1. FRANCE

The Formation of the United States2

In 1776 the English colonists of America revolted; they won their independence with the help of France and formed the Republic of the United States, the first free state in the New World.

• The uprising of the English colonists. • The French intervention.

I. The Uprising of the English Colonists

1. The Origins of the Conflict

In the aftermath of the Treaty of Paris (1763), the English Government took several measures that greatly angered the American colonists. It forbade them, for fear of an Indian uprising, to settle in the country between the Ohio, the Great Lakes, and the Mississippi. This decision caused keen indignation among the speculators, who had hoped to get rich by buying land at low prices and reselling it at very high

ones.

When one Indian tribe revolted, the London Government decided to maintain a small British army on a permanent footing in the 13 colonies. Also, the Governors, whose salaries had until that time been paid by the Assemblies of the several colonies, were henceforth to be paid by the Treasury in London, so as to make them more independent of the colonists.

To find the necessary revenues for these additional expenses, the English ministry decided to clamp down heavily on smuggling: in that way, customs

aCompilers' Note. -Translated from Jean Michaud's 1715-1870, La Formation du Monde Modern. Collection Jules Issac. Paris: Classiques Hachette, 1966. Pp. 96-102. Reproduced with permission from Classiques Hachette (publishers). The material is designed for the 9th year of a 12-year primary-secondary school cycle.

duties would bring in more money. It then levied a new tax, called the stamp tax, which meant introducing to America the use of stamped paper sold at a profit by the English treasury (1765). The speculators, the merchants who were prospering on the smuggling trade, the lawyers, and the printers directly affected by the stamp tax stirred up violent riots, particularly in the colonies of Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts. Frightened, the English Government abolished the stamp tax and the agitation died down.

[Picture] Burning stamped paper in Boston (August 1765). The Stamp Act made it mandatory to use special paper, stamped paper, or to affix a tax stamp to any document involving certain transactions. The stamps, which ranged in value from a halfpenny to £6, had to be affixed specifically to newspapers. In the House of Commons, only one member rose to protest against the tax, in a speech during which he referred to the Americans as the Sons of Liberty. The epithet spread like wildfire in America where the Stamp Act aroused bitter opposition. The printers, first of all, decided to publish their newspapers without stamps. Everywhere Sons of Liberty clubs were formed, which corresponded with each other and organized demonstrations. The most violent incidents occurred in Boston in August of 1765. The mob burned stamped paper, demolished a building under construction that was reportedly to house the Stamp Office, and completely ransacked the house of the Lieutenant Governor of the city.

2. The Conflict Mounts

The agitation flared up again shortly after this, when new duties were placed on American imports of iron, paper, and tea by the London Parliament. Several purely local incidents, the scope of which was considerably exaggerated both in London and in

America, aggravated the conflict. First came what the colonists called the Boston Massacre (1770): some English soldiers, who had been stoned in the streets, fired on and killed four of the protesters. Then came the Boston Tea Party (1773): colonists disguised as Indians tossed into the harbor 340 cases of tea that had just entered the port. Furious, George III rescinded the charter of the Massachusetts colony and ordered the port of Boston closed until the people had paid the value of the tea. Massachusetts then appealed to the other colonies.

[Picture] The Boston Tea Party (1773). When the English Government imposed a tax on tea, the Americans decided not to drink tea any more and the Sons of Liberty ordered ships' captains to deliver no more tea to America. In December 1773, three ships laden with tea sailed into Boston Harbor. After a great public rally attended by more than 7,000 people, the Governor of Massachusetts having refused to turn away the ships, some 50 men disguised as Indians boarded the ships and tossed 340 cases of tea into the harbor. The Boston Tea Party (December 18, 1773) aroused much enthusiasm in America. “This date will go down in history," wrote one of the witnesses that same night. Parliament then passed the "Intolerable Acts," which increased the powers of the colonial Governor and ordered the closing of the port of Boston until the jettisoned tea should be paid for. Twelve thousand troops were posted to Boston to make sure the Acts were obeyed.

3. The Break With England

A congress made up of delegates from all the colonies-except Georgia-met at Philadelphia in 1774: in a Declaration of Rights, it affirmed the right of every English citizen not to be taxed without his consent. At the same time, the colonists were building up supplies of weapons everywhere. An English detachment that tried to seize one of these depots clashed near Boston with some American militiamen and lost about 250 men (1775).

That incident brought the final break. While George III was making up his mind to reduce the colonies by force of arms, the Philadelphia Congress assumed sovereign authority, raised troops, and gave command of them to a Virginia planter named Washington. The following year, in 1776, the colony

of Virginia declared itself independent of King George III. A new Congress, on July 4, 1776, adopted the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

From then on, the only way to settle the conflict was by force.

