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Compromise Of 1877

Compromise of 1877

In United States politics, the Compromise of 1877 was an informal, unwritten deal that settled the disputed Election of 1876 by awarding the White House to the Republican Rutherford Hayes on the implicit understanding he would remove the federal troops that were propping up Republican state governments in South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. He was inaugurated and immediately removed the troops, and the Democrats peacefully took control of those three states. The election showed a one-vote electoral college majority for the Republicans, but the Democrats protested and two sets of official results were sent to Congress by South Carolina, Florida and Louisiana. An official Electoral Commission selected by Congress awarded the election to Hayes. Southern Democrats planned to block the Commission's report via filibuster. The Southerners had a weak hand, and the Republicans made promises that kept them quiet. The compromise resolved the crisis through a series of secret negotiations involving Republican and Democratic politicians, and various interest groups, most notably the railroad companies. The compromise was that the South would acknowledge Hayes as President if the Republicans acceded to various demands, including:
- the removal of all Federal troops from the former Confederate states. (Troops only remained in Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida, but the Compromise finalized the process.) Hayes had already promised to do this.
- the appointment of at least one Southern Democrat to Hayes' cabinet (David M. Key of Tennessee was appointed Postmaster General.) Hayes had already promised this.
- the construction of a transcontinental railroad in the South
- legislation to help industrialize the South. These two issues are controversial; neither provision was kept. The informal agreement satisfied southern Democrats and there was no filibuster. Hayes was inaugurated on schedule and removed the troops, but there was no serious effort made to fund a railroad or provide other federal aid. Since no one complained that Hayes had broken this part of the deal, some historians argue there really was no compromise. In any case Reconstruction ended and the supremacy of the Democratic party--and white supremacy--in the South was cemented with the ascent of the "Redeemer" governments that displaced the Republican "carpetbagger" governments. After the Compromise of 1877, the South generally voted solidly Democratic (the "Solid South") until 1964. The next stage of southern politics involved the issue of restricting the right to vote of Republican African American. That happened in the 1890s and was not directly linked to the Compromise of 1877.

Scholarly Sources

- C. Vann Woodward. Reunion and Reaction (1951) is the classic account, emphasizing the role of railroads.
- Alan Peskin, "Was There a Compromise of 1877?" Journal of American History (1973) v 60#1, pp 63-75 says no. Online at JSTOR
- C. Vann Woodward. "Yes, There Was a Compromise of 1877?" Journal of American History (1973) v 60#2, pp 215-23.

Primary Sources

See documents online from the [http://www.rbhayes.org/hayes/president/display.asp?id=511&subj=president Hayes Presidential Library], with essays by historians. Category:U.S. presidential election, 1876 C

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

U.S. presidential election, 1876

The U.S. presidential election of 1876 was perhaps the most disputed presidential election in American history. Samuel Tilden handily defeated Ohio's Rutherford Hayes in the popular vote, and had 184 electoral votes to Hayes' 165, with 20 votes yet uncounted. These 20 electoral votes were in dispute: in three states (Florida, Louisiana, and South Carolina) each party reported its candidate had won the state, while in Oregon one elector was declared illegal (on account of being an "elected or appointed official") and replaced.

Nominations

Republican Party nomination

Governor Rutherford B. Hayes was nominated in a close vote, receiving 384 delegate votes to chief rival James Blaine's 351. William Wheeler was nominated for Vice President by a much larger margin (366-89) over his chief rival, who would later serve as a member of the electoral commission: Frederick T. Frelinghuysen.

Democratic Party nomination

Governor Samuel J. Tilden was the overwhelming favorite for the Democratic nomination, receiving 535 delegate votes and besting his nearest rival (Indiana Governor Thomas A. Hendricks) by a nearly 4-to-1 margin. Hendricks would be nominated for Vice President of the United States by acclamation following Tilden's nomination.

Greenback Labor Party nomination

Dissatisfied with the nation's fiscal policies, the Greenback Labor Party was organized for the 1876 election, with Peter Fennimore Cooper chosen as its Presidential nominee and Samuel F. Cary chosen as his running mate.

