A Brief History of the United States

THE NATIONAL LABOR PARTY.--The changed industrial conditions of the period 1860-80 affected politics, and after 1868 the questions which divided parties became more and more ind...

POPULATION.--When Harrison was elected in 1840, the population of our country was 17,000,000, spread over twenty-six states and three territories. Of these millions several hund...

THE COMING OF THE DUTCH.--We have now seen how English colonies were planted in the lands about Chesapeake Bay, and in New England. Into the country lying between, there came in...

WAR WITH TRIPOLI.--In his first inaugural Jefferson announced a policy of peace, commerce, and friendship with all nations; but unhappily he was not able to carry it out. Under...

FIRST ACTS OF CONGRESS.--During Washington's first term of office as President (1789-93), the time of Congress was largely taken up with the passage of laws necessary to put the...

NEW ENGLAND NAMED.--While the London Company was planting its colony on the James River, the Plymouth Company sought to retrieve its failure on the Kennebec (p. 39). In 1614 Cap...

THE CUBAN REBELLION.--In February, 1895, the Cubans, for the sixth time in fifty years, rose in rebellion against Spain, and attempted to form a republic. These proceedings conc...

OUR BOUNDARIES.--By the treaty of 1783 our country was bounded on the north by a line (very much as at present) from the mouth of the St. Croix River in Maine to the Lake of the...

In many respects the election of Jackson [1] was an event of as much political importance as was the election of Jefferson. Men hailed it as another great uprising of the people...

TRADE, COMMERCE, AND THE FISHERIES.--The treaty of 1814 did not end our troubles with Great Britain. Our ships were still shut out of her West Indian ports. The fort at Astoria,...

Geographically considered, there were three groups: (1) the Eastern Colonies, or New England--New Hampshire, Massachusetts (including Plymouth and Maine), Rhode Island, and Conn...

LIFE AT JAMESTOWN.--The colonists who landed at Jamestown in 1607 were all men. While some of them were building a fort, Captain Newport, with Captain John Smith and others, exp...

TYLER AND THE WHIGS QUARREL.--When Congress (in May, 1841) first met in Tyler's term, Clay led the Whigs in proposing measures to carry out their party principles. But Tyler vet...

BATTLE OF LONG ISLAND.--When Howe sailed from Boston (in March, 1776), he went to Halifax in Nova Scotia. But Washington was sure New York would be attacked, so he moved the Con...

THE ATLANTIC COAST LINE EXPLORED.--Columbus having shown the way, English, Spanish, and Portuguese explorers followed. Some came in search of China or the Spice Islands; some we...

THE STATES.--When Washington became President, the thirteen original states of the Union [1] were in many respects very unlike the same states in our day. In some the executive...

Wherever the early explorers and settlers touched our coast, they found the country sparsely inhabited by a race of men they called Indians. These people, like their descendants...

The French and Indian War gave the colonists valuable training as soldiers, freed them from the danger of attack by their French neighbors, and so made them less dependent on Gr...

When Washington took the oath of office, each state regulated its trade with foreign countries and with its neighbors in its own way, and issued its own paper money, which it ma...

POPULATION.--In the twenty years which had elapsed since 1840 the population of our country had risen to over 31,000,000. In New York alone there were, in 1860, about as many pe...

KING WILLIAM'S WAR.--When James II was driven from his throne (p. 93), he fled to France. His quarrel with King William was taken up by Louis XIV, and in 1689 war began between...

THE CONFEDERATE STATES OF AMERICA.--After Lincoln's election, the cotton states, one by one, passed ordinances declaring that they left the Union. First to go was South Carolina...

THE SITUATION IN 1754.--The French were now in armed possession of the Ohio valley. Their chain of forts bounded the British colonies from Lake Champlain to Fort Duquesne. Unles...

THE WEST.--After Great Britain obtained from France the country between the mountains and the Mississippi, the British king, as we have seen (p. 143), forbade settlement west of...

The people of Massachusetts, fearing that this might happen, had begun to collect and hide arms, cannon, and powder. General Gage, the royal governor of Massachusetts and comman...

The New World, of which our country is the most important part, was discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492. When that great man set sail from Spain on his voyage of discover...

THE SOUTHERN COAST BLOCKADE.--The naval war began with a proclamation of Davis offering commissions to privateers, [1] and two by Lincoln (April 19 and 27, 1861), declaring the...

THE FRENCH IN SOUTH CAROLINA.--After the failure in Canada twenty years passed away before the French again attempted to colonize. Then (1562) Admiral Coligny (co-leen'ye), the...

THE WEST.--In 1860 the great West bore little resemblance to its present appearance. The only states wholly or partly west of the Mississippi River were Minnesota, Iowa, Missour...

THE GETTYSBURG CAMPAIGN, 1863.--After the defeat at Fredericksburg, Burnside was removed, and General Hooker put in command of the Army of the Potomac. "Fighting Joe," as Hooker...

THE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.--When the war ended, slavery had been abolished in Maryland, Missouri, and West Virginia, by gradual or immediate abolition acts, and in Tennessee by a...

THE PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN OF 1852.--The Compromise of 1850 was thought to be a final settlement of all the troubles that had grown out of slavery. The great leaders of the Whig...

While English, Dutch, and Swedes were settling on the Atlantic seaboard of North America, the French took possession of the St. Lawrence, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. T...

THE PARTY ISSUES.--The issues which divided the Federalists and the Republicans from 1793 to 1815 arose chiefly from our foreign relations. Neutrality, French decrees, British o...

[14] Despite the great thing he did for Spain. Columbus lost favor at court. Evil men slandered him; his manner of governing the new lands was falsely represented to the king an...