American History

The Populist and the Progressives were reform movements born on the midst of Americas growing economical problems and social issues during late 1800 and early 1900. They are people from all walks of life who stand for their rights and fights for it.

Populist members were mostly from the farmers sector. They were triggered to raise their grievances due to the remarkable dropping of the prices of their products and the corruption in the government. Progressives are those who came from the middle class sectors whom as well as the populist are aiming for better governance and to stop corruption in the government. The two reform movements share the same objections on what is happening to their country at that time but they differ on their ways of solving it.

Progressives have many accomplishments which includes the Business reform, Humanitarian Reform, and the 16th, 17th 18th and 19th Amendments. These accomplishments of the Progressives movement now plays a big role in the more efficient and more balanced way of life in America. On the other hand, Populist also posted big accomplishments. Their demands for the governments ownership of telegraph and railroads, the call for the closure of national banks and the idea of citizens to vote for their senators soon led to the creation of laws by the legislative body of America.

There are failures on both parties that came out because of certain factors that did not create a very good result to the citizens. In 1896, the Populist Party splits off between adhering to the Democrats and adopting the Republicans which has been severely impacted by the rapid increase of farm prices. Many leaders joined the Progressive movement at this point. On the other hand, Progressives didnt influence the political system that much as well as capitalism. It means to say that propaganda should be realistic and not idealistic. There must be an objective and every little thing should be taken into consideration especially the good of the people in order for a party to stay longer.

Culture is usually defined as a set of beliefs and values that affect the attitude and behavior of an individual. However it can also be defined as borrowed beliefs and values that affect attitudes and behaviors. Every country has its own culture however some countries have a blend of two or more cultures primarily due to the existing population diversity. One example of such a country is the United States of America (USA). The country has a population of approximately 250,000,000 and a size that is almost as huge as a continent. With a country this big, it is not surprising to say that it is perhaps the most culturally diverse nation in the world. This is primarily due to the cultural invasion of Europe and other countries into America and its Native American culture. This paper attempts to compare the European and Native American cultures and to analyze the encounter of both these cultures.

The Differences
Native Americans are the indigenous or local population of USA that faced a lot of problems during and after the European colonization of USA. The Native Americans had an old way of thinking and doing things compared to the new and comparatively modern ways of Europe. This was largely due to the difference in their cultures and backgrounds. The main cultural clash was between savagery of the Native Americans and the civilized culture of the Europeans. The Natives were more of a wild nature and indulged in practices such as cannibalization. This no doubt was a cultural shock to the Europeans who were much more civilized and proper in their ways.
   
A major cultural difference between the Europeans and the Native Americans was in their attitude towards the natural habitat and land. The Mother Earth was sacred to the Natives. It was something they loved, respected, and claimed they had a connection with it. A relationship of spirituality existed between the Natives and the Mother Earth. Nature was Godly to the Natives they thanked it and prayed to it. To the civilized cultures this concept was interesting and totally alien. To the Europeans and other New World societies, land was synonymous to territory, property, business, and power. The Europeans thought the Natives were wasting such a productive land and that it could be easily traded which would generate money and wealth. This difference of thinking became one of the root causes of the many wars fought between the two it was a fight of cultures. The Europeans without any hesitance made their own rules and decided to make it part of their territory. They started trading on the land of the Natives and found no shame in it as for them it was fighting against the people who did not believe in the real God or more simply non-Christians.

Another difference that arose after the European invasion was the others concept. The Native Americans never distinguished themselves from the other native tribes. However after the European invasion they did find the difference and started differentiating themselves from the Europeans. Nonetheless these others became one after a certain point. All the cultures mixed in with the others just like the European cultures had gotten mixed up amongst the other European cultures. The American culture that prevailed after the invasion was a mix of all the European cultures, and the one that prevails now is definitely a blend of the old and the new world cultures.

The Similarities 
Amongst the similarities, one similarity that was observed between both these cultures was that of the attitude towards war. The Europeans showed no resentment in adopting the war culture of the Native Americans. Both displayed savage like behavior at the war front as winning by any means was the sole motive. The Native military manners were something the Europeans adopted very easily.
   
