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Washington National Cathedral

Washington National Cathedral

, and a presidential burial in the cathedral mausoleum: Woodrow Wilson. Eisenhower lay in repose at the cathedral before lying in state. In addition, a memorial service for Harry Truman took place at National Cathedral, which foreign dignitaries attended because of the advanced age of his wife, Bess.]] Washington National Cathedral, officially the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul and an Episcopal church, is designated the national house of prayer of the United States. Concurrently, the cathedral is also the official seat of both the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, USA and the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, motherchurch of the Episcopal Church in the District of Columbia and Maryland counties of Charles, St. Mary's, Prince George's and Montgomery. Located at Massachusetts and Wisconsin Avenues, Northwest in Washington, DC, it is the sixth largest cathedral in the world and second largest in the United States. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The National Cathedral is affiliated to the government by a charter of Congress, signed on January 6, 1893, but does not receive any federal, state or city funding. The National Cathedral Association provides most funding for the cathedral. Contruction began in 1907, when the foundation stone was laid in the presence of Theodore Roosevelt, and lasted for 83 years; the last finial was placed in the presence of George H.W. Bush in 1990. The Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation officially oversees the Washington National Cathedral and its sister institutions: National Cathedral School, St. Albans School, Beauvoir School, Cathedral College

Leadership

The current dean of the Washington National Cathedral is the Very Reverend Samuel T. Lloyd III who officially took office on April 23, 2005. Prior to becoming dean, Lloyd was the rector of Trinity Church in Boston, Massachusetts. The current Bishop of Washington, the Right Reverend John Bryson Chane, was formerly the dean of the St. Paul's Cathedral in San Diego, California. Former Deans of the cathedral are:
- Alfred Harding (1909–1916)
- George C. F. Bratenahl (1916–1936)
- Noble C. Powell (1937–1941)
- Zebarney T. Phillips (1941–1942)
- John W. Suter (1944–1950)
- Francis B. Sayre, Jr. (1951–1978)
- John T. Walker (1978–1989)
- Nathan D. Baxter (1992–2003)

Establishment

In 1792 Pierre L'Enfant's Plan of the Federal City set aside land for a "great church for national purposes." The National Portrait Gallery now occupies that site. In 1891, a meeting was held to renew plans for a national cathedral. In 1893 the Protestant Episcopal Cathedral Foundation of the District of Columbia was granted a charter from the United States Congress to establish the cathedral. The commanding site on Mount Saint Alban was chosen. Right Reverend Henry Yates Satterlee, first Episcopal Bishop of the Diocese of Washington chose Frederick Bodley, England's leading Anglican church architect, as the head architect. Henry Vaughan was selected supervising architect. Construction started September 29, 1907 with a ceremonial address by President Theodore Roosevelt and the laying of the cornerstone. In 1912, Bethlehem Chapel opened for services in the unfinished cathedral, which have continued daily ever since. When construction of the cathedral resumed after a brief hiatus for World War I, both Bodley and Vaughan had died. American architect Philip Hubert Frohman took over the design of the cathedral and was henceforth designated the principal architect. Funding for the National Cathedral has come entirely from private sources. Maintenance and upkeep continue to rely entirely upon private support.

Music

The Great Organ was installed by the Ernest M. Skinner Organ Company, 1938. The Washington National Cathedral Choir of Men and Boys, founded in 1909, is currently one of very few cathedral choirs of men and boys in the United States with an affiliated school, in the English tradition. The 18-22 boys singing treble are ages 8-14 and attend St. Albans School, the Cathedral school for boys, on singing scholarships. In 1997, the Cathedral Choir of Men and Girls was formed, using the same men as the choir of the men and boys. The two choirs currently share service duties and occasionally collaborate. The girl choristers attend the National Cathedral School on singing scholarships. Both choirs have recently recorded several CDs, including a Christmas CD and a Patriotic CD, both of which the choirs collaborated on. Currently, Michael McCarthy serves as Director of Music. Erik Suter is Organist and Associate Choirmaster. Scott Hanoian is Assistant Organist and Choirmaster. Former organists and choirmasters include Edgar Priest, Robert George Barrow, Paul Callaway, Richard Wayne Dirksen, Douglas Major and James Litton. The resident symphonic chorus of the Washington National Cathedral is the Cathedral Choral Society. Every summer, the choral society performs with the National Symphony Orchestra.

National Cathedral Association (NCA)

The National Cathedral Association is an organization that seeks to provide funds and promote the Washington National Cathedral. It consists of more than 14,000 people nationwide. Subdivided into committees by state, more than 88 percent of its members live outside the Washington area. Every year, a state has a state day at the cathedral where a state is recognized by name in the prayers. Every four years, a state has a Major State Day, at which time those who live in the state are encouraged to make a pilgrimage to the cathedral and dignitaries from the state are invited to speak.

