merely introduced types of
social and economic reforms which had been already undergone in
Europe for more than a generation. Moreover, it represented the
culmination of a long trend toward abandonment of "allow-to-do" capitalism,
going back to the national reform legislation introduced in the
Progressive era of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.
What was truly new about the NEW DEAL, however, was the speed
with which it accomplished what previously had taken generations. In
fact, many of the reforms were hurriedly drawn and weakly
administered. During the entire NEW DEAL era, public criticism and debate
were never interrupted or suspended; in fact, the NEW DEAL brought to the
individual citizen a sharp revival of interest in government.

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6.1.1. Unemployment.
By 1933 millions of Americans were unemployed. An early step for the
unemployed came in the form of the CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS (CCC),
focused to young men btw 18 & 25. Run in semi-military style, the CCC
enrolled jobless young men in work camps across the country for
about $30 per month. About 2 million young men participated in a variety of
conservation projects: planting trees to combat soil erosion; eliminating.
Created in November 1933, it was abandoned in the spring of 1934. ROOSEVELT
continued to favor unemployment programs based on work relief
rather than welfare.

6.1.2. Agriculture.
The New Deal years were characterized by a belief that greater
regulation would solve many of the country's problems. In 1933,
Congress passed the AGRICULTURAL ADJUSTMENT ACT (AAA) to provide
economic aid to farmers. It had at its core a plan to raise crop prices by
paying farmers a subsidy to compensate for voluntary cuts in
production. Funds for the payments would be generated by a tax levied on
industries that processed crops. Between 1932-1935, farm income
increased by more than 50%, but only partly because of federal programs.
Although the AAA had been mostly successful, it was abandoned
in 1936, when the tax on food processors was ruled unconstitutional.
Six weeks later Congress passed a more effective FARM-RELIEF ACT, which
authorized the government to make payments to farmers who reduced
plantings of soil-depleting crops. By 1940 nearly 6 million farmers were
receiving federal subsidies under this program.
6.1.3. Industry and labor.
The NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION (NRA), established in 1933
with the NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT (NIRA), set codes of fair
competitive practice to generate more jobs and thus more buying. The
NRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935. By this time, the government
had taken the position that controlled prices in certain lines of business were a
barrier to recovery.

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In 1935, Congress passed the NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT, which

defined unfair labor practices, gave workers the right to bargain
through unions of their own choice and prohibited employers from
interfering with union activities. The great progress made in labor
organization brought working people a growing sense of common interests, and
labor's power increased not only in industry but also in politics.
6.1.4. The second New deal.
In its early years, the NEW DEAL sponsored a remarkable series of
legislative initiatives and achieved significant increases in production
and prices, but it did not bring an end to the Depression. And as the
sense of immediate crisis eased, new demands emerged. Businessmen
mourned the end of "laissez-faire" and get annoyed under the regulations of
the NIRA. In the face of these pressures from left and right, President
ROOSEVELT backed a new set of economic and social measures. Prominent
among these were measures to fight poverty, to counter unemployment
with work and to provide a social safety net.
The WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION (WPA), the principal agency of
the so-called second NEW DEAL, was an attempt to provide work rather
than welfare. Under the WPA, buildings, roads, airports and schools
were constructed. In addition, the NATIONAL YOUTH ADMINISTRATION gave
part-time employment to students and provided aid to unemployed
youth.
But the New Deal's keystone, according to Roosevelt, was the SOCIAL
SECURITY ACT of 1935. SOCIAL SECURITY created a system of insurance for
the aged, unemployed and disabled based on employer and employee
contributions. Many industrialized nations had already enacted such
programs, but calls for such an initiative in the USA by the Progressives in
the early 1900s had gone ignored. Although conservatives complained
that the SOCIAL SECURITY system went against American traditions, it
was actually relatively conservative. Although its origins were initially quite
modest, SOCIAL SECURITY today is one of the largest domestic programs
administered by the U.S. government.

