United States of America

In addition to cross-references contained in the following account of U.S. history, the reader is referred, for supplementary materials, to the history sections of articles on the individual states and to separate articles on U.S. presidents. Colonial Developments The United States did not emerge as a nation-state until near the end of the 18th century, but national history is properly introduced with a brief survey of the chief events leading to the formation of the Union. The voyages, in the last years of the 15th century, of Christopher Columbus and John Cabot, pioneer navigators who helped to open the European era of exploration and colonial expansion, were the decisive initial developments. On the strength of Columbus's explorations and those of later Spanish navigators, Spain staked out a vast domain in North, Central, and South America. Cabot, sailing in the service of Henry VII, king of England, reached the North American mainland in 1497. On the basis of this voyage, England later claimed the entire continent. Among other early voyagers to North America were Giovanni da Verrazzano of Italy and Jacques Cartier of France. Sailing under the flag of France, they initiated a protracted period of French colonial activity. The lands these navigators "discovered" had actually been inhabited for at least 20,000 years before Columbus's arrival. In 1492 the indigenous population of the continent numbered more than 90 million, of whom about 10 million lived in America north of present-day Mexico. Contact with Europeans precipitated a demographic disaster for these varied Native Americans. Because they lacked natural immunity to European diseases, influenza, typhus, measles, and smallpox reduced native populations in the more densely settled regions of Central and South America by up to 95 percent within the first 150 years after contact. In North America, where the aboriginal cultures tended to be seminomadic and populations less dense, the population collapse was more protracted, but no less devastating. Once European colonists established permanent settlements in North America, they introduced not only diseases but also cattle and horses that displaced game animals and invaded Native American agricultural lands, altering the environment so drastically that indigenous populations declined to a fraction of precontact levels. Even in the absence of warfare, European colonization signaled the wholesale destruction of native cultures. (For a detailed discussion of the original inhabitants of the United States, See Native Americans and articles on individual peoples.) The First Settlements The founding of Saint Augustine (in what is now Florida) by the Spanish in 1565 marked the beginning of European colonization within the present boundaries of the United States. At the time of this settlement, England and Spain were engaged in warfare on the high seas, which in 1588 would culminate in the virtual annihilation of Spanish naval power (see Armada, Spanish). After this defeat, Spain no longer figured as a potent rival of England for possession of the Atlantic seaboard of North America. Before that time, however, these same military pressures helped inhibit English efforts at colonization. In 1585 an expedition sponsored by Sir Walter Raleigh settled on Roanoke Island off the coast of present-day North Carolina. The colony soon failed, in part because the settlers were more concerned with hunting for gold than with learning how to sustain their colony by agriculture. In 1587 Raleigh dispatched a larger group led by John White to the region, which he had named Virginia to honor Elizabeth I, known as the Virgin Queen. About a month after the colonists landed, Virginia Dare was born, the first birth to English parents in America. John White soon sailed back to England for additional supplies. The war with Spain prevented his returning to Roanoke until 1590, by which time the settlers had disappeared. The mystery of what happened to Raleigh's Lost Colony has never been solved. The first permanent English settlement in North America was Jamestown. Established in 1607, Jamestown was a project of the Virginia Company of London, a joint-stock corporation chartered in 1606 by King James I of England for the purpose of trading in and colonizing North America. After a series of catastrophic misadventures, in which thousands of immigrants died because of disease, starvation, and a war in 1622 with Native Americans, the Crown revoked the company's charter in 1624 and took control of the colony as a royal province. Executive power in the new regime was vested in appointees of the Crown, but the colonists were eventually permitted to retain the representative assembly, called the House of Burgesses, that had been founded in 1619. After the colonial government removed controls on the production of tobacco, there was a major expansion in the economy and in the English population of the Chesapeake Bay region. The incessant demand for labor to grow tobacco created a harsh system of indentured servitude. In the last quarter of the 17th century, when it became prohibitively expensive to import English laborers, English colonists in the United States followed the lead of European nations and began importing Africans kidnapped from their native countries. These African slaves emerged as the predominant agricultural labor force in the southern mainland. French and Dutch Activities During the decade following the settlement of Jamestown, France and the Netherlands-the other leading maritime nations of Europe-actively entered the contest for territory in North America. The French quickly recognized the importance of controlling the Saint Lawrence River, the best available route to the interior. In 1608, as the first step in their strategic design, they founded Québec. The brilliant achievements of such explorers as Jacques Marquette, Louis Jolliet, and René-Robert Cavelier, sieur de La Salle brought vast areas of the interior, including the entire Mississippi River valley, under nominal French ownership during the next 75 years. Consolidation of this enormous American dominion was impossible for various reasons, but stemmed especially from the French desire to trade with Native Americans for furs and skins, rather than to try forcing them off their lands, as the English did. In addition, the French had exported to America the absolutist institutions and traditions of the homeland. Their colonial policies, centrally directed and diametrically opposed to those of the English, discouraged large-scale immigration and the settlement of enduring communities with responsible local authority. As a consequence, French colonial populations remained small throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, enabling them to cultivate military alliances with Native American tribes, who rightly saw them as less threatening than the English settlers. The Dutch based their claims to North American territory on the explorations of Henry Hudson. An English mariner in the employ of the Dutch East India Company, Hudson had, in 1609, entered present-day New York Bay and explored the river that now bears his name. During the next few years the Dutch dispatched several trading vessels to the region, which they named New Netherland. Trading posts were founded on Manhattan Island and near the site of modern Albany in 1613 and 1614. Because of the profitable fur trade, the Dutch made no immediate attempt to colonize New Netherland. Permanent colonists began to arrive in 1624, and New Amsterdam (now New York City) was founded the following year. New Netherland grew slowly. Constant friction or warfare with the Native Americans, administrative incompetence, and internal unrest were characteristic, and the colony never attained the stability and vigor of Virginia or of the English colonies later founded in America. The New England Colonies English colonizing activity resumed in 1620 when a party of English Separatists, a dissident sect that had previously withdrawn from the Church of England, acquired the right to settle in Virginia. Whether by accident or design, their ship, the Mayflower, entered Massachusetts Bay and dropped anchor in what is now the harbor of Provincetown, Massachusetts. Recognizing that they were outside the bounds of any organized government, 41 of the men in the group, better known as the Pilgrims, gathered aboard ship on November 21, 1620, and signed an agreement called the Mayflower Compact, the first written American constitution. Later they founded Plymouth Colony, on a site near the head of Cape Cod. The organization of Plymouth Colony inaugurated the colonization of New England, a region peopled mainly by religious dissenters. In this phase, the most significant development was the founding in 1629 to 1630 of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, just north of Plymouth, by a joint-stock company that used its corporate charter to develop a complete system of self-government. The Massachusetts Bay colonists were followers of Puritanism. Soon after the establishment of Massachusetts, dissidents expelled from the colony formed the nucleus of a settlement from which Rhode Island grew; in 1636 settlers from the Bay Colony looking for better land on which to raise cattle migrated westward to found Connecticut. Both of these colonies created governments modeled on that of Massachusetts, with an elected legislative body, or general court, and an elected governor. Growing political turmoil in England prevented the king from reining in these nearly independent colonies; not until 1676 would the English government attempt to establish control over Massachusetts and its neighbors. Meanwhile they grew, prospered, and developed their own distinctive traditions of government. Proprietary Colonies After the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, the English crown issued no more corporate charters for colonization projects in America. Beginning with Maryland, which was chartered in 1632 as a refuge for Roman Catholics and others, all the new colonies were organized according to the provisions of proprietary charters. In general the people of the proprietary provinces received qualified legislative privileges, but administrative authority was vested in the charter grantees, who received from the king virtually complete freedom to establish any form of government, as well as the right to dispose of all lands within the boundaries of their colonies. With the exception of Georgia, which was chartered in 1732, all these English proprietary colonies in North America were organized before the end of the 17th century. In 1663 a company of eight English nobles was granted what is now North Carolina and South Carolina. New Netherland, lying across the lines of communication between the northern and southern possessions of England, was forcibly annexed in 1664 and renamed New York. New Jersey, mainly comprising territory that the Dutch had previously seized from Sweden, was formed in the same year. New Hampshire, consisting of settlements formerly under the jurisdiction of Massachusetts, was organized 15 years later. In 1681 William Penn received a charter for the region that he named Pennsylvania. Political Developments In terms of political development, this period was notable for many reasons. The persecution of Puritans in England by Charles I drove numerous refugees to America, but also precipitated the English Revolution in 1642, which seven years later led to the king's execution and the formation of the Commonwealth. Gradually, Parliament emerged as the ruler of the country and its colonies. The first manifestation of parliamentary authority over the colonies was the Navigation Act of 1651, which required that colonial imports and exports be shipped in English-flag vessels. The first of a long series of increasingly elaborate enactments designed to regulate colonial commerce, this act sought to guarantee the benefits theoretically inherent in mercantilism. The Navigation Acts prohibited commercial relations between the colonies and non-English nations. Although colonial merchants freely ignored the provisions when it suited their purposes, the laws created a trading environment that generally benefited colonies and mother country alike. Because of lax enforcement, smuggling and illicit trade were common and, over the next century, became an accepted part of American colonial mores. In 1660, after the death of Oliver Cromwell and the end of the protectorate, Charles II was restored to the English throne. Although he took little active interest in the colonies, his brother (and later his successor as James II) was determined to impose stricter control over England's American possessions. The new English regime broadened the navigation laws and transformed New Hampshire and Massachusetts into royal provinces. The revocation of the Massachusetts charter in 1684 reflected royal hostility to the trade violations, autonomous status, and generally independent attitude of the colony. In 1686 James II decreed the unification of New York, New Jersey, and the New England colonies into a single royal province, the Dominion of New England. Colonial resistance to the change assumed various forms. Connecticut and Rhode Island refused to yield their charters to Sir Edmund Andros, the royal governor. In Massachusetts armed rebellion broke out in 1689 following the Glorious Revolution in England. The Boston populace arrested Andros, seized control of the colonial government, and dispatched emissaries and greetings to William III and Mary II, the new English sovereigns. New York City also became the scene of rebellion in the new rulers' name led by the merchant Jacob Leisler. The Struggle for North America The accession of William and Mary in 1689 occasioned a complete reversal of English diplomatic policy, which under Charles II and James II had been pro-French. As a result of the change, which had immediate and long-lasting repercussions in North America, the English government now challenged the military power of France, its chief rival for colonial empire. The accession of Anne and the formation of Great Britain politically united Scotland, England, and Wales by the Act of Union (1707), thus intensifying the conflict. The British-French Wars The ensuing struggle, extending in successive phases for nearly a century, was fought in many parts of the world. Probably the most fiercely contested battleground in this global conflict was in North America. Here the successive phases of the conflict were known collectively as the French and Indian wars and included King William's War (1689-1697), Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), King George's War (1744-1748), and the French and Indian War (1754-1763). The French regime in North America possessed various advantages in these wars. It was highly centralized, had a well-disciplined military, and numbered most eastern Native American tribes among its allies. The British colonies by contrast rarely cooperated with one another (see Albany Congress), enjoyed few reliable alliances with the Native Americans, and demonstrated little military prowess. On the other hand, the British had vast numerical superiority from the outset; by the 1750s they had a population advantage of nearly 30 to 1 over the French. The first three of the wars were indecisive, largely because of the diplomacy of the Iroquois, a confederation of five (later six) Native American nations located in New York, which occupied the critical middle ground between New France and the northern British colonies. The Iroquois at first pursued a policy of neutrality while offering limited military alliances to both sides; their activities helped limit the amount of land that changed hands in North America before 1750. Only the Peace of Utrecht, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession (known as Queen Anne's War in the colonies) in 1713, obliged the French to relinquish considerable territory, including Acadia, Newfoundland, and the region surrounding Hudson Bay. A lapse in the Iroquois policy of neutrality brought on the last and most decisive colonial war. The Iroquois had claimed sovereignty over the Ohio River valley and had long succeeded in keeping both the French and English from establishing a permanent presence there. After 1748, however, Pennsylvania traders and Virginia land speculators gained footholds in the valley; this caused the French to build forts there to protect their access, via the river, to French settlements in the Mississippi Valley. The confrontation between England and France over control of the Ohio basin led to the final phase of the struggle, the French and Indian War. From its modest beginnings in 1754, this war quickly escalated into a contest for domination of the continent. Although the first half of the war brought a series of disasters for the British and their colonies, after 1757 Great Britain and its allies in the European theater of the conflict dealt stunning blows to France (see Seven Years' War). In North America, the fighting in this second phase of the war was carried on mainly by the British army, aided by colonial auxiliaries. In 1759 British and colonial forces seized Québec; the following year they conquered Montréal, destroying French power in America. The remainder of the war, fought in Europe, the West Indies, India, Africa, and elsewhere, brought an almost unbroken sequence of British colonial victories that led to France's capitulation in 1763. Under the terms of the Treaty of Paris, France lost all its possessions on the North American mainland. The entire region east of the Mississippi and all the French holdings in what is now Canada were ceded to Great Britain. Spain, an ally of France during the war, surrendered Florida but was granted control of French territories west of the Mississippi. The British colonies in America emerged from the French and Indian War with a very high regard both for the British empire and for their own military capabilities, which had been proved on the field of battle. Thus, the colonists were puzzled and anxious when the British government, in the aftermath of the war, began treating them with what they felt was unjustifiable harshness. The Rise of Colonial Resistance The victory over France created enormous problems for the British government. The war had virtually doubled the national public debt, and the accession of half the territory in North America had vastly compounded the problems of controlling the empire. These circumstances required new revenues, and the ruling circles in Britain believed that the colonists were best able to provide the necessary funds. Accordingly, measures to secure enforcement of the Navigation Acts were adopted by the British Parliament in 1764. In order to obtain additional revenue, Parliament also adopted, in 1765, a Stamp Act, requiring Americans to validate various documents, transactions, and purchases by buying and applying stamps issued by the royal government. Passage of the Stamp Act aroused widespread indignation and opposition among the American colonists, especially in Virginia, New York, and Massachusetts. Protest meetings, riotous demonstrations, and other manifestations of popular hostility occurred in practically every urban center. Nearly all officials responsible for execution of the Stamp Act were forced to resign, and many of the stamps were seized and destroyed. Secret societies of patriots calling themselves Sons of Liberty were formed in numerous communities. The intercolonial upsurge against taxation without representation culminated in October 1765 in the Stamp Act Congress, the first important demonstration of American political unity. Although Parliament refused to recognize the adoption by the congress of a petition of rights, privileges, and grievances, the Stamp Act was repealed in 1766. After a change in leadership in the British government, the policy of imposing direct taxes on the American colonies was revived in 1767. Parliament approved a series of measures, known as the Townshend Acts, which among other things, levied modest customs duties on tea, paper, lead, paint, and glass. Colonial resistance to the Townshend Acts included boycotts of British goods, intercolonial expressions of condemnation, and, in Massachusetts, open defiance of the British government by the town of Boston and the General Court. In 1768 Great Britain transferred two regiments of troops to Boston in response to the seditious sentiments prevalent in Massachusetts. However, this action merely served to intensify anti-British feelings there. Finally, on March 5, 1770, a contingent of British soldiers fired into a hostile crowd, producing the first bloodshed of the struggle. See Boston Massacre. Primarily due to changed political circumstances in Britain, Parliament in 1770 repealed all the Townshend duties except the tax on tea, which was retained to uphold Britain's right to levy taxes on its subjects. The Americans then dropped all nonimportation measures except for a tea boycott, kept up to maintain their objections to taxation without representation. Relations returned to normal until 1773, when Parliament tried to save the English East India Company from bankruptcy by granting it a monopoly on tea sold to America. Known as the Tea Act, this measure precipitated a new crisis. The colonists, regarding the Tea Act as a measure to induce them to submit to parliamentary taxation, not only intensified the boycott but, in Boston, destroyed cargoes of tea. See Boston Tea Party. The American Revolution Parliamentary reaction to the events in Boston was swift and harsh. By enactments adopted in March 1774, Parliament closed the port of Boston, prohibited town meetings everywhere in Massachusetts, and imposed other odious penalties. Intercolonial indignation over this legislation, popularly known as the Intolerable Acts, paved the way for convocation, in September 1774, of the First Continental Congress. The Congress to assemble drafted a petition to the British sovereign, George III, for a redress of grievances, called for intensification of the boycott on trade with Great Britain, and completed plans for a new Congress to assemble in May 1775, in the event of British refusal to grant its demands. The king rejected the Congress's petition and characterized the colonial protest movement as rebellion. Less than four months after that news was received in America, armed conflict broke out in Massachusetts when the royal governor, General Thomas Gage, dispatched troops against Concord, where the leaders of the resistance had concentrated arms and ammunition. On April 19, British regulars fired on a formation of patriot militia at Lexington, precipitating the first battle of the American Revolution (see Lexington, Battle of; See Also Concord, Battle of). The Second Continental Congress convened at Philadelphia on May 10, 1775. Although it was a purely extralegal institution, the Congress proclaimed American determination to resist British aggression with armed force, provided for establishment of a Continental Army, appointed George Washington commander in chief, authorized the issuance of paper money, and assumed other prerogatives of executive authority over the colonies. Congress also appealed to the British government for a peaceful solution of the crisis, but in August, George III responded with a proclamation exhorting his "loyal subjects" to "suppress rebellion and sedition" in North America. Meanwhile, British-held Fort Ticonderoga had fallen to Ethan Allen and the Green Mountain Boys, and American troops had inflicted severe casualties on a large force of British regulars at Charlestown, Massachusetts. (See Bunker Hill, Battle of). Sentiment for a complete break with Great Britain and for national independence did not begin to emerge in the colonies until after the events at Bunker Hill. More than a year later, on July 2, 1776, the Second Continental Congress declared independence, and two days afterward adopted a formal statement of principle written by Thomas Jefferson justifying that action. The Growth of the Nation Between 1776 and 1865 the American confederation would grow from 13 to 36 component states; earn the respect of foreign nations; and greatly increase in territory, population, and wealth. The young nation would also confront serious social, economic, and political problems; the two most important were whether the authority of the federal government or that of the individual states was to prevail, and to what extent the institution of slavery should be permitted to grow in the nation. The controversy over these issues became more acute as time passed and divided the country into two antagonistic sections, the North and the South. In the mid-19th century the conflict of interests, opinions, and ideals became violent enough to threaten the very existence of the Union. Diplomacy and compromise failed, and only after a four-year civil war between the North and the South were the issues finally settled. The Articles of Confederation By winning the war of independence, the United States emerged successfully from its first severe test as a nation. With the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783), ending the war with Great Britain, the nation was confronted with new problems, chief of which was devising a form of government that would bind the 13 states into a strong and efficient union. From 1776 to 1781 the states had been governed by the Continental Congress, which assumed certain executive powers-such as raising an army, borrowing money from foreign countries, and concluding treaties-in order to carry on the struggle against Great Britain. These powers in effect made the Congress a replacement for the king; they were codified shortly after independence, in an agreement known as the Articles of Confederation. The articles were approved by the Congress in 1777 and were ratified successively by the various states, concluding with Maryland in 1781. Maryland was slow to ratify because it lacked a colonial charter that conferred western lands upon it, and feared that other states (especially Virginia) that claimed vast western reserves would dominate the union. It agreed to enter the confederation only if all the states concerned ceded to the Union their western claims. The states involved agreed, and beginning with New York in 1781 and ending with Georgia in 1802, all made the necessary cessions. The Lack of Central Power Under the Articles of Confederation, the states explicitly retained their sovereign power, which meant that their individual legislatures remained supreme in matters of taxation and administration of justice, as provided by their own constitutions. Congress was a body in which only the states, not the people, were represented; it functioned as a large plural executive, not as a legislature. Thus, Congress could only ask the states for money to run the government, and the states might contribute or withhold funds at their pleasure. Although Congress had power to issue its own currency and to borrow money on behalf of the United States, it had no authority over the internal finances of the states, which issued currency and borrowed money on their own. In the unstable financial climate of postrevolutionary America, these limitations on its power prevented the Congress from keeping domestic peace or inspiring respect abroad. During the period in which the articles were in force, nationalists, such as Washington, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton, worried that rivalries between the states and social conflicts within them threatened the ability of the United States to survive as a political entity. Some states, such as Rhode Island, inflated their currencies to ease the condition of their farmers, who were suffering in the depression that had followed the Revolution; others, such as Massachusetts, refused to ease the plight of the debtor class and raised taxes as a way of protecting from inflation the merchants who dominated their legislatures. In Massachusetts, this deflationary, high-tax policy led directly to a revolt by farmers, who initially resisted the authority of the state by closing the county courts, and later took up arms under the nominal leadership of a Continental Army veteran, Captain Daniel Shays. The state government put down the uprising, but Shays' Rebellion convinced nationalists that there could be no security for people or property without a central government to exert authority over, and within, the states. The Confederation Congress was capable of governing within the sphere it had been permitted-as demonstrated by the Ordinance of 1787, which organized the national domain, known as the Northwest Territory, between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes. In the aftermath of Shays' Rebellion, nationalists agitated for revision of the articles in order to expand the government's authority. The Constitution The more ardent nationalists, including Madison and Hamilton, believed that the Articles of Confederation would have to be discarded, but it was with the intention of revising them that Congress agreed in 1787 to permit a convention of delegates from all the states to propose amendments to the system. Meeting at Philadelphia from May to September, with George Washington as its president, the convention drew up the Constitution of the United States. Much conflict took place during the convention and immediately afterward, and important compromises had to be worked out among the contending parties before the Constitution was finally adopted by the convention. In general, the Constitution laid the foundations for an efficient national union by