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Jack Murtha

Jack murtha

John Patrick "Jack" Murtha, Jr. (born June 17, 1932) is an American politician. He has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1974; he represents the Twelfth Congressional District of Pennsylvania ([http://nationalatlas.gov/printable/images/preview/congdist/pa12_109.gif map]). The district is based in Johnstown and includes a large portion of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Early life and service in Vietnam

He was born in New Martinsville, West Virginia, and grew up in Westmoreland County, Pennsylvania where as a youth he became an Eagle Scout. He also worked delivering newspapers and worked in a gas station before graduating from Ramsay High School in Mount Pleasant. He left Washington and Jefferson College in 1952 to join the Marines during the Korean War. There he earned the American Spirit Honor Medal. He rose through the ranks to become a drill instructor at Parris Island and was selected for Officer Candidate School at Quantico, Virginia. He then was assigned to the Second Marine Division, Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. In 1959, then Captain Murtha took command of the 34th Special Infantry Company, Marine Corps Reserves, in Johnstown. He remained in the Reserves after his discharge from active duty until he volunteered for service in Vietnam in 1966-67, receiving the Bronze Star with Combat "V", two Purple Hearts and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry. He remained in the Reserves until his retirement as a colonel in 1990, receiving the Navy Distinguished Service Medal. After his service, he ran a small business, Johnstown Minute Car Wash, attended the University of Pittsburgh on the GI Bill, and also attended Indiana University of Pennsylvania, receiving a degree in economics. Murtha and his wife Joyce were married on June 10, 1955, have three children, and live in Johnstown.

Political career

He was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives in 1968 and served there until 1974, when he ran in a special election for Pennsylvania's 12th District. The seat had come open after 24-year incumbent Republican John Saylor died in October 1973. He won by 122 votes, making him the first Vietnam veteran to serve in Congress. He won a full term later that year with 58% of the vote. In 1980, he received 59.6% of the vote against Charles A. Getty. Murtha faced tough primary challenges in 1982, 1990 and again in 2002. The 1982 challenge came when the Republican-controlled state legislature redrew the district of fellow Democrat and Vietnam War Veteran Donald A. Bailey and incorporated most of Westmoreland County into the 12th District. The 2002 challenge came when the state legislature redrew the district of fellow Democrat Frank Mascara to make it more Republican-friendly, but incorporated a large chunk of Mascara's former territory into Murtha's district. Even though Mascara had represented more of the new 12th, he was badly defeated in the primary. Murtha is a somewhat conservative Democrat. He opposes abortion, and generally opposes gun control. He is also one of the more hawkish Democrats in the House. However, he is strongly pro-labor. He chaired the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense from 1991 to 1995, and has since served as its ranking Democrat. Recently, he has led the effort of House Democrats to offer a motion to endorse language in a military spending bill, written by fellow Vietnam veteran Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, that would prohibit abusive treatment of terror suspects.

Views on the 2003 Iraq war

Murtha initially voted to approve the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. However, he later changed his mind about the war. On March 17, 2004, he called for a recorded vote on the "War in Iraq Anniversary resolution" then voted against it. The Republican sponsored resolution "affirms that the United States and the world have been made safer with the removal of Saddam Hussein and his regime from power in Iraq." In May, he proclaimed the problems that the military had faced up to that point were due to a "lack of planning" by Pentagon chiefs and "the direction has got to be changed or it is unwinnable." On November 17, 2005, he created a firestorm when he called for the immediate redeployment of U.S. troops in Iraq,[http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/11/17/MNGV2FPT755.DTL] saying, "The U.S. cannot accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home." Later staff members "clarified" his statement claiming by "bring them home" Murtha really meant establishing an "over-the-horizon" presence of Marines within the region by redeploying the existing troops in Iraq as described in his resolution. To this point, however, staffers have been unable to clarify "over-the-horizon" as another middle eastern country, aircraft carriers and assault ships, Europe or the United States. Murtha later reiterated the statement "it is time to bring them home" when defending his resolution (below) but he referred to "bringing them home" as a redeployment.

Resolution on removing American armed forces from Iraq

Murtha then submitted the following resolution in the House of Representatives: Whereas Congress and the American People have not been shown clear, measurable progress toward establishment of stable and improving security in Iraq or of a stable and improving economy in Iraq, both of which are essential to "promote the emergence of a democratic government"; Whereas additional stabilization in Iraq by U, S. military forces cannot be achieved without the deployment of hundreds of thousands of additional U S. troops, which in turn cannot be achieved without a military draft; Whereas more than $277 billion has been appropriated by the United States Congress to prosecute U.S. military action in Iraq and Afghanistan; Whereas, as of the drafting of this resolution, 2,079 U.S. troops have been killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom; Whereas U.S. forces have become the target of the insurgency, Whereas, according to recent polls, over 80% of the Iraqi people want U.S. forces out of Iraq; Whereas polls also indicate that 45% of the Iraqi people feel that the attacks on U.S. forces are justified; Whereas, due to the foregoing, Congress finds it evident that continuing U.S. military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the people of Iraq, or the Persian Gulf Region, which were cited in Public Law 107-243 as justification for undertaking such action; Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That: Section 1. The deployment of United States forces in Iraq, by direction of Congress, is hereby terminated and the forces involved are to be redeployed at the earliest practicable date. Section 2. A quick-reaction U.S. force and an over-the-horizon presence of U.S Marines shall be deployed in the region. Section 3 The United States of America shall pursue security and stability in Iraq through diplomacy.

Criticism of resolution

The Bush administration sharply criticized Murtha's comments, with Press Secretary Scott McClellan stating that "Congressman Murtha is a respected veteran and politician who has a record of supporting a strong America. So it is baffling that he is endorsing the policy positions of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of the Democratic party. The eve of an historic democratic election in Iraq is not the time to surrender to the terrorists. After seeing his statement, we remain baffled -- nowhere does he explain how retreating from Iraq makes America safer."

Counterresolution on removing American armed forces from Iraq

Murtha's comments forced a heated debate on the floor of the House on November 18, where Democrats and Republicans sparred on the question of whether the U.S. should make an immediate withdrawal. Republicans led by Duncan Hunter of California, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, responded by proposing their own resolution which read: Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately. Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated right away.

