Common Sense

The pamphlet Common Sense was first published January 10, 1776 by Thomas Paine. It was the most popular read in the colonies at the time. Common Sense was more or less like a sermon and was based on biblical references. In Common Sense Paine talks about how people can live just fine without a government.  Paine thought that it was best if the people just meet with each other to solve problems rather than going through a government. He also realizes though that as the societies grow and get bigger a need for government is a must. The government was put in place to enforce regulations. Over time these regulations turned into laws. Paine thinks that by holding elections, it will be a good balance between the societies and government. Paine starts to study the Constitution of the United Kingdom. He finds that there is too much power with that sort of government. Paine says that this aristocratic and monarchical tyranny contributes nothing to the people. Paine looks at the difference between American colonies and England and argues that the best course of action for both American colonies and England is independence.  Paine says that each colony should hold elections for five people. They would be accompanied by two members of the colonies. These seven people would meet at the Continental Conference and draft a Continental Charter. This would secure property and freedom to all, and the freedom to exercise religion.  Paine though that each colony should be divided into different districts, and would send the proper number of delegates to Congress. Paine also thought that each district should send thirty people to Congress and that the total number in Congress should be three hundred and ninety. This Congress would meet every year and would elect a new president.  The colonies would be put into a lottery and the president would be elected by all of the Congress, from the delegates of the colonies who were selected in the lottery. To elect a President or to pass a law, Congress must have 3/5 of the vote. Paine also writes about the potential of American military by using the large amount of lumber that’s available in the country. This could create a navy that would rival the Royal Navy.

The Stamp Act of Congress brought about a very bitter tension between the colonies and Britain. The colonists consider this to be outrageous. They said that they should not be taxed without their consent.  Consent could only be granted through the Colonial Legislature. Many people of the colonies signed petitions and also participated in many protest. Most of these protests were held by merchants and landowners, because they would be the ones who got taxed the most. After many countless debates the Act was repealed on March 18, 1766. However the British Parliament just passed something else called the Declaratory Act. This mad the colonist even more upset. So the tensions were quite tense between the colonies and Britain’s parliament. This then lead to the American Revolution.  

Resolution of Independence was an act of declaring the thirteen colonies to be more independent from the British Empire. It was brought about on June 7^th, 1776 by Richard Lee. It took several weeks to gain support for this independence. The Resolution of Independence was then approved on July 2^nd, 1776.

            The “Necessity of Taking up Arms” was authored by Thomas Jefferson and John Dickenson.   This describes the actions of the British Parliament that made the colonist upset. They would justify the need to resist British forces with arms. They didn’t want this to break all ties with the British government however. This document states that we need to conserve the old liberties and bring back old order. “In defense of the freedom that is our birth right and which we ever enjoyed until the late violation of it.”

            All of these things just show the amazing growth of the colonies over a short period of time. How the colonies came together and showed that they could establish a government and still keep independence. How the government of the thirteen colonies could break free of the grip of the British government. How they continued to fight without giving up.

The Constitution of the United States of America

The constitution was constructed on September 17^th 1787. It took quite a long time to ratify the constitution because there were a lot of disagreements and many heated debates over what was in it. Finally though, after many compromises and thoughtful reconsiderations the constitution was ratified. The founders of the constitution were delegates that were appointed by each states government to represent the welfare of the state that they were serving. They first meet in Philadelphia on May 25th, 1787. Fifty five men were sent from the states to represent them. Twelve of the thirteen states attended this meeting. The state that didn’t attend was Rhode Island. The meetings were to really be held over revising the Articles of Confederation which was the nation’s first constitution in 1777. The first Constitution was created after the Revolutionary War with Great Britain.

            The Articles of Confederation was to be honored as a “loose confederation” or like a friendship among the thirteen states. It was thought of that the thirteen states could join together in resolving issues that faces the nation. The states were to be individually limited. They didn’t want to see any form of an executive branch such as Britain’s King George III, where in Britain the government was leaving the people under an extremely strong central government and it was stripping their freedoms. Within this Congress the states only had one vote. This gave the people of the states a voice in to what was to be done. In order though, to get something passed in Congress they needed to have a unanimous vote from all the states.  This made passing things through Congress extremely difficult because many times a certain state would have vast interests that didn’t always go over with other states. So to pass something through this Congress was almost impossible. By having Congress run like this it made for a really weak congress, because nothing could ever get resolved. Congress then came to the conclusion that the states could be somewhat independent from the other states. The states now were free to establish their own trading and navigation laws, even if the other states didn’t agree with them. Congress could also no longer enforce a tax collection program; it all had to be given voluntarily from the states. This tax system killed the economy and proved that it didn’t work. The states also had to deal with problems on the trade front. Many trades were disrupted or completely halted due to pirates at sea. States also thought that it would be a good idea to mint their own currency but this resulted in mass inflation. The citizens were also become extremely angry over the things that were going on among the states.