making the people, not the states, the parties to the agreement. Largely the work of Madison, James Wilson, Roger Sherman, and other nationalist delegates, the Constitution substituted a fully articulated government of three branches-executive, legislative, and judicial-for the weak, quasi-governmental Confederation Congress. The Constitution became the law of the land in 1788, after 9 states (the required two-thirds) had ratified it; 12 states ratified the document by the end of 1788. On March 4, 1789, the first Congress of the United States elected under the Constitution assembled in New York City, then the national capital. On April 30, George Washington, who had been unanimously elected the first president of the United States, was inaugurated in New York City. (Rhode Island, which had sent no delegates to the Philadelphia convention, did not join the union until it ratified the Constitution in May 1790. Financial Policies The most outstanding achievements during Washington's first administration belonged to his secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton. At his prompting, Congress agreed to "fund" (that is, to pay interest in perpetuity on) the debt the United States had incurred during the American Revolution, as well as to assume responsibility for paying off the remaining debts owed by the states. These measures established the creditworthiness of the United States and left no doubt that the federal government was more important than any of the component states. He established the first Bank of the United States as a central financial authority, which, although privately owned, acted as fiscal agent for the government. Also as a result of Hamilton's efforts, Congress levied a tariff on imported goods and passed an excise tax on the production of whiskey, measures that provided revenues to carry his financial plans into effect. The First Party Conflict Hamilton's financial policies aroused opposition from those who felt the measures neglected the agricultural class and favored the bankers and manufacturers. The debates in Congress and elsewhere in 1790 and 1791 over Hamilton's measures revealed a distinct cleavage in the political and economic ideas of the nation, and this division soon was manifested in the formation of the first two important political parties in U.S. history: the Federalists and the Republicans (see Federalist Party; Political Parties in the United States). Basic Differences The Federalists advocated a strong federal government existing to serve the national interest, guided by the educated and wealthy classes. The Republicans, whose outstanding leaders were James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, believed in the ability of the common people to function as their own governmental officers and advocated strict limitation of federal powers and protection of states' rights. The Federalist Party was supported by the moneyed and commercial interests, especially merchants in the northeastern cities; the Republicans were supported mainly by farmers, particularly in the South and West, and by artisans and other urban workers. The two parties also disagreed strongly on U.S. foreign policy. Republicans sympathized with the ideology of the French Revolution, regarding it as a notable example of people striving against tyranny, and generally favored France over Great Britain. Federalists saw the French Revolution as an example of chaotic subversion of established law and order, and favored strict neutrality. President Washington inclined toward the Federalist viewpoint and in 1793 proclaimed a policy of U.S. neutrality in the ongoing wars between Great Britain and France. Washington and his successor in the presidency, John Adams, adhered to the policy of neutrality, although both France and Britain violated U.S. neutral rights and aroused the Federalists to demand war on France and the Republicans to advocate war on Great Britain. Disputes between Great Britain and the United States arising from the French-British wars were temporarily settled by Jay's Treaty, ratified in 1795, and Adam's representatives negotiated a convention with France in September 1800 that ensured peace between that country and the United States. Federalists Repudiated In domestic matters, antagonism between Federalists and Republicans built up steadily after Federalist suppression of the so-called Whiskey Rebellion in 1794. Tensions finally climaxed in 1798, when the Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws, designed to silence all Republican criticism of Federalist policy, struck Republicans as unconstitutional infringements on the rights of free speech and press. The Kentucky Resolutions, written by Jefferson and passed by the legislature of Kentucky, promulgated the theory of states' rights by strictly limiting the powers of the federal government and reserving to the states all powers not explicitly forbidden to them by the Constitution (see Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions). The Alien and Sedition Acts provided one of the main issues in the presidential election of 1800. Jefferson's victory over Adams signified a repudiation of the Federalist theory that government should be conducted by the "rich, the well born, and the able" and a triumph for the idea that ordinary people were fit to govern themselves. The Federalist Party, although it nominated presidential candidates through 1816, never again won a national election. Jefferson's Presidency Despite Federalist fears of radical reform, Jefferson left undisturbed many of the laws and institutions, such as the tariff and the Bank of the United States, that his followers had criticized. His program of simplicity and frugality in government, however, in effect dismantled the comparatively imposing national structure the Federalists had tried to construct. Under Jefferson's secretary of the treasury, Albert Gallatin, strict economy in national expenditures was introduced; military and naval appropriations were severely cut, and 70 percent of the national revenue was applied to reducing the national debt. The most important event in Jefferson's first administration was the acquisition by the United States of the Louisiana territory, a vast realm encompassing the lands between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains, from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada. Ceded to Spain in 1762 during the French and Indian War, the land had been reacquired by France in 1800 through a secret treaty. Although one of Jefferson's cardinal political principles was that the powers of the president were strictly limited by the Constitution, and the Constitution nowhere empowers the president to purchase foreign territory, Napoleon Bonaparte's offer to sell the region for a mere $15 million was of such obvious benefit to the United States that in 1803 Jefferson concluded a treaty purchasing Louisiana from France. By this act, he doubled the area of the United States. Subsequently, 14 states were wholly or partly created out of the Louisiana territory, and they added immensely to the wealth and power of the nation. See Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson was reelected in 1804. His second administration was marked chiefly by growing tension in foreign affairs. In their intensifying wars against each other, both Great Britain and France adopted restrictive economic measures that injured neutral commerce, especially that of the United States. To force withdrawal of these measures, Jefferson had Congress pass a number of acts designed to deprive Great Britain and France of U.S. goods and to exclude their products from the United States; the most important of these measures were the Non-Importation Act (1806), the Embargo Acts (1807, 1808), and the Non-Intercourse Act (1809) (see Embargo Act). The War of 1812  These acts, and similar measures taken in the administration of Jefferson's successor, James Madison, also a Republican, failed to change the policies of Great Britain and France and resulted in severe financial loss to U.S. merchants and shipowners. Great Britain aroused special animosity, not only because its policies damaged U.S. commerce and its officials treated U.S. diplomats rudely, but because the Royal Navy routinely stopped American merchant ships on the pretext of searching for naval deserters, and impressed many U.S. citizens into service aboard British warships. These actions aroused fervent demands for war, especially among young nationalist politicians in Congress. Reports that Britain had aided the Shawnee chief Tecumseh in his efforts to resist the territorial expansion of the United States only intensified the war fever. President Madison hoped to resolve the crisis by diplomacy, but by June 1812 he could no longer resist congressional pressure. He sent Congress a message describing the outrages committed by Great Britain, and Congress responded with a declaration of war. The War of 1812 settled none of the issues that had brought it about; the Treaty of Ghent, which brought the war to a close in 1815, merely restored prewar conditions between the belligerents. The war nevertheless had three important results in the United States: It created a strong feeling of national union and pride; it destroyed the national political influence of the Federalists; and it ended the dominance of American political affairs by European events. Era of Good Feeling The strong nationalism engendered by the War of 1812 manifested itself in many ways. Congress had levied a high tariff in 1812 to raise money for the war; in 1816 it increased the already high duties of the tariff to protect the growing manufacturing industries of the nation from the great quantities of low-priced goods being imported from Great Britain. The Republican Party had always been antagonistic to the Bank of the United States, and refused to renew the bank's charter after it expired in 1811. Banking as conducted by state-chartered banks, however, proved thoroughly unsound during the War of 1812, and in 1816, in order to put an end to the chaotic financial conditions then prevailing, the Republican-dominated Congress issued a charter for the second Bank of the United States. In the decade following the War of 1812, the powers of the federal government were augmented by several important decisions of the Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, that limited various legislative and executive powers of the states. The national territory also expanded during the decade, when Spain ceded (1819) Florida (then East Florida) to the United States; West Florida, a strip of land along the Gulf of Mexico extending westward from East Florida to the mouth of the Mississippi River, had been forcibly annexed by the United States in 1810. In foreign affairs, the strong national spirit was demonstrated chiefly in the promulgation of the Monroe Doctrine, a statement of policy by President James Monroe that announced the determination of the United States to prevent any further colonization by European nations in either South or North America. The statement thus implied the United States would aid the South American republics, formed in the first quarter of the 19th century by revolt from Spain, in defense of their independence. Sectional Rivalries This period of strong national unity, often referred to as the Era of Good Feeling, was, however, a prelude to an era of strife between various sections of the nation over economic, social, and political issues that was destined to continue for four decades and culminate in the American Civil War (1861-1865). Initially, three sections of the United States-the West, the South, and the Northeast-which had each developed different types of economic and social life and political ideas, began to struggle with one another for control of the presidency and Congress in order to secure national policies that would promote their sectional welfare. By mid-century, however, fundamental divisions between North and South about slavery overshadowed all other issues. Westward Migration The West, the region lying west of the Allegheny Mountains, had by this time (1824) been settled by people from the seaboard colonies or states in two successive waves of migration. The first began after the region was secured to Great Britain from the French by its victory in 1763 in the French and Indian War, and then won from Great Britain during the American Revolution chiefly by the victories of American forces under George Rogers Clark; it continued to the end of the 18th century. By the last decade of the century many sections of the frontier territories had become sufficiently populated to enter the Union. Vermont, a frontier region settled chiefly by New Englanders, became a state in 1791; Kentucky, in 1792; Tennessee, in 1796; and Ohio, in 1803. The westward movement slackened during Jefferson's first administration, which was characterized by business prosperity in the East. When restrictions on business-brought about by Jefferson's prohibitive trade acts and the War of 1812-caused economic troubles in the East, beginning about 1806, the westward movement was resumed and a second wave of migration took place. It resulted in the addition to the Union of the states of Louisiana (1812), Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), and Alabama (1819). Life in the frontier territories and states was laborious and dangerous. The effort to establish farms and homes on uncleared land, to subdue Native Americans, and to form communities, local governments, and finally states demanded courage, self-reliance, initiative, a belief in manifest destiny, and endurance. In the frontier regions, people were valued not for their ancestry or education but for their ability and willingness to work with their hands. Cotton and the South The economy and social life of the South, also an agricultural region, differed considerably from that of the West. The South was principally devoted to the growing of one crop, cotton, on large plantations with black slave labor. In contrast to the hardy, vigorous, and crude life of the people on the western frontier, the southern planters led lives characterized by aristocratic social grace and culture. Nevertheless, the West and the South, both devoted largely to agriculture, had similar interests and leaders in the early period of sectional conflict. But as time passed, the conflict between North and South over the issue of slavery and the preservation of the Union overshadowed every other sectional conflict; in this fundamental difference, the various western states took the side of the section, North or South, in which they were geographically situated. Manufacturing and the Northeast The economic life of the Northeast, comprising the New England states, New York, New Jersey, and eastern Pennsylvania, was marked in the first two decades of the 19th century by a decrease in agricultural activity, caused largely by the migration of farmers to the cheaper and more fertile lands of the West. In addition, the shipbuilding industry and foreign trade had both been nearly ruined by the economic warfare waged by Presidents Jefferson and Madison against Great Britain and by the War of 1812. Stimulated also by the new inventions and processes of the Industrial Revolution, the Northeast became a great manufacturing center. Everywhere in the region, home industries employing manual power gave way to factories using machinery driven at first by waterpower and then by steam power; and numerous small farming towns, such as Lowell, Massachusetts, rapidly grew into industrial cities. The large cities-Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore-also began to grow at an unprecedented rate. Important to their growth were the canals and railroads that were built at the time between West and East, giving the great trading centers easier access to the products of the West. These new means of transportation replaced the crude roads that had been almost the only means of east-west travel in the first quarter of the 19th century. The Erie Canal was completed in New York State in 1825. Railroads included the Baltimore and Ohio (started in 1828) and the Mohawk and Hudson (1830; later part of the New York Central). The Northeast was conservative in politics and social life; financial and political power in the section was held by the manufacturing and mercantile classes. The Election of 1824  The conflict between the mercantile aristocracy of the Northeast, the agricultural aristocracy of the South, and the frontier democracy of the West was first manifest in the presidential election of 1824. The three principal candidates, all members of the Republican Party, were John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, representing the conservative elements of the party; Andrew Jackson, born in South Carolina but at the time a U.S. senator from Tennessee, leader of the democratic western frontier element and the border and southern faction; and Henry Clay, born in Virginia and at the time a U.S. representative from Kentucky and the Speaker of the House, who was Jackson's rival for leadership of the West and South. After a bitter campaign no candidate had received the required majority of electoral votes, and the House of Representatives chose Adams as president, principally because Clay exerted his influence in Adams's favor. Because Jackson had received the plurality of electoral votes, his followers claimed that the election of Adams was contrary to the will of the people, and the Republican Party split into two sections. One, the National Republican Party, followed Adams and Clay; the other, the Democratic-Republican Party, was led by Jackson, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and William H. Crawford of Georgia. During Adams's administration, the supporters of Jackson maintained a campaign of criticism of the president's policies, thereby laying a foundation for the election of Jackson in 1828. The Tariff and Nullification The principal controversy in the Adams administration involved the tariff question. The North favored a protective tariff. The South, which had advocated it in 1816, now opposed it. Since that year the exportation of cotton had increased so greatly (from 27 million kg/60 million lb in 1816 to 91 million kg/200 million lb in 1824) that the South had given up the idea of developing manufacturing industries in order to devote itself almost entirely to the cultivation of cotton. With no manufactures of its own that might benefit from a high tariff, the South objected to the high prices it would have to pay for manufactured goods under a high tariff. Southern leaders held that the levying of such a tariff taxed the economy of one section of the nation for the benefit of another section and asserted that this procedure was unconstitutional. The North, however, with its larger population, controlled Congress. In 1824, toward the close of James Monroe's second administration, Congress passed a tariff raising the average duty from 20 percent (already in effect per the Tariff of 1816) to 36 percent; in 1828, in Adams's administration, it passed a tariff levying even higher duties. The 1828 tariff, the so-called Tariff of Abominations, excited extreme anger in the South. Various southern leaders reiterated their claim that the law was unconstitutional and reaffirmed their belief in the right of any state to disobey any laws passed by Congress in excess of its constitutional powers, as first stated in the Kentucky Resolutions of 1798. The South did nothing, however, during the Adams administration to implement its declared right to nullify acts of Congress, hoping that Jackson would be elected president in 1828 and would favor a low tariff. Jackson did defeat Adams in 1828, but he disappointed the South by declaring that Congress was within its rights in levying a protective tariff. Then in 1832 Congress passed a new tariff bill that was again highly protective in character. Indignation over the tariff immediately precipitated drastic action by South Carolina. A convention summoned by the legislature of that state ordered its citizens not to pay the duties imposed by the tariff law and informed the federal government that it would secede from the Union if the federal government attempted to enforce the law. Jackson refused to be intimidated. He proclaimed that no state had the right to nullify a law of the United States, and he threatened military action in South Carolina to enforce the Tariff of 1832. Military conflict between South Carolina and the Union seemed imminent, but the issue was settled by compromise: Congress passed a new tariff law providing for a gradual reduction of duties over a period of ten years, until the rates were no higher than the 1816 levels, and South Carolina canceled its Ordinance of Nullification. See Nullification; Tariffs, United States. Jackson and the Bank Another violent sectional controversy in Jackson's first administration involved the second Bank of the United States, which had been established in 1816. Jackson was hostile to the bank, charging that it unduly favored the commercial interests of the northeastern states and was inimical to those of the state-chartered banks of the West. The West supported Jackson's point of view; the Northeast and the National Republicans, in general, supported the bank. Although the charter of the bank would not expire until 1836, the bank in 1832 applied to Congress for a renewal. The application was a political maneuver by Henry Clay, who expected Jackson to oppose the renewal and then to be repudiated by the people in the forthcoming election. Congress passed a bill granting the renewal and Jackson did veto it. However in the election of 1832, in which the bank was the principal issue, Jackson overwhelmingly defeated Clay, the candidate of the National Republican Party. Jackson then immediately moved to destroy the bank by transferring federal funds from it to favored, or "pet," state banks. In the administration of Jackson's successor, Martin Van Buren, Congress finally made the national government independent of the privately owned banking system of the country by the passage of the Independent Treasury Bill in 1840. The measure provided that government funds were thereafter to be deposited not in privately owned banks but in government subtreasuries created in important cities. The act was repealed in 1841, but a new measure with essentially the same provisions was passed in 1846. The Whigs and the Democrats Jackson's partisans managed his election and reelection amid great popular enthusiasm. Jackson, however, was an autocratic and arbitrary executive; he exercised such power over his cabinet and Congress that the period of his administrations is sometimes referred to as the "reign" of Andrew Jackson. Between 1834 and 1836 his enemies-including the National Republicans, northerners whom he had offended by his action against the bank, and southerners whose enmity he had incurred by his stand against nullification in South Carolina-joined to create a new political party, the Whig Party. Several years earlier, the Democratic-Republicans, led by Jackson, had dropped the second half of the party name to become the Democratic Party, still in existence today. The Democratic Party was strong enough to elect Van Buren in 1836 but was hurt by the financial panic of 1837. Although the panic was engendered before Van Buren's administration and was caused chiefly by overspeculation in land, canals, and railroads, the ensuing business depression lasted through Van Buren's administration and so discredited the Democrats that in 1840 the Whigs elected their candidate, William Henry Harrison. Harrison died, however, a few weeks after he was inaugurated in 1841, and the vice president, John Tyler, became president. The chief aims of the Whig Party, led by Clay, were to restore the Bank of the United States and to promote a high tariff. Tyler, however, had joined the Whigs not because of his belief in their political principles but because of his enmity toward Jackson. After Congress in 1841 passed a bill to recharter the bank, Tyler vetoed it, whereupon he was ostracized by the Whig Party, some members of which tried to impeach him. By this time, however, issues such as the tariff and the bank, which had been the cause of sectional controversy for two decades, had been superseded by a far more fundamental sectional issue, that of black slavery. The problem had been the cause of sharp controversy since the founding of the nation, and from the fourth decade of the century to the middle of the sixth, it dominated all phases of American life. The Debate Over Slavery The first black slaves in North America were the 20 introduced into the Virginia Colony at Jamestown in 1619. During the 17th century about 25,000 African blacks were brought into the country, and slavery was legal in all the colonies. Climatic conditions in the South were most conducive to growing the crops best suited to slave labor. The demand for cheap labor to raise cotton, the principal southern crop, caused a great increase in the number of slaves in the South, especially after the production of cotton was stimulated by the invention (1793) of the cotton gin. The North gradually united in finding the institution of slavery obnoxious on both ethical and economic grounds, and by the end of the 18th century all the states north of Maryland, except New Jersey, had provided for the abolition of slavery. The U.S. Constitution, however, recognized the institution. Congress in its early days sometimes acted for and sometimes against slavery. By the Ordinance of 1787 it prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory; in 1793 it passed the Fugitive Slave Law, which permitted a slave owner to reclaim, from any locality in the United States and on mere proof of ownership, any slave who had escaped custody (see Fugitive Slave Laws); and in 1808 Congress forbade the further importation of slaves into the United States. Between 1791 and 1812 the Union admitted three states in which slavery was legal (Kentucky, Tennessee, and Louisiana) and two in which slavery was prohibited (Vermont and Ohio). See Also Slavery. Slavery and Western Expansion Members from northern states had expressed little opposition in Congress to the admission of the above-mentioned slave states. The first serious sectional controversy over slavery took place when the Missouri Territory, in which slavery was legal, applied for statehood in 1818. The Missouri application for the first time aroused strong northern opposition to the admission of a slave state. Because Missouri was to be the first state lying entirely west of the Mississippi created from territory added to the Union since its formation, the opponents of slavery feared its admission as a slave state would serve as a precedent for admission of all future states. After a lengthy and violent controversy in Congress and throughout the country, Congress enacted the Missouri Compromise. Under this law, Missouri was to be admitted as a slave state, but slavery was to be prohibited in all other states to be created out of territory of the Louisiana Purchase above latitude 36°30' north. Accordingly, Missouri was admitted to the Union in 1821. In the previous year, Maine had been admitted as a free state to placate the opponents of slavery. Maine had been part of Massachusetts since the 17th century but a movement for separate statehood had begun in 1785. The controversy preceding the enactment of the Missouri Compromise focused the attention of the entire country on the problem of slavery. After 1820 northern sentiment, based chiefly on ethical grounds, grew for the abolition of slavery. Proposals in the North ranged from gradual emancipation with compensation for the slave owners to immediate, unconditional emancipation. The South, feeling that the very basis of its economic and social order was threatened, passed stringent laws to keep its slaves under control. In 1840 it secured passage by Congress of the so-called gag resolution, providing that Congress would no longer consider any petition presented to it on the subject of slavery. The South also tried, unsuccessfully, to suppress mail circulation of antislavery literature, and it bitterly objected to the North's criticism of slavery. The division of national opinion on the slavery issue grew more violent through the third decade of the century and rose to a crisis in the fourth. At that time the United States acquired large new areas of territory in the West, and a struggle at once began between North and South over whether slavery should be permitted in those regions. The new territory comprised Texas, the Oregon region, California, and New Mexico (which then consisted of the area between California on the west and Texas on the east) and extended from the Mexican border to the southern border of Oregon. Texas and Oregon Texas was a province of Mexico until 1836, when its inhabitants, for the most part settlers from the United States who had migrated there in large numbers since the beginning of the 19th century, concluded a successful revolt and established the Republic of Texas. The new nation desired annexation to the United States. The South, openly favoring enlargement of the national territory in which slavery was permitted, strongly advocated the annexation of Texas, where slavery was legal; the North opposed the annexation. President Tyler favored annexation, but Congress refused to ratify the agreement concluded between Texas and the United States by the secretary of state, John C. Calhoun. The question of the annexation of Texas then became involved with that of the annexation of Oregon. By virtue