General reaction

Republicans claimed that their amendment was simply intended to force a vote against troop withdrawal and to actively demonstrate their assertions that those calling for immediate troop withdrawal from Iraq are "out of the mainstream". Supporters of Murtha have claimed that he, himself, did not call for a withdrawal, merely a redeployment to some other geographic location. Murtha's resolutions read in part "the deployment of United States forces in Iraq...is hereby terminated...". Duncan Hunter's resolution, the one voted on, read in part "...the deployment of United States forces in Iraq be terminated immediately." Republicans have argued that there is no actionable difference between the two resolutions, however Murtha's resolution included the qualifier that the redeployment take place "at the earliest practicable date" and that a quick-reaction U.S. force would remain in the region in case of emergencies. This language was not present in the Republican resolution, as it is apparent to even the casual observer that the only quick-reaction force worth retaining would be the entire force currently in Iraq. Democrats criticized the Republican counterresolution as a political stunt meant to caricature Murtha's continually "evolving" stance on Operation Iraqi Freedom, citing the fact that the Hunter resolution lacked many of the provisions that existed in Murtha's resolution. They also noted that Hunter did not even support the counterresolution. As expected, the resolution was overwhelmingly defeated, 403-3, with only three Democrats voting for it. Murtha took the floor after the Democrats yielded all of their time to him, and denounced the resolution. However, he was unable to clarify what over-the-horizon meant, or the proper size, or role, for a rapid deployment force. The discussion grew especially heated when during debate on adopting the rule for the resolution, Congresswoman Jean Schmidt, a Republican from Ohio, made a statement attributed to Danny Bubp, an Ohio state representative and Marine Corps reservist, "He also asked me to send Congressman Murtha a message, that cowards cut and run, Marines never do." Angry Democrats, seeing Schmidt's remarks as a personal attack against Murtha, brought House business to a halt for ten minutes until Schmidt herself asked and received permission to withdraw her comments. Bubp has since claimed that he never mentioned Murtha by name, let alone attacked him. He added that he would never question the courage of a fellow Marine. Bubp later said, "I don't want to be interjected into this. I wish (Congresswoman Jean Schmidt) never used my name." [http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051122/NEWS01/511220352] Murtha has never actualy called for a withdrawal he has only called for a redeployment of American troops. However, since redeployment would in a sense amount to a withdrawal from Iraq, his opponents have denounced his words as an attempt to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. [http://mediamatters.org/items/200511220016]

References


- Murray, Shailagh (Nov. 25, 2005). [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/24/AR2005112400759.html "The About-Face of a Hawkish Democrat"]. Washington Post, pg. A02.

External links


- [http://www.house.gov/murtha/ Official website]
- [http://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-02239-6.html Congressman Murtha's Book From Vietnam to 9/11]
- [http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/detainees_odd_couple Veteran Lawmakers Allied Against Abuse (Associated Press)]
- [http://www.house.gov/apps/list/press/pa12_murtha/pr051117iraq.html John Murtha's Iraq Exit Strategy]
- [http://www.fas.org/irp/congress/2004_cr/h031704.html H. Res. 557, the "War in Iraq Anniversary resolution"]
- [http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/05/06/murtha.iraq/ 'Unwinnable' comment draws GOP fire (CNN)]
- [http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10097801/ Murtha calls for change in U.S. Iraq policy (Associated Press)]
- [http://asp.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/CandidateProfile.aspx?ci=462&oi=H USA Today profile] Murtha, John Murtha, John Murtha, John Murtha, John Category:Veterans' organizations opposed to the Iraq war and/or George Bush Murtha, John

June 17

June 17 is the 168th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (169th in leap years), with 197 days remaining.

Events


- 1497 - Battle of Deptford Bridge - Forces under King Henry VII soundly defeat troops led by Michael An Gof.
- 1565 - Matsunaga Hisahide assassinates the 13th Ashikaga Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshiteru.
- 1579 - Sir Francis Drake claims a land he calls Nova Albion (modern California) for England.
- 1631 - Mumtaz Mahal died during childbirth. Her husband, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan I, then spent more than 20 years to build her tomb, the Taj Mahal.
- 1775 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Bunker Hill - The battle actually takes place on Breed's hill by mistake. British forces take Breed's Hill outside of Boston.
- 1789 - In France, the Third Estate declares itself as a national assembly.
- 1839 - In the Kingdom of Hawaii, Kamehameha III issues the Edict of Toleration which gives Roman Catholics the freedom to worship in the Hawaiian Islands. The Hawaii Catholic Church and the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace is later established as a result.
- 1863 - Battle of Aldie in the Gettysburg Campaign of the American Civil War
- 1876 - Indian Wars: Battle of the Rosebud - 1,500 Sioux and Cheyenne led by Crazy Horse beat back General George Crook forces at Rosebud Creek in Montana Territory. [http://ne.essortment.com/battlerosebud_rfks.htm]
- 1885 - The Statue of Liberty arrives in New York Harbor.
- 1898 - The US Navy Hospital Corps is established.
- 1928 - Aviator Amelia Earhart starts her attempt to become the first woman to fly in an aircraft across the Atlantic Ocean She was a passenger; Wilmer Stutz was pilot and Lou Gordon, mechanic.
- 1930 - U.S. President Herbert Hoover signs the Smoot-Hawley Tariff into law.
  - Bonus Army: Around a thousand World War I veterans mass at the United States Capitol as the U.S. Senate considers a bill that would give them certain benefits.
- 1933 - Union Station Massacre: In Kansas City, Missouri, four FBI agents and captured fugitive Frank Nash were gunned down by gangsters attempting to free Nash.
- 1939 - Last public execution in France. Eugene Weidmann, a convicted murderer, is guillotined in Versailles outside the prison Saint-Pierre.
- 1940 - World War II: Operation Ariel begins - Allied troops start to evacuate France, following Germany's takeover of Paris and most of the nation.
  - World War II: Sinking of the RMS Lancastria by the Luftwaffe near Saint-Nazaire, France.
  - The three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania fall under the occupation of the Soviet Union.
- 1944 - Iceland becomes independent from Denmark and forms a republic.
- 1948 - A Douglas DC-6 carrying United Air Lines Flight 624 crashes near Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, killing all 43 people on board.
- 1953 - Workers Uprising: In East Germany, the Soviet Union orders a division of troops into East Berlin to quell a rebellion.
- 1960 - Ted Williams becomes the fourth member of the 500 home run club with a home run at Cleveland Stadium in Cleveland, Ohio.
- 1961 - The New Democratic Party of Canada is founded with the merger of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the Canadian Labour Congress.
- 1963 - The United States Supreme Court ruled 8 to 1 in Abington School District v. Schempp against allowing the reciting of Bible verses and the Lord's Prayer in public schools.
- 1971 - Representatives of Japan and the United States sign the Okinawa Reversion Agreement, setting out a plan where the U.S. would return control of Okinawa.
- 1972 - Watergate scandal: Five White House operatives are arrested for burglarizing the offices of the Democratic National Committee, in an attempt by some members of the Republican party to illegally wiretap the opposition.
- 1982 - The body of "God's Banker", Roberto Calvi is found hanging beneath Blackfriars Bridge in London.
- 1991 - Apartheid: The South African Parliament repeals the Population Registration Act, which had required all racial classification of all South Africans at birth.
- 1992 - A 'Joint Understanding' agreement on arms reduction is signed by U.S. President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yeltsin (this would be later codified in START II).
- 1994 - Following a televised highway chase and a failed attempt at suicide, O. J. Simpson is arrested for the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman.