Architecture

National Symphony Orchestra National Symphony Orchestra Washington National Cathedral was completed on 29 September 1990 after almost a century of planning and 83 years in construction. Its final design shows a mix of influences from the various Gothic architectural styles of the middle ages, marked, among other things, by pointed arches, flying buttresses, vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows, stone-carved decorations, and three similar towers, two on the west front and one surmounting the crossing. Its west end is reminiscent of Bristol Cathedral. Washington National Cathedral consists of a long, narrow rectangular mass formed by an eight bay nave with wide side aisles and a five bay chancel, intersected by a six bay transept. Above the crossing rising 91 m (301 ft) above the ground is the Gloria in Excelsis Tower. Its top, at 206 m (676 ft) above sea level is the highest point in Washington, DC, with the Pilgrim Observation Gallery providing a sweeping view of the city. In total, the cathedral is 115 m (375 ft) above sea level. Uniquely, the tower has two full sets of bells — a 53-bell carillon and a 10-bell peal for change ringing. The cathedral sits on a landscaped 57 acre (230,000 m²) plot on Mount Saint Alban, in northwest Washington, DC. The one story porch projecting from the south transept has a large portal with a carved tympanum. This portal is approached by the Pilgrim Steps, a long flight of steps 12 m (40 ft) wide. Most of the building is constructed using gray Indiana limestone. Some concrete and structural steel were used sparingly. The interior of Washington National Cathedral abounds in architectural sculptures, wood carvings, mosaics and wrought iron pieces. There is even a gargoyle of Darth Vader on the north tower. Stones from Canterbury Cathedral were sent for construction of the pulpit. Glastonbury Abbey provided stone for the bishop's cathedra, his formal seat. The high altar is made from the ledge of rock in which Christ's sepulchre was hewn. There are other works of art including over two hundred stained glass windows, the most familiar of which may be the Space Window, honoring man's landing on the Moon, which includes a fragment of lunar rock at its center. Most of the decorative elements have Christian symbolism, in reference to the church's Episcopalian roots, but the cathedral is filled with memorials to persons or events of national significance: statues of Washington and Lincoln, state seals embedded in the mosaic floor of the narthex, state flags that hang along the nave, stained glass commemorating events like the Lewis and Clark expedition.

National House of Prayer

Washington National Cathedral's role as the national house of prayer has over the years united Americans in several religious and secular services hosted at the site. During World War II, monthly services “on behalf of a united people in a time of emergency” were held.

Major Events

World War II Washington National Cathedral has played host to many major events, showing the cathedral's proud distinction as being "the national house of prayer for all people." Some of the major events that showed the cathedral's proud distinction include:
- State funerals of two American presidents:
  - General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower (1969)
    - Eisenhower lay in repose at the cathedral before lying in state
  - Ronald Reagan (2004) [http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/programs/reagan/1.shtml]
- Funeral for Katharine Graham (2001)
- Presidential prayer service the day after a presidential inauguration
- Memorial services. Most notable ones:
  - President Harry Truman (1973)
    - Truman had planned a state funeral and burial at the cathedral. However, due the advanced age of his wife, Bess when he passed away, all the services were done in Missouri and were private. Foreign dignitaries gathered for a memorial service at the cathedral a week after the funeral.
  - Victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks in 2001 [http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/programs/wtc9.11/wtc.shtml] In addition, Washington National Cathedral's pulpit was the last one from which Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke prior to his assassination in 1968. Many major events have been interfaith services, showing the cathedral's proud distinction. Services held at the cathedral that fall in this category are the 9/11 memorial service (even as Canada's service, on Parliament Hill, took place at the same time) and the Reagan funeral.

References in Popular Culture


- setting of Margaret Truman's Murder at the National Cathedral
- place of Mrs. Landingham's funeral in Season 2 finale of The West Wing Two Cathedrals
- Cathedral Close (area in and around the cathedral) is alluded to, often, but rather vaguely, in movie Along Came a Spider.

Last resting place

Washington National Cathedral and its mausoleum and columbaria are the last resting places of many notable American citizens:
- George Dewey, navy admiral
- Philip Frohman, cathedral architect
- Helen Keller, deaf role model
- Henry Yates Satterlee, first Episcopal bishop of Washington
- Leo Sowerby, founding director of the College of Church Musicians
- Henry Vaughan, cathedral architect
- Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States
  - Wilson is the only president buried in Washington D.C.

Resources


- [http://www.edow.org/ Episcopal Diocese of Washington]
- [http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/index.shtml Washington National Cathedral website] Category:Episcopal cathedrals of the United StatesCategory:Washington, D.C. landmarks Category:Churches in the United States Category:National Register of Historic Places Category:Cemeteries in Washington, D.C.

Harry Truman

:: This article is about Harry S. Truman, the 33rd President of the United States. For other Harry Trumans, please see: Harry Truman. Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the thirty-fourth Vice President (1945) and the thirty-third President of the United States (1945–53), succeeding to the office upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Truman's presidency was eventful, seeing the dropping of atomic bombs in Japan, the end of World War II, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the beginning of the Cold War, the desegregation of the U.S. armed forces, the formation of the United Nations, the second red scare, and most of the Korean War. Truman was a folksy, unassuming president, and popularized phrases such as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." He exceeded the low expectations many had at the beginning of his administration, and developed a reputation as a strong, capable leader.