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26

From 1932 to 1938 there was widespread public debate on the

meaning of New Deal policies to the nation's political and economic
life. It became obvious that Americans wanted the government to take
greater responsibility for the welfare of the nation. Indeed, historians
generally credit the New Deal with establishing the foundations of the
modern welfare state in the USA

6.2. The World War 2.

6.2.1. Eve of the WW2.
Before Roosevelt's second term was well under way, his domestic
program was overshadowed by a new danger little noted by average Americans:
the expansionist designs of totalitarian regimes in Japan, Italy and
Germany. In 1931 Japan invaded Manchuria. Italy, having succumbed to
fascism, attacked Ethiopia in 1935. Germany, where Adolph HITLER had
been elected as the new chancellor in 1933, reoccupied the Rhineland and
undertook large-scale rearmament. In 1938, after HITLER had incorporated
Austria into the German Reich, his demands for Czechoslovakia made war
seem possible at any moment in Europe. Neutrality legislation, enacted
piecemeal from 1935 to 1937, prohibited trade with or credit to any of
the warring nations. The objective was to prevent, at almost any cost,
the involvement of the USA in a non-American war.
With the Nazi assault on Poland in 1939 and the outbreak of WW2,
isolationist sentiment increased, even though Americans were far
from neutral in their feelings about world events. Public sentiment
clearly favored the victims of Hitler's aggression and supported the
Allied powers that stood in opposition to German expansion. With the
fall of France and the air war against Britain in 1940, the debate intensified
between those who favored aiding the democracies. In the end, the
interventionist argument won a prolonged public debate. Congress, confronted
with the growing crisis, voted immense sums for rearmament, and in
September 1940 passed the first PEACETIME RECRUITMENT BILL ever
enacted in the USA.

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27

6.2.2. Japan, Pearl Harbor and war.

General HIDEKI TOJO became prime minister of Japan in October 1941. In
mid-November, he sent a special representative to the USA to meet with
Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Among other things, Japan demanded to stop
U.S. naval expansion in the Pacific. On December 6, Franklin Roosevelt
appealed directly to the Japanese emperor, HIROHITO. On the morning of
December 7th , however, Japanese carrier-based planes attacked the
U.S. Pacific fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, in a devastating attack. 19 ships,
including five battleships, and about 150 U.S. planes were destroyed; more
than 2,300 soldiers, sailors and civilians were killed. On December 8, Congress
declared a state of war with Japan; three days later Germany and Italy declared
war on the United States.
6.2.3. War, victory ant the bomb.
In July 1943 British and American forces invaded Sicily, and by
late summer the southern shore of the Mediterranean was cleared of Fascist
forces. Rome was not liberated until June 4, 1944.
Late in 1943 General Dwight D. EISENHOWER was appointed Supreme
Commander of Allied Forces in Europe. After immense preparations, on
June 6, 1944, the first contingents of a U.S., British and Canadian invasion
army, protected by a greatly superior air force, landed on the beaches
of Normandy in northern France. The Allied armies began to move across
France toward Germany. On August 25 Paris was liberated. By February
and March 1945, troops advanced into Germany from the west, and German
armies fell before the Russians in the east. On May 8 the Third Reich
surrendered its land, sea and air forces.
President ROOSEVELT dies suddenly on April, 1945. The heads of the
USA (Henry TRUMAN) ,Britain & USSR met at POTSDAM, outside Berlin, from
July to August, to discuss operations against Japan, the peace
settlement in Europe, and a policy for the future of Germany. The
conference agreed on the need to assist in the reeducation of a German
generation educated under Nazism and on the trial of Nazi leaders
accused of crimes against humanity (TRIALS OF NUREMBERG).

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 Tema 52:
La evolucción histórica de
e Estados Unidoss: De Lincoln a Roosevelt.
28

On 16thh July, an atomic bomb

b was tested att New Mexxico. President
TRUM
MAN, calcu
ulating thatt an atom
mic bomb might be
e used to gain Jap
pan's
surrrender mo
ore quick
kly and with fewerr casualtie
es than a
an invasio
on of
the mainland
d, ordered the bomb be used iff the Japan
nese did no
ot surrende
er by
Augu
ust 3. The
e Allies issu
ued the POTSDAM DECLARATIO
ON on July
y 26, prom
mising
that Japan wo
ould neithe
er be destrroyed nor enslaved
e iff it surrend
dered; if Japan
did not,
n howevver, it would meet "u
utter destru
uction."
A comm
mittee of USA
U milita
ary and political
p o
officials a
and scientists
cons
sidered the
t questtion of ta
argets forr the new
w weapon
n. TRUMAN
N had

