Us History: a Call to Return to the Original Constitution and Model
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US HISTORY: A CALL TO RETURN TO THE ORIGINAL CONSTITUTION AND MODEL Compiled and written by J. Parnell McCarter SECOND EDITION Copyright © 2020 McCarter Providential Enterprises LLC All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Scripture references are from the Authorized Version. ISBN-13: ISBN-10: This textbook in American History is dedicated to Christian Homeschool Educators Like My Wife and to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who is redeeming the Nations unto Himself. Part of the Puritans Home School Curriculum www.puritans.net The cover photo is the Declaration of Independence, 1819 painting by John Trumbull 2 US HISTORY TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION……………………………………..…………………...…..……..p. 4 CHAPTER 1 : INDEPENDENCE AND A NEW NATION…………..…...………...p. 6 CHAPTER 2 : THE FORMATION OF A NATIONAL GOVERNMENT.……..…p. 16 CHAPTER 3 : CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS BACKLASH……………..….…..p. 53 CHAPTER 4 : WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES...p. 60 CHAPTER 5 : RELIGIOUS DEVELOPMENTS BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR…..p. 78 CHAPTER 6 : SECTIONAL CONFLICT….…………………….…..….…..….…..p. 92 CHAPTER 7 : THE CIVIL WAR AND RECONSTRUCTION……….…..….…..p. 105 CHAPTER 8 : GROWTH AND TRANSFORMATION….……………….….…..p. 130 CHAPTER 9 : DISCONTENT AND REFORM….…………….………...……….p. 150 CHAPTER 10 : WAR, PROSPERITY, AND DEPRESSION….……….…..…….p. 164 CHAPTER 11: THE NEW DEAL AND WORLD WAR II….………….………...p. 177 CHAPTER 12 : POSTWAR AMERICA……………..…………………..…….…..p. 195 CHAPTER 13 : DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980….…………………….….p. 214 CHAPTER 14 : THE NEW CONSERVATISM AND A NEW WORLD ORDER...p. 237 CHAPTER 15 : BRIDGE TO THE 21ST CENTURY………………………..…….p. 252 CHAPTER 16: THE USA BECOMES A MODERN BABEL AND GOD’S JUDGMENTS ENSUE……………………………………….………..……..…….p. 267 CHAPTER 17: OUR HOPE FOR TOMORROW…………….………..……..…….p. 271 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………….………………..p. 272 3 INTRODUCTION This history textbook represents an interpretative view of American history, generally following the outline of US history as set forth in the official US State Department version. All history textbooks are written from a certain philosophical perspective; the perspective of the compiler and author of this one is that the original constitution and model of the USA in its conception and birth were the proper one. Sadly, the USA has departed from this constitution and model, progressively becoming a modern humanistic “global nation” empire. Biblical morality after the example of ancient Israel in its moral aspects has been thrown overboard, replaced by a model that largely follows the example of ancient Babel. The conception and gestation period of the USA was covered in the textbook The Nations Shall Worship Before Thee: American History in the Colonial Era. It showed how in its conception colonial America was an instrument in the fulfillment of Christ’s Great Commission: “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” English settlement in North America not only transplanted Protestant Biblical Christianity to a new continent for this people, it also spread that same faith to other nations and peoples, as was one of its chief goals from inception. Each of these British colonies had its own distinctive culture, characteristics, and government. In its birth as a new country, the USA under its original constitution of the Articles of Confederation was not a repudiation of its colonial Christian social order, but an effort to preserve it outside the dominion of the British empire, which American patriots believed threatened and undermined the order. Such is evidenced in its Declaration of Independence: “The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them…For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies: For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:.. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence.” Such is also evidenced in the words of the Articles of Confederation: 4 “…the Delegates of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, did, on the 15th day of November, in the Year of Our Lord One thousand Seven Hundred and Seventy seven, and in the Second Year of the Independence of America, agree to certain articles of Confederation and perpetual Union…The said states hereby severally enter into a firm league of friendship with each other, for their common defence, the security of their Liberties, and their mutual and general welfare, binding themselves to assist each other… to make requisitions from each state for its quota, in proportion to the number of white inhabitants in such state…the Articles of this confederation shall be inviolably observed by every state, and the union shall be perpetual; nor shall any alteration at any time hereafter be made in any of them; unless such alteration be agreed to in a congress of the united states, and be afterwards confirmed by the legislatures of every state…it hath pleased the Great Governor of the World to incline the hearts of the legislatures we respectively represent in congress, to approve of, and to authorize us to ratify the said articles of confederation and perpetual union…” And such is also evidenced in its Treaty with Great Britain in 1783 while still a confederated nation: “The Definitive Treaty of Peace 1783…In the Name of the most Holy and undivided Trinity. It having pleased the Divine Providence to dispose the Hearts of… George the Third, King of Great Britain…and of the United States of America, to forget all past Misunderstandings and Differences…and to establish such a beneficial and satisfactory intercourse between the two countries…signed with our hands the present definitive treaty…Done at Paris, this third day of September in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and eighty three...” Acknowledging the influence of humanistic Enlightenment philosophy upon this people even during the gestation and birth of the USA is not a contradiction of this book’s thesis, for in a fallen world everything is inevitably tainted by sin and darkness of understanding. Yet humanistic Enlightenment thought had not overthrown its Biblical foundations. These foundations were still largely intact during gestation and birth, but progressively eroded over course of decades and even centuries. This student textbook, US History: A Call to Return to the Original Constitution and Model, shows how the USA has largely departed but holds out hope and issues a call to return to the original vision. 5 CHAPTER 1 : INDEPENDENCE AND A NEW NATION GESTATION AND BIRTH The basic character of the States which would unite as the new nation of the United States of America formed during their colonial gestation period. The year 1776 marked the end of that gestation period and the birth of the new nation. As a house with many windows, each displaying an outdoor scene from a somewhat different perspective, so there are many different ways to view America’s War of Independence from Great Britain. From one angle, it was an inevitable political division between Thirteen Colonies which had matured from colonial status and a Mother Country unwilling to accept that maturity but seeking to control it as if it were still a child. From another angle, it was one party wanting to preserve the political rights and tax status it felt it had long enjoyed and were being taken away from it, unmotivated by a desire to depart from Christian principles. At another angle, it was rebellious subjects who had been deleteriously influenced by Enlightenment philosophy and were ungratefully seeking revolutionary change and freedom from Mother Britain. There is a level of truth to these and a number of other perspectives on the War, which is one reason Bible-believing Christians were on both sides of the conflict, each viewing it from a different angle. But if there is difference of perspective regarding cause of the War, there should be little difference regarding its outcome: the Thirteen Colonies gained their complete independence from Great Britain and formed the new nation of the USA. This was agreed to via treaty by both sides at war’s conclusion. Let’s briefly rehearse the path from the Declaration of Independence of the Thirteen Colonies on July 4, 1776 to its consummation in the Treaty of Paris on September 3, 1783 6 when Great Britain agreed to recognize the sovereignty of the United States and formally ended the War. In early 1776 Thomas Paine published a 50-page pamphlet, Common Sense. Within three months, it sold 100,000 copies. Paine attacked the idea of a hereditary monarchy, declaring that one honest man was worth more to society than "all the crowned ruffians that ever lived." He presented the alternatives -- continued submission to an allegedly tyrannical king and an outworn government, or liberty and happiness as a self-sufficient, independent republic.