Early life

The buck stops here Harry Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri, the eldest child of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen Young Truman. A brother, John Vivian (1886–1965), soon followed, along with a sister, Mary Jane Truman (1889–1978). When Truman was six years of age, his parents moved the family to Independence, Missouri, and it was there that Truman would spend the bulk of his formative years. After graduating from high school in 1901, Truman worked at a series of clerical jobs before he decided to become a farmer in 1906, an occupation in which he remained for another ten years. He was the last president not to earn a college degree, although he studied for two years toward a law degree at the Kansas City Law School (currently the University of Missouri - Kansas City School of Law) in the early 1920s and was a fellow classmate of future United States Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Whittaker. Charles Evans Whittaker With the onset of American participation in World War I, Truman enlisted in the National Guard, was chosen to be an officer, and then commanded a regimental battery in France. His unit was Battery D of the 129th Field Artillery, 60th Brigade, 35th Division. At his physical his eyesight was 20/50 in the right eye and 20/400 in the left eye. Before heading to France, Harry was sent for training at Fort Sill, near Lawton, Oklahoma. While at Ft. Sill he was given the additional duty of running the camp canteen (to provide candy, cigarettes, shoelaces, sodas, tobacco, writing paper, etc. to the soldiers). This position would mean that nearly every soldier there would come to know Lt. Truman, at least by sight, and his name. To help run the canteen, Harry enlisted the help of his Jewish friend Sergeant Edward Jacobson (Eddie), who had experience in a Kansas City clothing store as a clerk. Another man he would meet at Ft. Sill, who would pay dividends after the war, was Lt. James M. Pendergast, the nephew of Thomas Joseph (T.J.) Pendergast, a Kansas City politician. Kansas City]] In France, Captain Truman's battery performed very well under fire in the Vosges Mountains. Truman later rose to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the National Guard and always remained proud of his military background. Under his command the artillery battery, Battery D, did not lose a single man. At the war's conclusion, Truman returned to Independence and married his longtime love interest, Bess Wallace, on 28 June 1919. The couple had one child, Margaret (b. 24 February 1924). A month before the wedding, banking on the success they had at Ft. Sill and overseas, the men's clothing store of Truman & Jacobson opened at 104 West 12th St. in downtown Kansas City. The store went bankrupt in 1922 after being very successful the first couple of years, but then the bottom fell out of the grain market, and lower prices for wheat and corn meant less sales of silk shirts. What shirts and ties that they did manage to sell went mainly to former members of the 129th. It was simple economics: in 1919 wheat went for $2.15 a bushel, in 1922 it was 88 cents a bushel. Harry blamed the fall in farm prices on the policies of the Republicans, and Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon in Washington, a factor that would influence his decision to become a Democrat. Truman worked for years to pay off the debts. He and Eddie Jacobson were friends for the rest of their lives, and it was to Eddie he turned for advice on the Zionist issue.

Political career

In 1922, with the help of the Kansas City Democratic machine led by boss Tom Pendergast, Truman was elected judge of the County Court of Jackson County, Missouri — an administrative, not judicial, position. Although he was defeated for reelection in 1924, he won back the office in 1926 and was reelected in 1930. Truman performed his duties in this office diligently, and won personal acclaim for several popular public works projects, including the series of 12 Madonna of the Trail monuments to pioneer women dedicated across the country in 1928 and 1929. In 1924, at the urging of his friend Edgar Hinde, who said that it would be "good politics," Truman gave Hinde the $10 membership fee to join the Ku Klux Klan. The complicated evidence about, background for, and interpretation of this episode are discussed in detail in the article Notable Ku Klux Klan members in national politics. As a result of the intricate tactical twists and turns of machine politics, Truman emerged from this period decisively opposed to and opposed by the Klan. The Klan's enmity for him was increased even more during Truman's presidency, which marked the first significant improvement in the federal government's record on civil rights since the nadir of American race relations during the Wilson administration. In a similar paradox, Truman, who sometimes expressed negative views of Jews in his diaries, and referred to New York as "kike-town," also had a Jewish friend and business partner (Edward Jacobson), and later became one of the moving forces behind the creation of the state of Israel. In the 1934 election the Pendergast machine selected him to run for Missouri's open Senate seat, and he ran as a New Dealer in support of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Once elected, Truman supported the president on most issues and became a popular member of the Senate "club," and was even voted as one of the ten "best-dressed" senators, soon overcoming his initial reputation as a member of the Pendergast machine. Having always taken a keen interest in foreign affairs, Truman first gained national prominence in his second term when his preparedness committee (popularly known as the "Truman Committee") made a scandal of military wastefulness by exposing fraud and mismanagement. His advocacy of common-sense cost-saving measures for the military gained him wide respect, and he emerged as a popular choice for the vice-presidential slot in 1944. He was barely installed as vice president when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, elevating him to the presidency. A famous story says that when Truman was summoned to the White House on April 12, it was the now former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt who informed him that the president was dead. Truman asked if there was anything he could do for her, to which the former First Lady replied, "Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now."