Births

1239 to 1899


- 1239 - King Edward I of England (d. 1307)
- 1603 - Joseph of Cupertino, Italian saint (d. 1663)
- 1682 - King Charles XII of Sweden (d. 1718)
- 1691 - Giovanni Paolo Pannini, Italian painter and architect (d. 1765)
- 1693 - Johann Georg Walch, German theologian (d. 1775)
- 1703 - John Wesley, English founder of Methodism (d. 1791)
- 1704 - John Kay, English inventor (d. 1780)
- 1714 - Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten, German philosopher (d. 1762)
- 1714 - César-François Cassini de Thury, French astronomer (d. 1784)
- 1718 - George Howard, British field marshal (d. 1796)
- 1808 - Henrik Wergeland, Norwegian author (d. 1845)
- 1810 - Ferdinand Freiligrath, German writer (d. 1876)
- 1811 - Jón Sigurðsson, Icelandic independence fighter (d. 1879)
- 1818 - Charles Gounod, French composer (d. 1893)
- 1832 - Sir William Crookes, English physicist and chemist (d. 1919)
- 1881 - Tommy Burns, Canadian boxer (d. 1955)
- 1882 - Igor Stravinsky, Russian composer (d. 1971)
- 1888 - Heinz Guderian, German General (d. 1954)
- 1898 - M. C. Escher, Dutch artist (d. 1972)
- 1898 - Carl Hermann, German physicist (d. 1961)

1900 to 1999


- 1900 - Martin Bormann, Nazi official (d. 1945)
- 1904 - Ralph Bellamy, American actor (d. 1991)
- 1907 - Charles Eames, American designer and architect (d. 1978)
- 1909 - Elmer Lee Andersen, Governor of Minnesota (d. 2004)
- 1910 - Red Foley, American musician (d. 1968)
- 1914 - John Hersey, American author (d. 1993)
- 1915 - Karl Targownik, Hungarian psychiatrist (d. 1996)
- 1915 - David "Stringbean" Akeman, American banjo player and actor (d. 1973)
- 1917 - Dean Martin, American singer (d. 1995)
- 1917 - Atle Selberg, Norwegian mathematician
- 1920 - François Jacob, French biologist, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
- 1923 - Elroy 'Crazylegs' Hirsch, American football player (d. 2004)
- 1927 - Martin Böttcher, German conductor
- 1929 - Tigran Petrosian, Georgian chess player (d. 1984)
- 1930 - Brian Statham, English cricketer (d. 2000)
- 1933 - Christian Ferras, French violinist (d. 1982)
- 1940 - George Akerlof, American economist, Nobel Prize laureate
- 1942 - Mohamed ElBaradei, Egyptian International Atomic Energy Agency director, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
- 1943 - Newt Gingrich, American politician
- 1943 - Barry Manilow, American musician
- 1945 - Tommy Franks, American General
- 1945 - Ken Livingstone, Mayor of London
- 1945 - Eddy Merckx, Belgian cyclist
- 1945 - Anupam Kher, Indian actor
- 1945 - Frank Ashmore, American actor
- 1946 - Peter Rosei, Austrian writer
- 1957 - Jon Gries, American actor
- 1958 - Jello Biafra, American musician and activist
- 1960 - Michael Monroe, Finnish singer (Hanoi Rocks)
- 1963 - Greg Kinnear, American actor
- 1964 - Michael Gross, German swimmer
- 1965 - Dermontti Dawson, American NFL, center
- 1966 - Jason Patric, American actor
- 1969 - Paul Tergat, Kenyan athlete
- 1975 - Chloe Jones, American actor (d. 2005)
- 1978 - Kumiko Aso, Japanese Actress
- 1979 - Nick Rimando, American soccer player
- 1980 - Venus Williams, American tennis player
- 1987 - Nozomi Tsuji, Japanese singer (W (Double You), Morning Musume, and MiniMoni)

Deaths

1091 to 1899


- 1091 - Dirk V, Count of Holland (b. 1052)
- 1463 - Princess Catherine of Portugal, writer (b. 1436)
- 1565 - Ashikaga Yoshiteru, Japanese shogun (b. 1536)
- 1694 - Philip Cardinal Howard, English Catholic Cardinal (b. 1629)
- 1696 - John III Sobieski, King of Poland (b. 1629)
- 1719 - Joseph Addison, English politician and writer (b. 1672)
- 1734 - Claude-Louis-Hector de Villars, Marshal of France (b. 1653)
- 1740 - William Wyndham, English politician (b. 1687)
- 1762 - Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, French writer (b. 1674)
- 1775 - Major John Pitcairn, British marine (killed in battle) (b. 1722)
- 1797 - Agha Muhammad Khan, Shah of Persia (b. 1742)
- 1813 - Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham, English sailor and politician (b. 1726)
- 1898 - Edward Burne-Jones, English artist (b. 1833)

1900 to 1999


- 1940 - Arthur Harden, English chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1865)
- 1952 - Jack Parsons, American rocket-fuel pioneer and renegade occultist (b. 1914)
- 1956 - Paul Rostock, German doctor (b. 1892)
- 1957 - Dorothy Richardson, English writer (b. 1873)
- 1961 - Jeff Chandler, American actor (b. 1918)
- 1979 - Duffy Lewis, baseball player (b. 1888)
- 1982 - Roberto Calvi, Italin banker (b. 1920)
- 1986 - Kate Smith, American singer (b. 1907)
- 1996 - Thomas Kuhn, American philosopher of science (b. 1922)

2000 onwards


- 2001 - Donald J. Cram, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (b. 1919)
- 2002 - Willie Davenport, American athlete (b. 1943)
- 2002 - Fritz Walter, German footballer (b. 1920)
- 2004 - Gerry McNeil, Canadian hockey player (b. 1926)

Holidays and observances


- 1944 - Icelandic Independence Day, from Denmark
- National holiday of West Germany until 1990, see Workers' Uprising of 1953 in East Germany

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/17 BBC: On This Day]
- [http://www.britannica.com/eb/dailycontent?month=6&day=17 Encyclopædia Britannica: This Day in History] ---- June 16 - June 18 - May 17 - July 17 -- listing of all days ko:6월 17일 ms:17 Jun ja:6月17日 simple:June 17 th:17 มิถุนายน

United States

:For alternative meanings, see the disambiguation page for US, USA, United States, or American. The United States of America is a federal democratic republic situated primarily in central North America. It comprises 50 states and one federal district, and has several territories. It is also referred to, with varying formality, as the United States, the U.S., the U.S.A., the States, or simply and most commonly, America. The official founding date of the United States is July 4, 1776, when the Second Continental Congress—representing thirteen British colonies—adopted the Declaration of Independence. However, the structure of the government was profoundly changed in 1788, when the states replaced the Articles of Confederation with the United States Constitution. The date on which each of the fifty states adopted the Constitution is typically regarded as the date that state "entered the Union" (became part of the United States). Since the mid-20th century, following World War II, the United States has emerged as a dominant global influence in economic, political, military, scientific, technological, and cultural affairs.