writtten that on
nly milita
ary installations sh
hould be targeted.
t Hiroshim
ma, a
centter of war
w industries and
d military
y operatiions, was
s chosen. On
Aug
gust 6, a U.S.
U plane,, the Enola
a Gay, drropped an
n atomic bomb on
n the
city of Hiroshima. On August 8,
8 a secon
nd atomic bomb w
was drop
pped,
this time on Nagasakii. On Augu
ust 14, Ja
apan agre
eed to the
e terms se
et at
Pots
sdam. On
n Septem
mber 2, 1945, Jap
pan form
mally surrrendered
d. In
Nove
ember 194
45 at Nurem e criminall trials off Nazi leaders
mberg, Germany, the
prov
vided for at POTSDA
AM took place.

Bib
bliograp
phy
Main Source:
S My UAB notes & Sourcee: http://usinfo.state.gov/usa/infousa/facts/hisstory/toc.htm
http:///college.hmco.co
om/history/read
derscomp/rcah/html/ah_003400 0_americanfede e.htm
http:///www.theodore--roosevelt.com//hepburnact.htmml
http:///bensguide.gpo..gov/6-8/govern
nment/national//president_list.html

Iván Matellaness’ Notes

 Topic 52: Brief summary.
29

Brief summary. La evolución histórica de Estados Unidos: De Lincoln a Roosevelt

- THE CIVIL WAR (see TOPIC 46 for the maps)
- One issue intensified the regional and economic differences between North and South: Slavery.
♦ To Southerners, slavery was a condition for which they felt no more responsible than for their English speech.
♦ In the North, abolitionist feeling grew more powerful, fomented by a mov opposed to the extension of slavery into the Western regions.
- In 1820, MISSOURI, which had 10,000 slaves, applied to enter the Union: MISSOURI COMPROMISE. [MAP2]
♦ Northerners opposed MISSOURI's entry except as a free state, and a storm of protest swept the country.
♦ It was arranged with the MISSOURI COMPROMISE: MISSOURI was admitted as a slave state at the same time MAINE came in as a free state.
___ In addition, Congress banned slavery from the territory acquired by the Louisiana Purchase (parallel 36º 30’).
♦ From 1816 to 1821, 6 states were created: INDIANA, ILLINOIS and MAINE (Free states), and MISSISSIPPI, ALABAMA and MISSOURI (Slave states)
- The compromise of 1850: was again taken in order to balance the number of free-soil and slave states. [MAP3]
♦ TEXAS entered the Union as a slave state, But CALIFORNIA, NEW MEXICO and UTAH did not have slavery.
___ The South wanted the lands to be open to slave holders, while Northerners demanded that all the new regions be closed to slavery.
___ Some moderates suggested that the MISSOURI COMPROMISE line be extended to the Pacific w/free states north of it & slave states south.
♦ In 1848 the discovery of gold in CALIFORNIA precipitated a mad movement of more than 80,000 settlers for the single year 1849.
♦ A compromise was created containing a number of key provisions:
___ (1) CALIFORNIA was admitted as a state w/a free-soil constitution;
___ (2) The remainder of the new annexation was divided into the 2 territories (NEW MEXICO & UTAH) with no mention to slavery;
___ (3) The TEXAS’ claims to a portion of NEW MEXICO was paid w/ $10 million ___ (4) Catching runaway slaves & returning them.
___ (5) that the buying and selling of slaves (but not slavery) be abolished in the DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.
- The KANSAS-NEBRASKA ACT of 1854: In 1854 the old issue of slavery in the territories was renewed. [MAP4]
♦ Under the MISSOURI COMPROMISE, the entire region was closed to slavery. The COMPROMISE OF 1850 accidentally reopened the question.
___ The Qs of slavery should be left to the decision of the settlers themselves (POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY). This act ended in a vast migration of
both Southern slave holders & antislavery families into KANSAS, WHICH resulted in an armed conflict (“BLEEDING KANSAS")
♦ WHIG PARTY (no clear political ideas about slavery expansion) died & REPUBLICAN PARTY arose (slavery excluded from all territories- A. LINCOLN).
- In the presidential election of 1860 A. LINCOLN (REPUBLICAN) won only 39% of the popular vote, but 180 electoral votes(all 18 free states).
♦ Lincoln's election made SOUTH CAROLINA's secession from the Union inevitable. By February, 1861, 6 more Southern states seceded.
♦ The 7 states adopted a provisional constitution for the CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.
♦ A. LINCOLN refused to recognize the secession, considering it legally void. His speech closed with a plea for restoration of the bonds of union.
___ The South turned deaf ears and elected a president of the CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA, JEFFERSON DAVIS. A war had begun. [MAP5]
- After the War (1864), LINCOLN delivered his last public address, in which he presented a generous reconstruction policy.
♦ On April, the president was assassinated by JOHN WILKES BOOTH, a Virginia actor embittered by the South's defeat.
♦ ANDREW JOHNSON (LINCOLN’s vice president) followed his predecessor policy. In LINCOLN’s view, the people of the Southern states had never
legally seceded; they had been misled by some disloyal citizens & since the war was the act of individuals, the federal government would