[Picture] Franklin (1706-90). The 15th child of a poor Boston candlemaker, Franklin educated himself and became the archetype of the self-made man- the man who has made himself what he is by his own labor. By turns a typesetter, printer, journalist, delegate to the Pennsylvania Assembly, and postmaster, he was, as we have seen, a very learned man. A canny diplomat, he was sent to Versailles in 1776; his mischievous good humor and the simplicity of his manners made him very shortly as well-loved among the people as he was in the Paris salons, and helped win France's alliance with the rebel cause in 1778. "Even in the palace at Versailles," recalls the first lady-in-waiting to the queen, "at the Sèvres porcelain show, they were selling a Franklin medallion under the King's very eyes. The motto on the medallion read: 'He stole the thunder from heaven'-an allusion to his invention of the lightning rod-and the scepter from tyrants." "These medallions, copies of which are being given out everywhere along with portraits, busts, and prints," wrote Franklin to his daughter, "have made your father's face as familiar here as that of the moon." Returning to America after the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, Franklin played an important part in drafting the Constitution of the United States (1787).

4. Beginnings of the War for Independence

The war lasted almost 8 years. Each of the adversaries ran into serious difficulties. The English troops, partly composed of German mercenaries, were good and numerous; but they were fighting in an unknown land, almost without roads, and covered with immense forests where it was often impossible to get supplies or engage the enemy. As for the Americans, they were a long way from presenting a united front to the English. Very jealous of sovereignty, the 13 colonies refused to submit to a single government, even for the duration of the war. Moreover, loyalists.

big planters, and wealthy merchants, who wanted to keep an understanding with the mother country, existed side by side with those who favored the breach with England. This latter group came mostly from the more modest levels of society. Finally, the American army lacked arms and clothing; the volunteers would leave the front as soon as their term of enlistment had expired; the militia were reluctant to fight far from their homes; the generals were mediocre. Washington himself was no great military leader; it was rather because of his moral qualities, his firmness of spirit, his tenacity, and his self-sacrifice that he became the architect of victory.

The first 2 years of the war were bad ones for the colonists: the cities of New York and Philadelphia were occupied by the English. But, at the end of 1777, an English army moving down from Canada was encountered in the forest and forced to surrender at Saratoga. This victory restored courage to the Americans and, most important, it won them France as an ally.

[Picture] George Washington (1732-99). Fleeing Cromwell's dictatorship, Washington's greatgrandfather had emigrated to Virginia in 1657, and had acquired a vast estate on the shores of the Potomac. An officer in the Virginia militia, Washington was involved in the first episodes of the Canadian war in 1754. In 1759, when he married, he became one of the richest planters in Virginia. At his estate of Mount Vernon, Washington lived the life of a country gentleman. He loved horses, dogs, and coursing deer and foxes. He managed his holdings well, grew the best tobacco in the colony, and bought his clothes from London tailors. In 1774, he was one of Virginia's seven delegates to the Philadelphia Congress which, in 1775, made him commander-in-chief of the American troops. After the victory, he resigned his commission before Congress and returned to Mount Vernon. Sent as Virginia's delegate to the Convention called to draft the federal Constitution, he was elected president of the Convention, which adopted the proposal of the Virginia representatives as its basic document for debate. He was elected without opposition and unanimously as President of the Republic of the United States, and reelected, again unanimously, in 1793.

II. The French Intervention

1. The French Alliance and Victory for the Insurgents

The American cause was very popular in France; already a number of gentlemen, including the Marquis de Lafayette, had gone to serve under Washington as volunteers. The [French] Government began by providing for the insurgents-that is what the rebeling colonists were called-clothing and arms; then in 1778 it signed a treaty of alliance with their representative in France, Franklin. The following year, Spain joined with France, hoping to get Gibraltar and Florida back from the English.

The war went on for 5 more years, in very different theaters. In America, where the struggle was shifting to the South, General Rochambeau's French corps helped the rebels to blockade an English army in the city of Yorktown, in Virginia, and to force it to surrender (October 1781). In Europe, the FrancoSpanish fleets managed neither to effect a landing in England nor to retake Gibraltar. In the Antilles, the French fleet, after initial victories, in 1782 suffered a severe defeat. Meanwhile, off the coast of India, [Admiral] Suffren several times defeated the English fleet and signed a treaty of alliance with a Hindu sovereign who was an implacable foe of the English.