Geography and climate

The United States shares land borders with Canada (to the north) and Mexico (to the south), and territorial water boundaries with Canada, Russia, the Bahamas, and numerous smaller nations. It is otherwise bounded by the Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea, in the west; the Arctic Ocean, in the northernmost areas; and the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico, and the Caribbean Sea, in the eastern and southeastern areas. Forty-eight of the states are in the single region between Canada and Mexico; this group is referred to, with varying precision and formality, as the continental or contiguous United States, sometimes abbreviated CONUS, and as the Lower 48. Alaska, which is not included in the term contiguous United States, is at the northwestern end of North America, separated from the Lower 48 by Canada. The archipelago of Hawaii is in the Pacific Ocean. The capital city, Washington, District of Columbia is a federal district located on land donated by the state of Maryland. (Virginia also donated land, but it was returned in 1847.) The United States also has overseas territories with varying levels of independence and organization. When inland water is included in the total area, only Russia and Canada are larger than the United States; if inland water is excluded, China ranks third and the U.S. ranks fourth. The United States' total area is 3,718,711 square miles (9,631,418 km²), of which land makes up 3,537,438 square miles (9,161,923 km²) and water makes up 181,273 square miles (469,495 km²). The United States' landscape is one of the most varied among those of the world's nations: among its many features are temperate forestland and rolling hills, on the east coast; mangrove, in Florida; the Great Plains, in the center of the country; the Mississippi–Missouri river system; the Great Lakes, four of the five of which are shared with Canada; the Rocky Mountains, west of the Great Plains; deserts and temperate coastal zones, west of the Rocky Mountains; and temperate rain forests, in the Pacific northwest. Alaska's tundra, and the volcanic, tropical islands of Hawaii add to the geographic diversity. Hawaii The climate varies along with the landscape, from tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida to tundra in Alaska and atop some of the highest mountains. Most of the North and East experience a temperate continental climate, with warm summers and cold winters. Most of the South experiences a subtropical humid climate with mild winters and long, hot, humid summers. Rainfall decreases markedly from the humid forests of the Eastern Great Plains to the semi-arid shortgrass prairies on the high plains abutting the Rocky Mountains. Arid deserts, including the Mojave, extend through the lowlands and valleys of the southwest, from westernmost Texas to California and northward throughout much of Nevada. Some parts of California have a Mediterranean climate. Rainforests line the windward mountains of the Pacific Northwest from Oregon to Alaska.

History

American history started with the migration of people from Asia across the Bering land bridge approximately 12,000 years ago following large animals that they hunted into the Americas. These Native Americans left evidence of their presence in petroglyphs, burial mounds, and other artifacts. It is estimated that 2-9 million people lived in the territory now occupied by the U.S. before European contact, and the subsequent introduction of foreign diseases such as small pox that greatly diminished the native populations. Some advanced societies were the Anasazi of the southwest, who inhabited Chaco Canyon, and the Woodland Indians, who built Cahokia, located near present-day St Louis, a city with a population of 40,000 at its peak in AD 1200. Vikings first visited North America around 1000, but did not settle permanently. Following the discovery voyages of Christopher Columbus around 1492, other Europeans began to explore and settle there. During the 1500s and 1600s, the Spanish settled parts of the present-day Southwest and Florida, founding St. Augustine, Florida in 1565 and Santa Fe (in what is now New Mexico) in 1607. The first successful English settlement was at Jamestown, Virginia, also in 1607. Within the next two decades, several Dutch settlements, including New Amsterdam (the predecessor to New York City), were established in what are now the states of New York and New Jersey. In 1637, Sweden established a colony at Fort Christina (in what is now Delaware), but lost the settlement to the Dutch in 1655. This was followed by extensive British settlement of the east coast. The British colonists remained relatively undisturbed by their home country until after the French and Indian War, when France ceded Canada and the Great Lakes region to Britain. Britain then imposed taxes on the 13 colonies, widely regarded by the colonists as unfair because they were denied representation in the British Parliament. Tensions between Britain and the colonists increased, and the thirteen colonies eventually rebelled against British rule. British Parliament, George Washington (1789-1797).]] In 1776, the 13 colonies split from Great Britain and formed the United States, the world's first constitutional and democratic federal republic, after their Declaration of Independence of that year, and the Revolutionary War (1775 to 1783). The original political structure was a confederation in 1777, ratified in 1781 as the Articles of Confederation. After long debate, this was supplanted by the Constitution in 1789, forming a more centralized federal government. Prior to all these was the Albany Congress in 1754, in which a union was first seriously proposed. From early colonial times, there was a shortage of labor, which encouraged unfree labor, particularly indentured servitude and slavery. In the mid-19th century, a major division occurred in the United States over the issue of states' rights and the expansion of slavery. The northern states had become opposed to slavery, while the southern states saw it as necessary for the continued success of southern agriculture and wanted it expanded to the territories. Several federal laws were passed in an attempt to settle the dispute, including the Missouri Compromise and the Compromise of 1850. The dispute reached a crisis in 1861, when seven southern states seceded1 from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America, leading to the Civil War. Soon after the war began, four more southern states seceded. During the war, Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, mandating the freedom of all slaves in states in rebellion, though full emancipation did not take place until after the end of the war in 1865, the dissolution of the Confederacy, and the Thirteenth Amendment took effect. The Civil War effectively ended the question of a state's right to secede, and is widely accepted as a major turning point after which the federal government became more powerful than state governments. Thirteenth Amendment). The title of the painting, from a 1726 poem by Bishop Berkeley, was a phrase often quoted in the era of Manifest Destiny, expressing a widely held belief that civilization had steadily moved westward throughout history. [http://americanart.si.edu/t2go/1lw/1931.6.1.html (more)] ]] During the 19th century, many new states were added to the original 13 as the nation expanded across the continent. Manifest Destiny was a philosophy that encouraged westward expansion in the United States. As the population of the Eastern states grew and as a steady increase of immigrants entered the country, settlers moved steadily westward across North America. In the process, the U.S. displaced most American Indian nations. This displacement of American Indians continues to be a matter of contention in the U.S. with many tribes attempting to assert their original claims to various lands. In some areas American Indian populations were reduced by foreign diseases contracted through contact with European settlers, and US settlers acquired those emptied lands. In other instances American Indians were removed from their traditional lands by force. Though some would say the U.S. was not a colonial power until the Spanish-American War when it acquired Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines, the dominion exercised over land in North America the United States claimed is essentially colonial. The Philippines became independent in 1946. During this period, the nation also became an industrial power. This continued into the 20th century, which has been termed "the American Century" because of the nation's overriding influence on the world. The US became a center for innovation and technological development; major technologies that America either developed or was greatly involved in improving include the telephone, television, computer, the Internet, nuclear weapons, nuclear power, aviation, and aeronautics. In addition to the Civil War, another major traumatic experience for the nation was the Great Depression (1929 to 1939). The nation has also taken part in several major foreign wars, including World War I and World War II (in both of which the US later joined the Allies). During the Cold War, the US was a major player in the Korean War and Vietnam War, and, along with the Soviet Union, was considered one of the world's two "superpowers". With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the US emerged as the world's leading economic and military power. Beginning in the 1990s, the United States became very involved in police actions and peacekeeping, including actions in Kosovo, Haiti, Somalia and Liberia, and the first Persian Gulf War driving Iraq out of Kuwait. After attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, the United States and other allied nations found themselves involved in what has come to be called the "War on Terrorism," which has primarily encompassed military actions in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Government