A healthy similarity of both cultures was the exchange of plants, insects, and animals. Both cultures showed no apprehension towards adopting grain, animal vehicles, and other vegetation. The Natives were unfamiliar with the European animals such as cows, pigs, and horses, and the Europeans with the different fruits and vegetables of the Native land. This healthy exchange of goods led to the future development of both the worlds. The Natives made use of these animals to a great extent and with the help of these animals, especially horses they went and explored the inner lands. They used animals as a means of transport and traded with other native tribes. Moreover these animals were used for entertainment as well such as hunting and other activities. The animal population of the Native land also increased as many of these animals began breeding.
   
One similarity found between the New World population and the Siberians was in their spiritual belief. Both the Natives and the Siberians believed plants and the nature having a spiritual connect. Both had spiritual healers known as Shamans who had the power of healing people with diseases.
Culture is also seen in ones environment and houses etc. The Natives and Siberians shared a similar topography and therefore had similar dwellings and Tepees. The environment was similar hence many of the materials used for construction were similar too.
   
An interesting inference that can be made from all this study is perhaps the inclination of the Native Americans towards the European culture. Of course the Natives found an advantage in adapted to the European ways of doing things because of which they familiarized themselves with the European culture. The European culture suited the Native Americans and that is why we see the modern day American still following the same cultural blend.

The unfolding of these cultural conflicts led to frequent wars and confrontations between the Native Americans and European cultures. These confrontations and the merging of both these worlds brought in a lot of good as well as bad things into the native land of the Americans. The Europeans transmitted diseases to the Natives that they had not even heard of let alone have the cure for it. Apart from the many small battles, the Natives were moved away from main lands and were pushed into the remotest of areas. Their land was taken away from them, they were murdered for land, they were made slaves of the Europeans, and many of their women were forced into marriages with the Europeans. The new diseases and intermarriages led to the decline of the Native American population as well as a growing hatred for the Europeans.

The main event that unfolded after the clash of so many cultures the new and the old world, was the ultimate war of independence fought by the Americans. Freedom and other ideas associated with it were developed by the Native Americans and were extensively displayed to the Europeans during the revolutionary period. The Europeans were not aware of such a strong freedom spirit that prevailed amongst the Americans which they displayed wholeheartedly and finally won their land and their independence from the foreign cultures that had invaded their Mother Earth.

Many people agree that the resignation of President Nixon due to his involvement in the Watergate scandal is enough evidence that the constitution of the United States works. Other people believe that it was a good lesson for other presidents who took power later that they must be honest in their acts.  Although he resigned before he was impeached, there was enough evidence that he had committed an impeachable crime.

Impeachment of President Nixon
The United States constitution provides for the impeachment of any officer if he or she is found guilty of offences such as treason, corruption or other high rated crimes. According to the United States Constitution, the House of Representative has the power to determine whether any government official which could be the President, Vice president, Secretary of States or any civil officer can be impeached. The house can impeach any officer of the government by a simple majority. Once the House of Representative has determined whether an officer should be impeached, the person can then be tried by the Senate where he or she can be convicted by a two third majority. The presiding officer of the Senate is always the Vice president but incase the person being tried is the President or the Vice president, the presiding officer role is played by the Chief Justice (Brunner, Para 1). This approach can be seen to be unfair due to the high political influence the process is likely to be subjected to leading to unfair trial. However, the actions by the House of Representative or the Senate do not obstruct the legal action against the accused individual. Therefore, whichever action the Senate or the House of Representative takes, the individual is liable to normal court proceeding and is subject to punishment by the law if found guilty (Semonche. Para1).
  
Before Nixon was elected as the president of the United States, he had served in the house of representative and the senate. He had also served as a Vice president for two terms when Dwight David Eisenhower was the president. Nixon contested and won the presidency in a closely contested presidential election in 1968. However, he had previously contested and lost in 1960 when he was beaten on the ballot by J. F. Kennedy. He also lost a bid for a governor of California in 1962. Despite this, he had a landslide victory in the 1972 presidential elections. The Watergate scandal in which the Democratic Party headquarters were broken into attracted a lot of attention from the Americans though it did not affect Nixons presidential campaigns. The headquarters were located in Watergate hotel and the scandal was widely published by the Washington Post. The Washington Post did massive investigation to find the details and unearth the whole story. Their finding of Bernstein and Woodward who were reporters with the Washington Post and were assigned to investigate the scandal compiled their report in All the Presidents Men (Semonche, Para 6).
  