General election

Campaign

Tilden, who had prosecuted machine politicians in New York and sent legendary boss William Tweed to jail, ran as a reform candidate against the background of the Grant administration. Both parties backed civil service reform and an end to Reconstruction. Both sides mounted mud-slinging campaigns, with Democratic attacks on Republican corruption being countered by the Civil War issue; as Republicans said, "Not every Democrat was a Rebel, but every Rebel was a Democrat".

Electoral disputes

See also: Electoral Commission (US) In Florida (4 votes), Louisiana (8) and South Carolina (7), official returns favored Tilden, but election results in each state were marked by fraud and threats of violence against Republican voters. The Republican-dominated state electoral commissions subsequently disallowed a sufficient number of Democratic votes to award their electoral votes to Hayes. In Oregon meanwhile just a single elector was disputed. The statewide result clearly had favored Hayes, but the state's Democratic Governor (LaFayette Grover) claimed that that elector, just-former postmaster John Watts, was constitutionally ineligible to vote since he was an "elected or appointed official". Grover then substituted a Democratic elector in his place. The two Republican electors dismissed Grover's action and each reported three votes for Hayes, while the Democratic elector, C. A. Cronin, reported one vote for Tilden and two votes for Hayes. (Ultimately, all three of Oregon's votes were awarded to Hayes.) Facing a constitutional crisis the likes of which the nation had never seen, on January 29, 1877 the U.S. Congress passed a law forming a 15-member Electoral Commission to settle the result. Five members came from each house of the U.S. Congress, and they were joined by five members of the United States Supreme Court. William M. Evarts served as counsel for the Republican Party. The majority party in each house received three of the five members, and the five Supreme Court justices were chosen as follows: two from each of the major parties and another judge selected by these four to cast the swing vote. The justices first selected Justice David Davis, but he was elected to the Senate by Illinois' state legislature, forcing them to choose an alternate, Justice Joseph P. Bradley, who, although a Republican, was considered the most impartial remaining member of the court. This selection proved decisive however, as Bradley joined the other seven Republican committee members in deciding the 20 disputed electoral votes, giving Hayes a 185-184 electoral vote victory. This election was one of the most contentious presidential elections in United States history, and historically more significant than even the U.S. presidential election of 2000. The returns accepted by the Commission placed Hayes' victory margin in South Carolina at 889 votes, making this the second-closest election in U.S. history, after the 2000 election, decided by 537 votes after the Supreme Court's ruling in Bush v. Gore. Interestingly enough, these two elections share many characteristics.

Members of the Electoral Commission

Commission Member	Appointed by	Party Affiliation
George Franklin Edmunds (Vermont)	Senate	Republican
Frederick Theodore Frelinghuysen (New Jersey)	Senate	Republican
Oliver Hazard Perry Thock Morton (Indiana)	Senate	Republican
Thomas Francis Bayard (Delaware)	Senate	Democratic
Allen Granberry Thurman (Ohio)	Senate	Democratic
James Abram Garfield (Ohio)	House	Republican
George Frisbie Hoar (Massachusetts)	House	Republican
Josiah Gardner Abbott (Massachusetts)	House	Democratic
Eppa Hunton (Virginia)	House	Democratic
Henry B. Payne (Ohio)	House	Democratic
Nathan Clifford (Maine)	Supreme Court	Democratic
Stephen Johnson Field (California)	Supreme Court	Democratic
Joseph Philo Bradley (New Jersey)	Supreme Court	Republican
Samuel Freeman Miller (Iowa)	Supreme Court	Republican
William Strong (Pennsylvania)	Supreme Court	Republican

Results

Reflecting the Commission's rulings. Source (Popular Vote): Source (Electoral Vote):

References

External links

- [http://geoelections.free.fr/USA/elec_comtes/1876.htm 1876 popular vote by counties]
- [http://elections.harpweek.com/09Ver2Controversy/Overview-1.htm HarpWeek | Hayes vs. Tilden: The Electoral College Controversy of 1876-1877]
- [http://www.SamuelTilden.com Samuel Tilden] Category:U.S. presidential elections Category:U.S. presidential election, 1876 Category:Close U.S. presidential elections Category:Reconstruction Category:1876 elections