have to deal with these individuals and not with the states. However, some years afterwards the vision was radicalized.
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___ The 13 (slavery abolishment), 14 (ex-slaves considered citizens) 15 (all citizens can vote) amendments were passed.
___ South was against the amendments & the federal gov place the southern states under military rule ignoring the legislatures established (1867).
___ In the South, whites tried to undo some of the war's effects. By the 1890s many of the old Confederate leaders were back in power, &
blacks had lost their right to vote, and couldn't go to school with whites.
- USA GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION.
- Btw the Civil & the WW1, in a period of less than 50 years, the USA was transformed from a rural republic to an urban state.
♦ Great factories and steel mills, transcontinental railroad lines, flourishing cities and vast agricultural holdings marked the land.
♦ ANDREW CARNEGIE was largely responsible for the great advances in steel production. He controlled the new mills of coke & coal, iron ore, a
vast fleet of steamers, a port town and a connecting railroad. Nothing comparable in industrial growth had ever been seen in America before.
___ Though CARNEGIE long dominated the industry, he never achieved a complete monopoly over the natural resources, transportation and
industrial plants involved in the making of steel.
♦ New companies convinced him to merge his holdings w/an group that would embrace most US iron & steel properties: The UNITED STATES STEEL
CORPORATION, an example of a process under way for 30 years: the combination of independent enterprises into centralized companies.
- Companies realized that if they could control both production and markets, they could bring competing firms into a single
organization. The CORPORATION and the TRUST were developed to achieve these ends:
♦ A CORPORATION is a organization formed by a group of people. It has rights & legal responsibilities apart from those of the individuals involved.
♦ A TRUST is a business organization consisting of a number of firms or corporations often united under an agreement.
♦ The trend towards merging was manifest in many fields, particularly in transportation & communications: The STANDARD OIL COMPANY,
founded by John D. ROCKEFELLER, was one of the earliest and strongest corporations.
- RAILROADS became increasingly important to the expanding nation.
♦ Competition btw diff Rail lines and small shippers drop transport charges between cities with several rail connections.
♦ Transport charges were excessive btw points served by only one line. Therefore, President G. CLEVELAND (democrat) signed the INTERSTATE
COMMERCE ACT, which said that charges on railroads must be “reasonable & just” and created the INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION.
- President was also active in combating the high tariff (tax levied on a products traded across the diff states) which, adopted originally as an
emergency war measure, had come to be accepted as permanent national policy under the Republican presidents.
♦ CLEVELAND regarded excessive protecting tariffs as responsible for an oppressive increase in the cost of living & for the rapid development
of trusts. The tariff became the main issue of 1888 presidential campaign, & Republican B. HARRISON, a defender of protectionism, won.
- During this period, public antipathy toward the trusts increased.
♦ The nation's gigantic corporations, subjected to bitter attack through the 1880s became a hotly debated political issue.
♦ To break the monopolies, the SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT (1890) was the 1 measure passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit trusts.
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___ It declared illegal every contract that limited interstate & foreign trade under a fine of $5,000 & imprisonment for one year.
- Meanwhile, in the south, they found ways to stress state control to maintain white dominance.
♦ In 1873 the SUPREME COURT found that the 14 Amendment conferred no new privileges to protect African Americans from state power.
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♦ in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) the Court found that "separate but equal" public accommodations for African Americans, such as trains &
Iván Matellanes’ Notes
restaurants, didn’t violate their rights (Soon the principle of segregation extended into every area of Southern life: railroads, restaurants, hotels…)
 Topic 52: Brief summary.
30
- THE STRUGGLES OF LABOR:
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- The life of a 19 C American industrial worker was far from easy.
♦ Wages were low, hours long & working conditions unsafe. Little of the nation prosperity went to its workers (it was worse for women & child).
♦ Before 1874, when MASSACHUSETTS passed the nation's 1 legislation limiting the working-hours of women & child to 10/day, virtually no
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labor legislation existed throughout the country.