Iraq of the United States.]]

Republic and suffrage

The United States is an example of a constitutional republic, with a government composed of and operating through a set of limited powers imposed by its design and enumerated in the United States Constitution. Specifically, the nation operates as a presidential democracy. There are three levels of government: federal, state, and local. Officials of each of these levels are either elected by eligible voters via secret ballot or appointed by other elected officials. Americans enjoy almost universal suffrage from the age of 18 regardless of race, sex, or wealth. There are some limits, however: felons are disenfranchised and in some states former felons are likewise. Furthermore, the national representation of territories and the federal district of Washington, DC in Congress is limited: residents of the District of Columbia are subject to federal laws and federal taxes but their only Congressional representative is a non-voting delegate.

Federal government

The federal government is the national government, comprising the Legislative Branch (led by Congress), the Executive Branch (led by the President), and the Judicial Branch (led by the Supreme Court). These three branches were designed to apply checks and balances on each other. The Constitution limits the powers of the federal government to defense, foreign affairs, the issuing and management of currency, the management of trade and relations between the states, and the protection of human rights. In addition to these explicitly stated powers, the federal government—with the assistance of the Supreme Court—has gradually extended these powers into such areas as welfare and education, on the basis of the "necessary and proper" clause of the Constitution.

The Congress

necessary and proper The Congress of the United States is the legislative branch of the federal government of the United States. It is bicameral, comprising the House of Representatives and the Senate. The House of Representatives consists of 435 members, each of whom represents a congressional district and serves for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the states by population; in contrast, each state has two Senators, regardless of population. There are a total of 100 senators, who serve six-year terms. The powers of Congress are limited to those enumerated in the Constitution; all other powers are reserved to the states and the people. The Constitution also includes the necessary-and-proper clause, which grants Congress the power to "make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers."

The President

necessary-and-proper clause At the top level of the executive branch is the President of the United States. The President and Vice-President are elected as 'running mates' for four-year terms by the Electoral College, for which each state, as well as the District of Columbia, is allocated a number of seats based on its representation (or ostensible representation, in the case of D. C.) in both houses of Congress (see U.S. Electoral College). The relationship between the President and the Congress reflects that between the English monarchy and parliament at the time of the framing of the United States Constitution. Congress can legislate to constrain the President's executive power, even with respect to his or her command of the armed forces; however, this power is used only very rarely—a notable example was the constraint placed on President Richard Nixon's strategy of bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War. The President cannot directly propose legislation, and must rely on supporters in Congress to promote his or her legislative agenda. The President's signature is required to turn congressional bills into law; in this respect, the President has the power—only occasionally used—to veto congressional legislation. Congress can override a presidential veto with a two-thirds majority vote in both houses. The ultimate power of Congress over the President is that of impeachment or removal of the elected President through a House vote, a Senate trial, and a Senate vote. The threat of using this power has had major political ramifications in the cases of Presidents Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton. The President makes around 2,000 executive appointments, including members of the Cabinet and ambassadors, which must be approved by the Senate; the President can also issue executive orders and pardons, and has other Constitutional duties, among them the requirement to give a State of the Union address to Congress once a year. Although the President's constitutional role may appear to be constrained, in practice, the office carries enormous prestige that typically eclipses the power of Congress: the Presidency has justifiably been referred to as 'the most powerful office in the world'. The Vice President is first in the line of succession, and is the President of the Senate ex officio, with the ability to cast a tie-breaking vote. The members of the President's Cabinet are responsible for administering the various departments of state, including the Department of Defense, the Justice Department, and the State Department. These departments and department heads have considerable regulatory and political power, and it is they who are responsible for executing federal laws and regulations. George W. Bush is the 43rd President, currently serving his second term.

The Courts

George W. Bush The highest court is the Supreme Court, which consists of nine justices. The court deals with federal and constitutional matters, and can declare legislation made at any level of the government as unconstitutional, nullifying the law and creating precedent for future law and decisions. Below the Supreme Court are the courts of appeals, and below them in turn are the district courts, which are the general trial courts for federal law. Separate from, but not entirely independent of, this federal court system are the individual court systems of each state, each dealing with its own laws and having its own judicial rules and procedures. A case may be appealed from a state court to a federal court only if there is a federal question; the supreme court of each state is the final authority on the interpretation of that state's laws and constitution.

State and local governments

supreme court of each state. Note that Alaska and Hawaii are shown at different scales, and that the Aleutian Islands and the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands are omitted from this map.]] The state governments have the greatest influence over people's daily lives. Each state has its own written constitution and has different laws. There are sometimes great differences in law and procedure between the different states, concerning issues such as property, crime, health, and education. The highest elected official of each state is the Governor. Each state also has an elected legislature (bicameral in every state except Nebraska), whose members represent the different parts of the state. Of note is the New Hampshire legislature, which is the third-largest legislative body in the English-speaking world, and has one representative for every 3,000 people. Each state maintains its own judiciary, with the lowest level typically being county courts, and culminating in each state supreme court, though sometimes named differently. In some states, supreme and lower court justices are elected by the people; in others, they are appointed, as they are in the federal system. The institutions that are responsible for local government are typically town, city, or county boards, making laws that affect their particular area. These laws concern issues such as traffic, the sale of alcohol, and keeping animals. The highest elected official of a town or city is usually the mayor. In New England, towns operate directly democratically, and in some states, such as Rhode Island and Connecticut, counties have little or no power, existing only as geographic distinctions. In other areas, county governments have more power, such as to collect taxes and maintain law enforcement agencies.