Filibuster (legislative tactic)

:This article refers to the political act of filibustering, for other uses see Filibuster (disambiguation). In a legislature or other decision making body, a filibuster is an attempt to obstruct a particular decision from being taken by using up the time available, typically through an extremely long speech. The term first came into use in the United States Senate, where Senate rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose. The term comes from the early 17th century, where Buccaneers were known in England as filibusters. This term had evolved from the Spanish filibustero which had come from the French word flibustier, which again evolved from the Dutch vrijbuiter (freebooter). A similar form of parliamentary obstruction practiced in the United States and other countries is called "slow walking". It specifically refers to the extremely slow speed with which legislators walk to the podium to cast their ballots. For example, in Japan this tactic is known as a "cow walk". In general it refers to the intentional delay of the normal business of the legislature [http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?r107:S05JN2-0010:].
Filibuster in the U.S. Senate

Overview
Under Senate rules, the speech need not be relevant to the topic under discussion, and there have been cases in which a senator has undertaken part of a speech by reading from a telephone directory. Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) set a record in 1957 by filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes, although the bill ultimately passed. Thurmond broke the previous record of 22 hours and 26 minutes set by Wayne Morse (I-OR) in 1953 protesting the Tidelands Oil legislation. Preparations for a filibuster can be elaborate. Sometimes cots are brought into the hallways or cloakrooms for senators to sleep on. According to Newsweek, "They used to call it 'taking to the diaper,' a phrase that referred to the preparation undertaken by a prudent senator before an extended filibuster ... Strom Thurmond visited a steam room before his filibuster in order to dehydrate himself so he could drink without urinating. An aide stood by in the cloakroom with a pail in case of emergency." [http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3474915/] Filibusters have become much more common in recent decades. Twice as many filibusters took place in the 1991-1992 legislative session as in the entire nineteenth century. (Frozen Republic, p.198)
History