What followed was a trial of the arrested Watergate scandal suspect after the federal investigation agencies investigated the matter. As the trial went on, more attention was laid on how the president was involved in the scandal. The senate therefore instituted a committee led by Sam Ervin, who was then the senator of new Carolina, to investigate how the White House was linked to the scandal. Things changed from bad to worse for the president when one of his lawyers, John Dean, made a statement proving that the president had acted to cover up how he and his officials at White House were involved in the Watergate scandal. However, the president was safe if his involvement in the scandal was only testified by Dean (Cohen, Para 1).

The situation however became even worse when the senate committee investigating the scandal had information that the president had fixed a taping system in the Oval Office which was voice activated. Following the action of the senate to investigate how the president and white house officials were involved in the scandal, many official and president advisors were forced by circumstances to quit office through resignation. However, Nixon seemed to be unmoved by the unfolding events and withheld the tapes despite the attempts by special prosecutors as well as the senate committee to obtain them.
  
Although the president handed over some of the tapes he had withheld, the struggle did not end. The house of representative had already started considering the possibility of impeachment. Some of the politicians however defended the president arguing that the president was not directly involved in the scandal and there were no substantial evidence on the president attempting to cover up the scandal. In 1974, the Supreme Court overruled the executive privileges that enabled the president to hold the tapes and ruled that the tapes be handed over to the special prosecutor. The days in office for the president were numbered when he surrendered all the tapes he had guarded to comply with the court order.

The remaining defenders of the president had nothing to say when the content of the tapes were revealed. This revelation was also a big backup to his impeachment which was being planned in the House of Representatives. Although there was no evidence that Nixon was involved in the planning of the attack, his attempts to cover up the investigations of the scandal were clearly documented in the tapes (The History Place, Pg 1).
  
Among the three articles drafted for the impeachment of the president, the most relevant one was the one that accused him for trying to cover up the scandal. The draft was supported by the revelation of the tapes. The president was accused of obstruction of justice where he used the power of the institution of the presidency personally and using agents to obstruct and cover up crime. There was enough evidence that the house could have used against the president and remove him from office. Being aware of this, the president resigned on 8th of August 1974 before the house voted for his impeachment and the subsequent trail by the senate. He became the first president to resign due to allegations of misconduct and abuse of office. However, despite President Nixon being accused of committing the greatest crime ever by an American president, he maintained that he had done nothing that other presidents have never done (Gray  Schamel, pg 88).
  
The accusations on President Nixon had enough evidence to guarantee impeachment. He released the tapes that proved beyond any reasonable doubts that he was involved in cover up of the Watergate scandal. Therefore, even if he did not resign, he could have been impeached. However, his resignation assured him of benefits of a retired president. He was also given a blanket pardon by his successor president Ford who argued that he had suffered enough.

Woodrow Wilsons book, Congressional Government, which he wrote as a young political science graduate at John Hopkins University, extensively discussed the shift of power from the presidency to Congress. While this was true in the period observed by Wilson because of the aftermath of historically significant events such as the Civil War, the same shift of power was not the case during Wilsons own term as President of the United States from 1913-1921 and Theodore Roosevelts term from 1901-1909. In fact, during this period, there was a shift of power from Congress to the Presidency.
   
Congress wasnt too powerful in the late 18th century and early 19th century, which was the period preceding Wilsons and Roosevelts presidencies. Its decisions didnt have that much impact in the lives of citizens. This drastically changed during the late 19th century when events such as the Civil War clearly established hegemony of the government in politics. An interdependent economy supported by interstate commerce also emerged after the industrial revolution, which gave the national government more crucial decisions to make regarding the lives of citizens. The US was also conquering faraway territories and encountering foreign policy issues. These events shifted power from the Presidency to Congress because the latter was in charge of regulating interstate and foreign commerce, providing advice to treaties and ambassadorial nominations, controlling defense authorizations, and declaring wars (Davis, 1980, p. 75).
   
However, by the Progressive Era from 1880s to the 1920s, spanning the presidencies of Wilson and Roosevelt, members of Congress realized that centralized power within the legislative body didnt serve their personal interests anymore. They turned against strong party leaders who reduced organizational chaos, and instead, saw them as tyrants who hindered their personal careers and specializations in policy. Decentralization of Congress thus ensued, with members of the Congress stripping the Speaker of the House of most of its potency and eradicating the role of a powerful majority party leader in the Senate. Party government ended, replaced by committee government which served the interests of individual members of the Congress. Democratization of Congress was supported by the business sector and executive agencies because these elements also despised strong party leaders who tended to go against the interests of particular sectors of economy and society, since they were nationally oriented (Davis, 1980, p. 77).
   
