From Independence to the U.S. Constitution

From Independence to the U.S. Constitution

Author: Douglas Bradburn

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2022-03-31

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 081394743X

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The "Critical Period" of American history—the years between the end of the American Revolution in 1783 and the ratification of the U.S. Constitution in 1789—was either the best of times or the worst of times. While some historians have celebrated the achievement of the Constitutional Convention, which, according to them, saved the Revolution, others have bemoaned that the Constitution’s framers destroyed the liberating tendencies of the Revolution, betrayed debtors, made a bargain with slavery, and handed the country over to the wealthy. This era—what John Fiske introduced in 1880 as America’s "Critical Period"—has rarely been separated from the U.S. Constitution and is therefore long overdue for a reevaluation on its own terms. How did the pre-Constitution, postindependence United States work? What were the possibilities, the tremendous opportunities for "future welfare or misery for mankind," in Fiske’s words, that were up for grabs in those years? The scholars in this volume pursue these questions in earnest, highlighting how the pivotal decade of the 1780s was critical or not, and for whom, in the newly independent United States. As the United States is experiencing another, ongoing crisis of governance, reexamining the various ways in which elites and common Americans alike imagined and constructed their new nation offers fresh insights into matters—from national identity and the place of slavery in a republic, to international commerce, to the very meaning of democracy—whose legacies reverberated through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and into the present day. Contributors:Kevin Butterfield, Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington at Mount Vernon * Hannah Farber, Columbia University * Johann N. Neem, Western Washington University * Dael A. Norwood, University of Delaware * Susan Gaunt Stearns, University of Mississippi * Nicholas P. Wood, Spring Hill College


Policy and Research Needs to Maximize Independence and Support Community Living

Policy and Research Needs to Maximize Independence and Support Community Living

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2016-07-10

Total Pages: 117

ISBN-13: 0309391067

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Living independently and participating in one's community are priorities for many people. In many regions across the United States, there are programs that support and enable people with disabilities and older adults to live where they choose and with whom they choose and to participate fully in their communities. Tremendous progress has been made. However, in many cases, the programs themselves â€" and access to them â€" vary not only between states but also within states. Many programs are small, and even when they prove to be successful they are still not scaled up to meet the needs of the many people who would benefit from them. The challenges can include insufficient workforce, insufficient funding, and lack of evidence demonstrating effectiveness or value. To get a better understanding of the policies needed to maximize independence and support community living and of the research needed to support implementation of those policies, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine convened a public workshop in October 2015. Participants explored policies in place that promote independence and community living for older adults and people with physical disabilities, and identified policies and gaps in policies that can be barriers to independence and the research needed to support changing those policies. This report summarizes the presentations and discussions from the workshop.