Early usage
In 1789, the First U.S. Senate adopted rules allowing the Senate "to move the previous question," ending debate and proceeding to a vote. In 1806, Aaron Burr argued that the motion regarding the previous question was redundant, had only been exercised once in the preceding four years (see M. Gold & D. Gupta, [http://www.law.harvard.edu/students/orgs/jlpp/Gold_Gupta_JLPP_article.pdf 28 Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy 205] at 215), and should be eliminated. The Senate agreed, and thus the potentiality for a filibuster sprang into being. Because the Senate created no alternative mechanism for terminating debate, the filibuster became an option for delay and blocking of floor votes. It remained a theoretical option until 1837. The first noted use of the filibuster was in an effort to prevent the attempt of Jacksonian Democrats - then in the majority - to expunge the Senate's 1834 censure of President Andrew Jackson (q.v. id. at 216; see also, S. Binder & S. Smith, [http://www.brookings.edu/press/books/filibust.htm Politics or Principle? Filibustering in the U.S. Senate] at 33-34 n31 and 39).
The 20th century and the emergence of cloture
In 1917 a rule allowing for the cloture of debate (ending a filibuster) was adopted by the Democrat-controlled Senate [http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm] at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson[http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/common/briefing/Filibuster_Cloture.htm]. From 1917 to 1949, the requirement for cloture was two-thirds of those voting. In 1946 Southern Democrats blocked a vote on a bill proposed by Dennis Chavez of New Mexico (S. 101) that would have created a permanent Fair Employment Practices Committee (FEPC) to prevent discrimination in the work place. The filibuster lasted weeks, and Senator Chavez was forced to remove the bill from consideration after a failed cloture vote even though he had enough votes to pass the bill. As civil rights loomed on the Senate agenda, this rule was revised in 1949 to allow cloture on any measure or motion by two-thirds of the entire Senate membership; in 1959 the threshold was restored to two-thirds of those voting. After a series of filibusters led by Southern Democrats in the 1960s over civil rights legislation, the Democrat-controlled Senate [http://www.senate.gov/pagelayout/history/one_item_and_teasers/partydiv.htm] in 1975 revised its cloture rule so that three-fifths of the Senate (usually 60 senators) could limit debate. Despite this rule, the filibuster or the threat of a filibuster remains an important tactic that allows a large minority to affect legislation.
Current practice
Filibusters do not occur in legislative bodies in which time for debate is strictly limited by procedural rules, such as the United States House of Representatives. The House did not adopt rules restricting debate until 1842, and the filibuster was used in that body before that time. In current practice, Senate Rule 22 permits procedural filibusters, in which actual continuous floor speeches are not required, although the Senate Majority Leader may require an actual traditional filibuster if he or she so chooses. This threat of a filibuster can be just as powerful as an actual filibuster. Budget bills are governed under special rules called "Reconciliation" which do not allow filibusters. Reconciliation theoretically only applies to bills that would reduce the budget deficit, but it has been used for bills that are only tangentially related to budget issues. A filibuster can be defeated by the governing party if they leave the debated issue on the agenda indefinitely, without adding anything else to the agenda. Thurmond's attempt to filibuster the Civil Rights Act was defeated when Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson refused to refer any further business to the Senate, which required the filibuster to be kept up indefinitely. Instead, the opponents were all given a chance to speak and the matter eventually was forced to a vote. According to a Historical Moments Essay on the U.S. Senate website, the Republican Party was the first to initiate a filibuster against a judicial nominee in 1968, forcing Democratic president Lyndon Johnson to withdraw the nomination of Associate Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas to be chief justice.
The filibuster today
In 2005, some Republican senators led by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), responding to the Democrats' threat to filibuster some judicial nominees of President George W. Bush to prevent a vote on the nominations, floated the idea of eliminating filibusters on judicial nominees by declaring current Senate rules allowing such filibusters unconstitutional. Senator Trent Lott, the senior Republican senator from Mississippi, named this plan the nuclear option. Republican leaders later referred to the plan as the constitutional option, though opponents and some supporters of the plan continue to use the term nuclear option. The filibuster battle raged on the Senate floor for much of May 2005, with Republicans claiming that they wanted judicial nominees to have a clear-cut vote of either yes or no, and Democrats, led by Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), claiming that such actions would erode traditional minority rights in government. On May 23, 14 senators – seven Democrats and seven Republicans – led by John McCain (R-AZ) and Robert Byrd (D-WV) brokered a deal to allow three of Bush's nominees a vote on the Senate floor while leaving two others subject to a filibuster. The seven Democrats promised not to filibuster Bush's nominees except under "extraordinary circumstances," while the seven Republicans promised to oppose the nuclear option. Specifically, the Democrats promised to stop the filibuster on Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown and William H. Pryor, Jr., who had all been filibustered in the Senate before. In return, the Republicans would stop the effort to ban the filibuster for judicial nominees."Extraordinary circumstances" was not defined in advance. The term is open for interpretation but the Republicans and Democrats will have to agree on what it means if any nominee is to be blocked.