of exploration and settlement, both the United States and Great Britain claimed this region, which extended northward from latitude 42° and westward from the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific Ocean. Agreement had been made between the two nations in 1818 (renewed in 1827) to share authority over the region. In the 1840s strong sentiment arose in the United States for a division of Oregon that would give the United States undisputed possession of all the territory south of latitude 49°, while some Americans insisted on the acquisition of all land south of 54°40'. The idea of annexing Oregon at this time was particularly favored by those who desired the annexation of Texas; they felt that by the addition of Oregon, in which slavery had taken no hold, the North might be won over to the annexation of Texas, a slave region. The presidential campaign of 1844 was fought largely on the issue of the annexation of Texas and Oregon. The Democrats favored the annexations, while the Whigs took an indefinite stand, especially on the annexation of Texas. Also active in this campaign was a third party, the Liberty Party, formed in 1839 and advocating abolition of slavery in the South. The Liberty Party attracted enough Whig votes in New York and Michigan to give these two states and the election to the Democratic candidate, James K. Polk, a strong annexationist. Action on the annexations soon followed. In December 1845 Texas was admitted to the Union; in June 1846 Great Britain and the United States concluded a treaty extending the parallel of latitude 49° North (already the boundary between the United States and Canada east of the Rocky Mountains) west from the Rockies to the Pacific, thus bringing under sole U.S. ownership all of Oregon south of the 49th parallel. The Mexican War The annexation of Texas brought about a dispute between the United States and Mexico, which had never recognized the independence of Texas. Mexico, insisting that it still expected to subdue its rebellious province, in 1846 refused to discuss with the United States the question of the southern boundaries of Texas and a number of other controversial matters. Feeling grew strong in both countries; each massed troops along the Río Grande, and a raid by American troops into Mexican territory led directly to war between Mexico and the United States. In this war the United States was victorious. By terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (February 2, 1848), Mexico, in return for $15 million, ceded California and New Mexico to the United States and agreed to recognize the Río Grande as the boundary between Texas and Mexico. By a treaty negotiated in 1853 and ratified by the U.S. Senate in 1854, the United States purchased from Mexico an additional strip of territory in southern Arizona; this acquisition, known as the Gadsden Purchase, completed the western territorial expansion of the conterminous United States. The struggle between South and North to introduce or prohibit slavery in the newly acquired regions had begun even before the peace treaty with Mexico was signed. In 1846 David Wilmot, a U.S. representative from Pennsylvania, proposed an amendment, or proviso, to the appropriation bill for the expenses of the peace negotiations. He called for the prohibition of slavery in any territory to be acquired from Mexico. The Wilmot Proviso was several times passed by the House but each time defeated by the Senate; although it did not become law, it served to crystallize and attract nationwide attention to the demands of the antislavery forces regarding the status of slavery in the new territories. In retaliation, the slavery interests proposed an amendment permitting slavery for the bill organizing Oregon into a national territory; the amendment was defeated, and in 1848 Oregon became a territory in which slavery was prohibited. California and New Mexico The next important controversy over slavery took place when President Polk in 1848 urged the civil organization of California and New Mexico, which had been under U.S. military rule since 1846. Three plans concerning slavery in these areas were advanced: to permit slavery throughout California and New Mexico; to prohibit slavery throughout the two regions; or to divide each of the two into a free and a slave section by the parallel latitude 36°30' north, as all of the Louisiana Purchase except Missouri had been divided. The discussion became so acrimonious that in the presidential election of 1848 the two principal political parties avoided committing themselves definitely on the issue. The Democratic candidate, Lewis Cass, advocated permitting each territory when it applied for statehood to determine for itself whether it wished to be slave or free; Cass called his doctrine popular sovereignty. The Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor, a southerner who had never urged the extension of slavery. The balance of power in the election was held by a new party, the Free-Soil Party, to which most members of the Liberty Party had transferred their allegiance. The Free-Soil Party, like the Liberty Party, opposed slavery, but unlike the latter, which urged the abolition of slavery everywhere in the United States, it opposed only the extension of slavery into the territory west of the Mississippi. The Preservation of the Union In the election of 1848 the Free-Soilers drew away a sufficient number of votes from the Democratic Party in New York State to enable Taylor to win the state and the election. In the year following the election, the slavery and antislavery groups in Congress were so evenly divided that no solution to the problem of slavery in the newly acquired regions could be reached. At this juncture Henry Clay, in January 1850, introduced legislation that proposed a series of compromises between the demands of the two groups. After a notable series of debates in the Senate, from January to July 1850, the propositions made by Clay were passed; in their enacted form they are known as the Compromise Measures of 1850. They provided principally for California to be admitted to the Union as a free state; for the entire region ceded by Mexico east of California to be opened to settlement by both slaveholders and antislavery advocates; and for a new fugitive slave law, making much more effective the measures that could be taken by a slave owner to reclaim an escaped slave. Passage of the Compromise Measures of 1850 was followed by a four-year truce in the slavery controversy. The belief grew throughout the country that the measures had permanently settled the problem of slavery. Although support for the compromise was stronger among Democrats than among Whigs, the Democrats' overwhelming victory in the presidential election of 1852, in which Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was elected, was as much a result of the fragmentation of the Whig Party as it was a popular vote of confidence in the compromise. The one notable exception to its acceptance was the refusal of many people in the North to obey the fugitive slave laws and their persistence in helping fugitive slaves who reached the North to escape to Canada through secret routes known as the Underground Railroad. The northern abolitionists also kept up propaganda against slavery during the period of the truce; Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1850-1852), which powerfully presented the evils of slavery, was particularly influential in creating sentiment against the institution (see Stowe, Harriet Beecher). The years of the truce were marked by great commercial prosperity in the United States. Principal factors contributing to this prosperity were the discovery in 1848 of gold in California; the growth in wheat production through the extension of wheat planting in Iowa, which became a state in 1846, in Wisconsin, which became a state in 1848, and in Minnesota, which became a territory in 1849; the increase of cotton production in the South and of manufactured goods in the North; and the rapid growth of railroads, which connected the northern Mississippi River basin and the eastern states. Despite general acceptance of the compromise, however, the controversy over slavery still smoldered. In 1854 it flared up again in a new form. The Kansas-Nebraska Act In 1854 the organization of the central part of the Louisiana Purchase arose as a pivotal issue. In January Stephen A. Douglas, a U.S. senator from Illinois and a leader of the Democratic Party in the North, introduced the Kansas-Nebraska Act. This act provided that the central part of the Louisiana Purchase be divided into two territories, Nebraska to the north, and Kansas to the south. Following the doctrine of popular sovereignty, the bill also stipulated that the territories' inhabitants would decide for themselves whether they desired the institution of slavery. Because this division contradicted the Missouri Compromise, provisions of that law would be repealed. Many in the North felt that Douglas had sponsored the extension of slavery into hitherto inviolable territory because he hoped to gain the South's support as the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party in the 1856 election. Douglas, however, sought to organize the Kansas territories primarily because this would facilitate construction of a transcontinental railroad through his home state of Illinois, and repeal of the Missouri Compromise was necessary in order to gain the support of southern congressmen. When the Kansas-Nebraska Act passed in May 1854, it aroused the bitterest criticism and opposition to slavery that had yet appeared in the North. It increased resistance to the fugitive slave laws. It also destroyed the Whig Party by creating bitter antagonism between southern members who had supported the measure, and northern members who had opposed it. The act also brought about violent conflict in Kansas between abolitionist settlers who had emigrated from New England for the purpose of making Kansas a free state, and proslavery forces who invaded Kansas from the neighboring slave state of Missouri to vote in favor of slavery. The proslavery forces sacked and burned the antislavery town of Lawrence in May 1856, and in retaliation John Brown, a fanatical abolitionist, led a group who killed five proslavery adherents at Pottawatomie Creek. Most importantly, the Kansas-Nebraska Act led directly to the formation of the Republican Party. The founders of the party denounced slavery as an unmitigated evil and opposed its extension; they specifically demanded the repeal of the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Fugitive Slave Law. The new party won adherents by capitalizing on the increasingly prevalent belief that the small number of wealthy slave owners, referred to as the "Slave Power," controlled the national government. The Republicans also took advantage of the northern belief that their free labor system was inherently superior to the slave labor system of the South. The new party, however, was dominated not by abolitionists, who sought an immediate end to the institution of slavery, but by Free-Soilers, who sought merely to confine slavery to its existing boundaries. The Election of 1856  The Republican Party held its first national convention in 1856 and nominated John C. Frémont of California for president. The Democratic Party chose James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, the state that many observers believed would decide the election. A third candidate, former President Millard Fillmore, was nominated by the American Party, whose campaign stressed Fillmore's ability to restore sectional harmony. During the campaign the Republicans tried to focus public attention on Kansas, but the Democrats succeeded in portraying the Republicans as radicals bent on destroying the Union. Consequently, Buchanan carried the election. Even so, in its first national campaign the Republican Party made a remarkably good showing. Slavery Sanctioned President Buchanan hoped to end the agitation over the slavery question, but events in his administration brought the issue to its final crisis. The South won two important victories in the controversy. The Dred Scott decision (see Dred Scott Case) issued in 1857 by the U.S. Supreme Court, and the obiter dictum opinion of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney of Maryland, sanctioned the institution of slavery by declaring that slaves were property and not citizens and that Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories. In December of the same year the proslavery element in Kansas managed by fraud to have the state adopt the proslavery Lecompton Constitution, and although a majority of the citizens of the territory opposed the constitution, President Buchanan recommended to the Senate that Kansas be admitted as a state under its provisions. The bill to bring this about was passed by the Senate but defeated by the House. (Kansas was finally admitted to the Union as a free state in 1861.) A series of debates in 1858 between the two aspirants for the office of senator from Illinois, Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, centered the attention of the entire country as never before on the political and moral aspects of the problem of slavery. In these debates, Douglas advocated popular sovereignty, while Lincoln stood for congressional control of slavery in the territories. Douglas won the election, but the debates established Lincoln as the leader of the Republican Party in the West. Lincoln Elected By this time the South was no longer satisfied with the doctrine of popular sovereignty; its leaders demanded that Congress protect slavery wherever it existed in the country and in all the territories where it did not yet exist. Southern Democrats insisted on the endorsement of this sentiment at the party's April 1860 convention at Charleston, South Carolina. Northern Democrats led by Douglas won the adoption of a platform advocating popular sovereignty in the territories, however, whereupon the southern group bolted the convention. In June the regular Democrats nominated Douglas, while the southern wing nominated John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. The Republicans, with a platform hostile to slavery in the territories, nominated Abraham Lincoln. A fourth party, the Constitutional Union Party, sought sectional reconciliation by taking no position on slavery and declaring support only for the Constitution, the Union, and law enforcement; its candidate was John Bell of Tennessee. Lincoln won the election, although he received less than 40 percent of the popular vote. Secession and War The election of 1860 proved that the commanding position in national affairs now belonged to the North, and the South felt that henceforth all important economic and social issues would be settled according to the principles and needs of the North. The South was especially fearful for the future of slavery. Although the Republican Party declared it had no intention of interfering with slavery in the southern states, the South felt that nothing would prevent the party from becoming controlled by abolitionists intent on eliminating slavery from the Union. The election convinced the leaders of the South that thereafter the welfare of their section would not be satisfactorily protected if the southern states remained a part of the federal Union, and they immediately acted to withdraw from it. On December 20, 1860, by action of the convention called by the state legislature, South Carolina seceded from the Union. A few days later military forces of the state laid siege to the federal garrison at Fort Sumter in the Charleston harbor. The lead of South Carolina was followed within a month by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, and Georgia and later by Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina, and Tennessee. On February 4, 1861, delegates from six of the seceding states met at Montgomery, Alabama, and formed a provisional government under the title of the Confederate States of America. Subsequently, several unsuccessful attempts were made to resolve by compromise the issues that were steadily driving North and South to war. Lincoln, in his inaugural address on March 4, 1861, made his position clear: He did not intend to interfere with slavery in the states where it existed; at the same time, he declared that no state had the right to leave the Union as and when it pleased. On April 12, the besiegers of Fort Sumter began a bombardment of the fort, which surrendered two days later. On April 15 Lincoln called upon the loyal states for 75,000 volunteers to defend the Union. The American Civil War, often referred to in the postbellum period as the War of the Rebellion and, in the South, as the War Between the States, had begun. For a detailed account of the war's progress, See Civil War, American. The Postwar Period The Civil War settled the two great problems that had been agitating the nation almost since its foundation. The North's victory assured permanent union based on the supremacy of the nation over the states. In addition, although the war was fought primarily to preserve the Union, as the conflict proceeded, the North also included in its war aims the abolition of slavery. Acts passed by Congress in 1862 abolished slavery in the territories. Calling abolition a military necessity, President Lincoln, on January 1, 1863, issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared free all the slaves in the rebellious states. Finally on December 6, 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery in all the states and territories of the United States, was ratified. Supremacy of the Republican Party The dominance of Republicans in national affairs marked the postwar period. The party remained in control of both houses of Congress until 1875 and of the presidency from 1869 until 1885. (President Andrew Johnson was a border-state Democrat who had been elected vice president on Lincoln's Union ticket in 1864.) The war hero Ulysses S. Grant won the White House as a Republican in 1868 and 1872. He was followed by Republicans Rutherford B. Hayes, president from 1877 to 1881, James A. Garfield (1881), and Chester A. Arthur (1881-1885). Their policies generally favored the interests of big business and, especially in the Grant administration, were tolerant of corruption. Reconstruction The first issue that the nation faced after the Civil War was determining how to bring the seceded states back into the Union. The question, which had emerged even during the war, at once became a matter of contention between the president and the Congress. Lincoln's wartime plan for Reconstruction of the southern states was to readmit them on liberal and easy terms, but the conditions that Congress wished to impose were much more severe. Andrew Johnson, who became president on April 15, 1865, after the assassination of Lincoln, initially espoused views on Reconstruction similar to those that Lincoln had voiced during the war. However, his attempt to put them into effect without consulting Congress, as well as his tolerance of southern violence against the freed slaves, brought about a series of bitter disputes between the executive and legislative branches of the national government. The quarrel was won by Congress, which overrode the president's veto and passed its own plan, the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. By this plan, most of the South was divided into five military districts, each supervised by a Union major general in command of a detachment of troops. Suffrage was granted to the black male population; and by the third section of the 14th Amendment (adopted 1868) to the Constitution, the former political leaders of the South were denied participation in the various state governments set up by the Reconstruction Acts. The resulting Reconstruction governments provoked great resentment in the South. Most white southerners claimed that the blacks who won office during Reconstruction were incapable of running the government. Southerners also contended that the white northerners who had moved to the South and earned positions in the Reconstruction governments sought only to plunder southern treasuries (see Carpetbaggers). These charges, however, were generally untrue. Although economic opportunism and official corruption were certainly facts of life in the South, they were no more prevalent than elsewhere in the nation. Southerners simply were unwilling to accept any form of government in which blacks and northerners played a significant role. They attempted to disrupt the Reconstruction governments with outbreaks of violence and through intimidation, orchestrated principally by the secret society known as the Ku Klux Klan. The North eventually grew tired of imposing Reconstruction by force, and by 1877 white southerners had regained control of all their state governments. Influence of Big Business Because of the alliance between financial interests and the Republican Party machine, Republican rule during the first two decades after the Civil War resulted in a period of unparalleled favoritism to big business. For example, government policy under Republican control unduly favored the organizers of new railroad enterprises in the West. In 1862 Congress chartered five railroads in the Far West, and it subsequently granted these railroads large loans and huge tracts of far western territory; the Northern Pacific Railroad alone received 18.8 million hectares (47 million acres) of land. Also during this period, a series of frauds was perpetrated, notably during the administration of President Grant (see Whiskey Ring). Unscrupulous politicians in alliance with corrupt business executives stole from both the public treasury and the public domain. By the Homestead Act of 1862, which was intended to encourage western migration, the government gave 65 hectares (160 acres) of land free to any head of a family who contracted to cultivate the tract for five years; millions of acres, however, were placed fraudulently into the hands of so-called land sharks. Even the epoch-making achievement of building the 2900-km (1800-mi) railroad from the Missouri River to the Pacific Coast (finished on May 10, 1869), which completed the first American transcontinental railroad route, was tainted with fraud. See Crédit Mobilier of America. Reform Movements In moves to counter this state of affairs, a dissident group within the Republican Party, called the Liberal Republicans, initiated (1870-1872) a movement to bring about civil service reform, to reduce the protective tariff that was causing high prices, and to withdraw the federal troops upholding the black Republican state governments in the South; the group also condemned the corruption in the national government. In the election of 1872 the Liberal Republicans nominated the newspaper editor Horace Greeley for president. Although he was also the nominee of the Democratic Party, he was defeated by Grant, the Republican candidate. Outside the party, a strong protest movement arose among American farmers against the economic burdens imposed on the agricultural classes of the West and elsewhere by the railroads, particularly in the form of high freight rates charged to carry crops and supplies (see Granger Movement). A movement to bring about labor reforms and currency reforms that would make more money available to the debtor classes, especially the farmers, resulted in the formation of the Greenback Party, later called the Greenback-Labor Party. In 1876 the Greenback Party nominated the philanthropist Peter Cooper for president, but he received only 1 percent of the vote. The election of 1876 was won by the Republican Rutherford B. Hayes after a bitter struggle with his Democratic opponent Samuel J. Tilden. Hayes's Administration Hayes was not a machine politician; his administration was marked by his efforts to inaugurate various reforms, all of which were opposed by most other party leaders. For instance, he withdrew the federal troops still supporting carpetbag governments in the South (in Louisiana and South Carolina), although his action meant that the governments of these states would immediately come under the control of the Democratic Party. Hayes's administration was also notable for two financial measures. One measure, passed despite Hayes's veto, was the Bland-Allison Act of 1878, which answered the demands of western silver-mine owners who desired a market for their product and of western farmers and others who desired an increased amount of currency in circulation. By this act, the U.S. government agreed to purchase at least $24 million worth of silver annually from the miners and to coin the supply into silver dollars. The second measure was the resumption by the U.S. Treasury in 1879 of specie payment-that is, payments in gold for outstanding paper money; such payments, suspended during the Civil War, increased faith in the credit of the United States. Largely because of his opposition to the Republican machine, Hayes refused renomination by the Republicans in 1880. At the convention, however, an inconclusive contest between the two machine candidates, Grant and James G. Blaine, led to the nomination of a compromise candidate, James A. Garfield. Garfield was elected over the Democratic candidate, Winfield S. Hancock, and once in office, he opposed the Republican machine leaders, principally by refusing to make federal appointments according to their orders. On July 2, 1881, Garfield was shot by a disappointed office-seeker, Charles J. Guiteau, and died on September 19; he was succeeded by the Vice President, Chester A. Arthur, who was faithful to the party machine. Reemergence of the Democratic Party During Arthur's administration, several off-year elections in which the Democratic Party won important state offices alerted the Republican Party to the growing dissatisfaction with its partisan policies; notable among these Democratic victories was the election of Grover Cleveland as governor of New York. The Republican Party sought to placate this dissatisfaction by passing in 1883 a civil service reform bill, but national feeling had so turned against the Republican Party by 1884 that for the first time since 1856 the Democrats won the presidency. Grover Cleveland defeated the Republican nominee, James G. Blaine, after a campaign remarkable for the rancor with which the two parties attacked each other. Domestic Affairs (1885-1920)  President Cleveland in his first administration (1885-1889) was confronted with five major domestic problems: the federal civil service, federal pensions, labor unrest, abuses in the business methods of the railroads, and the Treasury surplus and the tariff. Cleveland was a strong advocate of a federal civil service with appointments based on merit. He often rejected the demands of Democratic Party leaders for federal jobs, earning him the animosity of party members. Eventually he agreed to remove arbitrarily numerous officeholders and to select replacements based on service to the Democratic Party; however, he did add 12,000 positions to the group based on merit. The administration was plagued by numerous private pension bills passed by Congress, chiefly in favor of Civil War veterans who could not get on the regular pension rolls; Cleveland vetoed more than 200 of these bills. Beginnings of the Labor Movement Cleveland's administration was also noted for the emergence of labor as an organized economic and political force in the United States. Trade unions were formed on a national scale between 1861 and 1866; and the first attempt to unite all trade unions into one federation took place in 1866, with the organization of the National Labor Union (see Trade Unions in the United States), which was disbanded in 1872 because of internal strife. It was succeeded by the Knights of Labor, organized in 1869. By 1886 this body was a national organization with more than 700,000 members. Its policy was to demand of state and national governments laws to ameliorate injustices inflicted on the working class by contemporary economic conditions and practices. In Cleveland's administration, labor for the first time in the United States made vigorous claims, through demands for higher wages and shorter hours, to a larger share of the national income than it had previously enjoyed. Such demands resulted in unprecedented conflict between capital and labor; in 1886 and 1887 an estimated 3000 strikes took place in the United States. The strike at the McCormick reaper works in Chicago occasioned the violent Haymarket Square Riot, which dampened support for the labor movement. Railroad Regulation and the Tariff In Cleveland's administration also, much criticism was directed at the railroads, which had practically a monopoly of freight transportation on western routes and practiced extortion and discrimination in setting freight rates. In 1887, as the result of agitation for federal control of the railroads, the U.S. Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act to regulate railroads, establishing a precedent for similar regulation of other interstate commercial enterprises. The most important issue in Cleveland's administration, however, was the tariff. On taking office, the president found a surplus of nearly $500 million in the Treasury; this sum had accumulated because of the high protective tariffs that had prevailed since the Civil War. Cleveland felt that bringing about a reduction in the tariff was in the interest of consumers and taxpayers; such a reduction would discourage Congress from making extravagant appropriations and would also lower prices on many commonly used commodities. Through his influence, the House of Representatives passed a bill reducing the tariff by 7 to 8 percent, but the bill was not passed in the Senate. The tariff was the principal issue of the presidential campaign of 1888. Although Cleveland was actually a proponent of a low tariff, the Republican Party made it appear that he favored a free-trade policy that would enable British manufacturers to undersell U.S. manufacturers in the U.S. market. Using this tactic, the Republican Party successfully brought about the election of Benjamin Harrison. The Harrison Administration Harrison's administration brought a reversal of the financial policies of Grover Cleveland. Congress disposed of the Treasury surplus by making large appropriations for pensions, naval vessels, lighthouses, coast defenses, and other projects. It also passed the McKinley Tariff Act, which raised the already high protective duties and resulted in higher prices for many household commodities. In order to gain the support of the West for the bill, Congress in 1890 passed the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, by which the government agreed to buy 4,500,000 oz (130,000 kg) of silver every month and to issue paper money equaling the full amount purchased. Also in 1890 Congress passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, which declared illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade." Although the nation favored this measure, it reacted against the higher prices brought about by the McKinley Act by electing a Democratic Congress in 1890. In 1892 former Democratic President Grover Cleveland won his second term. A feature of the campaign was the emergence of a new political party-the People's Party, usually known as the Populist Party-formed principally by western farmers and workers who were members of the Farmers' Alliances or of the American Federation of Labor. The People's Party nominee for president, James Baird Weaver of Iowa, ran on a platform that included demands for the free coinage of silver, government ownership of important utilities, and election of U.S. senators by popular vote. The Second Cleveland Administration Cleveland's second administration was marked by increasing conflict between the interests of the agricultural reformers, whose followers lived in the West, and those of the large bankers and manufacturers of the country, the seat of whose enterprises was generally in the East. Those who expected Cleveland and his solidly Democratic Congress to effect the financial and economic reforms demanded by the West suffered disappointment. Although pledged to a tariff for revenue only, Congress yielded to the desires of senators devoted to protecting the interests of large corporations or trusts by passing another high protective tariff. In addition, the U.S. Supreme Court declared unconstitutional the income tax law. (The burdens of this tax, which had been much stiffened in 1894, had fallen on the comparatively wealthy.) Besides legislation and judicial decisions that displeased the West, the administration saw a period of industrial depression, high prices, widespread unemployment, lockouts, and strikes. The most important strike was that in 1894 of the employees of the Pullman Company, who were led by the American Railway Union. The strike was called to protest unfair working conditions at the Chicago-based Pullman Company, a manufacturer of railroad sleeping cars. It resulted in violence, the deaths of workers, and the destruction of property. President Cleveland sent federal troops to Chicago to restore order, and the federal courts issued an injunction to break the strike. Several of the strike leaders were imprisoned, including labor leader Eugene V. Debs. Among working classes, particularly the Populists and the more radical Democrats, the episode resulted in increasing discontent with the administration. This dissatisfaction was expressed at the Democratic convention of 1896. Dominated by the radical elements of the West, the convention issued a platform demanding, among other things, the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 see Bimetallism, and an end to government by federal injunction, as in the Pullman strike. The Democrats nominated William Jennings Bryan for president; the Republicans, William McKinley. The chief issue of the campaign, in which the economic interests of West and East were sharply opposed, was the silver question. After a strenuous contest, McKinley defeated Bryan. The McKinley Administrations The principal event of McKinley's first administration was the Spanish-American War (1898), fought over the issue of the liberation of Cuba. The United States was victorious in the war, and Spain relinquished Cuba and ceded to the United States the Philippine Islands, Guam, and Puerto Rico. Expansion of the nation to include regions outside of the North American continent was denounced as imperialism by the Democratic Party, and became the principal issue of the 1900 presidential campaign. The nation, however, supported the policy of expansion as carried out by the McKinley administration; in the election McKinley again defeated Bryan, this time by a popular majority of almost 1 million votes and by 292 electoral votes to 155. In September 1901 McKinley was assassinated by a crazed anarchist, and Vice President Theodore Roosevelt became president. His administrations marked a new attitude held by a section of the Republican Party toward the important social, political, and economic questions of the time, and led gradually to a sharp split in the party. Theodore Roosevelt and Progressivism Theodore Roosevelt, like Jackson and Lincoln, believed that the president had the duty of initiating and leading Congress to implement a policy of social and economic benefit to the people at large. As he himself put it, he found the presidency "a bully pulpit." Roosevelt's policies, designed to secure a greater measure of social justice in the United States, were outlined in his first message to Congress, on December 3, 1901. Roosevelt's address included demands for federal supervision and regulation of all interstate corporations; for amendment of the Interstate Commerce Act to prohibit railroads from giving special rates to shippers; for the conservation of natural resources; for federal appropriations for irrigation of arid regions in the West; and for extension of the merit system in civil service. President Roosevelt was particularly noted for his policy regarding the trust, a type of business combination that forms for the purpose of reducing competition and controlling prices. The number of trusts in the United States had increased greatly at the end of the 19th century; only 60 had existed in the United States before the Spanish-American War, whereas 183 were formed between 1899 and 1901. Many of the trusts had practical monopolies of vital commodities such as oil, beef, coal, and sugar or of important utilities such as the railroads. Roosevelt recognized the right of such combinations to exist, but he also insisted on the right of the government to control and regulate the trusts. At his urging, Congress passed several measures designed to help enforce the antitrust laws already on the statute books. Among the new laws were the Elkins Act (1903), aimed at eliminating the discriminatory practice of secret rebates given by various railroads to certain shippers, and the Hepburn Act (1906), aimed at strengthening the Interstate Commerce Commission in its authority over railroads and other public carriers. During his administrations (after completing McKinley's administration, Roosevelt was elected in 1904), the Department of Justice instituted 43 suits against the trusts and won several important judicial decisions, including one ordering the dissolution of the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey as a holding company with a monopoly on oil refining. Other domestic reforms in Roosevelt's program, which he called the Square Deal, were his expansion of forest reserves and national parks; the appointment of the National Conservation Commission in 1908 to promote further conservation; and the passage of the Meat Inspection Act. Also passed was the first of the Pure Food and Drug Acts, which followed a federal investigation of packing-house conditions prompted by revelations made in Upton Sinclair's novel The Jungle (1906) (see Sinclair, Upton Beall). Roosevelt gained worldwide importance through his dramatic speeches and actions as president, his inauguration of the building of the Panama Canal, and his activities in ending the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905). Roosevelt declined to run for reelection in 1908 and the Republicans nominated his secretary of war, William Howard Taft, based on Roosevelt's recommendation. Taft easily defeated his Democratic opponent, William Jennings Bryan. The Taft Administration The Republican platform of 1908, like the Democratic platform of that year, called for a downward revision of the tariff. Nonetheless, the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act, which Congress passed in 1909, was still a high protective tariff. A pronounced split over the tariff questions and other issues developed in the Republican Party during Taft's administration. On one side was the conservative element, the so-called standpatters, who wanted a high tariff and opposed the kind of reforms initiated by Roosevelt. On the other side were the so-called insurgents, later known as progressives, who denounced the high rates of the Payne-Aldrich tariff as a betrayal of the promises made in the Republican platform and criticized the administration for refusing to continue the reforms begun by Roosevelt. Former President Roosevelt openly sided with the progressives; he supported not only tariff revision but other political and economic reforms such as direct primaries, the recall, and an income tax. In January 1911 the Republican senator from Wisconsin, Robert M. La Follette, organized the National Republican Progressive League to take political action for the principles of the progressive element in the Republican Party. By 1912 the progressives had elected several governors in western states. Standpatters and progressive Republicans engaged in a bitter battle for control of the Republican national convention of June 1912. Defeated in their efforts to seat their delegates, the progressives, led by Roosevelt, bolted the convention and in August organized the Progressive Party. Popularly known as the Bull Moose Party, the progressives nominated Roosevelt for president and Governor Hiram W. Johnson of California for vice president. The regular Republican convention had nominated Taft, and the Democratic Party nominated Governor Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey. Because of the split in the Republican ranks, Wilson won decisively. Wilson and the New Freedom Woodrow Wilson, like Roosevelt, believed that the presidency should be used for initiating and guiding national legislation in accordance with the chief executive's interpretation of the will of the people. In his inaugural address, he announced his dedication to the task of improving the national life in all possible aspects. Wilson's social, economic, and political policies as a unit are sometimes known as the New Freedom, from the title of a volume by him published in 1913 and containing significant passages from his addresses in the campaign of 1912. Displaying unusual executive ability and skillful control of his cabinet and Congress during most of his two terms in office (he was reelected in 1916), Wilson succeeded in carrying out notable revisions and reforms in the laws governing the tariff, the banking system, trusts, labor, and agriculture. Under Wilson's guidance and urging, Congress in 1913 passed the Underwood Tariff Act, which provided for a general decrease in the Payne-Aldrich tariff schedules and for an income tax to bring in sufficient revenue to compensate for any loss in national revenue occasioned by the lower tariff duties. To provide the means for furnishing an elastic currency-that is, one that could be readily expanded or contracted to suit the national need, and to establish more effective general supervision of banking than existed at the time, Wilson actively advocated the passage by Congress of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which resulted in the organization of the Federal Reserve System. Also in 1913 the 17th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, requiring that U.S. senators be elected by popular vote rather than by state legislatures. Wilson considered private monopoly "indefensible and intolerable" and prevailed on Congress in 1914 to pass two important pieces of legislation in regard to trusts. One established the Federal Trade Commission to investigate and prevent unfair methods of business competition; the second was the Clayton Antitrust Act, designed primarily to punish those guilty of employing such unfair methods. The Clayton Act also exempted all labor unions and agricultural associations from the provisions of the antitrust laws; prohibited, in most instances, the use of the injunction in labor disputes; and expressed the principle that strikes, peaceful picketing, and boycotts do not violate the federal laws. Other measures to protect labor passed during Wilson's administration include the La Follette Act, which regulated working conditions for seamen on U.S. ships; laws providing an eight-hour working day for railroad workers on interstate lines; and the prohibition of child labor under certain conditions. The Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916 established 12 federal land banks to make money available for long-term farm mortgages at reasonable rates. Wilson also achieved a victory in domestic affairs when the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which legalized women's voting rights, was passed in 1919 and ratified in 1920 (see Woman Suffrage). The most important issues of Wilson's first and second terms, however, were those arising from the outbreak of World War I in Europe in 1914, the entrance of the United States into the war in 1917, and the making of peace in 1919. For discussion of these issues, see "World War I," below. Foreign Affairs (1865-1920)  The period included in the following summary of the foreign relations of the United States may be divided into three parts. In the first, from 1865 to 1898, U.S. foreign policy was determined principally by the attitudes and actions of foreign governments. U.S. foreign policy during these three decades was strongly nationalistic; it did not concern itself with world issues, nor did it enable the United States to play an important part in world affairs. As a result of the Spanish-American War, however, the United States acquired territorial possessions outside its continental area, giving the nation problems of colonial government and control that, together with other factors, compelled it to assume an increasing role in world affairs. The outbreak of World War I in 1914 brought a period of diplomatic conflict between the United States and Great Britain and between the United States and Germany; in 1917 the United States was finally drawn into the war against Germany and its allies. The United States was influential in the writing of the Treaty of Versailles, which formally ended the war in 1919. The U.S. Senate's rejection of the treaty and of U.S. membership in the League of Nations, the covenant for which formed part of the treaty, temporarily reversed the tendency toward U.S. involvement in world affairs. The Influence of Foreign Governments (1865-1898)  During the American Civil War, both France and Great Britain sought to profit by the federal government's preoccupation with its conflict with the South. France's Napoleon III ignored the U.S. Department of State's protests that he was violating the Monroe Doctrine when, in 1863, he made Maximilian, archduke of Austria, the emperor of Mexico. In 1864 he supported with French troops Maximilian's invasion of Mexico. After the close of the Civil War, however, more vigorous U.S. objections resulted in the withdrawal in 1867 of the French forces. Maximilian lost his throne and was executed by rebellious subjects. Great Britain during the Civil War had permitted construction in British shipyards of Confederate cruisers, which inflicted severe losses on northern shipping. The United States sought damages from Great Britain to compensate for the losses caused by the Confederate ships, particularly the cruiser Alabama (see Alabama Claims). In contrast to France and Great Britain during the Civil War, Russia was friendly to the United States. The amicable Russo-American relations of the period led in 1867 to the U.S. purchase from Russia of Alaska, then known as Russian America; the United States paid $7.2 million in gold for the territory. Expansion in the Pacific The last quarter of the 19th century also witnessed a number of disputes between the United States and Great Britain. These disputes included the Bering Sea Controversy, a dispute over U.S. fishing rights in waters off Canada and Alaska, which caused friction between Canada and the United States until the matter was arbitrated during the administration of Cleveland; and a dispute that arose when the United States felt that Great Britain was attempting, despite the Monroe Doctrine, to add Venezuelan territory to British Guiana (now Guyana). The Venezuelan boundary question was so sharply disputed by the diplomats of Great Britain and the United States that war fever was engendered in both countries; the matter was finally settled in 1897 by arbitration, largely in favor of Great Britain. The last third of the century was also marked by the U.S. acquisition of harbor privileges in the Samoan Islands, and in 1899 by the acquisition of the island of Tutuila (see American Samoa). In 1893 a revolution in the Hawaiian Islands was led by U.S. sugar planters, who had acquired large interests there since earlier in the century. The revolt resulted in the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and the subsequent annexation of the island group by the United States in 1898. In the last half of the century the United States also acquired several additional islands in the Pacific, including Wake Island and Midway. Confrontation with Spain The outstanding conflict with a foreign government in the second half of the 19th century was that with Spain over the island of Cuba. During the Ten Years' War (1868-1878) between Spain and its Cuban subjects, a Spanish warship captured the U.S. steamer  Virginius, which was bringing supplies to the Cuban insurgents. The Spanish executed some of the crew, including eight U.S. citizens. Called the Virginius Affair, this incident aroused considerable ill-feeling in the United States against Spain. Matters came to a climax when the U.S. battleship Maine, lying in the harbor of Havana to protect U.S. citizens in Cuba, was blown up on February 15, 1898, killing 260 people. Although it could not be determined at the time whether the Maine was blown up by the Spanish, by Cuban action, or by internal combustion, U.S. opinion placed the blame on Spain. (A U.S. Navy study published in 1976 suggested that spontaneous combustion in the ship's coal bunkers caused the explosion.) On April 19, 1898, Congress adopted a resolution that recognized Cuba's independence, demanded that Spain withdraw from Cuba, and authorized the president to use force to carry out the resolution; this was practically a declaration of war against Spain. In the brief war that ensued, the United States won a decisive victory (see Spanish-American War). The Treaty of Paris, which concluded the conflict on December 10, 1898, provided for the independence of Cuba; the cession by Spain to the United States of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippine Islands; and the payment to Spain of $20 million by the United States for the Philippines. The acquisition by the United States of distant territories was denounced by many Americans as imperialism, and considerable opposition to the treaty was expressed in the Senate before that body finally ratified it. That the American people on the whole agreed with President McKinley's policy of territorial expansion was made clear by his victory over Bryan in the election of 1900, in which this policy was one of the principal issues. After the Spanish-American War The conclusion of the Spanish-American War confronted the United States with the problem of organizing and administering Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Cuba, which had won its independence from Spain and was under U.S. occupation. The United States held a protectorate over Cuba until 1902. After the Cubans had incorporated into their constitution a number of provisions insisted on by the United States for its own military and commercial advantage, and had held elections, the U.S. occupation forces in 1902 turned Cuba over to its first president, Tomás Estrada Palma. In Puerto Rico, by terms of the Foraker Act, Congress in 1900 set up a civil government, and the Jones Act of 1917 granted U.S. citizenship to Puerto Ricans. In the Philippines, insurgents led by Emilio Aguinaldo initially resisted the U.S. occupation, but the last guerrillas gave up in 1902. The Jones Act of 1916 instituted an elected senate and promised eventual independence; however, not until July 4, 1946, did the Philippines become a sovereign state. "Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick"  During the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt, the foreign policy of the United States was aggressive, in keeping with Roosevelt's motto, "Speak softly and carry a big stick." In the Caribbean area, in East Asia, and elsewhere, U.S. policies were vigorously stated and enforced by diplomatic or military action when necessary. When U.S. naval units in the Pacific were needed in the Caribbean Sea during the Spanish-American War, they were forced to steam down the coast of South America, around Cape Horn, and then northward. This circuitous route proved the necessity of an ocean-to-ocean canal either in Nicaragua or the Isthmus of Panama, which for reasons of national defense would be under exclusive U.S. control. On the initiative of President Roosevelt, the United States in 1903 concluded the Hay-Herrán Treaty with Colombia, of which Panama was then a province, granting the United States a long-term lease over a zone 16 km (10 mi) wide in Panama. The Colombian senate rejected the treaty, whereupon a rebellion broke out in Panama. With the active support of the United States, Panama became an independent republic. By the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of 1903 with the new Republic of Panama, the United States obtained in perpetuity, the 16-km zone it required for a canal. In return the United States made Panama an initial payment of $10 million and agreed to an annual payment of $250,000. Construction of the canal was begun at once and completed in 1914. (By treaties ratified in 1978, the United States relinquished the Panama Canal Zone in 1979 and will hand over the canal itself to Panama in the year 2000.) See Panama Canal. At the outbreak of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, Roosevelt secured the recognition by the belligerents of the neutrality of all of China with the exception of Manchuria. He also kept France and Germany from helping Russia. In 1905, Roosevelt's mediation brought about the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the war. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his accomplishments The foreign policy of the United States during the administration of Woodrow Wilson was concerned with four principal problems: Japanese protest against the California Landholding Act, or Webb Act, of 1913; British objection to U.S. policy regarding tolls for the Panama Canal; the Mexican situation; and World War I. Relations with Japan and Britain By the Webb Act, California denied to Japanese the right to acquire land or long leaseholds. Japan protested that this act violated rights given it by treaty with the national government, but the federal government disclaimed the power to interfere with state laws such as the act in question. By the Tolls Act of 1912, the United States levied tolls on all vessels using the Panama Canal excepting those of U.S. registry employed in coastwise trade. Great Britain protested that the act violated treaty rights that had guaranteed equality of treatment in the Panama Canal for the ships of all nations. President Wilson desired to avoid friction with Great Britain while engaged in controversy with Japan and was also eager to obtain British support for U.S. policy in Mexico. At his urging, and for other reasons, Congress repealed the act in 1914. United States Actions Against Mexico Since 1910 the situation in Mexico had caused the U.S. government great concern. In 1911 the dictator Porfirio Díaz had been overthrown by a revolution led by the reformer Francisco Madero. Madero, whose efforts to bring about reforms in Mexico were viewed sympathetically by the United States, was murdered in 1913, and General Victoriano Huerta seized the government and ruled as a dictator. Although 22 of the 27 Mexican states supported Huerta, and 26 foreign nations recognized him as president of Mexico, Wilson refused to recognize him. Wilson maintained that the new regime had brought about the murder of Madero and was, in addition, too weak to keep order in Mexico. In 1914 the United States aided General Venustiano Carranza, the leader of a revolution against Huerta, by allowing Carranza to obtain arms in the United States. Huerta retaliated by acts of reprisal against U.S. nationals, and the United States countered by forcibly occupying Veracruz; the landing operations there cost 17 American lives. In an attempt to prevent war between Mexico and the United States, Argentina, Brazil, and Chile (the so-called ABC powers) mediated an agreement that resulted in the resignation of Huerta and the assumption of power by Carranza, whose government the United States recognized in 1915. A number of rebellions had been in progress against Carranza; all the leaders of these but one, Francisco (Pancho) Villa, now laid down their arms. Villa still refused to obey Carranza's authority. He also attacked foreigners, and in 1916 led a raid into Columbus, New Mexico, killing 16 people and partly destroying the town by fire. With the permission of Carranza, the United States sent into Mexico a military force under General John J. Pershing to find and punish Villa. He eluded pursuit. Carranza, fearing that the U.S. force might be used against his government, demanded its withdrawal, and the expedition was recalled without accomplishing its purpose. World War I The most difficult and far-reaching problems of foreign policy that arose in Wilson's administration were caused by World War I. At the outbreak of the war in Europe in 1914 between the Central Powers and the Triple Entente, President Wilson formally proclaimed the neutrality of the United States. His proclamation was not sufficient, however, to prevent strong partisan feeling from arising in the country, nor could it prevent difficulties with both warring groups in respect to U.S. neutral rights. The United States charged that Great Britain, in the course of maintaining a blockade against the Central Powers, was interfering with U.S. shipments to other neutral nations and was in other ways violating U.S. neutral rights at sea. The British replies to these protests, although not entirely satisfactory, were sufficiently reasonable and conciliatory to mollify U.S. public opinion. German Submarine Warfare The dispute between the United States and Germany was far more serious. In order to prevent food, munitions, and other supplies from reaching Great Britain, Germany in 1915 declared the waters surrounding Great Britain and Ireland a war zone in which German submarines would sink all enemy vessels without the visit or search stipulated by international law. To avoid the possibility that neutral vessels might be sunk by mistake, or that neutrals might be killed, Germany warned neutral ships not to enter the zone. They also advised citizens of neutral nations not to travel on ships of the Allied nations. Germany remained intransigent in the face of U.S. protests against this declaration. In May 1915 a German submarine torpedoed the British passenger liner Lusitania off the Irish coast without warning, causing the deaths of 1198 people, of whom 128 were U.S. citizens. The Germans asserted that the Lusitania was carrying munitions to Britain, and later research has proven this to be true. But the American public was outraged by the sinking, and strong protests by the U.S. State Department brought a promise from Germany not to sink any passenger liners without taking precautions to protect the lives of noncombatants. United States Enters the War In March 1916, however, a German submarine sank an unarmed French Channel steamer, the Sussex, with the loss of two Americans. President Wilson threatened to sever diplomatic relations with the German government unless it abandoned "its present methods of submarine warfare against passenger and freight-carrying vessels." In May the German government pledged not to sink merchant vessels without warning and without saving the lives of those aboard. For nine months the pledge was kept generally to the satisfaction of the United States. Wilson's vigorous diplomacy seemed to have averted war with Germany, and as the Democratic candidate in the presidential election of 1916, Wilson was elected over the Republican