God brought the nation of Israel out of slavery out of the land of Egypt and settled it in a land flowing with milk and honey. But soon the Israelites forgot about God and His guidelines. As a result the nation was attacked, broke up and eventually was overtaken by another empire and the Israelites exiled.
Discovering America
When America was
discovered by Christopher Columbus in 1492 there was no nation established
there. Various tribes of Indians lived independently from each other of
the land but did not really own it.
At the same time Europe kept going through seemingly endless power
struggles and many wars. Kings, lords, aristocrats and the catholic
church with the pope were fighting for the upper hand. The common
people, who were mostly farmers and craftsmen had to pay for it and
suffered the most.
Concerning the Faith, the common people had to rely on what
was preached from the pulpits of the mostly catholic churches. While
England enjoyed some more independence and an English bible by John Wycliff,
central Europe had to listen to Latin bible readings which few people
understood and the catholic church desired to keep it that way. After
Gutenberg had invented the book printing around 1440 and Martin Luther
(both German) in 1521 translated the bible mostly from
texts in the original languages into German, drastic changes in the church and society followed.
Continuous economical and ecclesiastical oppression of the masses
through kings and the catholic church triggered the search for other
ways and places to live.
Putting their life on the line the first migrants to America set sail. Various groups of Christian faith like the Puritans, Calvinists, the Quakers, Catholics and others for the first time lived peacefully together in the same country enjoying life, liberty and the pursued of happiness.
The birth of the United States of America
Already in 1584 Virginia was founded as a settlement
and soon colony.
To assure legal status and protection from neighboring settlements a
charter (first Virginia charter)
was obtained from the King of England placing the settlement under the
authority of the English crown. Many other settlements in New England
were started in a similar fashion.
Most of the first settlements struggled to just survive. Therefore
compacts were formed among the settlers to assure support for each other
and a work towards the "common good". Only in a tight
knit group survival was possible. The
Mayflower Compact is probably the
most famous among many.
A synthesis between compact and charter let over time to the first
constitutions. While a compact merely organizes the living together of
people and a charter places this body of politics under the law of
England a constitution takes self government to a whole new level. It
lays the foundation for government institutions like legislative, executive and judiciary and
regulates their purpose and work. Important to note is, that people in
the colonies thought themselves to be equal with English citizens and
their state government equal with the English parliament but never under
the authority of said parliament. Eventually being taxed by the English
parliament was viewed to be illegal and against English law by the
colonists. The Pilgrims Code of
Law is one example for an early constitution.
Soon after Virginia was started other
states followed, all with the backing of the British crown. For the most
part the American colonies enjoyed self government. During the reign of
the English king George III direct taxes were imposed and the
British government ruled more into the inner business and local matters of the colonies
then ever before. While the British people were represented in the
British government through their parliament, the Americans had no voice
and no vote in this government, that was taking their money and told
them what to do.
In 1774 Thomas Jefferson, the probably most broadly and deeply educated
man America has ever had, drafted "A
Summary view of the
Rights of British America". It provided a legal, historical and
political analysis of the rights of the English colonists in America and
accused the British Crown of ignoring and abusing those rights. But the
British government did not think of Americans as citizens with rights
and ignored their request to address their grievances.
Resistance against the acts of the British government in the colonies
grew and the British army began the bloodshed in Massachusetts, which
would lead to the war of independence.
In 1776 the Continental Congress, a convention of delegates of the 13 states, appointed Thomas Jefferson, a Virginia delegate, to compose and write a declaration addressing the king of England. This paper was later called by the people the Declaration of Independence.
Jefferson had studied the institutes of government throughout history. He discovered that at one time the Israelites beginning at Moses had practiced the earliest and most efficient form of representative government. As long as the Israelites followed their fixed pattern of constitutional principles they flourished. When they drifted from it, disaster overtook them. Jefferson thereafter referred to this constitutional pattern as the "ancient principles." He found some of those ancient principles again in the government of the Anglo-Saxon until the eighth century. The Anglo-Saxon are tribes, that migrated from northern Germany and created the English nation. Eight of those ancient principles Jefferson worked into the declaration of Independence. He rejected any kind of aristocracy and put all his efforts into promoting a republican (latin: res publica = matter of the people) form of government.