Filibuster in Canada
A unique form of filibuster was pioneered by the Ontario New Democratic Party in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in April 1997. To protest Progressive Conservative government legislation that would create the megacity of Toronto, Ontario, the small New Democratic caucus introduced 11,500 amendments to the megacity bill, created on computers with mail merge functionality. Each amendment would name a street in the proposed city, and provide that public hearings be held into the megacity with residents of the street invited to participate. The Ontario Liberal Party also joined the filibuster with a smaller series of amendments; a typical Liberal amendment would give an historical designation to a named street. The filibuster began on April 2 with the Abbeywood Trail amendment and occupied the legislature day and night, the members alternating in shifts. On April 4, tired and often sleepy government members inadvertently let one of the NDP amendments pass, and the handful of residents of Cafon Court in Etobicoke were granted the right to a public consultation on the bill (the government subsequently nullified this with an amendment of their own). On April 6, with the alphabetical list of streets barely into the E's, Speaker Chris Stockwell ruled that there was no need for the 230 words identical in each amendment to be read aloud each time, only the street name. With a vote still needed on each amendment, Zorra Street was not reached until April 8. The Liberal amendments were then voted down one by one, eventually using a similar abbreviated process, and the filibuster finally ended on April 11.
- External link: [http://www.ontla.on.ca/hansard/house_debates/36_parl/session1/index.htm archive of the amendment debates] in the Provincial Hansard. The filibuster extends from section L176B of the archive to L176AE; the Cafon Court slip-up is in section L176H, Stockwell rules on the issue of repetition in L176N, and Zorra Street is reached in L176S.
Filibuster in UK Parliament
In 1983, Member of Parliament John Golding talked for over 11 hours during an all-night sitting at the committee stage of the British Telecommunications Bill. However, as this was at a standing committee and not in the Commons chamber, he was also able to take breaks for lunch and dinner. The all-time Commons record for non-stop speaking is six hours, set by Henry Brougham in 1828. The 20th-Century record for the longest non-stop Commons speech is held by Conservative barrister Sir Ivan Lawrence. The then MP for Burton spoke for four hours 23 minutes during the Fluoridation Bill's committee stage on March 6, 1985. The 21st-Century record was set on 2nd December 2005 by Andrew Dismore, Labour MP for Hendon. Dismore spoke for 197 minutes to block a Conservative Private Member's Bill, the Criminal Law (Amendment) (Protection of Property) Bill, which he claimed amounted to "vigilante law". [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4492688.stm] Filibustering can have consequences that were not expected or intended. In January 2000, filibustering orchestrated by Conservative Members of Parliament to oppose the Disqualifications Bill led to cancellation of the day's parliamentary business on Prime Minister Tony Blair's 1000th day in office. However, since this business included Prime Minister's Question Time, Conservative Leader William Hague was deprived of the opportunity of a high-profile confrontation with the Prime Minister.
Fictional representations of filibuster
The 1939 film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington climaxes with a young senator named Jefferson Smith, played by Jimmy Stewart, astonished to discover the corruption of his mentor, staging a filibuster to prevent his expulsion from the chamber long enough to expose the corruption. On the TV show The West Wing, on episode #39 "The Stackhouse Filibuster" (Second Season, aired March 14, 2001), the Senator Howard Stackhouse filibusters a health care bill for over eight hours on a Friday afternoon and evening. The resolution of the filibuster, when the West Wing staff uncover the reason behind it, constitutes the climax of the episode. [http://westwing.bewarne.com/second/39stackhouse.html]. On the TV Show Mister Sterling episode #9 "Final Passage" Senator Bill Sterling (Josh Brolin) stages a filibuster to block an education bill from passing without an amendment for prisoners education. On the TV Show Due South (Due South) Episode #130 "One Good Man" (Series 2, first aired February 8, 1996, in Canada), Canadian Mountie Benton Fraiser stages a filibuster to block the eviction by a slum lord of himself and his fellow tenants. This is an homage to the above mentioned Frank Capra film. After viewing this film on numerous occasions, as it was apparently the local Reverend's favourite film, Fraser fights for his belief that one good man can make a difference.
See also