During Wilsons and Roosevelts term, Congress was characterized by committees, which although promoted democratization, created internal chaos in the legislative body. Since the Congress was largely immobile or stagnant, the country elected strong presidents such as Wilson and Roosevelt who had the power to regain national political leadership. Theodore Roosevelt inspired the public so much that in 1904, he trampled upon his Democratic opponent by a popular majority of three-to-two and he took all states except for two in the South. In the executive sphere, he spearheaded the creation of national forests from public lands, initiated antitrust prosecutions, and led a coal strike settlement by threatening to close the mines down. Congress was troubled so much by his fast actions that they demanded he explain the legality of his executive decisions (Sundquist, 1981, p. 31).
   
Wilson was very much like Roosevelt who dominated the Congress fettered by its disputing committees. He was very much in favor of party government and sought the Presidency to take leadership of the immobile government. Wilsons swift activism was supported by the party majority elected with him, which was comprised of progressives who looked up to him for leadership. Democrats were also eager to work with him because they wanted to make a good record after their long period out of power. Thus, Wilsons analysis as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins was correct, that there was a power shift from the Presidency to Congress. However, during his term and Roosevelts, times had clearly changed and through them, the Presidency dominated Congress.

The political disturbance that occurred in the first half of the 18th century, when the American colonists rejected the rule of the British parliament is referred to as the American Revolution. Fiske (p, 5) notes that these colonists who were thirteen in number established sovereign states. They then united to form one nation and effectively resist the British rule. This paper looks at some of the events that took place in the process of revolution.

Major events that led to the American Revolution
According to Fiske (p, 5), after the overthrow of the Stuart Dynasty to the victory of Wolfe, the British government and the American colonies were in terms. The French however, emerged as a perpetual menace to the British. In 1705, the Virginia black code assigned the slaves the status of real estates. Marriage between Africans-Americans and whites was declared illegal. The Pennsylvania gazette was first published by Benjamin Franklin in the year 1729. In 1743, Ben Franklin founded the American philosophical society in Philadelphia. In order to protect their iron industry from competition with other American colonies, the British colony passed the iron act.

The English parliament according to Fiske, (p, 14) also passed the currency act which prohibited the issuing of paper money by all colonists. The proclamation act of 1763 prohibited any form of settlement beyond the Appalachian Mountains. Many colonists were against this order. The sugar act was another event that led to the American Revolution in which the duties on sugar import from West Indies were raised. The committee of correspondence of 1764 which comprised of Thomas Jefferson played a key role in spreading information through letters.

The stamp act was imposed by the British government on the colonists. This acted as a means to pay for the price of protecting the American frontier. An underground movement known as the sons of liberty was formed in opposition to the stamp act. This movement forced many stamp act agents to resign and also stopped American merchants from ordering British goods. The quartering act which required the colonists to house and feed the British was another factor that angered the colonists. In 1766, the English parliament passed a declaratory act which indicated that the British government had all the authority to pass any laws that governed the American colonies. The British repealed tax acts in 1770 and all taxes on imports except tea were scraped. In the wake of the Boston tea party, the British had imposed so many restrictions that the Americans gave them a name the intolerable acts (Fiske p, 25).

Taylor, Scott, and Bullitt (para, 2), states that Jefferson proposed a ban on slavery all over the US after 1800. Jeffersons ordinance on freedom of religion was passed and this later became the form for the first amendment to the US constitution. George Washington became the first president of America in 1789 and delivered his inaugural address. According to Taylor, Scott, and Bullitt (para, 5), the capital of the United States was moved from Philadelphia to Washington in 1800. Jefferson was elected the president of the US in 1801. In 1868, President Johnson was impeached, but later acquitted which led to his resignation. The 15th amendment was ratified in 1870 allowing all blacks to vote except women. The Jim Crow laws were passed in Tennessee. The civil rights acts were also passed and in 1877, the congress which was the 45th had three black members (Taylor, Scott, and Bullitt, para, 23).

The struggle for American Revolution dates back to the Stuart dynasty. This struggle involved every community that lived in American, starting from the British, the French, the Spaniards, the Indians and the Native Americans to the African Americans. The British who were by then superior to other colonists imposed acts that were aimed at ensuring loyalty was paid to their throne. This revolution led to the independence of the United States with George Washington becoming the first president. The 15th amendment of the United States constitution gave more freedom, even political, to the African American