Political divisions

With the Declaration of Independence, the thirteen colonies proclaimed themselves to be nation states modeled after the European states of the time. Although considered as sovereigns initially, under the Articles of Confederation of 1781 they entered into a "Perpetual Union" and created a fully sovereign federal state, delegating certain powers to the national Congress, including the right to engage in diplomatic relations and to levy war, while each retaining their individual sovereignty, freedom and independence. But the national government proved too ineffective, so the administrative structure of the government was vastly reorganized with the United States Constitution of 1789. Under this new union, the continued status of the individual states as sovereign nation states fell into dispute in 1861, as several states attempted to secede from the union; in response, then-President Abraham Lincoln claimed that such secession was illegal, and the result was the American Civil War. Since the Union victory in 1865, the independent status of the individual states has not been broached again by any state, and the status of each state within the union has been deemed by mainstream officials and academics to be settled as being subordinate to the union as a whole. In subsequent years, the number of states grew steadily due to western expansion, the purchase of lands by the national government from other nation states, and the subdivision of existing states, resulting in the current total of 50. The states are generally divided into smaller administrative regions, including counties, cities and townships. The United States–Canadian border is the longest undefended political boundary in the world. The U.S. is divided into three distinct sections:
- the "continental United States," also known as "the Lower 48" and more accurately termed the conterminous, coterminous or contiguous United States
- Alaska, which is physically connected only to Canada
- the archipelago of Hawaii, in the central Pacific Ocean. The United States also holds several other territories, districts, and possessions, notably the federal district of the District of Columbia, which is the nation's capital, and several overseas insular areas, the most significant of which are American Samoa, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the United States Virgin Islands. The Palmyra Atoll is the United States' only incorporated territory; it is unorganized and uninhabited. The United States Navy has held a base at a portion of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since 1898. The United States government possesses a lease to this land, which only mutual agreement or United States abandonment of the area can terminate. The present Cuban government of Fidel Castro disputes this arrangement, claiming Cuba was not truly sovereign at the time of the signing. The United States argues this point moot because Cuba apparently ratified the lease post-revolution, and with full sovereignty, when it cashed one rent check in accordance with the disputed treaty.

Foreign relations and military

sovereign] The immense military and economic dominance of the United States has made foreign relations an especially important topic in its politics, with considerable concern about the image of the United States throughout the world. Reactions towards the United States by other nationalities are often strong, ranging from uninhibited admiration and mimicking of all things American to anti-Americanism. US foreign policy has swung about several times over the course of its history between the poles of strict isolationism and imperialism and everywhere in between. Three of the nation's four military branches are administered by the Department of Defense: the Army, the Navy (including the Marine Corps), and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime, but is placed under the Department of the Navy in time of war. The combined United States armed forces consist of 1.4 million active duty personnel, along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard. Military conscription ended in 1973. The United States Armed forces are considered to be the most powerful military (of any sort) on Earth and their force projection capabilities are unrivaled by any other nation. The 2005 defense budget amounted to $401.7 billion, which is an increase of 4% over 2004 and of 35% since 2001. Over 50% of that number is spent in research & development. (For comparison, in 2004 the European Union (considered as the second-largest military force) had a combined total of 1.6 million troops, and a defense budget of €160 billion, with less than 10% of that being spent on R&D.)

Largest cities

The United States has dozens of major cities, including 11 of the 55 global cities of all types — with three "alpha" global cities: New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago. The figures expressed below are for populations within city limits. A different ranking is evident when considering U.S. metro area populations, although the top three would be unchanged. Note that some cities not listed (such as Atlanta, Boston, Las Vegas, Miami, Nashville, New Orleans, Seattle, and Washington, D.C.) are still considered important on the basis of other factors and issues, including culture, economics, heritage, and politics. The twenty largest cities, based on the United States Census Bureau's 2004 estimates, are as follows:

Economy

The United States has the largest single-country economy in the world, with a per-capita gross domestic product of $40,100. In this market-oriented economy, private individuals and business firms make most of the decisions, and the federal and state governments buy needed goods and services predominantly in the private marketplace. gross domestic product The largest industry of the U.S. is now service, which employs roughly three quarters of the U.S. work force. The United States has many natural resources, including oil and gas, metals, and such minerals as gold, soda ash, and zinc. In agriculture, the U.S. is a top producer of, among other crops, corn, soy beans, and wheat; the United States is a net exporter of food. The U.S. manufacturing sector produces goods such as, cars, airplanes, steel, and electronics, among many others. Economic activity varies greatly from one part of the country to another, with many industries being largely dependent on a certain city or region; New York City is the center of the American financial, publishing, broadcasting, and advertising industries; Silicon Valley is the country’s primary location for high-technology companies, while Los Angeles is the most important center for film production. The Midwest is known for its reliance on manufacturing and heavy industry, with Detroit, Michigan, serving as the center of the American automotive industry; the Great Plains are known as the "breadbasket" of America for their tremendous agricultural output; the intermountain region serves as a mining hub and natural gas resource; the Pacific Northwest for fish and timber, while Texas is largely associated with the oil industry; the Southeast is a major hub for both medical research and the textiles industry. Several countries continue to link their currency to the dollar or even use it as a currency (such as Ecuador), although this practice has subsided since the collapse of the Bretton Woods system. Many markets are also quoted in dollars, such as those of oil and gold. The dollar is also the predominant reserve currency in the world, and more than half of global reserves are in dollars. The largest trading partner of the United States is Canada (19%), followed by China (12%), Mexico (11%), and Japan (8%). More than 50% of total trade is with these four countries. In 2003, the United States was ranked as the third most visited tourist destination in the world; its 40,400,000 visitors ranked behind France's 75,000,000 and Spain's 52,500,000. Labor unions have existed since the 19th century, and grew large and powerful from the 1930s to the 1950s. See Labor history of the United States. Since 1970 they have shrunk in the private sector and now cover fewer than 8% of the workers. However union membership has grown rapidly in the public sector, especially among teachers, nurses, police, postal workers, and municipal clerks. There have been few strikes in recent years. The United States' imports exceed exports by 80%, leading to an annual trade deficit of $700,000,000,000, or 6% of gross domestic product. It is the largest debtor nation in the world, with total gross foreign debt of over $13,000,000,000,000 (2005 estimate); and it absorbs more than 50% of global savings annually. Since the 1980s, the U.S. has increased the use of neoliberal economic policies that reduce government intervention and reduce the size of the welfare state, backing away from the more interventionist Keynsian economic policies that had been in favor since the Great Depression. As a result, the United States provides fewer government-delivered social welfare services than most industrialized nations, choosing instead to keep its tax burden lower and relying more heavily on the free market and private charities. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have minimum wages higher than the national level ($5.15 per-hour), including the highest, Washington State at $7.35. Twenty-six states are the same as the federal level; two--Ohio and Kansas--are below; and six do not have state laws. America's wealth is relatively highly concentrated. The average C.E.O. earns 500 times the typical amount a worker grosses, this is up from 25 times in the late 1970s. In terms of wealth the top 1% of Americans own 40% of all assets and 50.1% of the country's income goes to the top twenty percent of households. Average wages for the majority of employees have been largely stagnating since the 1970s. America's poverty line defined as a family of four earning less than $19,157 is at 12.7% of the general population. Approximately one out of every five children in the United States grows up below the official poverty line. Among racial groups; African Americans have the lowest median income while Asians had the highest. Regionally, the southern states had the lowest median incomes while the West Coast and New England had the highest. The current Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan remarked that the U.S.’s growing income inequality since the 1970s is, "not the type of thing which a democratic society - a capitalist democratic society - can really accept without addressing."[http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0614/p01s03-usec.html?s=itm] However, Greenspan also noted, "...you can look at the system and say it's got a lot of problems to it, and sure it does. It always has. But you can't get around the fact that this is the most extraordinarily successful economy in history."