- nuclear option
References

- [http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3474915/ Filibuster: Not Like It Used to Be], Newsweek, Nov. 24, 2003.
- The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy. 1997, Daniel Lazare.
- [http://www.senate.gov/artandhistory/history/minute/Filibuster_Derails_Supreme_Court_Appointment.htm Filibuster Derails Supreme Court Appointment]Senate Website
- "[http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4492688.stm MP's marathon speech sinks bill]" at BBC News, 2 December 2005
External links

- [http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,423312,00.html Time Magazine: The Filibuster Formula]
- [http://www.article-emporium.com/world-affairs-8455.htm Famous filibusters]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/82143.stm BBC News article on UK Filibustering] Category:Parliamentary law Category:United States Senate Category:Politics of Canada ja:議事妨害

Interest groups

:This article is about political advocacy. For legal advocacy see advocate. Advocacy is an umbrella term for organized activism related to a particular set of issues. Advocacy is expected to be non-deceptive and in good faith, though it is sometimes tainted by use of propaganda. It is almost always organized into or by an advocacy group or special interests. In other instances, an individual may act as a lobbyist, on their own account, or on behalf of a corporation or industry.

Issue advocacy

Issue advocacy is any speech relating to issues and the policy positions taken by political candidates and elected officials. Any group or individual can engage in issue advocacy. It can be as simple as a single statement, or it can be as involved as a multi-million dollar campaign of broadcast and print advertisements spreading the same message. A message stops being issue advocacy if it expressly endorses the election or defeat of a candidate (See also single-issue politics). Examples of advocacy in the computing world include operating system advocacy and open source advocacy.

Astroturfing

:For main article, see Astroturfing The term astroturfing pejoratively describes formal public relations projects which deliberately seek to engineer the impression of spontaneous, grassroots behavior, sometimes through the use of front organizations. The goal is the appearance of independent public reaction to a politician, political group, product, service, event, etc., by centrally orchestrating the behavior of many diverse and geographically distributed individuals.

Effectiveness compared to direct action

In 2004, a study by University of Washington sociologist Jon Agnone, compared the number of bills passed between 1960 and 1994 by the U.S. Congress with tactics used by 'green' groups within the same year. The study showed each protest raised the number of pro-environment bills passed by 2.2%, whereas neither efforts at conventional lobbying on Capitol Hill nor aimed at affecting the state of public opinion made any difference. The study concluded that direct action, like protests at public venues or disrupting political events, is more likely to influence environmental policy than talking to politicians.

Specific types of advocacy

- Abortion rights
- Child advocacy
- Consumer protection
- Cycling advocacy
- Psychiatric survivors movement

U. S. Southern States

The Southern United States or the South constitute a distinctive region covering a large portion of the United States. Due to the region's unique cultural and historic heritage, the South has developed its own customs, literature, musical styles (such as country music and jazz), and cuisine. The South has also been prominently involved in numerous issues faced by the United States as a whole, including the American Revolutionary War, War of 1812, slavery, the American Civil War, and Presidential politics (with the majority of the recent Presidents of the United States having come from the region).

The U.S. South
300px The Southern United States Red states show the core of the American South. States shown as pink may or may not be included in the South, with their inclusion or exclusion varying from source to source.
Population:	99,664,761
Total area:	1,481,438 sq/mi, 2,384,143 km²
Largest City (proper):	Houston, Texas 2,009,834
Highest elevation:	Guadalupe Peak 8,750 ft, 2,667 m
Lowest elevation:	New Orleans -8 ft, -2.5 m
Largest state:	Texas 696,241 km²
Smallest state:	Delaware 6,452 km²
Census Bureau Divisions	- East South Central - South Atlantic - West South Central

Geography

As defined by the Census Bureau, the Southern region of the United States includes 16 states, and is split into three smaller units, or divisions: The South Atlantic States, which are Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia (plus the District of Columbia); the East South Central States of Alabama, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee; and the West South Central States of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas. However, not all definitions of the South are based on geographic divisions, with culture and history also playing a large role in defining what is the South. For example, the Deep South is a cultural and geographic subregion of the American South which consists of the South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana (six of the seven original states of the Confederate States of America, the seventh state being Texas). Many Southerners do not consider Kentucky and West Virginia as southern states since they were not part of the Confederacy; though most residents of the two states (excepting the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia and Northern Kentucky bordering Cincinnati) self-identify themselves so. In contrast, the portions of Illinois and Indiana south of Interstate 70 exhibit strong Southern cultural characteristics, as well as large areas of Missouri. The Baltimore and Washington metropolitan areas as well as South Florida have retained very little Southern cultural identity over the past century. Historically, the South can also refer to the Old South, which are the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies. The Old South includes South Carolina, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, Delaware, and often Georgia. The Deep South and the Old South used to be known colloquially as Dixie (and is still referred to nostalgically as such). Despite these definitional differences, when most people today refer to the South they mean to the region as designated by the U.S. Census. This region currently contains a number of the twenty-five largest metropolitan areas in the United States. In order of size they are: Dallas/Fort Worth, Miami, Washington, Houston, Atlanta, Baltimore, Tampa/St. Petersburg. The Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area would be the largest metropolitan area in the South, but is no longer officially recognized by the census burearu—although it is still in popular use. If Missouri is considered to be part of the South, St. Louis' metro would also be included. While not one of the largest metro areas in the South, San Antonio is notable for being one of only three cities in the South with a city proper population of over a million, the others being Dallas and Houston. The South is a vast region, having numerous climatic zones ranging from temperate, to sub-tropical, to tropical, to arid. Many crops grow easily in its soils and can be grown without frost for at least six months of the year. Some parts of the South, particularly the Southeast, have landscape characterized by the presence of live oaks, magnolia trees, jessamine vines, and flowering dogwoods. Another common environment is the bayous and swampland of the Gulf Coast, especially in Louisiana, which looms large in American film history. The South is famously a victim of kudzu, a fast-growing vine which covers large amounts of land.