            With all of these problems facing the nation Virginia decided to take matters into their own hands by calling for a meeting in Annapolis Maryland, in 1786. The problem with this meeting was that only five states attended. Alexander Hamilton saved the convention from total collapse. Hamilton told Congress that they needed to summon all states to be in attendance at the next meeting in Philadelphia the following year. Congress agreed but stated that they wanted the meeting to be about weaknesses in the Articles of Confederation. The Constitutional Convention of 1787 was to bring up things that should be added to the Articles of Confederation from all the thirteen states. The delegates from the states realized that they all had two goals in common. They wanted to create a republic along with a new constitutional form of government. In attendance at the convention were members from all over the United States who all had different views as to what they wanted in the new republic. The main conflicts up for debate were the issues of; large and small states, northern and southern states, and slave and Free states. Those were the three main issues but there were also a plethora of other small issues. One positive thing about the delegates who came to the convention was that they all realized that there is a problem that needs to be fixed and that they need to compromise with one another in order to come to a final solution. They didn’t want the public’s interaction with the meeting so they met in secrecy with guards guarding the doors to the front of the convention. There were many famous names that were in attendance and also where later noted as the main framers of the constitution.  George Washington was unanimously elected as the chairman of the convention. The man who was later known as “the man of the Constitution” was James Madison.  The job of the convention and the delegates was to strength the republic. They wanted to form a government that when seen from across the Atlantic by Europe they would envy the United States.  

            These delegates met for seventeen weeks and discussed many different plans such as Virginia’s plan that was known as “large state plan.”  This plan stated that the Articles of Confederation should be destroyed and that the republic needs to form a bicameral government. They also stated in this plan that it would be best to factor in the population and size of the states. This would give more representation to larger states. The House of Representatives members would be elected directly by the people of the state and that each member would serve a two year term and members of the senate would serve a term of six years. The states finally came to an agreement, but they still needed to have the constitution ratified. There were 42 delegates who refused to sign the constitution. In order to get the constitution ratified they needed an approval of two thirds or nine of the states. Then in July of 1789 the people of the United States approved and ratified the Constitution of the United States of America. This document was now known as the supreme law of the land.      

            To this day the Constitution of the United States is the oldest living Constitution. This document formed the first federal government, and also the first system of checks and balances that would prevent the government from having too much power. Thanks to the Delegates coming to a final compromise we can be a free American people.

The Americas and First Known Civilizations

The vast history of The Americas is not only just fascinating but extremely important to the world. There is so much to learn and gain from how The Americas were established and the people who occupied them. We learn about how hard work, determination, expansion, and a dream can totally introduce a whole new type of innovation to the rest of the world. Even though The Americas adopted some traits from Africa and Eurasia they were completely different from any other culture. Some of the traits that they did adopt were agricultural. It helped The Americas people to become a lot more diversified and many different areas from their strength in agriculture. It dramatically helped the increase of their food supply. It help them to be able to support cities, have highly skilled crafts, expand commerce, create complex social structures, and help emerge powerful states.

            There were three main groups who made their name in history with vast intelligence and brilliant craftsmanship. These groups were the Mayans in Yucatan and Guatemala, the Aztecs in central Mexico, and the Incas in Peru. The Mayans were known for mathematics, the solar calendar, and writing system. The Aztecs and the Incas conquered large populations and governed extensive states. Each one of the groups developed their own languages, values, customs, art, and religions. Most of them have become part of the Latin American Heritage. Later when the Spanish people stumbled across these groups they were shocked of how they would make sacrifices of human beings, but were astonished by the wealth, efficiency, population, and complexity of these groups. The Americas were truly amazing because of how many groups there were. Most people just focus or talk about the success of Mesoamerica region but The Americas are much more vast than that. Sure they made The Americas great and we still today use a lot of their techniques but father north there were hundreds of other tribes. Most of these tribes were Indian tribes. They to also developed their own languages and developed their own social patterns. These Indian tribes were also known as the hunter gatherers. They hunted, fished, and farmed. What were also different about the Indian tribes were their religious beliefs. Unlike that of the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas, the Indians worshiped nature and not gods like the people of Mesoamerica. They worshiped the trees, fruit, and even some of the animals. They believed that all were of importance and held a very specific religious meaning. The Indians didn’t have wealth like the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas but they still are known for their creativeness and sophistication.