At last, England gave in and signed the Treaty of Versailles [Treaty of Paris] in 1783. She recognized the independence of the United States, and ceded to it all the land between the Allegheny Mountains and the Mississippi; she returned to Spain the island of Minorca and Florida; she restored to France one of the Antilles and a few posts on the Senegal coast which had been taken from her in 1763, and at long last recognized France's right to fortify Dunkirk. Out of this long war, which had cost her enormous sums, France won only minimal advantages, but the Government was content to have restored French prestige and brought England low.

[Map] The United States of America in 1783. [Identifies the 13 original colonies; also indicates the additional territory ceded to the United States by England in 1783 and the remaining English and Spanish colonies in eastern North America.]

[Picture] The Surrender of Yorktown (Oct. 19, 1781). The English army under Cornwallis, 8,000 men strong, was bottled up in Yorktown by Washington's army, the expeditionary force under Rochambeau, and the fleet under Count de Grasse. After 20 days of siege, Cornwallis surrendered. One sees him here riding between the American ranks, on the right, and the French, on the left. One can also make out Washington and Rochambeau standing slightly apart from the head of the ranks drawn up on parade.

2. Organization of the United States

The American war had many consequences. The most important was the creation of a new state, the United States, the first free state ever founded by Europeans outside Europe.

After a lot of difficulties-a financial crisis, political and commercial squabbles between colonies, strong social antagonism between rich and poor-in 1787 the 13 States adopted a Constitution which, in its major outlines, is still in force today. Like the United Provinces in Europe, the United States constituted a federal republic. Each State had its own institutions; but above those 13 State governments there was a federal government responsible for their common affairs: war, diplomacy, currency, and commerce. The executive power was vested in a president; the legislative power, in a Congress made up of two chambers-a Senate, in which each State has two representatives, and a House of Representatives, in which each State is represented by a number of congressmen proportional to its population. Finally, there were the federal courts, the highest of which is the Supreme Court.

3. Repercussions in America and in France

The example of the emancipation of the English colonies had profound repercussions. As early as the end of the 18th century, there were uprisings in Spanish America and, 40 years after the Treaty of Versailles, there was nothing left of the Spanish empire on the American continent. In France, the example of the United States was even more swiftly

bCompilers' Note.-At the time of the American Revolution, the "United Provinces" was a political entity in the area now known as the Netherlands.

followed. The principles the French philosophes had argued and preached were the foundations of the Declaration of Rights in 1774 and again of the Declaration of Independence in 1776. The French had made those principles victorious in America; would they not make them prevail in France itself? Furthermore, the expenditures connected with the war had increased the financial difficulties: Louis XVI had to agree to summon the Estates General into session in 1789. And the convocation of the Estates General marked the beginning of the French Revolution.

[Picture] Market Square in Philadelphia. In 1790, Philadelphia, with its population of 45,000, was the biggest city in the United States. It still had here and there, as this 1788 engraving shows, the look of a tranquil country town. Philadelphia played a major role in the struggle for independence, thanks to her central position. It was in Philadelphia that the Declaration of Independence was adopted (July 4, 1776), as well as the federal Constitution.

Summary

• In 1774, an American Congress published the Declaration of Rights, and then, on July 4, 1776, another Congress proclaimed the independence of the United States.

• The early years of the war were hard for the Americans. But in 1777 they forced the surrender of an English army at Saratoga and that victory won them alliance with France.

• France, backed by Spain, declared war on England (1778). By the Treaty of Versailles (1783), England recognized the independence of her 13 American colonies and restored to France and Spain some of their colonies.

• The Republic of the United States gave itself a federal Constitution (1787). Its example spurred the emancipation of the Spanish colonies in America and in France it hastened the hour of the Revolution.

The Constitution of the United States

Article I

*

Every Bill which shall have passed the House of Representatives and the Senate shall, before it becomes a Law, be

presented to the President of the United States; If he approves, he shall sign it, but if not, he shall return it, with his Objections, to that House in which it shall have originated, who shall ... reconsider it. If after such Reconsideration two-thirds of the House shall agree to pass the Bill, it shall be sent... to the other House, by which it shall likewise be reconsidered, and if approved by two-thirds of that House, it shall become a Law....

Article II

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice-President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress. . . .

He shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur. . . .

This Article is very important. It is the Senate which, as the final authority, is the master of the country's foreign policy. In 1919, the Senate was to refuse to ratify the treaties signed by President Wilson at the close of the First World War. Moreover, the Constitution grants very extensive powers to the President. He governs with federal cabinet members of ministerial rank whom he names and dismisses at will. For 4 years he plays the simultaneous role of a Head of State and an irremovable prime minister. The United States does not, therefore, make use of the parliamentary system.