nominee, Charles Evans Hughes, largely because "he kept us out of war." The war, however, was imminent. At the end of January 1917, Germany broke the so-called Sussex Pledge by declaring unrestricted submarine warfare in a zone even larger than the one it had proclaimed in 1915. On February 3, Wilson replied by breaking off diplomatic relations with Germany. Later in the month, at his request, Congress passed a bill permitting U.S. merchant vessels to arm. After new depredations by German submarines against neutral shipping, and the discovery of a plan made by the German Foreign Office to unite Germany, Mexico, and Japan against the United States if it entered the war, Wilson on April 2, 1917, requested Congress to declare war. On April 6, Congress passed a resolution declaring a state of war with Germany. See World War I. Peace Treaties Following the defeat of Germany, President Wilson played an important part in the peace conference in 1919 at Paris. Wilson intended to bring about a peace based on his program known as the Fourteen Points, an idealistic plan for a just and lasting peace. However, he was frustrated by the adroit diplomacy of the other Allies, who were intent on inflicting penalties upon Germany. The Treaty of Versailles declared Germany guilty of all the economic losses sustained by the peoples of the Allied nations and established a Reparations Commission that subsequently imposed upon Germany reparations amounting to $33 billion. Germany signed the treaty, but only after protest. The only important part of Wilson's peace program that was written into the treaty was the Covenant of the League of Nations (see League of Nations). Although Wilson toured the United States to raise support for the League and the treaty, the Senate did not ratify it. Subsequently, treaties between the United States and Germany, Austria, and Hungary were separately negotiated and ratified by the Senate. The Roaring Twenties: Boom and Crash In 1920 Republican candidate Warren G. Harding was elected president. A time of unusual prosperity followed for U.S. industry. After Harding's sudden death in 1923, however, many of the men he appointed to government office were found to be corrupt (see Teapot Dome). Even so, his vice president and successor, Calvin Coolidge, won the presidential election of 1924 by defeating John W. Davis, the Democratic nominee, and Robert M. La Follette, the candidate of the League for Progressive Political Action. In the campaign of 1928, Republican Herbert C. Hoover ran against Democrat Alfred E. Smith. Hoover won the election, largely because of the nation's continued prosperity and the fact that Smith was a Roman Catholic and opposed Prohibition in the United States. As the Republicans dominated the national government from 1920 to 1932, several important economic and social problems confronted the nation, including questions involving tariffs, farmers, railroads, public utilities, immigration, labor, Prohibition, and the results of the panic of 1929. High Tariffs and Low Farm Prices This period of Republican domination was one of high tariffs. The Fordney-McCumber Tariff Act of 1922 was a protective levy that restored customs duties to about the level of the protective Payne-Aldrich Tariff of 1909. Then the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act of 1930 raised the rates in many schedules even higher than those in the Fordney-McCumber tariff. The Hawley-Smoot tariff was criticized by economists and political leaders as an unfortunate example of economic nationalism at a time when international cooperation was necessary; moreover, as reprisal against the high rates of the tariff, in the two years after its enactment, more than 20 nations raised the levels of their duties against goods from the United States. For the U.S. farmer, the period following World War I-during which prosperity had reigned due to the demand for U.S. farm products and increased use of machinery in U.S. agriculture-was characterized by low prices and economic distress caused chiefly by a surplus of farm products. A so-called farm bloc was formed in Congress to secure legislation to relieve the economic plight of the farmers. The principal bill sponsored by the farm bloc, the McNary-Haugen Bill, was designed to curb the production of surpluses of farm staples; the bill was vetoed by Presidents Coolidge and Hoover. The Agricultural Marketing Act of 1929, supported by Hoover and designed to promote the marketing of farm products and to provide for government purchases of certain crops to support their prices, failed to stem the decline in farm prices. Regulating Public Utilities In Harding's administration, the railroads also turned to the government for aid. The railroads had been in economic distress for some time because of growing competition from other means of transportation, such as improved waterways, oil pipelines, and motor-transport companies. The Transportation Act, passed in 1920, in some measure relieved the situation by providing for the unification of independent lines into large systems. In regard to public utilities, the federal government made initial attempts to regulate the rate for electric power charged by private companies operating across state lines. In 1920 Congress created the Federal Power Commission to license hydroelectric plants on navigable rivers, public lands, and Native American reservations. During the 1920s and 1930s, nearly every state appointed a public service commission to regulate public-utility companies that operated only within state. Twice between 1920 and 1932 Congress passed bills that would have enabled the federal government itself to enter the business of generating and selling electric power. However, President Coolidge vetoed the bill sponsored by Senator George William Norris of Nebraska in 1928, which provided for a government-owned corporation to operate electric power facilities at Muscle Shoals on the Tennessee River; in 1930 President Hoover vetoed a similar bill. (In 1933, during the administration of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the Tennessee Valley Development Act was passed by Congress and signed by the president, creating the Tennessee Valley Authority.) Immigration and Labor The question of regulating immigration into the United States also became important after World War I. In the 1920s Congress reversed the traditional U.S. policy of unrestricted immigration by passing two acts, one in 1921 and one in 1924, that considerably reduced European immigration. In labor circles the period 1920 to 1932 was marked by the decline of trade unionism (the American Federation of Labor had about 4 million members in 1920, about 3 million in 1930, and about 2.5 million in 1932) and the growth of industrial unionism. The latter tendency culminated in 1935 in the formation of the Committee for Industrial Organization, which in 1938 was constituted as the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). See American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations. Prohibition The most enduring controversial issue of the period 1920 to 1932 was Prohibition. The movement to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages in the United States originated in the early 19th century and culminated with the ratification, in January 1919, of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Thus began an era of home brew, speakeasies, and gangster violence. In 1929 a presidential commission headed by former U.S. Attorney General George W. Wickersham concluded that federal enforcement of the antiliquor laws was a failure. Public sentiment, meanwhile, had steadily been turning away from the "drys," and in February 1933 Congress passed and submitted to the states the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, which gave the control of the liquor traffic back to the individual states; by December of that year, 36 states had ratified the amendment, and it was declared part of the Constitution. The Crash of 1929  Although the Prohibition controversy was absorbing, public interest in the first year of the Hoover administration became diverted by an event that shook the very economic foundations of the nation, namely, the stock market panic of 1929. The United States had enjoyed a boom after World War I, in which wages were high and production and consumption increased. During this period many had developed a tendency to invest savings and earnings in speculative ventures, particularly the buying of stocks on margin-putting up as little as 3 percent of a stock's price in cash and borrowing the remainder from the broker. The booming demand for stocks and the prosperous state of the nation as a whole led to a general rise in the prices of securities, which in turn led to increased investments in them. The rise in stock prices reached its height in the so-called Hoover bull market during the first six months of the Hoover administration. In this period, individuals invested billions of dollars in the stock market, obtaining the money for such investments by borrowing from banks, mortgaging homes, and selling sound government securities, such as Liberty Bonds. In August 1929 stockbrokers were carrying on margin for their clients approximately 300 million shares of stock. By October 1929 the feverish wave of buying had exhausted itself and gave way to an equally feverish wave of selling. Prices dropped precipitously, and thousands of people lost all they had invested. This collapse frequently meant complete financial ruin. On October 29 the New York Stock Exchange, the largest in the world, had its worst day of panic selling. The stock loss for October 29th was $10 billion to $15 billion. By mid-November declines in stock values reached $30 billion. The Great Depression The stock market panic preceded an economic depression that not only spread over the United States but in the early 1930s became worldwide. In the United States, despite the optimistic statements of President Hoover and his secretary of the treasury, Andrew W. Mellon, that business was "fundamentally sound" and that a new era of prosperity was just about to begin, the Great Depression had begun. Many factories closed, unemployment steadily increased, banks failed in growing numbers, and the prices of commodities steadily fell. The administration began to take steps to combat the crisis. Among the measures taken were the granting of emergency appropriations for farm relief and public works, modification of the rules of the Federal Reserve System to make it easier for people in business and farming to obtain credit, and the establishment of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), with assets of $2 billion, to make emergency loans to industries, railroads, insurance companies, and banks. Nevertheless, the economic depression steadily worsened during the remainder of the Hoover administration. By 1932 hundreds of banks had failed, hundreds of mills and factories had closed, mortgages on farms and houses were being foreclosed in large numbers, and more than 10 million workers were unemployed. The presidential campaign of 1932, in which the Democratic candidate was Franklin D. Roosevelt, was waged on the issues of Prohibition and the economic crisis. The Democratic platform called for outright repeal of the 18th Amendment and promised a "new deal" in economic and social matters to bring about recovery from the depression. The Republicans did not call for outright repeal of the amendment. In regard to the depression, they warned against the danger to business and the national finances if the social and economic philosophies of the Democrats were substituted for the sound and conservative ideas of the Hoover administration. The Democrats won an overwhelming success in the election, carrying all but six states. Foreign Affairs (1920-1932)  In foreign relations, the administrations of Harding, Coolidge, and Hoover were concerned principally with the problems of war debts due the United States, the related reparations due from Germany to the Allied nations, and U.S. attempts to obtain international cooperation on measures that would bring about permanent world peace. During World War I and shortly afterward, the U.S. government had lent a total of about $10 billion to the countries allied in the war against Germany. By 1922 the Allies owed the United States this sum plus accumulated interest of $1 billion. Because the debtor nations claimed inability to pay the full amount owed, in 1922 Congress created the World War Foreign Debt Commission, which during the next four years negotiated agreements that materially reduced the debts and provided for annual payments to be distributed over a period of 62 years. Most of the debtor nations made their annual payments contingent on the reparation payments made to them by Germany. When Germany in 1923 began to default on its reparation payments, the United States was instrumental in formulating plans, in 1924 and 1929, to help Germany pay by reducing the German obligations and extending credits to German industry. See Reparations. During the period 1920 to 1932 the United States attempted to bring about permanent world peace in three ways: by promoting a policy of international limitation of armaments; by cooperating with France in framing a pact to renounce war as an instrument of national policy; and by cooperating with the League of Nations. During this period the United States participated in four international conferences aimed at limiting armaments: (1) the Washington Conference of 1921-1922, at which a five-power treaty was signed providing chiefly for a ten-year cessation of naval construction; (2) the Geneva Conference held in 1927, at which the United States, Great Britain, and Japan tried unsuccessfully to agree on further disarmament; (3) the London Naval Conference of 1930; and (4) a World Disarmament Conference at Geneva in 1932, which ended in failure in 1934. The Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, initiated by French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand and sponsored by U.S. Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg, was an earnest attempt to ensure world peace. Fifteen nations initially signed this agreement to renounce aggressive warfare and to settle disputes by peaceful means. The U.S. Senate ratified the pact in 1929. Although the United States had refused to enter the League of Nations in 1920, during the following 12 years it cooperated with the league's nonpolitical agencies and with its efforts to bring about general disarmament and permanent world peace. The New Deal The broad economic and social policies of the Roosevelt administration and the enactments of Congress, usually initiated or sponsored by Roosevelt, that implemented these policies are collectively known as the New Deal. The purpose of the New Deal was twofold: recovery from the economic depression that had followed the financial crash of 1929 and stabilization of the national economy to prevent severe economic crises in the future. Relief Measures The administration at once set up several agencies to bring relief to the unemployed and needy. Relief funds for the unemployed were distributed through state and local agencies and through several federal agencies that created temporary jobs. New laws and programs aided farmers, industry, and labor. The Agricultural Adjustment Acts, passed in 1933 and 1938, confronted the glut in agricultural products, and the corresponding loss of value for these products, by providing farmers with payments in return for curtailing their production. The National Labor Relations Act, passed in 1935, governed labor-management relations and safeguarded the rights of employees. Through the Rural Electrification Administration, established in 1936, power lines were brought to many sparsely populated areas of the United States, resulting in modernization of rural living conditions and bringing modern appliances and equipment to farms and small towns. Housing legislation included the institution of the Home Owners' Loan Corporation, the Federal Housing Administration, and the U.S. Housing Authority. By the Social Security Act, passed in 1935 and amended in 1939, the United States took a great step toward providing economic security for its population; this act provides old-age benefits, unemployment compensation, and welfare services for mothers, children, elders, and people with disabilities. See Social Security; Social Security Administration. The earliest sufferers from the crash of 1929 were investors in securities and depositors in banks; the interests of these groups were also considered by the New Deal. The Federal Securities Act (1933), through federal supervision of new issues of securities and other means, protected investors against fraudulent practices. This protection was then broadened by an act (1934) that provided for a Securities and Exchange Commission to regulate stock exchanges. To protect bank depositors, Congress passed the Emergency Banking Act (1933), which gave the president the power to reorganize insolvent banks, and the Banking Act of 1933, the principal feature of which was the insurance of bank deposits by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. The Roosevelt administration also adopted a monetary policy designed to raise prices of commodities in order to counteract the steady fall in such prices that had begun with the crash of 1929. The chief feature of the president's mildly inflationary monetary policy was the devaluation, by executive order in 1934, of the dollar down to 59.06 percent of its former value in terms of gold. At the same time he created a stabilization fund of $2 billion to ensure that the dollar held this new value in international exchange. The New Deal also aided large-scale business. Making extensive use of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation (RFC), established by President Hoover, the Roosevelt administration extended large credit to railroads, building-loan companies, banks, agricultural-credit corporations, and insurance companies; between 1932 and 1937 the government lent more than $6.5 billion through the RFC. To raise the money necessary to finance the New Deal program, the government passed the Revenue Act of 1935, which slightly increased taxes on incomes, gifts, estates, corporate earnings, and excess profits. The government also borrowed money, and the U.S. gross public debt grew from $22.5 billion in 1933 to $40.44 billion in 1939. Roosevelt Reelected The New Deal program brought an unprecedented broadening of both the legislative and executive powers and an enlargement of the national government's role in the economic and social life of the nation. The program received unlimited praise from some who believed that the New Deal, by modifying the U.S. free-enterprise system, had saved the country from adopting, possibly by revolutionary means, either a socialist or fascist system. The New Deal was severely condemned by others, however, who saw in Roosevelt's policies only a dangerous curtailment of the rights assured by the free-enterprise system. In the 1936 election, Roosevelt ran against Governor Alfred M. Landon of Kansas, the Republican nominee. Roosevelt won one of the greatest political victories in U.S. history, carrying every state except Maine and Vermont. In addition, black voters, following up their major switch to the Democratic Party in the 1934 elections, voted overwhelmingly for Roosevelt. The second term of President Roosevelt, in which he continued the policies of the New Deal, was marked particularly by a controversy concerning the Supreme Court. The Court had held unconstitutional, in part or in whole, several administration measures, including the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, the Farm Mortgage Act of 1934, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933. Roosevelt proposed a bill to enlarge the Court from 9 to 15 members in the hope of lessening Court opposition to New Deal legislation, but the Senate would not pass it. Between 1937 and 1941, however, eight justices resigned or died, and the president appointed others more favorable to the New Deal. Roosevelt's Foreign Policy Initially, the foreign policy of the United States during the Roosevelt administration was concerned with efforts to extend U.S. foreign trade, especially in Latin America; with the problems created by the war between Japan and China, which began in 1937; with the outbreak of World War II in 1939; and finally with the military and diplomatic efforts necessitated by the entrance of the United States into the war in 1941. Good Neighbor Policy Extension of U.S. foreign trade was stimulated by the organization in 1934 of export-import banks (see Export-Import Bank of the United States), through which the government was to make loans to firms intending to increase their sales in foreign countries. Trade also was spurred by reciprocal trade agreements between the United States and foreign countries for lowering of tariff duties. Between 1934 (when Congress authorized the making of such agreements by the executive without congressional approval) and 1939, Secretary of State Cordell Hull concluded 21 such reciprocal trade agreements. A policy, popularly known as the Good Neighbor Policy, of amicable relations with the countries of Latin America resulted in considerable extension of American trade there. Among the measures taken were the abrogation in 1934 of the Platt Amendment, by which the United States since 1902 had exercised a measure of control in the international affairs of Cuba, and the ending of U.S. control over the customs system of the Dominican Republic. When Mexico in 1938 expropriated U.S. properties, Secretary of State Hull merely asked that adequate compensation be paid. Response to War Threats Meanwhile the United States had adopted measures to keep itself out of the war that had been threatening to break out in Europe since the coming to power in Germany of the National Socialist (Nazi) Party in 1933. To prevent Americans from becoming financially interested in European conflicts, the Johnson Act of 1934 prohibited the U.S. sale of the securities of any nation in default on its obligations to the United States. In addition, three neutrality acts (1935-1937) prohibited actions by U.S. citizens that might aid a foreign belligerent; in particular, an embargo was placed on the export of "arms, munitions, and implements of war." Despite this policy of neutrality, the nation's moral climate as well as its material interests began to dictate partiality, and the United States took a stand against the aggressive acts of Japan in Asia and of Germany and Italy in Europe. In 1937 President Roosevelt proposed that aggressive nations be "quarantined" by means of an economic boycott; he later declared that his policy of opposition to totalitarian dictatorship should be implemented by all means "short of war." Aid to Allies With the outbreak of World War II in Europe in September 1939, U.S. aid to the nations resisting fascist aggression became definite and vigorous. Late in 1939 Congress partly repealed the arms embargo imposed by the neutrality acts; France and Great Britain could henceforth purchase war supplies in the United States. In September 1940 the U.S. government transferred to the British 50 old destroyers, receiving in return long leases for U.S. naval and air bases on British possessions in the western hemisphere. The German successes in the spring of 1940 led to immediate measures by the United States to strengthen its own defenses. In 1940 Congress authorized loans to Latin American countries for defense purposes. The United States and Canada set up the Permanent Joint Board to provide for North American defense. In the meantime domestic defense was accelerated by a congressional appropriation of $18 billion to raise an army of 1.2 million and to construct a U.S. navy large and strong enough to be successful against any possible combination of foreign navies. In September 1940 Congress passed the first U.S. peacetime conscription act. The government also prepared to mobilize the industrial resources of the country for possible war. Roosevelt's Third Election In 1940 the Democratic Party nominated Roosevelt for a third term. This broke the long precedent that had held presidents to a maximum of two terms in office. The rationale behind the nomination was that changing administrations in so critical a period would be inadvisable. Roosevelt decisively defeated the nominee of the Republican Party, Wendell L. Willkie. After Roosevelt's reelection, Congress in March 1941 passed the Lend-Lease Act. This act empowered the president to transfer, sell, lend, or lease war supplies to any nation, the defense of which was vital to U.S. security. Toward the end of July the U.S. State Department forbade the export to Japan of war materials, and it later rejected an agreement of friendship proposed by Japan on condition that the United States acknowledge the Japanese conquest of China. An alliance between Great Britain and the United States was foreshadowed by the announcement in August 1941 of the Atlantic Charter. This charter, drawn up by President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill, stated the eight bases that the two countries desired as the foundations for a peace treaty. The year 1941 was marked also by a heated nationwide debate between the "isolationists," who opposed both U.S. participation in World War II and aid to Great Britain, and the "interventionists," who felt that victory over the Axis powers was essential for U.S. security and were prepared for the United States to enter the war at an appropriate time. World War II and Aftermath On December 7, 1941, while a special Japanese envoy was in Washington, D.C., ostensibly on a mission to negotiate an understanding over affairs in the Pacific, the Japanese government launched a surprise bombing attack by air on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands. On the following day, at the request of the president, Congress declared a state of war between the United States and Japan. On December 11 Germany and Italy declared war on the United States. See World War II. The Home Front U.S. mobilization for the war was carried out through a number of agencies in virtually every area of the economy. The National Defense Research Committee directed scientific and technical research for military purposes. Industrial conversion from consumer to wartime production was overseen by the War Production Board. The Office of Price Administration attempted to control prices, administer rationing, and check profiteering. After 1943 these agencies were organized under the Office of War Mobilization, which assumed complete control over prices and the issuance of priorities. Wages, rents, and food prices were strictly regulated, and scarce items such as meat, sugar, and gasoline were rationed. The newly created defense plants provided employment for women and especially for blacks, who, despite continuing segregation in the armed forces and elsewhere, made significant economic advances during this period. (After A. Philip Randolph had threatened in 1941 to lead a march on Washington, Roosevelt ordered the creation of the Fair Employment Practices Committee.) To overcome a shortage of labor in the rapidly expanding economy, the War Labor Board limited wage increases and obtained no-strike pledges from the unions. The war economy was financed by increased taxation and by a rise in the national debt from $49 billion in 1941 to $280 billion in 1945. Gross governmental disregard for civil liberties was manifested by Executive Orders 9066 and 9102. These empowered the U.S. military to transport 70,000 U.S. citizens of Japanese descent and 42,000 Japanese resident aliens to internment camps in the interior of the United States, ostensibly to prevent sabotage and subversion. Allied Conferences President Roosevelt, in addition to supervising the entire U.S. war effort, made extraordinary efforts to cooperate with the other powers fighting against the Axis. At the same time he attempted to lay the foundations for peace. His principal diplomatic efforts took the form of a series of conferences, chiefly with Prime Minister Churchill of Great Britain and Premier Joseph Stalin of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). In meetings with Churchill from 1941 to 1943 at Washington, Québec, and Casablanca, Roosevelt discussed the military conduct of the war and proposed the principle of unconditional surrender by the Axis. At a conference in 1943 at Cairo (Cairo Conference), Roosevelt, Churchill, and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek of China planned the prosecution of the war against Japan. At Tehran (Teheran), Iran (see Tehran Conference) in 1943, with Churchill and Stalin, Roosevelt formulated plans for a concerted attack on Germany. At Yalta, in what is now Ukraine (see Yalta Conference) in 1945, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt decided to divide Germany into zones of occupation, to establish the United Nations (UN), and to bring the USSR into the war against Japan. Several other conferences laid the foundation for the organization of the United Nations and for other forms of worldwide cooperation after the war; notable among them were the meetings in Moscow in 1943; at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire (see Bretton Woods Conference) in 1944; and at Dumbarton Oaks, in Washington, D.C. in 1944, at which basic plans were adopted for organizing the United Nations. Roosevelt's Fourth Election and Death In the presidential campaign of 1944, Roosevelt ran for a fourth term, defeating