MY FATHER’S AMERICA

VOLUME FOUR

THE BIRTH OF A NATION

CHAPTER ONE: AN AMERICAN NATION 

CHAPTER TWO: THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION

CHAPTER THREE: LAUNCHING THE NEW GOVERNMENT 

CHAPTER FOUR: A NEW CENTURY – A NEW PEOPLE  

APPENDIX: ADMINISTRATIONS

CHAPTER ONE:  AN AMERICAN NATION

“No part of the world,” observed a London newspaper in 1791, “affords, at this time, a more pleasing prospect to the lovers of mankind than the United States of America.”  Novelists and poets wrote of ideal societies about to be created in the still unknown and unexplored woodlands of America, picturing life beyond the Alleghenies as the most enviable future that could befall any man.  It was the common thread that wove through the romantic literature of England, France, and Germany in the last decades of the 18th century.  Discomforted and ambitious men everywhere were beginning to think of America as a practical alternative.  This was nothing new, of course, but in a newly independent country like these United States there seemed far more opportunities than had been available in provinces exploited by English masters.

But unlike previous generations, the immigrants of the late 18th century were no longer refugees; now they came to “better themselves” in a land where they could escape the traditional limitations on their present status.  To acquire enough land on which to build a cottage was a hopeless dream in most European countries, but in the United States, where land was the support of most life, the possession of such land was not limited to a favored few who passed it on from one generation to another, but could be had for a relatively modest sum – in fact, it could even be purchased on easy credit.  And taxes in this new country were ridiculously small, much smaller than in any other civilized country.  There were virtually no paupers either, for in America one could always begin again, even again and again.  Bankruptcy, which in the rigid system of European society spelled the tragic end of a career and reputation, might in America be merely another step in life’s experiences.

Many who might have profited by going to America, however, knew very little about it.  American travelers in Europe, even as late as the 1820s, were amazed to find that many Old World residents knew next to nothing about their home country.  Much of this ignorance was intentional, as governments everywhere long discouraged emigration.  English artisans, for example, prior to the mid-1820s were prohibited from emigrating, and their government certainly did nothing to educate them about such potential opportunities.  And with war widespread all over Europe during the late 1700s and early 1800s, conscription and impressment by their governments kept many a European from finding his destiny in far-off America.  All in all, there were few periods in all American history when immigration was so inconsequential as it was between 1790 and 1815.  During none of these years did the total ever exceed 6,000 people; by contrast, in the unrestricted immigration a century later, this number would often be reached in a single day.