Causes for American revolution

(By Felicia)

▪ Background

- French – Indian war → Britain won → very expensive for Britain

▪ New gained territories during the war

- British wanted to create new governments → tried to do so with the Proclamation

- While preparing the Proclamation Indians revolt in Ohio and Upper Missisippi → whiped out British military posts and killed the settlers in the area. → the British added to the proclamation that the West was to be set aside as an Indian reservation.

▪ The Stamp act = Newspapers, pamphlets, legal documents and licences were to wear stamps

- Old actions taken by the British to tax the Americans = effective, altough they angered the Americans, but they didn’t provide with the money needed to pay for all of the troops that were stationed in the colonies → more taxes on British tax payers. They wanted the Americans to pay at least a share of the costs. The Americans didn’t want to be taxed, but they didn’t offer to help pay for the troops either. → Stamp act.

- The new act wasn’t very popular. American merchants decided not to import things from England → British merchants got upset and started to put preassure on the Parliament → Parliament repealed The Stamp act.

▪ The Quartering act was passed = Colonial legislatures are supposed to provide certain British troops with with supplies. → Most colonial legislatures refused.

▪ The Townsend acts

- The land tax in Britain had been lowered and to compensate for this Charles Townsend promised that he would tax the Americans.

▪ The British abandon most of their military posts in the West (it’s too expensive for Britain to keep them there) and decides to let the colonies handle the Indian trade. → Instead they place 2 regiments in Boston to maintain order there.

▪ After stationing troops in Boston there had been constant bickering between them and the people in Boston. It all comes to it’s peak when 5 colonials are killed (Boston massacre.) This event convinced the Americans that the British wanted to rule them with armed force.

▪ The Townsend acts are repealed

- The opposition agains the Townsend acts was very effective in cutting British exports to America → British merchants complained → Parliamnent realised the absurdity of the acts and repealed all of the Townsend acts exept the one on tea. It was kept to demonstrate Britains right to tax the colonies.

Revolutionery parties (by Kinga)

▪ Called Sons of Libery or Popular group

▪ Consisted of middle-class people, such as: sailors, workingmen small shopkeepers, artisans and other

▪ Were very agains aristocracy and the British measurments

▪ Needed very good and strong leaders who could control the people, a few of these were: Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, Richard Henry Lee and Cristopher Gadsen of South Carolina. But the best and the most known leader was Simon Adams.

Temporary reaction

▪ The failure of the revolutionary parties. Confusion broke out when the party of New York found out that majority of the town wanted to give up the nonimportation. The party cancelled their agreements and the other towns followed their move. The aristocracy took therefore back control over the colonies.

The Burning of the Gaspee.

▪ The popular groups (revolutionary parties) tricks the aristocracy and Britain to make their hidden organisation official. They did that by telling Britain to establish an intercolonial committee of correspondance. Bacuase Britain wanted to find the guilty praties for the burning of the British ship Gaspee. Why they did that is because they found out that the judges of the Massachuttes Superior Court were paid their salaries out of British customs revenues instead of by the colonial legislature.

The tea act (by Rasmus)
The East India Company that was a famous trading company endured hard times during the 1770s. One of their major problems was the increasing taxation of tea when exporting to America.

The British government responded in May 1773 to this by a program, The tea act, that would extend the assistance to East India Company and give them monopoly.

In England they thought that they would be happy because the Americans would be able to drink tea at a lower price than before. Ships loaded with 500,000 pounds of tea set of for the colonies in America in September 1773.

The Boston Tea party

The colonial leaders called to a town meeting and decided and declared that when the boats docked in the harbour it would be an attack of the liberties of America.

The town meeting ordered the boats to turn around, but they refused. Men disguised as Mohawk Indians boarded the ships and dumped the tea into the sea. In other cities hordes of people prevented the landing of new tea or forcing it to be stocked into governmental buildings.

The Intolerable Acts

Not all Americans agreed with the Boston tea party-action and some powerful business men offered to pay for the damages. King George wanted to punish the Americans so the British Parliament passed a set of laws; these laws were soon called The Intolerable Acts.

The Intolerable Acts meant several things; No more town meetings, the tea had to be paid for before they were to open the harbour again, you could be judged in a British court.
This leads to several severe problems. When the harbour was closed no shipments with food could be delivered to the colony. Many colonies replied to Bostons cry for help and sent them supplies.

About the American constitution

(By : Emil Christoffersson PDP)

Senate: In a federal system, the senate often serves a balancing effect by giving a larger share of power to regions and groups which would otherwise be overwhelmed in a purely representative system. In the legislatures of U.S. states, Senates were also used for this purpose until the 1963 case of Baker v. Carr, in which the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that state legislatures must apportion seats in both houses according to population. However, there are still typically fewer members of a state Senate than there are members of the lower house.

In the United States, each of its member states has a Senate and a lower chamber, known variously as the House of Representatives, House of Delegates, General Assembly or Assembly, except for the state of Nebraska, where the Senate is the only body of a unicameral legislature.

House of representatives: The United States House of Representatives is one of the two houses of the Congress of the United States. Each state is represented in the House proportional to its population, but each state is entitled to at least one Representative. The total number of Representatives is currently fixed at 435, each of whom serve two-year terms. Congress has the power to alter the total membership. The presiding officer of the House is known as the Speaker.

The bicameral Congress arose from the desire of the Founding Fathers to create a "house of the people" that would closely resemble and follow public opinion, and a more deliberative, learned and reserved Senate which would be less susceptible to the frenzies of mass sentiment. It is conventional to consider the House as the "lower house", and the Senate as the "upper house", although the U.S. Constitution does not use such language. The Constitution provides that the approval of both houses is necessary for the passage of legislation.

President: The President of the United States of America (often abbreviated to "POTUS") is the head of state of the United States. Under the U.S. Constitution, the President is also the chief executive of the federal government and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces.

Because of the superpower status of the United States, the American President is widely considered to be the most powerful person on the earth, and is usually one of the world's best-known public figures. During the Cold War, the President was sometimes referred to as "the leader of the free world," a phrase that is still invoked today.

The United States was the first nation to create the office of President as the head of state in a modern republic. Today the office is widely emulated all over the world in nations with a presidential system of government.

The 43rd and current President of the United States is George W. Bush. His first term was 2001–2005; his second term began in 2005 and will end in 2009.

Supreme Court - the highest court in the judicial branch of the United States government, and the only court specifically mentioned in the Constitution. It consists of a Chief Justice and eight other Associate Justices. The Supreme Court is the "court of last resort" for appeals-the final authority on any questions dealing with the Constitution, acts of Congress, and treaties of the United States. The only way to get around a Supreme Court decision is to amend the Constitution or have the Supreme Court itself reverses the decision. If a case is decided by the US Supreme Court, it cannot be appealed anywhere else.