♦ The “allow-to-do” capitalism was supported by the judiciary system ⇒ The SOCIAL DARWINISM had many supporters who argued that any
attempt to regulate business was equivalent to impede the natural evolution of species.
♦ The first major effort to organize workers' groups on a nationwide basis appeared with The NOBLE ORDER OF THE KNIGHTS OF LABOR in 1869.
___ They grew slowly until they succeeded in facing the great railroad baron, JAY GOULD, in an 1885 strike.
___ their place was taken by the AMERICAN FEDERATION OF LABOR, whose objectives were increase wages, reduce hours & improve working condS.
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___ The 1 of the violent labor conflicts occurred w/the GREAT RAIL STRIKE (1877): Rail workers went on strike in response to a 10% pay cut.
- T. Roosevelt (republican), vice president at the moment, assumed the presidency in 1901 after the president’s assassination.
♦ In response to the excesses of 19 C capitalism & political corruption, a reform movement arose called PROGRESSIVISM.
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___ PROGRESSIVES saw their work as a democratic crusade against the abuses of urban political bosses and corrupt magnates.
___ Their goals were greater democracy & social justice.
♦ ROOSEVELT initiated a policy of increased government supervision in the enforcement of antitrust laws.
♦ HEPBURN ACT: It strengthened the INTERSTATE COMMERCE COMMISSION, defining the government's regulatory power more definitively.
♦ Even though Roosevelt was very popular in 1908, he supported WILLIAM HOWARD TAFT as President of the next administration.
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___ TAFT continued the prosecution of trusts & the 17 Amendment, ratified in 1913, mandated the direct election of senators by the people.
- In 1912, Woodrow Wilson (Democrat) campaigned against TAFT (Republican) & ROOSEVELT, who had organized a third party: the Progressives.
♦ UNDERWOOD TARIFF (1913) provided rate reductions on imported raw materials, foodstuffs, cotton, iron, steel & removed many other duties.
♦ FEDERAL RESERVE ACT (1913) divided the country into 12 districts, w/a FEDERAL RESERVE BANK in each, all supervised by a F. R. BOARD.
♦ CLAYTON ANTITRUST ACT (1914) It prohibited exclusive sales contracts, local price cutting to freeze out competitors.
- WAR, PROSPERITY & DEPRESSION:
- In February 1915, German military leaders announced that they would attack all merchant shipping on the waters around the British Isles.
♦ President WILSON warned that the USA would not give up its traditional right, as a neutral, to trade on the high seas.
♦ When 5 USA vessels had been sunk by April, WILSON asked Congress for a declaration of war.
♦ USA Navy was crucial in helping the British break the submarine blockade and it contributed to an early end to the war.
♦ WILSON’S FOURTEEN POINTS, submitted to the Senate in 1918, were the basis for a just peace:
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___ The 1 5 points proposed peace public agreements. The next 8 points talked about the territorial reorganization of the countries.
___ The last point, the most important one, was the creation of a general association of nations to guarantee political independence.
♦ Wilson made the political mistake of not taking with him a leading member of Republican Party to Paris on his Peace Commission.
___ The Senate (1920) rejected both the VERSAILLES TREATY & the LEAGUE COVENANT. The LEAGUE OF NATIONS remained a weak organization.
- Governmental policy during the 1920s was eminently conservative: The TARIFF ACTS of 1922 and 1930 brought tariff to new heights.
♦ Restriction of foreign immigration during the 1920s marked a significant change in U.S. policy: IMMIGRATION QUOTA LAW.
♦ Americans expressed their discontent with the social and intellectual revolution in the 1920s by focusing on family & religion:
___ Crusade against the Darwinian science of biological evolution because of biblical reasons. In the 1920s.
___ 18TH AMENDMENT to the Constitution prohibited the manufacture, sale or transportation of alcoholic beverages.
♦ In October 1929 the STOCK MARKET CRASHED, destroying 40% of the paper values of common stock.
___ The core of the problem was the immense disparity btw the country's productive capacity and the ability of people to consume.
- THE NEW DEAL AND WW2
- In 1933 the new president, F. D. ROOSEVELT, brought an air of confidence & optimism to the USA citizens with his program, the NEW DEAL:
♦ The NEW DEAL merely introduced types of social & economic reforms which had been already undergone in Europe.
♦ It was the end of a long trend of "allow-to-do" capitalism, back to the Progressive era of T. ROOSEVELT and WOODROW WILSON.
♦ An early step for the unemployed came in the form of the CIVILIAN CONSERVATION CORPS (men btw 18 & 25). The CCC enrolled unemplyed
young men in work camps across the country for $30/monthly, participating in conservation projects as planting trees to combat soil
erosion, …
___ ROOSEVELT favored unemployment programs based on work relief rather than welfare.
♦ The NATIONAL RECOVERY ADMINISTRATION (NRA), established with the NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT (NIRA), set codes of fair
competitive practice to generate more jobs and thus more buying.
♦ NATIONAL LABOR RELATIONS ACT gave workers the right to negotiate through unions & prohibited employers from interfering w/union activities.
♦ The WORKS PROGRESS ADMINISTRATION (WPA), the principal agency of the 2 NEW DEAL, was an attempt to provide work rather than welfare.
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♦ But the New Deal's keystone was the SOCIAL SECURITY ACT (1935).
___ Social Security created a system of insurance for the aged, unemployed and disabled based on employer and employee contributions.
___ Although conservatives complained that the SOCIAL SECURITY sys went against American traditions, it was actually relatively conservative.
- The Nazi assault on Poland (1939) provoked the beginning of the WW2:
♦ At first, Neutrality legislation (1935-1937) prohibited trade w/any of the warring nations to prevent the involvement of the USA in the war.
♦ However, Public sentiment favored the victims of Hitler's aggression & supported the Allied that stood in opposition to German expansion.
♦ Congress voted immense sums for rearmament, & in 1940 passed the 1 peacetime recruitment bill ever enacted in the USA.
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♦ December 7 1941, Japanese carrier-based planes attacked the U.S. Pacific fleet at PEARL HARBOR. USA has entered the WW2.
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♦ 1943f British and American forces invaded Sicily. Rome was not liberated until June 4, 1944.
♦ Late in 1943f General Dwight D. EISENHOWER was appointed Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe. After immense preparations,
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on 1944, the 1 contingents of a USA, British & Canadian invasion army, protected by a air force, landed on the beaches of Normandy.
___ On August Paris was liberated. On May 1945 the Third Reich surrendered its land, sea and air forces.
♦ President ROOSEVELT dies suddenly on 1945 and his vice-president, HENRY TRUMAN, became the new president of the USA.
♦ President TRUMAN, calculating that an atomic bomb might be used to gain Japan's surrender more quickly & with fewer casualties than an
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invasion of the mainland, ordered the bomb be used if the Japanese did not surrender by August 3 , 1945.
___ The Allies issued the POTSDAM DECLARATION on July 26, promising that Japan would neither be destroyed nor enslaved if it surrendered.ç
___ TRUMAN had ordered that only military installations be targeted: A USA plane, the ENOLA GAY, dropped an atomic bomb on HIROSHIMA.
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___ Two days afterwards, a 2 atomic bomb was dropped, this time on NAGASAKI.
___ One week later, Japan agreed to the terms set at POTSDAM & surrender.
Iván Matellanes’ Notes