the Republican candidate, Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York. On April 12, 1945, Roosevelt suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died. His long administration was notable for its economic reforms, its successful conduct of the war, and its establishment of a basis for world peace. These policies formed the foundation of the new administration when Roosevelt was succeeded by Vice President Harry S. Truman. The new president was essentially a political moderate who had distinguished himself in the Senate investigations of wartime waste and inefficiency in military spending. His first problems as president were the conclusion of the war and the establishment of world peace. German resistance was virtually at an end, and on May 8, 1945, Germany formally surrendered to the Allies. Meanwhile, in the Pacific theater, U.S. forces were fighting difficult but successful campaigns in the advance toward the Japanese home islands. In the atmosphere of impending victory, a conference of the United Nations met in San Francisco to draft a charter for a permanent world organization to ensure lasting peace. Conclusion of the War The increasing difficulties in Soviet-U.S. relations, however, became evident at the Potsdam Conference in Germany in July, where agreements relating to the final division of Germany were reached. Some Americans, led by President Truman, had become convinced that Stalin was not living up to his agreements at Yalta to hold free elections in Romania and Bulgaria. Truman therefore demanded that the Russians honor their pledges. The spirit of wartime cooperation increasingly gave way to mutual suspicion, misunderstanding, and recrimination, leading to the era of conflict known as the Cold War. In August, a momentous event shook the world. Throughout the war, Britain and the United States had carried on an intense scientific project to develop an atomic bomb. Truman now authorized the use of this bomb on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He made this controversial decision in hopes of inducing a Japanese surrender and thus avoiding heavy casualties in an invasion of Japan. The bombs were dropped on August 6 and 9, 1945; the Japanese surrendered on August 14. Economic Affairs With the conclusion of hostilities, reconversion of the U.S. economy to peacetime conditions and demobilization of the troops became the paramount issues in U.S. domestic policies. To facilitate the process, the Truman administration formulated a 21-point program calling for full employment, labor-management cooperation, heavy federal housing subsidies, increased unemployment compensation, extension of price controls, federal aid to education, guarantees of civil rights, increased minimum wage, and continued foreign aid. The president also recommended unification of the armed services and universal military training. Many of these programs were vigorously opposed by the Republican-dominated Congress, and congressional rejection of price controls led to an 18 percent increase in the cost of living in 1946. The economic situation became further complicated when almost 5 million workers struck for wage increases to meet the rising costs of living. In 1947 Congress responded to this strike activity by passing, over the president's veto, the Labor-Management Relations Act, known as the Taft-Hartley Act, which placed limitations on the freedom to strike. See National Labor Relations Act. Security Affairs Despite these domestic problems, the United States continued its unprecedented participation in international affairs, through membership in the UN and other groups and through Allied conduct of war crimes trials of former enemy leaders, chiefly Germans and Japanese (see War Crimes Trials). In August 1946 the United States joined the International Court of Justice. The control of atomic energy and atomic weapons became a major diplomatic question. The United States proposed the Baruch Plan, named after the U.S. financier Bernard M. Baruch, its chief proponent. The Baruch Plan called for turning over atomic bombs and secrets to the UN. However, Soviet leaders demanded the destruction of existing atomic weapons prior to or simultaneously with the creation of UN control. In 1946 atomic control in the United States was transferred from the army to the civilian Atomic Energy Commission. The National Security Act of 1947 unified the armed services under a secretary of defense and the joint chiefs of staff. It also established the National Security Council to plan and coordinate defense policies and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to gather and report strategic information from abroad. Containing Communism In 1947, in an effort to halt, or contain, the advance of communism in Europe, and especially in Greece and Turkey, President Truman announced the policy known as the Truman Doctrine, by which the United States furnished military and economic aid to countries threatened by aggression and subversion. An important adjunct of this policy was the Marshall Plan, proposed in June 1947 by Secretary of State George C. Marshall. Officially designated the European Recovery Program, it was a broad program of economic rehabilitation. The policy of containment was expanded to the western hemisphere in 1947, when the United States joined with 18 other American nations in signing the Rio Treaty, promising mutual defense and assistance against aggression on any of the signatory nations. In 1948 the United States agreed to the establishment of the Organization of American States (OAS) to settle disputes among the nations of the Americas. As part of his worldwide campaign against communism, President Truman also implemented the Point Four Program to aid developing nations in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The Berlin Airlift The USSR responded to the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan with the formation of a new Communist International (the Cominform) and a tightening of its control of Czechoslovakia. The United States then resolved to strengthen West Germany against communism. In February 1948 a plan for the economic merger of the British and U.S. occupation zones went into effect following its acceptance by the Germans in those zones. In addition, a conference, attended by representatives of the United States, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, France, and Great Britain, was held in London to discuss the eventual political and economic merger of the French, British, and U.S. occupation zones. In reaction to this violation of the Yalta and Potsdam agreements, the Soviet delegation withdrew from the Four-Power Allied Control Council and took steps to establish a Soviet-dominated East German state. On June 24, 1948, following an agreement by the nations that had participated in the London Conference on the creation of a West German state, and the establishment of a West German currency by the Western occupying powers, the Soviets banned all rail traffic between Berlin and West Germany. Because water and roadway transportation into the city had been suspended by an earlier Soviet action, the western zones of the city were effectively isolated by this action. In response, the British and U.S. occupation authorities organized a system of air transport, known as the Berlin airlift, to supply the Western-occupied sectors of the city. In April 1949 the foreign ministers of the United States, Great Britain, and France completed plans for combining their occupation zones of West Germany into a federal republic. Also in April the United States, Canada, and ten Western European nations arranged a guarantee of mutual defense and assistance in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, known as NATO. Truman Wins Election In domestic matters, Truman proposed a program of civil rights legislation, including laws against lynching and the abolition of the poll tax. He also issued an executive order that led to the eventual desegregation of the U.S. armed forces. These actions cost him the support of many southern Democrats. When he was nominated for president at the Democratic national convention in 1948, many of these southerners left the Democratic Party, forming a group known as the States' Rights Democrats, or Dixiecrat Party, with Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as their presidential candidate. Another new faction, the Progressive Party, viewed Truman's containment policy as a threat to world peace and urged greater efforts toward cooperation with the USSR. The Progressive Party named former Vice President Henry A. Wallace as its candidate for the presidency. The Republicans renominated Dewey, whose victory in the election was regarded as virtually certain. Suprisingly, Truman won; Dewey ran second, Thurmond was third, and Wallace was fourth. The Democratic Party also won a majority of the contested seats in the House and Senate. At the outset of his first full term, Truman sought support for a legislative program known as the Fair Deal. This program comprised government control of credit exports and rents, an increase in taxes, government support of low-rent housing, government-sponsored health insurance, universal military training for men, and an extension of the executive power to enter into reciprocal trade agreements with other nations. Although most of these proposals were defeated in Congress, Truman was able to gain congressional approval for an expanded federal housing program, minimum wage increases, and enlarged Social Security benefits. Turmoil over China Truman's policy of containment of Communism, although generally successful in Europe, was less effective in Asia, except in Japan, where the military occupation under General Douglas MacArthur successfully built a stable democratic government. In 1951 a peace treaty ended the U.S. occupation, and Japan became the firmest U.S. ally in Asia. In China, however, the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, which had been supported by the United States, was unable to withstand the advance of Communist forces under Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung). By the end of 1949 government troops had been overwhelmingly defeated, and Chiang led his forces into exile on Taiwan. The triumphant Mao formed the People's Republic of China. This development caused great turmoil in the United States when critics charged that the Truman administration had failed to support Chiang Kai-shek against the Communists. A further disturbance of public opinion occurred in September 1949, when Truman announced that the USSR had developed an atomic bomb. Secretary of State Dean G. Acheson stated, however, that the loss of the U.S. nuclear monopoly would produce no fundamental change in U.S. foreign policy and that the United States would continue to press for adoption of its nuclear control plan. The Korean War The events in China and the resulting criticism had made the Truman administration sensitive to further Communist expansion in Asia. In June 1950, when South Korea was invaded by the forces of Communist North Korea, Truman announced that the United States would intervene to assist the South Koreans. In an unprecedented move, the UN sponsored military action. On November 26, 1950, the Chinese Communists officially entered the war, and General MacArthur, in command of the UN forces, subsequently urged that he be allowed to bomb Chinese bases beyond the Yalu River (the Chinese border) and deploy Chiang's troops against the Communists. Truman rejected these suggestions, however. When MacArthur became increasingly outspoken in his criticisms, the president relieved him of his command, despite widespread popular support for the general. This quarrel represented a basic disagreement over tactics in the age of containment. MacArthur and his supporters believed that war must be waged only in the name of ultimate victory. Truman felt that a larger view of world affairs was essential and that nuclear warfare was to be used only as a last resort. The conflict in Korea produced profound repercussions on U.S. domestic affairs, including the doubling of military and related expenditures. The cost of living rose more than 5 percent during the first six months of the war, wage and price controls were established, and on December 16, 1950, Truman established the Office of Defense Mobilization to supervise the war effort. The McCarthy Era The Korean War also led to severe psychological dislocations as concern about Communism within the United States intensified. As early as 1947 President Truman had set up a nationwide system of loyalty boards to investigate government employees. The government also prosecuted 11 leaders of the Communist Party, U.S.A., under the Smith Act of 1940, which prohibited groups from conspiring to advocate the violent overthrow of the government. In 1950 Congress passed the McCarran Internal Security Act, which established a permanent Subversive Activities Control Board to follow Communist activities in the United States and barred from admission into the country any person who had been a member of a Communist organization. Truman vetoed the bill on the ground that it represented "a suppression of ideas in disregard to ideals which are the fundamental basis of our free society," but his veto was overridden by Congress. The activities of Senator Joseph R. McCarthy of Wisconsin aroused considerable controversy over the degree of Communist influence in the United States. Exploiting highly dubious evidence, McCarthy led a campaign of persecution against various government and military officials, entertainment figures, and others. See Un-American Activities, House Committee on. The 22nd Amendment to the Constitution, stating that no person may serve more than two terms as president, became law on February 27, 1951. Also in that year congressional opposition to Truman's domestic programs increased, and the severe economic inflation produced by the war resulted in serious strikes in several major industries. On August 8 the president placed the entire steel industry under federal control to prevent a threatened nationwide strike. The steel companies challenged the constitutionality of this action, and the Supreme Court declared the seizure unconstitutional. The steel mills were returned to the owners, and a 54-day strike followed. Evidence of serious corruption within the government and Truman's apparent reluctance to act against the guilty parties further undermined public confidence in the Democratic administration. The Eisenhower Era In July 1952 the Republican Party nominated General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Senator Richard M. Nixon of California as candidates for president and vice president. The Democrats named Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois and Senator John Sparkman of Alabama. Eisenhower won easily, and the Republicans captured control of Congress. Eisenhower's personal prestige contributed heavily to the Republican victory, as did frustration over the Korean War and fear of communism at home. The Republicans did well in the suburbs, which were growing rapidly as many young families moved into new homes financed with low-interest mortgages backed by federal agencies. Eisenhower's Policies In contrast to Roosevelt and Truman, Eisenhower believed that the presidency should involve considerable delegation of authority. Therefore he granted much independence to his cabinet, which was composed largely of business executives. Despite its conservative outlook, the administration made no effort to repeal New Deal legislation. Unlike the Democrats, however, Eisenhower endeavored to limit the role of national government, calling for greater local control of governmental affairs. In addition, he reduced taxes and pressed for drastic reductions in federal spending in order to balance the budget. Among important actions taken by the new administration were the removal of all wage and price controls, the creation of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, and the expansion of Social Security benefits. Domestic problems faced by the administration included rising living costs, budget deficits, and falling prices for agricultural commodities. In its efforts to deal with the budget deficit, the administration attempted to cut back federal spending and submitted a balanced budget. In 1953 a moderate recession began, lasting until 1955. The recession was brought to an end by the Revenue Act of 1954, which reduced taxes and eased credit. Eisenhower was also forced to increase federal spending through aid to highway and school construction. Although the economy responded favorably and expanded at a modest rate, the crisis in agriculture worsened as huge surpluses developed despite flexible price-support and soil-conservation programs. The Hunt for Communists After the elections of 1952, public attention centered increasingly on the activities of Senator McCarthy. Eisenhower was reluctant to enter the McCarthy controversy actively, and the senator took advantage of the administration's silence to augment his own power. He conducted numerous investigations into alleged Communist infiltration in government agencies, notably the State Department. Many similar arbitrary investigations were also carried on throughout the nation by local authorities. When McCarthy extended his inquiries to the U.S. Army, his irresponsible methods and accusations prompted the Senate to censure him in December 1954. In the meantime the Supreme Court moved to correct some of the worst abuses in civil liberties of the postwar period, and several of its rulings limited public investigations into private beliefs and associations. The fear instilled in people's minds by what were called the McCarthy witch-hunts, however, lingered throughout the 1950s. The Civil Rights Movement The most urgent domestic issue of the period was the struggle of American blacks to end segregation and secure their full rights as citizens. Congress had opposed Truman's moderate civil rights program, and although the Eisenhower administration completed the desegregation of the government and armed forces, it was unwilling to initiate more radical programs. Blacks, led by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, increasingly turned to the courts for assistance. On May 17, 1954, in the case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the U.S. Supreme Court under Chief Justice Earl Warren unanimously outlawed racial segregation in public schools. This decision reversed the principle of "separate but equal" that had been the basis of black-white relations since the Plessy v.  Ferguson decision of 1896. Subsequent decisions in 1955 and 1956 called on local authorities to submit plans for desegregation and also ended racial segregation in intrastate transportation. In many southern states, attempts were made to circumvent these rulings. In September 1957 Governor Orval E. Faubus of Arkansas defied the call to integrate when he ordered the National Guard to prevent nine black students from attending Central High School in Little Rock. On September 23, following attacks by whites on black students and adults, President Eisenhower dispatched federal troops to restore order and help black students attend school safely. Despite advances in the border states, progress in desegregation was slow in the South, and by September 1960 only 765 of the 6676 southern school districts had been desegregated. Meanwhile, many blacks became increasingly active in the civil rights movement. In December 1955 clergyman Martin Luther King, Jr. led a highly effective boycott that resulted in desegregation of the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama. Subsequently, a form of protest later known as the sit-in was widely used throughout the South to desegregate lunch counters and other public facilities. Many other organizations and individuals actively worked for racial equality, including the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Congress of Racial Equality, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, Malcolm X, Ralph Abernathy, and Rosa Parks. Largely as a result of their activities, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, establishing a Civil Rights Commission to investigate the denial of voting rights or equal protection of the laws. A subsequent act in 1960 authorized the courts to appoint officials to protect the voting rights of blacks and made the obstruction of court orders by threat of violence a federal offense. Eisenhower Reelected Not withstanding the degree of the success of his policies, Eisenhower remained an immensely popular figure throughout his first administration. However, he was unable to transfer his personal popularity to the Republican Party in general, and in 1954 it lost control of Congress. In 1956, despite a heart attack, Eisenhower announced that he would run for a second term. The Democrats renominated Stevenson for the presidency and chose Senator Estes Kefauver of Tennessee as his running mate. They campaigned vigorously for a "new America," for an end to the draft, and for the cessation of hydrogen bomb testing. In the election, Eisenhower carried 41 states. The Democrats, however, retained control of both houses of Congress. In January 1957 President Eisenhower submitted to Congress the third consecutive balanced budget of his administration. Early in 1958 a nationwide recession began, and by midyear the downward trend of the economy had assumed major proportions. The number of unemployed people rose in June to more than 5 million, the highest level since World War II. The reluctance of the administration to move swiftly to curb the recession, as well as evidence of financial corruption within the administration, led to a major Democratic victory in the congressional elections of 1958. By the end of 1958 the recession had been brought under control, and the value of U.S. manufactures returned to their prerecession levels. In international finance, however, the excess of U.S. overseas expenditures in relation to receipts resulted in diminishing U.S. gold reserves, prompting Eisenhower to order overseas military spending reduced. On January 3, 1959 Alaska was admitted to the Union as the 49th state, and Hawaii was admitted as the 50th state on August 21. Foreign Affairs Under Eisenhower In the conduct of foreign affairs, Eisenhower relied heavily on his secretary of state, John Foster Dulles. A veteran diplomat, Dulles believed that the "containment policy" was too passive. He preferred the more dynamic policy of "massive retaliation" to be directed at either Moscow or Beijing in case of further Communist aggression anywhere in the world. His apparent willingness to go "to the brink of war" to "roll back" Communism and "liberate" Eastern Europe earned his foreign policy the designation of "brinkmanship." The concept of massive retaliation implied a reduction in conventional military forces, but placed greater emphasis on nuclear armaments and delivery systems. The so-called arms race, which accompanied the Cold War, assumed formidable dimensions when the United States exploded the first hydrogen bomb in 1952 and the USSR duplicated the feat six months later. Thereafter, while work continued on nuclear weapons and atomic tests, both sides concentrated on perfecting the means of delivering these bombs. New long-range aircraft were developed, and by 1957 both nations had workable intercontinental ballistic missiles. As a result, despite Eisenhower's desire to reduce federal spending, defense and defense-related expenditures constituted approximately 50 percent of the annual budgets of his administration. Developments in Southeast Asia One specific accomplishment in foreign policy achieved by Eisenhower was the arrangement, on July 27, 1953, of an armistice in the Korean War. In another international matter, the president increased military and economic aid to the French in Indochina, but he rejected suggestions by Dulles for the tactical use of nuclear weapons and for the intervention of U.S. troops in behalf of the French against the Communist-dominated Vietnamese nationalists. An accord reached in Geneva in 1954 (which the United States refused to sign) resulted in the partition of Indochina and an eventual intensification of conflict in the region. In 1954, in an attempt to prevent further Communist expansion in Asia, Dulles formed the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO), which included the United States, Great Britain, France, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Thailand, and Pakistan. The refusal of other Asian nations to join SEATO weakened the pact and prompted Dulles to condemn the neutralist policies of many developing nations. Nevertheless, Dulles followed a similar strategy in the Middle East, where the Baghdad Pact (later Central Treaty Organization) was formed in 1955 for the military defense of the region. A further consequence of the setback in Indochina was the strengthening of U.S. ties with Nationalist China (Taiwan), and in January 1955 Eisenhower obtained congressional approval for the defense of Taiwan and other Chinese islands. Developments in Europe A so-called peace offensive by the USSR followed the death of Stalin in 1953. One significant result of this movement was an East-West agreement on Austria, which became fully sovereign but neutral through an agreement signed on May 15, 1955. Soviet and Western occupation forces were then withdrawn in the summer. A similar Soviet proposal for Germany, however, was rejected by the United States. In July Eisenhower met with the British, French, and Soviet heads of state at a summit conference in Geneva, but no progress was made on the questions of German reunification, disarmament, and other issues. In late 1956, following a denunciation of Stalin by the Soviet leader Nikita S. Khrushchev, anti-Soviet uprisings occurred in Poland and Hungary, and Khrushchev dispatched Russian troops to suppress the Hungarian revolt. The United States condemned this action and admitted many Hungarian refugees into the United States, but made no effort to intervene directly in the crisis. Developments in the Middle East Also during this period a major crisis developed in the Middle East. In July 1956 the United States, disturbed by apparent Communist influences on the Egyptian government of President Gamal Abdel Nasser, withdrew an offer to extend financial assistance to Egypt for the construction of a dam at Aswan on the Nile River. A week later the Egyptian government assumed control of the Suez Canal, which had previously been operated by international authority, and announced that revenues from the operation of the canal would be used to finance construction of the dam. In October the armed forces of Israel, France, and Great Britain invaded Egypt in order to restore international control of the canal. In the UN Security Council, however, the U.S. government moved to censure the invaders and to demand the withdrawal of their troops. Growing fear of Communism in the Middle East led Congress to adopt a joint resolution in March 1957, providing that U.S. military and economic aid might be supplied to threatened countries in the area that requested help. The resolution, which was intended to supplement other U.S. defensive arrangements, became known as the Eisenhower Doctrine. The doctrine was subsequently invoked to assist governments in Jordan and in Lebanon, where two battalions of U.S. Marines were landed near Beirut (Bayrut) on July 15 and 16, 1958, to prevent Communist intervention in a rebellion then in progress in that country. Developments in Space On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched an 83-kg (184-lb) earth satellite called Sputnik 1, and a second Soviet satellite carrying a living dog and weighing 507 kg (1120 lb) soon followed. The launchings won almost universal praise in the United States and the rest of the world as outstanding scientific achievements. At the same time, U.S. authorities recognized that the Soviet satellites, besides having propaganda value, reflected significant Soviet advances in the design and construction of rocket-propelled ballistic missiles. The Soviet achievement therefore provoked nationwide debate, and many public figures urged a congressional probe of alleged U.S. backwardness in rocket and missile research and advocated sweeping reforms in the educational system in order to increase scientific personnel. The U.S. missile program was intensified, and in January 1958 the U.S. Army launched the first U.S. earth satellite, Explorer 1. Clashes with China and the USSR Confrontations with Communist China and the USSR continued throughout 1958. Early in September the Chinese Communists threatened the Nationalist-held islands of Chinmen (Quemoy) and Matsu off mainland China. After a prolonged bombardment and repeated threats of invasion by the Chinese Communists, Eisenhower stated that the United States was determined to prevent Communist seizure of the islands. In November Khrushchev demanded that the West negotiate an agreement for the unification of Berlin, proposing that West Berlin be made a "free city" independent of both East and West Germany. He threatened to relinquish Soviet authority in East Berlin to the East German government if a final settlement were not reached within six months, but the proposal was rejected by the West. Tensions eased, however, when Vice President Nixon visited Russia and Poland in the summer of 1959, and Khrushchev subsequently toured the United States, agreeing to postpone a settlement of the Berlin question. On May 1, 1960, an American U-2 reconnaissance plane was