Transportation

Alan Greenspan ]] Because the United States is a relatively young nation, most of the development of U.S. cities has taken place since the invention of the automobile. To link its vast territory, the United States built a network of high-capacity, high-speed highways, of which the most important element is the Interstate Highway system, commissioned in the 1950s by President Dwight D. Eisenhower and modeled after the German Autobahn. The United States also has a transcontinental rail system, which is used for moving freight across the lower forty-eight states. Passenger rail service is provided by Amtrak, which serves forty-six of the lower forty-eight states. Many cities in the United States have extensive mass-transit systems. New York City operates one of the world's largest and most heavily used subway systems. The regional rail and bus networks that extend into Long Island, New Jersey, Upstate New York, and Connecticut are among the most heavily used in the world. Air travel is often preferred for destinations over 300 miles (500 kilometers) away. In terms of passengers, seventeen of the world's thirty busiest airports in 2004 were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport; in terms of cargo, in the same year, twelve of the world's thirty busiest airports were in the U.S., including the world's busiest, Memphis International Airport. There are several major seaports in the United States; the three busiest are the Port of Los Angeles, California; the Port of Long Beach, California; and the Port of New York and New Jersey. Others include Houston, Texas; Charleston, South Carolina; Savannah, Georgia; Miami, Florida; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; Boston, Massachusetts; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; and Seattle, Washington; plus, outside the contiguous forty-eight states, Anchorage, Alaska, and Honolulu, Hawaii.

Society

Demographics

Hawaii The mean center of the U.S. population continues to drift farther west and south. The fastest growing region is the western United States followed by the southern portion. According to Census 2000, the states that saw the greatest increases from 1990 were: Nevada (66.3%), Arizona (40%), Colorado (30.6%), Utah (29.6%), Idaho (28.5%), Georgia (26.4%), Florida (23.5%), Texas (22.8%), North Carolina (21.4%), and Washington (21.1%). [http://www.census.gov/population/cen2000/phc-t2/tab03.pdf]

Ethnicity and race

:Main article: Racial demographics of the United States The United States is a very racially diverse country. According to the 2000 census, it has 31 ethnic groups with at least one million members each, and numerous others represented in smaller amounts. The majority of Americans descend from white European immigrants who arrived at the establishment of the first colonies (most after Reconstruction). This majority--69.1% in 2000--decreases each year, and is expected to become a plurality within a few decades. The most frequently stated European ancestries are German (15.2%), Irish (10.8%), English (8.7%), Italian (5.6%) and Scandinavian (3.7%). Many immigrants also hail from Slavic countries such as Poland and Russia. Other significant immigrant populations came from eastern and southern Europe and French Canada. Russia Hispanics from Mexico and South and Central America are the largest minority group in the country, comprising 12.5% of the population (2000 census). People of Mexican descent made up 7.3% of the population in the 2000 census, and this proportion is expected to increase significantly in the coming decades. About 12.3% (2000 census) of the American people are African Americans (Blacks). African Americans are spread throughout the country, but their presence is largest in the South. Asian Americans--including Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders--are a third significant minority (3.7% of the population in 2000). Most Asian Americans are concentrated on the West Coast and Hawaii. The largest groups are immigrants or descendants of emigrants from the Philippines, China, India, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan. Indigenous peoples in the United States, such as American Indians and Inuit, make up 0.9% of the population (2000 census). About 35% live on Indian reservations.

Religion

Polls estimate that just under 80 percent of Americans are Christians of various denominations. The other 20 percent comprises other religions such as Hinduism, Judaism, Islam, and Buddhism, other various faiths, and those without a specific religion. The United States is noteworthy among developed nations for its relatively high level of religiosity. According to a 2004 Gallup poll, about 44% of Americans attend a religious service at least once a week. However, this rate is not uniform across the country; attendance is more common in the Bible Belt—composed largely of Southern and Midwestern states—than in the Northeast and West Coast. In the Southern states, Baptists are the largest group, followed by Methodists; Roman Catholics are dominant in the Northeast and in large parts of the Midwest due to their being settled by descendants of Catholic immigrants from Europe (such as Germany, Ireland, Italy, and Poland) or other parts of North America (mainly Quebec and Puerto Rico). The rest of the country for the most part has a complex mixture of various Christian groups.

Education

West Coast's home at Monticello and the University of Virginia (library building shown above, and designed by Jefferson), the only collegiate campus on the list. Both sites are located in Charlottesville, Virginia.]] In the United States, education is a state, not federal, responsibility, and the laws and standards vary considerably. However, the federal government, through the Department of Education, is involved with funding of some programs and exerts some influence through its ability to control funding. In most states, all students must attend mandatory schooling starting with kindergarten, which children normally enter at age 5, and following through 12th grade, which is normally completed at age 18

Democratic Party (United States)

The Democratic Party, founded in 1792, is the longest-standing political party in the world. It is one of the two major parties in the United States, the other being the Republican Party. Currently it is the minority party in the United States Senate and the House of Representatives. Democrats control 20 state legislatures, as do the Republicans (nine states have different parties in control of the upper and lower chambers, while Nebraska's unicameral legislature is elected on a nonpartisan basis). In 2005, the Democrats regained a majority of legislative seats nationwide. Of the two major U.S. parties, the Democratic Party is to the left of the Republican Party, though its politics are not as consistently leftist as the traditional social democratic and labor parties in much of the world. The Democratic Party is more notably factional than many major parties in the industrialized world, partly because American political parties in general do not have as much official power to control members as political parties in many other countries, and partly because the United States does not have a parliamentary goverment.