History

While Southern history stretches back to prehistoric times, the unique culture of the South primarily has its origins with the settlement of the region by British colonists in the early 17th century. Many of the immigrants who moved to the South were of European Celtic origins; according to an 1860 census, "three-quarters of white Southerners had surnames that were Scottish, Irish or Welsh in origin." [http://www.americasvoices.org/archives2003/AdamsJ/AdamsJ_061403.htm] These people mixed culturally with the Native Americans who were already in the region (such as the Creek Indians and Cherokees) and with the Africans who were brought in as slaves to support the region's agriculture. Early in its history, the South's economy became focused nearly exclusively on agriculture, with tobacco being the first big cash crop, followed by cotton from the 1790s onward. Because of the large amount of labor required to cultivate cotton, the South saw a surge in the enslavement of Africans and their descendants. Slavery did not only exist in the South - during the 18th century New York City ranked second out of the original American colonies for total number of slaves (Charleston, South Carolina being first [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/society_culture/protest_reform/slave_island_03.shtml]). However, the explosion of cotton cultivation [http://home.earthlink.net/~gfeldmeth/lec.slavery.html] made this so-called "peculiar institution" of slavery an integral part of the South's early 19th century economy. Due to the South's powerful agricultural success, the region became integral to the political history of the United States, with the South supplying many of the United States' early military and political leaders (including nine of its first twelve presidents). However, by the middle of the 19th century sectional differences surrounding the issues of slavery, taxation, tariffs, and states' rights led to the secession of most of the Southern states after the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860. The Southern states that seceded formed the Confederate States of America with Richmond as its capital. During the four year Civil War which followed, the South found itself as the primary battleground, with almost all of the main battles taking place on Southern soil. Because of this fact, many white Southerners fought in the Confederate army for what they saw as a defense of their homeland from an invading army. Though it is often unrecognized, Black Southerners also served in the Confederate army. Blacks were not subject to the draft until just before the war's end; drafted Blacks never actually served in combat. However, earlier in the war Blacks entered Confederate units in three different ways. First, Black slaves sometimes accompanied their masters into service (these Blacks may have officially been listed as servants rather than soldiers). Second, some free Blacks enlisted individually. Some states, such as Tennessee, officially permitted this. In other states, it was unofficially allowed. Finally, some Black Southerners joined all-Black or predominately-Black army or militia units. (Morett, 2005). The Confederates were eventually defeated by the Union. While casualties for the Union were higher than for the Confederates, as a proportion of their respective populations the South suffered much more than the North did. Overall, the Confederates had 95,000 killed in action and 165,000 who died of other causes, for a total of 260,000 total Confederate dead and/or missing[http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/wars19c.htm#ACW], out of a total Southern population at the time of around 9 million (of which 3.5 million were slaves).[http://www.vectorsite.net/twcw02.html] After the Civil War, the South found itself devastated, both in terms of its population, infrastructure, and economy. The South also found itself under Reconstruction, with Union military troops in direct political control of the South. Many white Southerners who had actively supported the Confederacy found themselves without many of the basic rights of citizenship (such as the ability to vote) while, with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States (which outlawed slavery), the 14th Amendment (which granted full U.S. citizenship to African Americans) and the 15th amendment (which extended the right to vote to black males), African Americans in the South began to enjoy more rights than they had ever had in the region. By the 1890s, though, a political backlash against these rights had developed in the South. Organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan, a clandestine organization sworn to perpetuate white supremacy, used lynchings, cross burnings and other forms of violence and intimidation to keep African Americans from exercising their political rights, while the Jim Crow laws were created to legally do the same thing. It would not be until the late 1960s that these changes would be undone by the