During the war of independence the United States functioned under the
Articles of Confederation. This was a rather weak form of
government, which almost lead to the loss of the war, because it did not
provide any means for Congress to raise taxes. Without taxes however the
funding of the army relied on voluntary giving of the individual states.
When George Washington after his draft to commander-in-chief arrived at
"his" army in July 1775, he found a rather disorganized bunch of ragtag
adventurers besieging the British at Boston. The lack of supplies went
on through the whole war. Death by starvation and winter freezing was
rampant and desertions wide spread. Despite the circumstances Washington
won the war with some reluctant help of the French and some remote help
by Spain fighting England in other places of the world.
A number of miracles accompanied Washington's army to victory. A timely
fog, a timely flooded river and a hurricane blowing against the red
coats even led British general Cornwallis wonder, that God must be
fighting on Washington's side.
When the war subsided Washington's officers wanted to make him king in
lack of leadership by the Congress. But Washington did everything to
prevent this and not squander the victory for another tyrannical form of
government. Shortly after he had to prevent his officers from setting up
a military dictatorship. Since these kind of thoughts would not leave
the American army, George Washington pleaded with the governor of every
state and Congress itself to call a constitutional convention.
After a
peace treaty with the British was signed in 1783, Washington resigned by
the end of that year to finally go to his home and family. But after the
problem of war was solved the problem to govern the freedom arose
dramatically. The soldiers that won the war for the American people
still had not been paid. The individual states used inflation to pay
their debt. Depression, exorbitant taxes and riots occurred.
Britain, Spain, which dug itself in along the Gulf coast and many
Americans themselves expected the United States to collapse soon.
In 1787 the miracle began with the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. Part of the miracle was for example that many of the delegates from the various states had to borrow money to go to the convention. (tell that a senator or congressman today). Two of the greatest leaders could not attend at all. John Adams was serving as minister to England and Thomas Jefferson to France. But the brain of many disciplines, Thomas Jefferson had trained a number of delegates like James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Samuel Adams, John Adams, John Jay, Alexander Hamilton, George Wythe and James Wilson by in depth correspondence and conversations. Jefferson had sent over 100 carefully selected books to James Madison and George Wythe. Madison made himself a walking encyclopedia of history and political philosophy of governments. Detailed communication of thoughts, theories and history among the delegates further cross-fertilized their varied perspectives. In terms of experience and professional training, the 55 delegates represented a cross-section of the most capable men in the country.
On May 25th there were finally enough delegates from the
states present to commence the convention. A heated discussion quickly
arose over the various drafts from each state with no agreements in
sight. Therefore on Jun 28 Benjamin Franklin, who's age of 81 years by
far superceded the average of 41 years of the delegates, made his famous
plea for prayer.
With much prayer now only one month later the principal issues had
been sufficiently settled. In another month the details were hammered
out and the draft was refined in style by a skilled lawyer. On September
17 1787 the vast majority of the delegates signed the
Constitution.
The controversy over this totally new form of government was huge. Thousands felt compelled to study it. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay and James Madison started a series of newspaper articles, known as the Federalist Papers, to support and explain the new Constitution. And only after a Bill of Rights was promised several of the larger states withdrew their opposition.
9 states out of the 13 had to ratify the
new Constitution for it
to go into effect. This happened on June 21 1788. Presidential electors
were chosen by each state on January 7 1789 - some elected by the state
legislature, some by the people themselves.
On April 6 1789 both houses convened for the first time and officially
counted the electoral votes. Without any political parties in existence
many candidates were anticipated. However George Washington, former
commander of the confederate army, was elected unanimously as the first
President of the new born United States of America.
For the Bill of Rights 189 amendments were submitted to Congress. James Madison boiled these down to 17, Congress approved 12 of them, of which the states ratified 10, effective December 15 1791.
The process how the founding fathers arrived at a federal republic with a Congress, a President and a Judiciary, is explained under American Republic.