History

Beginnings

labor-1837).]] The Democratic Party's origins lie in the original Republican Party founded by Thomas Jefferson in 1792. Today, that party is usually referred to as the "Democratic-Republican Party" to avoid confusion. After the disintegration of the Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republicans were the only major party in American politics. For 20 years, different factions of the party contended for the presidency, whose candidates were nominated by congressional caucuses. In 1824, a particularly bitter election was thrown to the House of Representatives, and won by John Quincy Adams over Andrew Jackson, William H. Crawford, and Henry Clay. Jackson, recovering from his defeat, gathered together prominent leaders, including Martin Van Buren of New York and even Vice President John C. Calhoun to support his next bid for the presidency. By the election of 1828, the unified party broke into two. One became the National Republican Party, and backed the incumbent President, and the other, which became known as the Democratic Party, after their insistence that the President hold a national mandate from the people, backed Andrew Jackson. The National Republican faction became the Whig Party (after their opposition to "King Andrew"), which would disintegrate in the 1850s when dissident Whigs and Northern Democrats formed the Republican Party.

Antebellum

Initially the Democratic Party was a coalition between Western pioneers in the Ohio River valley and Illinois - the "North West" of the U.S. at that time - and Southern planters and agrarians from the Jeffersonian coalition. This coalition was very similar to the one that Jefferson and Madison had worked to create, and lead to the belief that Jackson, and not John Quincy Adams, represented a continuous "Jeffersonian" tradition. This was in opposition to the Federalist and Hamiltonian conception of government which Adams was said to represent. The key issues were election access and the Bank of the United States. The Jeffersonians had opposed the first bank, but had allowed it to continue for 20 years of their time in power. The issue of the Bank, and tariffs would be the central domestic policy issue from 1828 to 1850, even though it was increasingly overshadowed by expansion and nativism in the run up to the Civil War. The Democratic Party would lose the presidency to William Henry Harrison, only to gain it back when his Vice President took office, and proceeded to enact many policies the party favored. James Polk would solidify the party's hold on power with a coalition that was increasingly based on holding a solid South and taking enough states in the North to win national power. The party also became increasingly associated with continuation of slavery, including pressing for more and more aggressive laws to enforce the recapture of enslaved individuals who had escaped, and for more of the Great Plains to be opened to slavery. This ran into the Missouri Compromise, which had set a free line, north of which slavery would be prohibited, in return for keeping a balance of power in the Senate. With the disintegration of the Whig Party in 1856 into two factions, the American Party of Millard Fillmore and the Republican Party whose first candidate was John Fremont, it seemed as if the Democratic Party would have a permanent dominance of political power.

Civil War and Reconstruction

In the 1850s, following the disintegration of the Whig Party, the Democratic Party became increasingly divided, with its Southern wing staunchly advocating the expansion of slavery into new territories, in opposition to the newly founded Republican Party, which sought to prohibit such expansion. Democrats in the Northern states joined the Republicans in opposing the expansion of slavery, and at the 1860 nominating convention the Party split and nominated two candidates (see U.S. presidential election, 1860). As a result, the Democrats went down to defeat with the election of Republican Abraham Lincoln, a link in the chain of events leading up to the Civil War. During the war, Northern Democrats divided into two factions, War Democrats, who supported the military policies of President Abraham Lincoln, and Copperheads, who strongly opposed them. After 1864, the Democratic Party's main opposition has come from the modern Republican Party. The Democrats were shattered by the war but nevertheless benefited from white Southerners' resentment of Reconstruction and consequent hostility to the Republican Party. Once Reconstruction ended, and the disenfranchisement of blacks was re-established, the region was known as the "Solid South" for nearly a century because it reliably voted Democratic and there was, in many places, effectively only one party, there being no significant Republican presence. Though Republicans continued to control the White House until 1885, the Democrats remained competitive, especially in the mid-Atlantic and lower Midwest, and controlled the House of Representatives for most of that period. In the election of 1884, Grover Cleveland, the reforming Democratic Governor of New York, won the Presidency, a feat he repeated in 1892, having lost (but won the popular vote) in the election of 1888 (as had Samuel J. Tilden in the election of 1876).

Populism and Republican dominance

In the presidential election of 1896, widely regarded as a political realignment, Democrats favoring Free Silver defeated their conservative counterparts and succeeded in nominating William Jennings Bryan for the presidency (as did the agrarian Populist Party). Bryan, perhaps best known for his "Cross of Gold" speech delivered at the 1896 convention, waged a vigorous campaign attacking Eastern monied interests, but lost to Republican William McKinley in an election which was to prove decisive: the Republicans controlled the presidency for 28 of the following 36 years.

The New Deal

William McKinley The stock market crash of 1929 and the ensuing Great Depression set the stage for a more progressive government and Franklin D. Roosevelt won a landslide victory in the election of 1932, campaigning on a platform of "Relief, Recovery, and Reform". This came to be termed "The New Deal" after a phrase in his acceptance speech. The Democrats also swept to large majorities in both houses of Congress, and among state Governors. Roosevelt altered the nature of the Party, away from laissez-faire capitalism, and towards an ideology of economic regulation and insurance against hardship. After winning re-election in 1936, Roosevelt embarked on an ambitious legislative program that came to be called "The Second New Deal." He was stymied, however, by an alliance of Republicans and conservative Democrats, as well as by the Supreme Court. Frustrated by the conservative wing of his own party, Roosevelt made an attempt to rid himself of it; in 1938, he actively campaigned against five incumbent conservative Democratic senators, and to appoint more justices to the Court. However, Roosevelt's attempt to chastise the conservatives failed when all five senators won re-election despite Roosevelt's efforts, and his attempts to add justices to the Court became derisively known as "Court Packing". Roosevelt's New Deal programs focused on job creation through public works projects as well as on social welfare programs such as Social Security. It also included sweeping reforms to the banking system, work regulation, transportation, communications, stock markets and attempts to regulate prices. His policies soon paid off by uniting a diverse coalition of Democratic voters called the New Deal Coalition, which included labor unions, minorities (most significantly, Catholics and Jews), and liberals. This united voter base allowed Democrats to be elected to Congress and the presidency for much of the next 30 year