            So how exactly did people such as the Indians reach the northern part of The Americas? Well unlike some of the later settlers who came by boat the Native Americans mainly traveled on foot from Asia across the Bering Strait through the Alaska region and from there moved south. After the settling on The Americas the Indians broke up into eight ethnolinguistic groups and from those they had hundreds of subgroups they adapted to various types of environments. It took awhile for the new people of the Americas to develop a type of farming system. It wasn’t until 8000 B.C.E. when the first known agriculture movement came about in southern Mexico. Before that they primarily depended on hunting and gathering. One of the greatest accomplishments was the cultivation of corn around 3500 B.C.E and about twenty five hundred years later corn became the main crop that was domesticated throughout all of The Americas.

            The first known city of The Americas was in today’s South America. This was the city of Caral. It was founded around 2600 B.C.E. What was amazing about this city was the establishment of pyramids. Most people today associate the pyramids with Egypt but in fact some of the earliest ones were located in South America. It is said that the pyramids of South America were constructed nearly a century before the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Another well known city in The Americas was the ancient city of Cahokia which is now a state park. This city was the major capital of trade in the north. Occupying it was approximately 25,000 people. Some very important cultures also came from The Americas. There were the Mound Builders of the Mississippi valley, the Pueblo of the southwest, the Iroquois Confederacy of the eastern woodlands, Aleut peoples of Alaska, the Inuit peoples of Arctic Canada, rain forest groups like the Jivaro and the peoples of the Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip in South America. The development of these cultures helped The Americas to develop into what they are today.

            It’s amazing to see how over the years all the tribes seemed to in a sense come together. Different cultures and tribes started sharing things such as a calendar system, hieroglyphic writing, bark paper, deer skin books, team games played with balls of rubber, chocolate bean money, upper class polygyny, large markets. They may or may not have realized the impact that other cultures and tribes were having over a period of time on their own tribes. With the treacherous mountains and other natural elements of difficulty it made it hard to directly come in contact with the other cultures and tribes. It was more or less of a disease that spread slowly to all the different cultures and tribes. Many of the tribal areas over the years started to become cities. Throughout Mexico and Central America around 350,000 people were living in different populated trading centers and villages. Different production started to come about. Also the people were finding uses for the animals. The people of the villages and cities were now starting to construct different projects, use jade for carving, and were developing raw materials for crafts. If they needed to transport things of great volume or mass they would make use of horses, mules, and oxen. Looking back through history one would think that since the tribes were so different there would be many conflicts and wars but history has produced little evidence of and violent encounters taking place. It appears instead as if they developed a good system of fair trade between the tribes, villages, and cities.

            This is just a brief summary of early civilization of The Americas. There is so much detail in the different tribes and cultures. History paints a very good picture of this. Looking at The Americas today it is amazing to see the similarities in a sense. Today we see trading, granted at a much larger international scale but we still see the relationship from now and back then. We have different city where different products are produced and distributed throughout the region. We don’t fight over having a certain city build a certain thing. We value our culture and respect others. We care about where we are from and how we got here. When confrontation does arise however we pull together to get through it and push past it in one accord. For people of north or south America who call these lands home, they should walk with a certain pride and be proud to have come from such a rich and vast history. We have a story unlike none other. We helped to develop the rest of the world. We were the final puzzle piece to this great world puzzle. Without The Americas the rest of the world can’t survive and without the rest of the world The Americas can’t survive. We can see over history that The Americas have proven time and time again that with faith, hard work, and a dream of a better way of life they can and have over came the worst of circumstances and have turn those bad ones into progress and value. As The Americas they didn’t need anything from which to learn they took nothing and learned from that. They incorporated other cultures ways as well and implemented it into their system and way of life. The Americas truly do set an example for the rest of the world. If that being then or now.