Presidency

Eleanor Roosevelt When Truman first took office, he was initially preoccupied with foreign policy: the Allied conference in Potsdam, the conclusion of the war in Europe, and then in August, with the decision to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Truman was also one of the very few U.S. presidents to serve nearly an entire term without a vice president. It was not until Truman's second term, from 1949 to 1953, that he was joined by a vice president on his election ticket. Realizing that the interests of the Soviet Union were quickly becoming incompatible with the interests of the United States government in the absence of a common enemy, Truman's administration articulated an increasingly hard line against the Soviets. That Truman would follow an anti-Soviet course was clear even before the end of World War II. On June 23, 1941, a day after Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union Truman, then a Senator, publicly declared: "If we see that Germany is winning we ought to help Russia and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany, and that way let them kill as many as possible, although I don't want to see Hitler victorious under any circumstances. Neither of them thinks anything of their pledged word." (New York Times, June 24 1941) Nonetheless, as a Wilsonian internationalist, Truman initially strongly supported the creation of the United Nations, and included former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on the delegation to the U.N.'s first General Assembly in order to appease the public desire for peace after the carnage of the Second World War. Although some people were distrustful of his expertise on foreign matters, Truman was able to win broad support for the Marshall Plan, which was offered to the Eastern bloc countries and the Soviet Union, and then for the Truman Doctrine which sought to contain Soviet power in Europe. To get Congress to spend on the Marshall Plan, Truman used an ideological argument about averting Communism to get the funding; although, it is highly unlikely that he believed this because he offered Marshall Plan money to the Soviets, and U.S. ambassador George F. Kennan wrote a long message from Moscow known as "The Long Telegram," explaining how Russian policy had nothing to do with the expansion of Communism but was about traditional Russian fears of invasion. Following many years of Democratic majorities in Congress and Democratic presidents, voter fatigue led to a new Republican majority in the 1946 midterm elections, with the Republicans picking up 55 seats in the House of Representatives and several seats in the Senate. Truman fought the Republican Congress in 1947 and 1948 to prevent any reduction in tax rates. Modest cuts were eventually enacted over his veto, but they were short-lived: the onset of the Korean conflict in 1950 once again required an increase in taxes. 1950 As he readied for the approaching 1948 election, Truman made clear his identity as a Democrat in the New Deal tradition, advocating universal health insurance, and the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act in a broad legislative program that he called the "Fair Deal." While it was widely expected that Truman would lose, he campaigned furiously and managed to pull off one of the greatest upsets in presidential election history by defeating Thomas E. Dewey and earning a term in the White House in his own right. Shortly after Truman's inauguration, he presented his Fair Deal program to Congress, but it was not well received and only one of its major bills was enacted. A few months later the nation's attention was focused solidly on foreign policy once again with the "fall of China" to Mao Zedong's Communists. The incident would prove to be catastrophic for the administration, because it signaled the end of the Democrats' ability to manage the early Cold War in the eyes of the American public. Within a year of Nationalist China's collapse, Alger Hiss was accused of being a Communist agent (accusation supported in 1996 by the VENONA project[http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/hiss/hissvenona.html]), war had broken out between South Korea and North Korea, and Senator Joseph McCarthy had publicly accused the State Department of being riddled with Communists. The Hiss case damaged the Truman White House and Senator McCarthy initially commanded broad public support, but events at home took a backseat to the war in Korea where Douglas MacArthur had won the imagination of the American people. Following the Chinese intervention in early November 1950, MacArthur advocated extending the war into mainland China. When Truman disagreed with him, MacArthur publicly aired his views, and the president responded by relieving him of command. In June 1950, President Truman issued the following statement[http://www.geocities.com/taiwanstatus/taiwanstatus] and ordered the Seventh Fleet of the United States Navy into the Strait of Formosa to prevent any conflict between the Republic of China and the PRC. : "The attack upon Korea makes it plain beyond all doubt that communism has passed beyond the use of subversion to conquer independent nations and will now use armed invasion and war. It has defied the orders of the Security Council of the United Nations issued to preserve international peace and security. In these circumstances the occupation of Formosa by Communist forces would be a direct threat to the security of the Pacific area and to United States forces performing their lawful and necessary functions in that area. : "Accordingly I have ordered the 7th Fleet to prevent any attack on Formosa. As a corollary of this action I am calling upon the Chinese Government on Formosa to cease all air and sea operations against the mainland. The 7th Fleet will see that this is done. The determination of the future status of Formosa must await the restoration of security in the Pacific, a peace settlement with Japan, or consideration by the United Nations." Truman's dispute with MacArthur was a deeply unpopular action that seriously wounded Truman's credibility with the American people. His unpopularity grew even more pronounced as the military situation in Korea became increasingly stalemated. Realizing that his electoral chances were slim after losing a primary to Estes Kefauver, Truman withdrew his candidacy for the election of 1952. After the election on January 7, 1953, Truman announced the development of the hydrogen bomb. Unlike other presidents, Truman lived in the White House very little during his term in office. Structural analysis of the building early in his term had shown the White House to be in danger of imminent collapse, partly due to problems with the walls and foundation that dated back to the burning of the building by the British during the War of 1812. While the White House was systematically dismantled to the foundations and rebuilt — a project that also added what is now known as the "Truman Balcony" to the curved portico of the White House — Truman was moved to Blair House nearby, which became his "White House." On November 1, 1950, Puerto Rican nationalists Griselio Torresola and Oscar Collazo attempted to assassinate Truman at Blair House. In response, Truman allowed for a genuinely democratic plebiscite in Puerto Rico to determine the status of its relationship to the United States. Truman also spent time on Little Torch Key in the Florida Keys during the White House reconstruction.