shot down over Russia while on a spy mission. Two weeks later, at the Paris summit conference, Khrushchev demanded that Eisenhower formally apologize for this violation of Soviet air space. When Eisenhower refused, the conference was terminated. In Latin America, growing resentment against U.S. policies became especially evident in Cuba, where a revolution led by Fidel Castro overthrew the corrupt dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and resulted in the establishment of a Communist government. When the United States refused to grant Castro a loan in 1959, he turned to the USSR for economic assistance, and the Eisenhower administration severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961. The Kennedy Years In July 1960, the Democrats nominated Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts for president and Senator Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas for vice president. The Republicans nominated Vice President Nixon for president and Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge as his running mate. Nixon ran on the record of the Republican Eisenhower administration, whereas Kennedy criticized the conservative tendencies of the Republicans and promised a "new frontier." The presidential campaign was highlighted by a series of television debates between the two candidates. Kennedy won the election, becoming the first Roman Catholic and, at the age of 43, the youngest person ever to be elected to the presidency (Theodore Roosevelt had been 42 when he succeeded to the office). Economic Policies In his inaugural address, President Kennedy called for social justice in domestic affairs and for a new era of forceful negotiations in foreign policy. His first economic proposals were designed to counteract the effects of the recession by providing for increased federal spending and by establishing wage-price guidelines for business and labor. Other measures furnished aid to economically depressed areas and increased the minimum wage for most workers engaged in interstate commerce. To remedy the drain on U.S. gold reserves, caused largely by the continuing unfavorable balance of international trade, the administration imposed a restriction on spending by U.S. military personnel abroad and procured agreements by several foreign countries to advance repayment of various obligations owed to the United States. Stressing the need for a U.S. trade policy to meet the challenge of the rapidly developing European Community (now called the European Union), Kennedy obtained authorization to cut U.S. tariffs on most imports by 50 percent over five years and to abolish tariffs on selected goods. Many of his domestic programs, however, including proposals for a department of urban affairs and a plan of medical care for the aged, were defeated in Congress. Seeking to control inflation, Kennedy in April 1962 forced several of the leading steel companies to rescind a price increase. This action, which included a public denunciation of the increase and a threat of antitrust prosecutions, was considered by some as the cause of a business recession that lasted until 1963. Among the principal items in Kennedy's legislative program for that year was a substantial tax cut to stimulate the economy. Civil Rights Activities Civil rights problems were a major concern during the Kennedy administration. The president's brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, pressed vigorously for an end to segregation in schools and for protection of minority voting rights. A major racial incident occurred in the fall of 1962, when the attempt of a black student, James Meredith, to register at the University of Mississippi resulted in a campus riot. To restore order, Kennedy placed the Mississippi National Guard under federal authority and ordered it to patrol the campus. Kennedy also sent federal marshals to enforce desegregation at the University of Alabama, despite the active opposition of Governor George C. Wallace of Alabama. Other racial violence included the murder of the civil rights worker Medgar Evers in Jackson, Mississippi, and the killing of four black girls in the bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama. Blacks and their white supporters continued demonstrating against violence and discrimination, notably in a gathering of more than 250,000 people in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963. At this rally the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., gave his celebrated "I Have a Dream" speech. Largely as a result of these events, President Kennedy recommended broad civil rights legislation to outlaw discrimination in voting, education, and most areas of public accommodation and employment. The measure was delayed in Congress throughout 1963. On March 26, 1962, the Supreme Court ruled that federal courts could review claims that state apportionment laws prevented equal weight being given to the votes of all citizens. This decision brought about a reapportionment of voting districts in the many states where rural districts had held political dominance over more populous urban areas. Also in 1962 the court ruled against the use of prayers and devotional readings in public schools. External Affairs In his foreign policies, Kennedy sought to formulate a new approach toward communism. With the assistance of his secretary of defense, Robert S. McNamara, the president substituted a policy of "flexible response" for that of "massive retaliation." He proposed extensive preparation for a limited war, with an expansion of conventional military forces and a further development of U.S. missile systems. In April 1961 Kennedy authorized what was later known as the Bay of Pigs Invasion, an attack on Cuba by anti-Castro Cuban exiles that had been planned under the Eisenhower administration. The invasion attempt was turned back at the Bay of Pigs on the south coast of the island, and most of the invaders were killed or captured. Kennedy was subsequently confronted with new Soviet demands regarding Berlin at a meeting with Khrushchev in Vienna in June. In the months that followed Khrushchev revived his demand that Berlin be made a free city. In August the construction of a wall separating East Berlin from the West was begun. The Soviets also resumed nuclear testing. Kennedy responded by placing the U.S. military on the alert and ordering resumption of nuclear testing. By 1964 the United States had tripled its missile forces. In Latin America, Kennedy worked to reverse the Truman-Eisenhower policy of military rather than economic aid. He initiated the Alliance for Progress, a program that offered Latin American nations $20 billion to modernize their economies. The Peace Corps, created on September 22, 1961, was another attempt to improve the U.S. image in Latin America and other areas of the world. It sent teams of young Americans to work with people, share their way of life, and assist in development activities such as road building and improvement of farming methods. The Missile Crisis A major confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union began on October 22, 1962, when Kennedy announced that Soviet-supplied offensive missile bases were being built in Cuba and demanded that the USSR dismantle and remove the weapons. At the same time, he declared that U.S. naval forces would enforce a quarantine of the island, intercepting and inspecting cargo on ships bound for Cuba to determine whether they included offensive weapons. The OAS nations solidly supported the U.S. stand. For several days, war seemed possible and at times imminent, but at the end of a week Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the bases and permit the United States on-site inspection in return for a U.S. guarantee not to invade Cuba. Although Cuba refused to permit the inspection, U.S. aerial reconnaissance revealed that the bases were being disassembled. In late December prisoners captured during the 1961 invasion attempt were released by Castro in exchange for American food and medical supplies valued at about $53 million. Atomic Test Ban Capitalizing on a Soviet desire to ease world tensions in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis and on the deteriorating relations between the USSR and Communist China, the United States in 1963 renewed negotiations with the latter. On August 5 of that year the United States, Great Britain, and the USSR concluded a treaty to ban atomic testing in the atmosphere, in space, and underwater. Underground tests were not banned. In addition, a "hot line" for communication between Washington, D.C., and Moscow was installed so that U.S. and Soviet government heads could contact each other directly in case of an international emergency. During the summer Kennedy visited Western Europe to emphasize the interdependence of the United States and Europe and to give notice that the United States would not relinquish its commitments there. The Vietnam War Period While relations with the USSR improved, the situation in Southeast Asia deteriorated. At the Vienna conference in 1961 Kennedy and Khrushchev had agreed on the establishment of a neutralist government in Laos. In South Vietnam, however, increased pressure by the Communist-dominated nationalists, who were supported by the Communist government of North Vietnam, led Kennedy to expand U.S. military aid for the government of Ngo Dinh Diem. On November 1, 1963, Diem's unpopular regime was deposed and Diem was assassinated with tacit U.S. approval. The succeeding military junta received immediate U.S. recognition. President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, Texas. He was succeeded by Vice President Johnson. The suspected assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, was arrested almost immediately. Before he could be questioned about the crime, Oswald himself was shot to death by Jack Ruby, a Dallas nightclub owner who claimd to be distraught about the president's assassination. Because the killing of Oswald and the confusion of reported details about the shooting of the president gave rise to many doubts and rumors of a possible conspiracy, President Johnson appointed a commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the assassination. In a report that has remained controversial, the commission discounted conspiracy theories in concluding that Oswald was the sole assassin. See Warren Report. Legislative Activity Vice President Johnson, who had been in Texas with President Kennedy, took the presidential oath of office on the plane that subsequently carried Kennedy's body back to Washington, D.C. On November 27 he delivered his first presidential address before Congress, pledging his support for the established lines of foreign policy and urging speedy enactment of the civil rights and tax bills initiated by Kennedy. The first months of Johnson's administration were marked by virtually unparalleled legislative activity. In late February 1964 Congress passed a bill that substantially reduced individual income and corporate taxes over a two-year period. In August the president secured passage of an extensive antipoverty program to provide youth-training projects, aid to farm families, community projects, and other means of easing economic distress. A civil rights law passed on July 2 prohibited discrimination in the use of federal funds and in public accommodations and set up an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to prevent discrimination in the job market. The 24th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified on January 23, 1964, prohibited imposition of any poll tax as a requirement for voting in federal elections, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 aided voter registration by blacks. See Poll Tax. Johnson Elected In 1964 the Democrats nominated Johnson as their candidate for president, with Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota as his running mate. The Republicans nominated Senator Barry M. Goldwater of Arizona and Representative William Miller of New York. In the campaign, Johnson amplified his vision of a "great society" for the United States. Goldwater urged a general reduction in the role of the federal government and advocated a strongly anti-Communist foreign policy. Johnson won the election, and the Democratic majority increased in both the Senate and the House. In January 1965 Johnson outlined a wide-ranging domestic program. During the year Congress enacted most of his proposals, including aid to education, grants for medical research, housing and urban renewal programs, antipoverty activities, an excise tax cut, federal enforcement of voting rights, and medical care for the aged. In 1966 however, extended debate resulted in the defeat of a major civil rights bill forbidding discrimination in housing and of a bill permitting states to enact right-to-work laws. The Senate also voted, in effect, to annul a provision of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that required desegregation of hospitals. In 1966 the Supreme Court decided that the use of the poll tax as a state voting prerequisite was unconstitutional and, in Miranda v. Arizona, declared self-incriminating statements to be inadmissible as evidence if the prisoner had not been warned of his or her rights. The 25th Amendment to the Constitution, ratified on February 10, 1967, established procedures for succession of the vice president in cases of presidential disability and for the appointment of a vice president when that office becomes vacant. Domestic and Foreign Crises Discontent and impatience among blacks became especially evident in the summer of 1965, when a severe riot occurred in Watts, a predominantly black section of Los Angeles. Disturbances occurred in 1967 in more than 30 cities. The president subsequently appointed a commission, headed by the former governor of Illinois, Otto Kerner, to investigate the causes of these civil disturbances. The report of the commission, issued in 1968, warned of the increasing racial polarization in the United States. In foreign affairs, the Johnson administration was confronted by a number of crises, beginning in Latin America. A serious dispute arose between the United States and Panama over the control of the Panama Canal, and, after anti-American riots in Panama, a new treaty for the operation of the canal was negotiated. In 1965 the threat of civil war in the Dominican Republic led Johnson to dispatch 22,000 U.S. troops to that country to protect the lives of U.S. citizens living there and to prevent the establishment of a Communist-dominated government. The intervention aroused anti-American sentiment throughout the hemisphere and provoked much criticism within the United States. Another crisis in the Middle East, followed by a war between Israel and several Arab nations in June 1967 (see Six-Day War), set off an intensive round of diplomatic maneuvers that culminated in a meeting in June of President Johnson and Soviet Premier Aleksey N. Kosygin at Glassboro, New Jersey. In response to Soviet aid for the Arab nations and growing Soviet influence in the Mediterranean, the United States increased its military aid to Israel. The Vietnam Controversy Johnson's principal problem in foreign affairs was the Vietnam War. During 1964 he continued Kennedy's policy of sending military "advisers" to assist the military forces of South Vietnam, but undertook no further escalation of the conflict. In the presidential election of 1964, Senator Goldwater advocated increased U.S. involvement, including the bombing of North Vietnam, and Johnson opposed further escalation of the war. In the same year, however, Johnson reported an attack by the North Vietnamese on U.S. vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin, and sent to Congress a resolution authorizing the president to increase U.S. military involvement in Southeast Asia. The measure was passed by both houses. By 1967 the United States was bombing virtually the whole of North Vietnam and had committed nearly 500,000 troops to the war. Johnson's policy of escalation precipitated a great public debate at home, which was intensified in January 1968, during the so-called Tet Offensive, when the North Vietnamese interrupted an unofficial truce with a series of offensive strikes. The U.S. commander, General William C. Westmoreland, thereupon called for an additional 206,000 troops. Johnson, responding to critics of the war within his own administration and throughout the United States, refused the request and subsequently relieved Westmoreland of his command. Another Asian crisis also occurred in January, when the U.S. intelligence ship Pueblo was seized by naval forces of North Korea. After lengthy negotiations, the crew was released late in 1968. The war would continue to exert its divisive influence on every aspect of national life until the end of U.S. involvement in 1973. Reflecting increasing dissatisfaction with Johnson's conduct of the war, Senator Eugene J. McCarthy of Minnesota announced his intention to challenge the president for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination. In the primary election in New Hampshire in March 1968, McCarthy received 44 percent of the vote against a candidate representing Johnson. McCarthy's surprisingly strong showing was taken as an indication of the strength of the antiwar movement. The primary was followed by Senator Robert F. Kennedy's announcement that he, too, would become a presidential candidate. In a television address on March 31, Johnson announced that he was suspending the bombing of North Vietnam as a means of furthering negotiations for the conclusion of the war. He also declared that he would not be a candidate for the presidency in 1968. His administration was thereafter marked by a series of domestic disorders. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee, precipitated a new wave of riots in Washington, D.C., and several other cities. Severe disturbances by students at Columbia University and other educational institutions aroused considerable controversy over the use of police to control such disturbances. Then on June 5 Robert Kennedy was shot after winning the Democratic primary election in California; he died the next day. Nixon Elected President At the Republican national convention in August, Richard Nixon was nominated for president, with Governor Spiro T. Agnew of Maryland as the vice-presidential candidate. The Democratic convention in Chicago was marked by vehement conflicts and outbursts of violence between supporters and critics of Johnson's policies. Vice President Humphrey received the presidential nomination, and Senator Edmund S. Muskie of Maine was selected as the vice-presidential candidate. Nixon campaigned on a platform calling for a restoration of social stability, and he won with some difficulty. A third candidate, the former governor George C. Wallace of Alabama, running largely on regional issues, emerged as the head of the newly formed American Independent Party. When President Nixon took office in 1969, his approach to domestic affairs was similar to that of President Eisenhower. Calling his program the "new federalism," Nixon sought to limit the power of the federal government and to aid state and local authorities in fulfilling their responsibilities. Accordingly, one of Nixon's first legislative proposals was a revenue-sharing program by which federal taxes would be partly redistributed to state and local governments to help them cope with their mounting financial problems. The president also recommended a drastic reorganization of welfare programs and proposed the establishment of a minimum federal standard of welfare assistance. To counteract the inflation that had developed during the 1960s, he called for a reduction in government expenditures but for about two years rejected suggestions for wage and price controls. Supreme Court Appointments Nixon's interest in law and order was expressed in his appointments to the Supreme Court and in crime legislation. The Court had two vacancies in his first year in office. To replace the retiring Earl Warren, he nominated Warren E. Burger of Minnesota, a judge on the District of Columbia Court of Appeals, who took office as chief justice of the United States in June 1969. His first two nominations for the seat vacated by Associate Justice Abe Fortas were defeated in the Senate, but Harry A. Blackmun of Minnesota, a judge on the U.S. Eighth Circuit Court, was confirmed on May 12, 1970. The resignations of Hugo Black and John M. Harlan in 1971 gave Nixon the unusual opportunity to select another two justices. Lewis F. Powell, Jr., a Virginia lawyer, and William H. Rehnquist of Arizona, an assistant U.S. attorney general, were approved late in the year. The president considered his four appointees "strict constructionists" who would restrict their rulings to the judicial interpretation of the Constitution without attempting to make the Supreme Court an arbiter of the country's social trends and economic patterns. Administrative Actions Government reorganization proceeded at an uneven pace. In 1970 the first postal strike in U.S. history was followed by the organization of the Postal Service to replace the 180-year-old Post Office Department. To meet increasing problems of air and water pollution and of general atmospheric conditions, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration was established within the Commerce Department in October 1970, and the Environmental Protection Agency was set up in December. The Office of Consumer Affairs was established in February 1971 to coordinate federal programs of consumer protection. The U.S. program of space exploration was marked by several major accomplishments during the Nixon administration, notably the first landing on the moon, by the crew of Apollo 11, on July 20, 1969, after many years of painstaking preparations. The Continuing Vietnam War Early in his administration, the president outlined a foreign policy based on a "low profile" and on reductions in the U.S. role abroad. The Vietnam War, however, continued, and so did inflation, which many blamed on the war. Wages and prices spiraled, although some economists argued that the price increases exceeded the wage increases. The cost of military equipment for allies abroad, in NATO and in Asia, made money short for domestic programs. The interaction of domestic and foreign affairs influenced the 1970 congressional elections. Despite vigorous personal campaigning, President Nixon and Vice President Agnew were unable to upset the Democratic majority in the House and Senate, and the Republicans also lost 11 gubernatorial elections. The 92nd Congress set its own priorities. Among its attempts to limit the war-making powers of the president was a campaign against the extension of the military draft (see Selective Service). The Kent State Killings In the United States, rising civilian dismay with the Vietnamese conflict led to many protests frequently resulting in direct confrontations between the demonstrators, often college students, and National Guard troops. After the U.S. incursion into Cambodia in search of Communist sanctuaries, students at Kent State University in Ohio demonstrated against the war in May 1970, and four of them were killed by National Guard troops. Ultimately, 500 campuses experienced student strikes and were closed for a considerable time. The police throughout the nation faced accusations of brutality; in the few cases in which local authorities instituted investigations, these allegations were seldom proved conclusively. A number of public buildings were bombed, notably the U.S. Capitol in March 1971. Elsewhere, bomb threats and arson were not uncommon occurrences. Vietnamization President Nixon announced that he intended to "wind down" the war through a policy of "Vietnamization," or replacement of U.S. troops by South Vietnamese forces trained and equipped by the United States. Nixon withdrew more than 350,000 U.S. troops from the war zone; by the end of 1971 fewer than 175,000 remained. The peace talks that had been instituted by President Johnson at Paris were continued, but with no result, and the Communists continued in their refusal to discuss the freeing of U.S. captives. Congress, nevertheless, attempted to make the president move faster. The Gulf of Tonkin resolution was withdrawn in November 1970, and Congress tried to limit funds for conduct of the war by various parliamentary means. However, Nixon ordered the resumption of large-scale bombing of North Vietnamese supply trails and antiaircraft defenses late in 1971. Other Foreign Affairs In the Middle East, the uneasy peace frequently was broken by Arab guerrilla adventures and Israeli counterthrusts in full force. But Egyptian-Israeli confrontations across the Suez Canal reached only minor proportions because the parties largely observed a cease-fire, beginning in August 1970, arranged at the urging of U.S. negotiators. Soviet missiles were added to Egyptian defenses, but the United States did not add substantially to Israeli equipment. Relations with the USSR improved, at least in the opinion of some political observers. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), begun in 1969, continued into 1972. In May, during President Nixon's state visit to Moscow, two agreements between the United States and the USSR were signed. One agreement limited antiballistic missile systems, and the other put restrictions on offensive missile launchers. An agreement for unlimited access through East Germany to West Berlin was negotiated by France, Great Britain, the United States, and the USSR in the summer of 1971. Meanwhile, in November 1969 the United States signed a treaty calling for the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons. Then on February 11, 1971, the United States signed a treaty banning nuclear weapons, and the testing of them, on the ocean floor. President Nixon resumed the personal diplomacy of previous presidents. He traveled to Romania and other countries soon after his inauguration. Then he visited Italy, Yugoslavia, Spain, and other countries in the fall of 1970, and he met the emperor of Japan in Alaska in September 1971. However, he left his most ambitious efforts for later. In July 1971 Henry A. Kissinger, Nixon's adviser on national security, went secretly to Beijing to arrange a meeting between the president and the leaders of the People's Republic of China. President Nixon went to Beijing in February 1972, and parts of his visit were transmitted by television throughout the world. According to the president, "there were no secret deals" but the two countries did agree to "expand cultural, educational and journalistic contacts" and "to begin and broaden trade." The October 1971 meeting of the United Nations brought a breach in U.S. relations with Asian allies. Until Nixon's historic meeting, Taiwan had constituted the sole Chinese representation in the UN. Once the Nixon visit to Beijing was announced, the members of the UN no longer felt constrained to keep Communist China from occupying the Security Council seat allotted to China. Thus, the People's Republic of China was admitted to the UN. Despite an attempt by the United States to keep the Nationalist Chinese representatives in the UN, Taiwan was expelled from all organizations in the UN. At the end of 1971 a brief war between India and Pakistan over the autonomy of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) damaged U.S. relations with India, as the United States "tilted" toward Pakistan. The Pentagon Papers Domestic and foreign relations were again intertwined in the summer of 1971. In June the administration clashed with several major newspapers on its right to enforce "prior restraint," or censorship, on their publication of the so-called Pentagon Papers. The Pentagon Papers were excerpts from a classified Defense Department history of U.S. participation in the Vietnam War. The newspapers, primarily the New York Times and the Washington Post, claimed the protection of the First Amendment and declared it their public duty to publish the information on how decisions concerning U.S. involvement in Vietnam were reached. Government-obtained injunctions were appealed to the Supreme Court, and the justices voted 6 to 3 that the government was unable to stop publication of any information, no matter how embarrassing diplomatically, when national security was not involved. Criminal prosecution was started immediately against Daniel Ellsberg, a former civilian employee in the Department of Defense. One of the compilers of the history, Ellsberg was the person who supplied the documents to the newspapers and to several congressional representatives. Ellsberg was charged with violating the Espionage Act and for theft of government property. The trial was called off during jury deliberations because of revelations of unfair practices by the prosecution. Economic Measures In July 1971, for the first year in the century, it appeared that the United States would import more merchandise than it exported. Consequently it faced a severe deficit in its balance of payments. A federal budget deficit of about $20 billion was projected for fiscal 1971. In August a crisis in world monetary stability was evident, and the value of the dollar was threatened for the second time in a year. On August 15, President Nixon announced a new economic policy to bolster the country's economic position at home and abroad. Reversing his previous refusal to impose price and wage controls, he announced a three-month freeze on wages, prices, and rents. He suspended redemption of dollars in gold and imposed a 10-percent surcharge on imported goods. He established