Independence Lost

Independence Lost

Author: Kathleen DuVal

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2015-07-07

Total Pages: 498

ISBN-13: 1588369617

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A rising-star historian offers a significant new global perspective on the Revolutionary War with the story of the conflict as seen through the eyes of the outsiders of colonial society Winner of the Journal of the American Revolution Book of the Year Award • Winner of the Society of the Cincinnati in the State of New Jersey History Prize • Finalist for the George Washington Book Prize Over the last decade, award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal has revitalized the study of early America’s marginalized voices. Now, in Independence Lost, she recounts an untold story as rich and significant as that of the Founding Fathers: the history of the Revolutionary Era as experienced by slaves, American Indians, women, and British loyalists living on Florida’s Gulf Coast. While citizens of the thirteen rebelling colonies came to blows with the British Empire over tariffs and parliamentary representation, the situation on the rest of the continent was even more fraught. In the Gulf of Mexico, Spanish forces clashed with Britain’s strained army to carve up the Gulf Coast, as both sides competed for allegiances with the powerful Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek nations who inhabited the region. Meanwhile, African American slaves had little control over their own lives, but some individuals found opportunities to expand their freedoms during the war. Independence Lost reveals that individual motives counted as much as the ideals of liberty and freedom the Founders espoused: Independence had a personal as well as national meaning, and the choices made by people living outside the colonies were of critical importance to the war’s outcome. DuVal introduces us to the Mobile slave Petit Jean, who organized militias to fight the British at sea; the Chickasaw diplomat Payamataha, who worked to keep his people out of war; New Orleans merchant Oliver Pollock and his wife, Margaret O’Brien Pollock, who risked their own wealth to organize funds and garner Spanish support for the American Revolution; the half-Scottish-Creek leader Alexander McGillivray, who fought to protect indigenous interests from European imperial encroachment; the Cajun refugee Amand Broussard, who spent a lifetime in conflict with the British; and Scottish loyalists James and Isabella Bruce, whose work on behalf of the British Empire placed them in grave danger. Their lives illuminate the fateful events that took place along the Gulf of Mexico and, in the process, changed the history of North America itself. Adding new depth and moral complexity, Kathleen DuVal reinvigorates the story of the American Revolution. Independence Lost is a bold work that fully establishes the reputation of a historian who is already regarded as one of her generation’s best. Praise for Independence Lost “[An] astonishing story . . . Independence Lost will knock your socks off. To read [this book] is to see that the task of recovering the entire American Revolution has barely begun.”—The New York Times Book Review “A richly documented and compelling account.”—The Wall Street Journal “A remarkable, necessary—and entirely new—book about the American Revolution.”—The Daily Beast “A completely new take on the American Revolution, rife with pathos, double-dealing, and intrigue.”—Elizabeth A. Fenn, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Encounters at the Heart of the World


Scars of Independence

Scars of Independence

Author: Holger Hoock

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 578

ISBN-13: 0804137285

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Tory hunting -- Britain's dilemma -- Rubicon -- Plundering protectors -- Violated bodies -- Slaughterhouses -- Black holes -- Skiver them! -- Town-destroyer -- Americanizing the war -- Man for man -- Returning losers


Winning Independence

Winning Independence

Author: John Ferling

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2021-05-11

Total Pages: 753

ISBN-13: 1635572770

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Co-Winner of the 2022 Harry M. Ward Book Prize From celebrated historian John Ferling, the underexplored history of the second half of the Revolutionary War, when, after years of fighting, American independence often seemed beyond reach. It was 1778, and the recent American victory at Saratoga had netted the U.S a powerful ally in France. Many, including General George Washington, presumed France's entrance into the war meant independence was just around the corner. Meanwhile, having lost an entire army at Saratoga, Great Britain pivoted to a “southern strategy.” The army would henceforth seek to regain its southern colonies, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia, a highly profitable segment of its pre-war American empire. Deep into 1780 Britain's new approach seemed headed for success as the U.S. economy collapsed and morale on the home front waned. By early 1781, Washington, and others, feared that France would drop out of the war if the Allies failed to score a decisive victory that year. Sir Henry Clinton, commander of Britain's army, thought “the rebellion is near its end.” Washington, who had been so optimistic in 1778, despaired: “I have almost ceased to hope.” Winning Independence is the dramatic story of how and why Great Britain-so close to regaining several southern colonies and rendering the postwar United States a fatally weak nation ultimately failed to win the war. The book explores the choices and decisions made by Clinton and Washington, and others, that ultimately led the French and American allies to clinch the pivotal victory at Yorktown that at long last secured American independence.


The Meaning of Independence

The Meaning of Independence

Author: Edmund Sears Morgan

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 1976

Total Pages: 114

ISBN-13: 9780813906942

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In this updated edition, the author provides a new preface to address a few remaining concerns he has pondered in the quarter century since first publication.Tag: A classic work on the founding by the author of the bestselling Benjamin Frankli