Israel

Truman, who had been a supporter of the Zionist movement as early as 1939, was a key figure in the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. In 1946, an Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry recommended the gradual establishment of two states in Palestine, with neither Jews nor Arabs dominating. However, there was little public support for the two-state proposal, and Britain was under pressure to withdraw from Palestine quickly due to attacks on British forces by armed Zionist groups. At the urging of the British, a special U.N. committee recommended the immediate partitioning of Palestine into two states, and with Truman's support, it was approved by the General Assembly in 1947. The British announced that they would leave Palestine by May 15, 1948, and the Arab League Council nations began moving troops to Palestine's borders. There was significant disagreement between Truman and the State Department about how to handle the situation, and meanwhile, tensions were rising between the U.S. and Soviet Union. In the end, Truman, amid controversy both at home and abroad, recognized the State of Israel 11 minutes after it declared itself a nation.

Civil rights

After a hiatus that had lasted since Reconstruction, the Truman administration marked the federal government's first steps in the area of civil rights. A particularly savage 1946 lynching of two young black men and two young black women near Moore's Ford Bridge in Walton County, Georgia, was an important event that focused attention on civil rights, and was one factor behind the issuing of a 1947 report by the Truman administration titled To Secure These Rights, which advocated, among other civil rights reforms, making lynching a federal crime. In 1948, he submitted a civil rights agenda to Congress that proposed creating several federal offices devoted to issues such as voting rights and fair employment practices. This provoked a firestorm of criticism from Southern Democrats in the time leading up to the national nominating convention, but Truman refused to compromise, saying "My forbears were Confederates... But my very stomach turned over when I learned that Negro soldiers, just back from overseas, were being dumped out of army trucks in Mississippi and beaten." In the same year, he issued Executive Order 9981, racially integrating the U.S. Armed Services following World War II. However, even as late as the 1948 nominating convention he was wavering on the issue of civil rights; a sharp address given by Hubert H. Humphrey, Jr., then the mayor of the Midwestern city of Minneapolis, Minnesota and candidate for the United States Senate seat then held by Joseph H. Ball, convinced the Democratic party to adopt a strong civil rights plank, which was wholeheartedly adopted by Truman.

Cabinet

Joseph H. Ball (All of the cabinet members when Truman became president in 1945 had been serving under Roosevelt previously.)

Supreme Court appointments

Truman appointed the following Justices to the Supreme Court of the United States:
- Harold Hitz Burton - 1945
- Fred M. Vinson - Chief Justice - 1946
- Tom Campbell Clark - 1949
- Sherman Minton - 1949

Major legislation signed


- Project Paperclip - September, 1946
- National Security Act - July 26, 1947
- Truman Doctrine - March 12, 1947
- Marshall Plan/European Recovery Plan

Post-presidency

In 1951, the U.S. ratified the 22nd Amendment, disqualifying presidents from running for a third term (or a second term, if they had served more than two years of another's term). The amendment did not apply to Truman, since he was president when it was passed. However, Truman withdrew his candidacy for the election of 1952 after losing the New Hampshire primary to Estes Kefauver. Truman had always maintained privately that he would not run for reelection in 1952. At the time of the New Hampshire primary, no candidate had elicited Truman's backing. Without a front-runner, and with no announcement that he would not run for reelection having been made, Truman's name was placed on the ballot. (In New Hampshire, interested individuals can nominate a person to be entered in the primary ballot without his or her consent.) By March 1952 Truman had announced his decision not to run, and pressure on Gov. Adlai Stevenson (D-Ill.) to run for the Democratic nomination increased. Truman made the most of his post-presidential years, making speeches and writing his memoirs after he left Washington. He returned home to take up residence at his mother-in-law's house in Independence, Missouri. His predecessor, Franklin D. Roosevelt, had organized his own presidential library, but legislation to enable future presidents to do something similar still remained to be enacted. Truman worked to garner private donations to build a presidential library which he then donated to the government, which would then maintain it, a practice adopted by all his successors. presidential library, 1965, by President Lyndon Johnson.]] Former members of Congress and the federal courts received a federal retirement package, and it was president Truman who ensured that servants of the other branches of government received similar privileges. Truman decided that he did not wish to be on any corporate payroll, which reflected his view that to take advantage of such a benefit would diminish the integrity of the nation's highest office. It cannot be said, however, that he foreswore all attempts to "cash in" after leaving office, as he received the then-record sum of $600,000 as an advance on the publication of his memoirs. In 1956, Truman took a trip to Europe with his wife, and was a universal sensation. In Britain he received an honorary degree in Civic Law from Oxford University. He met with his friend Winston Churchill for the last time, and on returning to the U.S. he gave his full support to Adlai Stevenson's second bid for the White House, although he had initially favored Gov. W. Averell Harriman (D-NY) for the nomination. Upon turning eighty, Truman was feted in Washington and asked to address the United States Senate. His advanced age showed, because he was so emotionally overcome by his reception that he was unable to deliver his speech. He also campaigned for senatorial candidates. A bad bathroom fall in 1964 severely limited his physical capabilities, and he was unable to maintain his daily presence at his presidential library. On December 5, 1972, he was admitted to Kansas City's Research Hospital and Medical Center with lung congestion. He subsequently developed heart irregularities, kidney blockages, and digestive problems, and died at 7:50 a.m. on December 26 at the age of 88. He is buried at the Truman Library. As Vietnam and in later years Watergate wrenched at the heart of the nation, Truman's reputation steadily rose, and even the band Chicago wrote a song about the nation's former president. Truman's longtime home (1919–72), the Wallace House at 219 North Delaware Street in Independence, Missouri, and his grandfather's farm nearby, are maintained as the Harry S. Truman National Historic Site. The headquarters building of the State Department in Washington, D.C., is named the Harry S. Truman Building in his honor.