a Cost of Living Council to set up guidelines for labor and management and to establish machinery for enforcement. Abroad, the monetary exchanges were temporarily thrown into confusion, but trading resumed, and revaluations were achieved by "floating" certain currencies, among them the Japanese yen and the West German mark. Finally, after a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and hard bargaining within the so-called Group of Ten (ten major industrial nations), the United States, in December 1971, agreed to raise the price of gold slightly and, for the first time since the 1930s, to devalue the dollar by about 8.6 percent. The import surcharge was rescinded at the time. The dollar was later devalued by another 10 percent in February 1973. The end of the 90-day freeze in November 1971 was followed by the institution of a program of controlled increases in prices, wages, and rents, called Phase II. A Pay Board and a Price Commission were set up to establish guidelines and oversee compliance to reduce inflation. In January 1973 Phase III of the economic program was begun. Price and wage increases were allowed, but the government retained sufficient power to intercede if increases exceeded prescribed guidelines. Nixon Reelected Meanwhile, on November 7, 1972, President Nixon won reelection in an overwhelming victory over the Democratic Party candidate, Senator George S. McGovern of South Dakota. The president received 520 electoral votes, McGovern, 17 (those of Massachusetts and the District of Columbia). The 26th Amendment to the Constitution had been passed on June 30, 1971, giving 18-year-olds the right to vote; this marked the first election in which the amendment took effect. As President Nixon's second term began, a cease-fire agreement was signed in Paris on January 27, 1973, making possible the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Vietnam. For all practical purposes, the longest and most controversial war in U.S. history was over. Watergate and After Shortly after Nixon's second inauguration in January 1973, revelations rapidly mounted concerning an illegal wiretap and attempted burglary that had occurred during the presidential campaign on June 17, 1972, at the national headquarters of the Democratic Party in the Watergate building complex in Washington, D.C. Five people working for the Republican Committee for the Re-election of the President were arrested on the scene. The subsequent indictments, trials, and investigations implicated high members of the Nixon administration in the planning of the break-in. The name Watergate became synonymous with a series of illegal, unethical, and irregular acts committed by members of the administration. The United States was faced with a succession of political and economic crises in the next few years. Vice President Agnew resigned on October 10, 1973, after being indicted for bribery and federal income tax evasion. According to the provisions of the 25th Amendment, Nixon appointed Gerald R. Ford, a U.S. congressman from Michigan, to fill Agnew's position. Ford was sworn in as the 40th vice president on December 6, 1973. On the economic front, the unabated rise in the cost of living caused serious concern throughout the nation. The government's wage and price program was revised in June 1973, essentially to reimpose the freeze on prices and wages first established in August 1971. Phase IV, announced on August 13, 1973, relaxed price and wage controls in some industries and imposed controls in others. It expired April 30, 1974, leaving only the petroleum industry controlled. Détente In foreign affairs, the policy of détente between the United States and the USSR was continued. Leonid Brezhnev and President Nixon exchanged visits in 1973 and 1974. They signed agreements calling for joint cooperation in oceanography, transportation, agriculture, and for expanded cultural exchange programs. Détente suffered a setback during a renewed outbreak of Arab-Israeli hostilities in October 1973, when the Kremlin supported the Arabs and the United States supported Israel (see Yom Kippur War). The two superpowers cooperated, however, in bringing about agreements on a cease-fire and disengagement of forces between Israel and Egypt in January 1974, and between Israel and Syria in May. U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger played a key role in achieving these settlements. Nixon's Resignation From the fall of 1973 through the summer of 1974, the evidence steadily mounted that President Nixon himself was implicated in the Watergate burglary and its attempted cover-up. Evidence of other lawless acts committed by the administration followed. As a result, by the beginning of August 1974 the president was faced with imminent impeachment. He resigned on August 9, becoming the first president of the United States to do so. Vice President Ford, who succeeded him immediately, became the first person to serve without having been elected either to the vice presidency or the presidency. One of the new president's first official actions was to pardon his predecessor for any crimes that he might have committed while in office. Against the public outcry that the pardon provoked, Ford contended that it was a means of "putting Watergate behind us." Ford was partly successful in restoring the badly shaken confidence in the presidency, but several months passed before Congress confirmed Nelson A. Rockefeller as the 41st vice president. Rockefeller was sworn in on December 19, 1974. The Ford Administration  Ford was confronted with a number of domestic and international problems. The worldwide recession was deepening, and the United States was experiencing its highest unemployment and inflation rates in decades. As a result of the Yom Kippur War, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries had imposed an embargo on oil shipments to the United States and other industrial nations in the winter of 1973 and 1974. Oil prices had quadrupled in a few months, intensifying the international monetary crisis. The impetus toward peace in the Middle East had slowed, and an outbreak of hostilities in Cyprus in 1974 threatened the existence of NATO, as two of its members, Greece and Turkey, were opponents in Cyprus and suspended cooperation with the organization. Meanwhile, the sudden resurgence of war in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, the subsequent Communist victory, and the concurrent expulsion of the United States from Southeast Asia in the spring of 1975 weakened confidence in U.S. strength and in its loyalty to its allies. Contending with an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress as a result of the 1974 midterm elections, Ford was unable to win approval for his legislative programs to fight inflation and increase energy resources. He continued to support Secretary of State Kissinger's "shuttle diplomacy" in the Middle East, but in June 1975 he assumed a new diplomatic initiative of his own. Traveling to Europe, he conferred personally with European heads of state, as well as with President Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt. In 1975 the United States began to emerge from the recession that had begun in 1973. The country's unemployment rate remained high, however, and many automobile and construction workers were without jobs. Some state and local governments had difficulty balancing their budgets; New York City, for instance, needed federal assistance to remain solvent. Carter Elected In July 1976 Jimmy Carter, a former governor of Georgia and a newcomer to national politics, gained the Democratic presidential nomination. In the November elections Carter and his running mate, Senator Walter F. Mondale of Minnesota, narrowly defeated the Republican candidates, President Ford and Senator Robert J. Dole of Kansas. The Democrats maintained their strong majorities in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Following his inauguration in January 1977, Carter drew up a wide-ranging legislative program, much of which received severe criticism in Congress. In April the president offered a package of complicated legislation designed to reduce the nation's consumption of petroleum by encouraging the use of power sources such as coal and solar energy. The Senate altered much of the package, which was finally passed in November 1978. Carter had some success in his effort to streamline the federal bureaucracy, however, and in October 1977 a new Department of Energy began operations. The national unemployment rate fell, but the rate of inflation increased. As prices increased, so did taxes. California voters responded by passing Proposition 13, a legislative initiative that sharply reduced property taxes in the state, and people in other parts of the nation also called for lower taxes. The Carter Administration In foreign affairs, Carter strongly criticized the governments of the USSR and other countries for violating the human rights of their citizens. In September 1977 the president signed treaties giving Panama control of the Panama Canal by the year 2000. After heated debate, the treaties were ratified by the Senate in early 1978. The administration also attempted to mediate a peace settlement in the Middle East. In September 1978 Carter hosted a conference at Camp David, near Washington, D.C., with the leaders of Egypt and Israel. The meeting produced a framework for negotiations that resulted in a peace treaty between Israel and Egypt in March 1979. On another front, by January 1979 the United States had established full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. The Hostage Crisis In November 1979, after Carter had allowed the deposed shah of Iran to enter the United States for medical treatment, a group of Iranian revolutionists stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran and held 53 staff members as hostages. When the United States refused the captors' demand for the shah's extradition, a stalemate ensued. In April 1980 Carter ordered an airborne rescue attempt that failed. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who had opposed the rescue mission, subsequently resigned. Meanwhile, in January 1980, the United States had restricted trade with the USSR in protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Also in protest, the United States refused to ratify the U.S.-Soviet strategic arms limitation treaty (SALT II). The Economy In 1979 and 1980 the economic situation deteriorated. As U.S. imports continued to exceed exports, the dollar declined. The annual inflation rate rose to more than 10 percent. The automotive industry, for decades a mainstay of the economy, suffered losses due to foreign imports, and the Chrysler Corporation needed federal loan guarantees to forestall bankruptcy. The 1980 Election  President Carter defeated a challenge from Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts and won his party's nomination to run for reelection in 1980. The Republicans nominated a conservative, former screen actor and governor of California Ronald W. Reagan. Republican Congressman John B. Anderson of Illinois ran as an independent. The Democrats, blamed by many for the declining economy and the Iranian hostage crisis-which was not resolved until January 1981-lost in every section of the country. Reagan and his running mate, George Herbert Walker Bush, won 51 percent of the popular vote to 41 percent for Carter and 7 percent for Anderson. The Republicans won control of the Senate for the first time in nearly 30 years, and Jimmy Carter became the first elected president to lose his bid for reelection since Herbert Hoover in 1932. The Reagan Administration President Reagan's announced intentions were to lower taxes, to reduce government spending and regulations, and to strengthen the defense establishment. Reagan recovered fully from a March 1981 assassination attempt, and his program maintained momentum. In the following months, Congress enacted the largest tax cut in U.S. history, reduced spending by sharply curtailing aid to the poor and to state and local governments, and increased the defense budget. At the same time the Federal Reserve Board kept interest rates high in an attempt to reduce the money supply and thus curb inflation. This policy slowed economic activity, which lowered government tax revenues. This lower tax yield, combined with the high interest rates the government itself had to pay to borrow money, frustrated Reagan's plan to bring spending under control. The federal deficit mounted. The recession of 1981-1982 drove the national unemployment rate above 10 percent for the first time since 1940, and the number of business failures reached its highest level since 1932. The poor economy helped Democrats to gain seats in the 1982 congressional election. In foreign relations, President Reagan and his secretary of state, Alexander M. Haig, Jr., continued to move away from détente with the USSR. In mid-1982, George P. Shultz replaced Haig. American peacekeeping forces in Lebanon suffered heavy casualties in terrorist bombings in 1983, and Reagan withdrew the marines in February 1984. Reagan ordered a surprise invasion of the island of Grenada in October 1983. The immediate purpose was the rescue of U.S. medical students from political turmoil, but the administration also cited requests for help from Grenada's Caribbean neighbors. In Central America, Reagan backed government forces in El Salvador but supported guerrillas against the Nicaraguan government. Relations with the USSR worsened in 1983 after Reagan announced an antiballistic missile defense system against nuclear attack. This Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which became known as "Star Wars," was based on the concept of deterrence through the threat of retaliation. Although many experts believed SDI was impractical, the program would linger and garner financing until 1993. Economic issues dominated the 1984 presidential campaign. On the Democratic side, former Vice President Mondale won a bruising primary battle. He defeated Senator Gary Hart of Colorado, who had stressed the need for "new ideas," and the Reverend Jesse Jackson, the first black to win a party presidential primary. Mondale selected as his vice-presidential running mate Representative Geraldine A. Ferraro, the first woman to run for such high office on a major party ticket. Reagan and Bush captured 59 percent of the vote, carrying 49 states and 525 electoral votes. Just before the elections, the Soviets had signaled their desire for a new opening on arms control. Two summits were held, in November 1985 and October 1986, between Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The U.S. space program suffered a severe setback when the space shuttle Challenger exploded after lift-off on January 28, 1986, killing the seven crew members on board (see Challenger Disaster). In April the United States launched a major air strike against Libya in retaliation for terrorist attacks against Americans elsewhere. In June, Chief Justice Burger announced his retirement, and Associate Justice William H. Rehnquist replaced him in September. Interim elections in November returned control of the Senate to the Democrats. The Reagan administration was further weakened during 1987 by continued budget and trade deficits and by a congressional investigation into the U.S. sale of arms to Iran and the diversion of profits from the sale to support the Nicaraguan rebels (see Iran-Contra Affair). This affair represented the worst political scandal in the United States since Watergate in the early 1970s. On October 19, 1987, the stock market suffered its worst one-day loss in history, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 508 points, or 22.6 percent (see Black Monday). The nation's budget and trade deficits continued to exceed $100 billion annually. In December Reagan and Gorbachev signed a treaty to eliminate the two nations' medium-range and certain shorter-range missiles. During 1988 Congress ratified the treaty, toughened civil rights laws, and authorized reparations for Japanese Americans interned during World War II. The 1988 Election  Vice President Bush defeated several challengers, notably Senator Robert Dole, to win the Republican presidential nomination. In the Democratic primary campaign, Governor Michael S. Dukakis of Massachusetts outlasted civil rights leader Jesse Jackson. Bush and his vice-presidential choice, Senator Dan Quayle of Indiana, were able to capitalize on the peace-and-prosperity issue. With a popular-vote majority of 54 to 46 percent, Bush became the first incumbent vice president since Martin Van Buren in 1836 to be elected president. In the Senate and House, however, the Democrats increased their majorities. The Bush Administration Among the challenges facing President Bush when he took office on January 20, 1989, were the federal trade and budget deficits, the insolvent savings and loan system, and the Soviet diplomatic offensive in Europe. One of the worst environmental disasters in U.S. history took place on March 24, when the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground in Alaska's Prince William Sound, spilling nearly 11 million gallons of oil. In June, Jim Wright became the first Speaker of the House to resign because of ethical misconduct charges. A measure to bail out the ailing savings institutions was enacted in August. Responding to rapid political changes in Eastern Europe, Bush offered aid to Poland and Hungary during his visits there in July. In December more than 24,000 troops invaded Panama to oust the regime of General Manuel Antonio Noriega, wanted in the United States on drug trafficking charges. During summit meetings in December 1989 and late May and early June 1990, Bush and Gorbachev agreed to end production of chemical weapons and reduce existing stockpiles. In mid-1990 the U.S. economy entered a recession. Bush reneged on his pledge of "no new taxes" in accepting a five-year deficit-reduction package passed by Congress in October. Two new Supreme Court justices, David H. Souter, appointed in 1990, and Clarence Thomas, appointed in 1991, solidified the conservative majority. In August 1990 Iraq, led by President Saddam Hussein, invaded and annexed Kuwait. During 1990 and 1991, the United States took the lead in ousting Iraq from Kuwait. More than 500,000 U.S. troops served with allied forces during the Persian Gulf War of 1991, suffering remarkably few casualties while crushing Iraqi resistance. In April, U.S. troops intervened in northern Iraq to protect Kurdish refugees from Iraqi government reprisals. U.S. diplomatic activity then centered on a joint effort with the USSR toward peace in the Middle East. After the USSR and Yugoslavia disintegrated in 1991-1992, the United States recognized nearly all their former constituent republics. One of the worst riots in U.S. history erupted in Los Angeles in April 1992 after the acquittal of four white police officers charged with the videotaped beating 13 months earlier of a black suspect, Rodney King. Fifty-eight people died in the rioting, and property damage exceeded $750 million. In a second Rodney King trial (April 17), two of the four police officers were found guilty. In May a 203-year-old measure restricting the power of Congress to raise the salaries of its members became the 27th Amendment to the Constitution. A devastating hurricane struck south Florida in August; 41 people died and property damage totaled about $20 billion. The 1992 and 1996 Elections In the 1992 presidential race, Governor Bill Clinton of Arkansas emerged as the Democratic nominee. In the general election campaign, Bush and Vice President Quayle attacked Clinton as untrustworthy and inexperienced, while Clinton and his vice-presidential running mate, Al Gore, accused Bush of mishandling the economy and neglecting other domestic problems. Clinton became the first Democrat to win a presidential election since 1976, garnering a popular-vote plurality of about 43 percent; Bush received 38 percent; and independent candidate H(enry) Ross Perot, running as a fiscal reformer, received 19 percent. During the 1996 presidential campaign, Clinton ran for reelection against Robert Dole, a longtime senator from Kansas. Clinton campaigned on the need to control the federal budget deficit and reform campaign financing. He also proposed plans for additional environmental programs, tax credits for college tuition, and a capital gains tax cut. Dole, the Republican nominee, ran on the issue of a 15 percent tax cut. In the November 1996 Clinton defeated Dole with 49.2 percent of the popular vote, compared to Dole's 40.8 percent. Ross Perot ran as a candidate of the Reform Party but only won 8.5 percent of the vote. In the electoral college votes, Clinton received 379 to Dole's 159. The Clinton Administrations Domestic Issues During President Clinton's first months in office, he launched many initiatives for domestic change. He sought to end the ban on the rights of homosexuals to serve in the military, but his plan was modified when it met strong opposition in Congress and the Department of Defense. In addition, he appointed First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton to head a task force on health care reform. However, the health care package met strong resistance in Congress and did not pass. A few of Clinton's domestic programs that were enacted during his first term included a family-leave bill for employees and a national service program called Americorps. Americorps provided students with money for college or technical training in return for community service work. A major anticrime bill was also passed in December 1994 that authorized expenditures for law enforcement, prisons, and prevention programs, and banned assault weapons. In addition, Clinton appointed two new Supreme Court justices, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. Amid a decline in popularity for Clinton and Democrats in general, the Republicans recorded a victory in the midterm elections of November 1994. The Republican Party gained control of both the House and the Senate for the first time since 1954. During the campaign, the Republicans advocated the "Contract with America," a conservative platform that called for tax cuts, welfare reform, term limits for federal legislators, a balanced-budget amendment, and increases in defense spending. As the 104th session of Congress began in 1995, Republican Newt Gingrich of Georgia became Speaker of the House, and Republican Robert Dole of Kansas became majority leader of the Senate. The Republican congressional majorities and Clinton had difficulty reaching consensus during 1995 and 1996. For example, Clinton and the Republicans in Congress were unable to agree on a 1996 budget for the federal government, and, as a result, government operations were partially shutdown on two occasions. In April 1996 Clinton and Congress agreed on a federal budget that included Republican budget cuts, especially in housing, labor, and arts programs, but preserved some of Clinton's programs such as Americorps. Two pieces of major legislation that were passed with the support of both Congress and the president were the presidential line-item veto and telecommunications bill. The line-item veto would allow the president to veto individual items in appropriations bills but its constitutionality was challenged in court. The telecommunications bill restructured the television and telephone industries by allowing for more competition. The bill also outlawed pornography on the Internet. In 1996 Clinton and Congress also agreed on the passage of a terrorism bill, after The Clinton administration supported the passage of a bill designed to help law enforcement officials fight terrorism. The bill increased funding for antiterrorism activities and made it easier to deport aliens suspected of terrorism. The bill was passed partly in response to the deadliest terrorist bombing in the history of the United States. In April 1995 a bomb exploded in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, largely destroying the building and causing at least 168 deaths. In June 1997 Timothy McVeigh, a former U.S. Army sergeant, was found guilty of the Oklahoma City bombing. In August 1996 Clinton signed three bills that Congress had approved earlier. The new laws included an increase in the minimum wage from $4.25 to $5.15; a measure making it easier for workers to transfer their health insurance between employers; and a controversial welfare bill. Clinton had vetoed two previous welfare bills passed by Congress. The bill that he signed included provisions to limit benefits to five years, require adult recipients to work after two years, and limit some welfare programs and food stamps to legal immigrants. After the 1996 elections, the Republicans retained their control of both houses of Congress. As a result, Clinton and Congress again disagreed about the federal budget and how to reduce the budget deficit. In May 1997 they reached an agreement on how to balance the federal budget in five years. However, not all issues had been finalized, and disagreements between the president and Congress soon appeared. Foreign Affairs Before Clinton took office in January 1993, he supported President Bush's signing of the START II nuclear disarmament treaty with Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Also in 1993, the United States sent troops to Somalia to help protect food and supplies that were intended for starving civilians. However, when U.S. soldiers came under attack from the various factions in the civil war, the U.S. involvement became unpopular among Americans. The troops were withdrawn by March 1994, and the United Nations (UN) took control of the peacekeeping operation. The operation was ended in March 1995 when U.S. troops returned to Somalia to aid in the withdrawal of the remaining UN forces. Both in the Middle East and the former Yugoslavia, the United States was instrumental in helping negotiate peace agreements. At the White House in September 1993, Clinton hosted the signing of a historic peace agreement between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO Chairman Yasir Arafat in attendance. He also oversaw the signing of an agreement between Israel and Jordan at the White House in July 1994. In addition, in November 1995 the United States led peace talks between the Bosnian Muslims, Serbs, and Croats in Dayton, Ohio, in hopes of resolving the Bosnian-Croatian-Serbian War. The talks led to a peace agreement signed by all parties. As part of the agreement, Clinton pledged to send American soldiers to Bosnia and Herzegovina to help lead the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in providing humanitarian aid and policing a zone between the factions. In Asia, trade relations between the United States and China became strained during the 1990s because of disagreements over human rights practices and copyright privacy. The United States threatened to suspend China's most-favored-nation trading status, but it was repeatedly renewed. In 1994 Clinton announced the end of a 19-year trade embargo against Vietnam, and in July 1995, more than 20 years after the end of the Vietnam War, the United States extended full diplomatic recognition to Vietnam. In May 1997 the United States appointed its first ambassador to Vietnam since 1975. In the Americas, the United States worked to aid both Haiti and Mexico. In September 1994 the United States was prepared to launch a military invasion of Haiti to restore to power Haiti's elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had been ousted in a military coup in 1991. Military confrontation was averted at the last minute, largely due to the diplomatic efforts of former president Jimmy Carter, who negotiated Aristide's peaceful return. The UN then assumed control of the situation in Haiti. The United States also came to the support of Mexico when the currency of Mexico, the peso, began to drop in value in early 1995. Clinton created a $20 billion loan package for Mexico to help restore the Mexican economy. In January 1997 Mexico announced that it had completed its loan payments to the United States, three years early. In contrast to the U.S. support in Mexico and Haiti, relations between the United States and Cuba worsened during the Clinton administration. In February 1996 Cuba shot down two civilian planes from the United States, claiming that they were violating Cuban air space. The United States tightened its sanctions against Cuba through such measures as prohibiting all flights from the United States to Cuba in an effort to hurt Cuba's tourist industry. The U.S. Congress also passed the Helms-Burton Act, named after its two sponsors, Senator Jesse Helms and Representative Dan Burton. This act allowed American citizens to sue foreign companies investing in properties that had been seized from Americans during the Cuban Revolution. Other countries, including Mexico, Canada, and members of the European Union (EU) protested. As a result, Clinton suspended the right for U.S. citizens to sue. International trade agreements became important issues during the Clinton administration. Clinton successfully pressed Congress to ratify the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The agreement was a plan for tariff cuts and the elimination of other trade barriers between the United States, Mexico, and Canada over 15 years. NAFTA officially took effect on January 1, 1994. Then in December 1994 Congress passed the Uruguay Round provisions of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), a global tariff-cutting pact that created the World Trade Organization in 1995. Clinton signed GATT later that month.