The Haitian Declaration of Independence

The Haitian Declaration of Independence

Author: Julia Gaffield

Publisher: University of Virginia Press

Published: 2016-01-11

Total Pages: 389

ISBN-13: 0813937884

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While the Age of Revolution has long been associated with the French and American Revolutions, increasing attention is being paid to the Haitian Revolution as the third great event in the making of the modern world. A product of the only successful slave revolution in history, Haiti’s Declaration of Independence in 1804 stands at a major turning point in the trajectory of social, economic, and political relations in the modern world. This declaration created the second independent country in the Americas and certified a new genre of political writing. Despite Haiti’s global significance, however, scholars are only now beginning to understand the context, content, and implications of the Haitian Declaration of Independence. This collection represents the first in-depth, interdisciplinary, and integrated analysis by American, British, and Haitian scholars of the creation and dissemination of the document, its content and reception, and its legacy. Throughout, the contributors use newly discovered archival materials and innovative research methods to reframe the importance of Haiti within the Age of Revolution and to reinterpret the declaration as a founding document of the nineteenth-century Atlantic World. The authors offer new research about the key figures involved in the writing and styling of the document, its publication and dissemination, the significance of the declaration in the creation of a new nation-state, and its implications for neighboring islands. The contributors also use diverse sources to understand the lasting impact of the declaration on the country more broadly, its annual celebration and importance in the formation of a national identity, and its memory and celebration in Haitian Vodou song and ceremony. Taken together, these essays offer a clearer and more thorough understanding of the intricacies and complexities of the world’s second declaration of independence to create a lasting nation-state.


March to Independence

March to Independence

Author: Michael Cecere

Publisher: Journal of the American Revolu

Published: 2021-11-12

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 9781594163685

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The American Revolutionary War began when Massachusetts militiamen and British troops clashed at Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775. Two months later, a much larger engagement occurred at Bunker Hill in Boston. The conflict then expanded into a continent-wide war for independence from Great Britain. Or so we are taught. A closer look at events in the South in the eighteen months following Lexington and Concord tells different story. The practice of teaching the Revolutionary War as one generalized conflict between the American colonies and Great Britain assumes the South's support for the Revolutionary War was a foregone conclusion. However, once shots were fired, it was not certain that the southern colonies would support the independence movement. What is clear is that both the fledgling American republic and the British knew that the southern colonies were critical to any successful prosecution of the war by either side. In March to Independence: The American Revolution in the Southern Colonies, 1775-1776, historian Michael Cecere, consulting primary source documents, examines how Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia ended up supporting the colonies to the north, while East Florida remained within the British sphere. South Carolina, Georgia, and East Florida all retained their royal governors through the summer of 1775, and no military engagements occurred in any of the southern colonies in the six months following the battles in Massachusetts. The situation changed significantly in the fall, however, with armed clashes in Virginia and South Carolina; by early 1776 the war had spread to all of the southern colonies except East Florida. Although their march to independence did not follow the exact route as the colonies to the north, events in the South pulled the southern colonists in the same direction, culminating with a united Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. This book explores the crucial events in the southern colonies that led all but East Florida to support the American cause.


The Declaration of Independence

The Declaration of Independence

Author: David Armitage

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2007-01-15

Total Pages: 332

ISBN-13: 9780674022829

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In a stunningly original look at the American Declaration of Independence, David Armitage reveals the document in a new light: through the eyes of the rest of the world. Not only did the Declaration announce the entry of the United States onto the world stage, it became the model for other countries to follow. Armitage examines the Declaration as a political, legal, and intellectual document, and is the first to treat it entirely within a broad international framework. He shows how the Declaration arose within a global moment in the late eighteenth century similar to our own. He uses over one hundred declarations of independence written since 1776 to show the influence and role the U.S. Declaration has played in creating a world of states out of a world of empires. He discusses why the framers’ language of natural rights did not resonate in Britain, how the document was interpreted in the rest of the world, whether the Declaration established a new nation or a collection of states, and where and how the Declaration has had an overt influence on independence movements—from Haiti to Vietnam, and from Venezuela to Rhodesia. Included is the text of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and sample declarations from around the world. An eye-opening list of declarations of independence since 1776 is compiled here for the first time. This unique global perspective demonstrates the singular role of the United States document as a founding statement of our modern world.