Truman's middle initial

right Truman did not have a middle name, but only a middle initial. It was a common practice in southern states, including Missouri, to use initials rather than names. Truman said the initial was a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp(e) Truman and Solomon Young. He once joked that the S was a name, not an initial, and it should not have a period, but official documents and his presidential library all use a period. Furthermore, the Harry S. Truman Library has numerous examples of the signature written at various times throughout Truman's lifetime where his own use of a period after the "S" is very obvious.

Memorials


- USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) is a Nimitz-class supercarrier of the United States Navy. The keel was laid by Newport News Shipbuilding November 29, 1993, and was christened September 7, 1996. The ship is currently based at Norfolk, Virginia.
- Truman Sports Complex

Media

See also


- U.S. presidential election, 1944
- U.S. presidential election, 1948
- History of the United States (1945-1964)
- Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum in Independence, Missouri
- USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75)
- Truman State University
- Madonna of the Trail monuments across U.S. dedicated by then Judge Truman
- Give 'em Hell, Harry!, a one-man biographical play and film by Samuel Gallu, starring James Whitmore as Truman.

External links


-
- [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/ Truman Museum and Library]
- [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/ht33.html White House biography]
- [http://www.whitehousetapes.org/pages/tapes_hst.htm Truman Oval Office Recordings]
- [http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/truman.htm Inaugural Address]
- [http://vvl.lib.msu.edu/showfindingaid.cfm?findaidid=TrumanHS Audio clips of Truman's speeches]
- [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/speriod.htm How Truman spelled his name]
- [http://www.h-net.msu.edu/reviews/showrev.cgi?path=296321024595230 Peter M. Carrozzo on Michael R. Gardner, Harry Truman and Civil Rights: Moral Courage and Political Risks]
- [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A40678-2003Jul10¬Found=true Harry Truman's Forgotten Diary (washingtonpost.com)]
- [http://keirsey.com/personality/Truman.html An analysis of Harry Truman's personality]
- [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/cabinet/cabinet.htm Harry Truman's cabinet]
-
- The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists asks, [http://www.thebulletin.org/web_only_content/sixty_years_later "Would you have dropped the bomb?"]

References

Part of this article was copied from: [http://www.nps.gov/elro/glossary/truman-harry.htm the National Parks Service: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site] Material which is in the public domain. The original authors of the article cite the following references:
- American National Biography. Vol. 21. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999, 857–863. ISBN 0195206355
- Black, Allida M. Casting Her Own Shadow: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Shaping of Postwar Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996, 51–85. ISBN 0231104057
- Graff, Henry F., ed. The Presidents: A Reference History. 2nd ed. New York: Simon and Schuster Macmillan, 1996, 443–458. ISBN 0684804719
- Lash, Joseph. Eleanor: The Years Alone. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1972, 23, 36–37, 142–145, 210, 214, 296. ISBN 0393073610
- Truman, Margaret. Harry S. Truman. New York: William Morrow and Co. (1973). # quoted in 1974 pocket book edition, p. 429
- Wade, Wyn Craig. The Fiery Cross: The Ku Klux Klan in America. New York: Simon and Schuster (1987).
  - Notes: # Wade, 1987, p. 196, gives essentially this version of the events, but implies that the meeting was a regular Klan meeting, rather than an individual meeting between Truman and a Klan organizer. An interview with Hinde at the Truman Library's web site ([http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/hindeeg.htm http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/hindeeg.htm], retrieved June 26, 2005) portrays it as a one-on-one meeting at the Hotel Baltimore with a Klan organizer named Jones. Truman's biography, written by his daughter (Truman, 1973), agrees with Hinde's version, but does not mention the $10 initiation fee; the same biography reproduces a telegram from O.L. Chrisman stating that reporters from the Hearst papers had questioned him about Truman's past with the Klan, and that he had seen Truman at a Klan meeting, but that "if he ever became a member of the Klan I did not know it."
- Wexler, Laura. Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America, New York: Scribner, 2003.
  - Notes: # Wexler, 2003. In addition, information was drawn from one of the most authoritative works on Harry S. Truman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning biography:
- McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992. ISBN 0671869205
  - Notes: # KKK: page 164–165

Notes

# [http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/trumandiary1.html http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/trumandiary1.html], [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A40678-2003Jul10¬Found=true http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A40678-2003Jul10¬Found=true], both retrieved July 1, 2005. # [http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/integration/IAF-12.htm http://www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/integration/IAF-12.htm], retrieved June 30, 2005. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. Truman, Harry S. ja:ハリー・S・トルーマン ko:해리 S. 트루먼 simple:Harry S. Truman th:แฮร์รี เอส. ทรูแมน

Bess Truman

Elizabeth Virginia Wallace Truman (February 13, 1885 – October 18, 1982), often known as "Bess Truman", was the wife of Harry S. Truman and First Lady of the United States from 1945 to 1953. She was born to Margaret ("Madge") Gates and David Wallace on February 13, 1885, in Independence, Missouri. Christened Elizabeth Virginia, she grew up as "Bessie." Harry Truman, whose family moved to town in 1890, always kept his first impression of her -- "golden curls" and "the most beautiful blue eyes." A relative said, "there never was but one girl in the world" for him. They attended the same schools from fifth grade through high school. After high school, she studied Miss Barstow's Finishing School for Girls in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1903, her father killed himself, and she returned to Independence to be with her mother. For Bess and Harry, World War I altered a deliberate courtship. He proposed and they became engaged before Lieutenant Truman left for the battlefields of France in 1918. They were married on June 28, 1919; they lived in Mrs. Wallace's home, where their only child, daughter Mary Margaret was born in 1924. Beforehand, she had several miscarriages. When Harry Truman became active in politics, Mrs. Truman traveled with him and shared his platform appearances as the public had come to expect a candidate's wife to do. His election to the Senate in 1934 took the family to Washington, DC. He became Vice President in 1944. Upon Franklin D. Roosevelt's death on April 12, 1945, Harry Truman took the President's oath of office--and Bess, who managed to look on with composure, was the new First Lady. Mrs. Truman found the White House's lack of privacy distasteful. As her husband put it later, she was "not especially interested" in the "formalities and pomp or the artificiality which, as we had learned..., inevitably surround the family of the President." Though she conscientiously fulfilled the social obligations of her position, she did only what was necessary. While the mansion was rebuilt during the second term, the Trumans lived in Blair House and kept social life to a minimum. In most years of her husband's presidency, Mrs. Truman was not present in Washington except for the social season when her duties were needed. The comparison to Mrs. Truman's predecessor, Eleanor Roosevelt, was marked. Unlike Mrs. Roosevelt, Mrs. Truman held only one press conference after many requests from the mostly female press corps assigned to her. The press conference consisted of written questions in advance of which the replies (also on paper) were mostly monosyllabic accompanied by many "no comments." Her responses to whether she wanted her daughter, Margaret, to become President was "most definitely not." Her reply to what she wanted to do after her husband left office was "return to Independence" although she had briefly entertained the thought of living in Washington after 1953. The Trumans did indeed return to Independence in 1953, resuming their residence in the family home at 219 North Delaware Street while the former president worked on building his library and writing his memoirs. After her husband's death in 1972, Mrs. Truman continued to live quietly, enjoying visits from Margaret and her husband, Clifton Daniel, and their four sons. She agreed to be the honorary chairman for the reelection campaign of Sen. Thomas Eagleton (D-Missouri). She died in 1982 and was buried beside her husband in the courtyard of the Harry S. Truman Library. At the time of her death at the age of 97 years, she was the longest lived First Lady of the United States, a record that still stands. As of 2005, Lady Bird Johnson is the oldest surviving First Lady of the United States.

Reference


- Original text based on [http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/firstladies/et33.html White House biography] Truman, Bess Truman, Bess Truman, Bess

Episcopal Church in the United States of America

is the national cathedral of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America.]] The Episcopal Church or the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America is the American national church of the Anglican Communion. It includes 108 dioceses in the United States, the US Virgin Islands, Haiti, Taiwan, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, and Honduras, and has an extra-provincial relationship with the dioceses of Puerto Rico and Venezuela. It is sometimes known as the Episcopal Church in the USA, abbreviated ECUSA. The main church of the Episcopal Church is the Washington National Cathedral, which also serves as a gathering place for the nation, under charter by Congress. Episcopal church buildings are often recognizable by their trademark red doors.

History

The Episcopal Church was founded in 1789 after the American colonies proclaimed independence from Great Britain. Prior to the American Revolutionary War, the Episcopal Church was part of the Church of England, whose clergy are required to accept the supremacy of the British monarch. When the clergy of Connecticut elected Samuel Seabury as their bishop, he sought consecration in England. The Oath of Supremacy proved too difficult a problem, so he went to Scotland, where the Scottish bishops (at the time being persecuted by the state) consecrated him in Aberdeen on November 14, 1784, the first Anglican bishop outside the British Isles. The American bishops thus descend in the Apostolic succession from the bishops of Scotland, and to this day the nine crosses which symbolise ECUSA's nine original dioceses in its arms form a St Andrew's cross, commemorating the Scottish link. In Scotland, the Episcopal Church is so known because unlike the national state Church of Scotland (which is Presbyterian, i.e. governed by Elders), it is governed by bishops (in Latin episcopi). The word "Anglican" comes from the Latin word Anglicana which literally means English.

The Church

Presbyterian Other than the name difference the national churches are roughly the same, however the different groups (i.e., High Church, Broad Church, and Low Church) within the national branches of the Church may be proportionally different in numbers. Like many other Anglican churches, it has entered into full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In the United States the Church has a membership of approximately 3 million, and has had such notable members as more than a quarter of all presidents of the United States and Supreme Court chief justices as well as roughly half of the members of Congress and Supreme Court associate justices. The full legal name of the national church corporate body is "The Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America", but this name is rarely used.

Provinces

The Episcopal Church in the United States has nine provinces, numbered as follows #New England #New York, New Jersey, Haiti, United States Virgin Islands, and Convocation of American Churches in Europe #Delaware, District of Columbia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia #Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, eastern Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee #Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, eastern Missouri, Ohio, Wisconsin #Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming #Arkansas, Kansas, western Louisiana, western Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, #Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawai'i, Idaho, Oregon, Nevada, Utah, Taiwan, Washington #Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela Each province is subdivided into dioceses. See: Dioceses of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America

The Book of Common Prayer

The Episcopal Church publishes its own Book of Common Prayer (BCP), which was last updated in 1979. The BCP contains the worship services or liturgies for all Episcopalians. The BCP is a primary source for the theology of Episcopalians. Other BCPs were issued in 1789, 1892, and 1928. A proposed BCP was issued in 1786 but not adopted. The BCP is public domain; however, any new revisions of the BCP are copyrighted until they are approved by the General Convention. After this happens, the BCP is placed into the public domain. The text is controlled by the Custodian of the Standard Book of Common Prayer.

Church Polity

The basic unit of governance in the Episcopal Church is the diocese. The ordained leader of the diocese is a bishop. Other ordained leaders include priests (or presbyters) and deacons. Laity participate fully in the life and governance of the Church. The Church holds its General Convention every three years. The General Convention is bicameral. There is the House of Bishops and the House of Deputies, the latter being made up of both priests and lay persons. Each diocese elects four clergy and four laypeople as deputies. The head of the House of Bishops is the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. The head of the House of Deputies is the president who is either a lay person or priest. The last General Convention was held in 2003. The next one will be held in 2006, in Columbus, Ohio.

Congregations

Each diocese is composed of congregations of various kinds: cathedrals, parishes, missions and chapels. A cathedrals acts as the mother church of the diocese, and, usually, as a parish as well. Most dioceses have a cathedral, though many do not. A few have two cathedrals or a cathedral and a pro-cathedral. Others designate a conference or retreat centre chapel as a cathedral. Usually a cathedral is led by a priest called a dean. A cathedral's lay governing body is known as a chapter, although some cathedrals have a vestry as well. Most congregations are parishes. A parish is a self-sustaining congregation, not supported by the diocese. The ordained leader of a parish is a priest, usually called a rector. Two primary lay leaders of every congregation are the wardens, sometimes referred to as senior and junior. In addition to the rector and wardens, there are additional lay persons elected to support the mission and ministry of the congregation. The rector, the wardens, and these laity comprise what is known as the vestry. The number of these additional laity vary depending on the size of the congregation. A mission is a congregation supported in part by the diocese. It is governed similarly to a parish but is more directly responsible to its diocese and bishop. A mission is led by a clergyperson usually called a vicar. Instead of a vestry, a mission's lay leadership is called either a mission committee or a bishop's committee. A chapel may be connected to another institution, such as a school or hospital or it may be a congregation that is active for only part of the year. The latter are usually found in resort areas and are often called "summer chapels". The clergyperson in charge of a chapel is usually a chaplain, but a summer chapel may instead have a vicar.

Colleges Affiliated with the Episcopal Church


- Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
- Clarkson College, Omaha, Nebraska
- Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Geneva, New York
- Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio
- St. Augustine College, Chicago, Illinois
- St. Augustine's College, Raleigh, North Carolina
- St. Paul's College, Lawrenceville, Virginia
- University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee
- Voorhees College, Denmark, South Carolina

Seminaries of the Episcopal Church


- Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, New Haven, Connecticut
- Bexley Hall (Seminary), Rochester, New York and Columbus, Ohio
- The Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley, California
- Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge, Massachusetts
- Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, Texas
- General Theological Seminary, New York City
- Nashotah House, Nashotah, Wisconsin
- Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, Evanston, Illinois
- School of Theology at University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee
- Trinity Episcopal School for Ministry, Ambridge, Pennsylvania
- Virginia Theological Seminary, Alexandria, Virginia

See also


- Churches Uniting in Christ

External links


- [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/ The Episcopal Church]
- [http://www.episcopalchurch.org/gc/ Executive Offices of the General Convention]
- [http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/bcp.htm 1979 Book of Common Prayer]
- [http://www.cuac.org/53810_43981_ENG_HTM.htm?menu=menu53912/ Association of Episcopal Colleges]
- United States of America, Episcopal Church Category:Churches of North America ja:米国聖公会

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 t