Hello, and welcome to this video! I'm going to completely explain every aspect of the legislative branch. Okay, just kidding. This is actually going to be a brief overview. Let's begin at the near beginning with the U.S. Constitution. The very first thing the Constitution discusses, after the we the people bit, is our topic today. It opens with, "All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives." The two other branches of the U.S. Government are the executive and judicial. The legislative branch is responsible for writing the laws, the executive for enforcing them, and the judicial for ensuring that those laws are Constitutional and for adjudicating disputes between citizens and the government. Having three branches of government creates a balance of power, which helps to prevent a group of people or even a single person from exercising too much control over the country. The U.S. has what's called a bicameral legislature, simply meaning there are two separate chambers (or houses) within that branch of government. This is done in an attempt to balance the interests of the population with the interests of the states. These two chambers of the legislature form what we call the Congress. Currently the House of Representatives has 435 voting members and the Senate has 100. There are always two senators per state, but the number of Representatives per state varies based on the population of a state. Section two of the Constitution concerns the House of Representatives: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature." A couple notes: If you are curious about what electors are and how they work, check out our video on the electoral college. There are several other rules regarding qualifications of representatives, such as age and citizenship but we won't discuss all of those here. The House of Representatives has several powers, including: the power to initiate revenue bills, impeach federal officials, and elect the president in the case of an electoral college tie. Section three of the Constitution details the Senate: "The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six Years; and each Senator shall have one Vote." Note that this clause has been modified by the 17th amendment, which changed the election method from state legislatures to popular vote. I said previously, the chief role of Congress is law making. The life of a law is as follows: First, a Representative proposes a law, which is called a bill. The bill is then studied by a committee. If the bill makes it through committee, the bill is put on a calendar to be voted on, debated, or amended. If the bill passes by a House majority of 218 out of 435, it moves to the Senate, where it is assigned to another committee and, if approved, gets debated and voted on. Again, a Senate majority (51 out of 100) passes the bill. Lastly, a committee consisting of House and Senate members rectify any differences between the House and Senate versions of the bill, before sending it to the House and Senate for final approval. The president has ten days to sign or veto the completed bill. Much of the actual work of Congress is done in the committees and subcommittees. There are some two hundred of them. The idea is that working on a committee allows a member to specialize in a certain area of knowledge or policy. According to the Senate, "Due to the high volume and complexity of its work, the Senate divides its tasks among twenty permanent committees, four joint committees, and occasionally temporary committees. The Senate has established guidelines for committees, but each committee adopts its own roles and procedures. Standing committees generally have legislative jurisdiction. Subcommittees tackle specific areas of jurisdiction under the full committee, while select and joint committees generally provide oversight or deal with routine housekeeping responsibilities." Now, let's dive into how Congress relates to other branches of our federal government, namely the executive branch, or office of the president, and the judicial branch, which includes the Supreme Court. The relationship between the president and Congress is often strained. Checks and balances frequently allow one of the two to check the other. First, the legislative branch basically holds the Nation's purse strings, so, while the president proposes a budget, Congress is the actual entity that decides how much gets spent and where. The president can veto legislation (or laws) that Congress agrees upon, but Congress can override the president's veto with a two-thirds majority. Any treaty the president makes with foreign powers is subject to Congressional approval. There are even more checks and balances in this relationship, but we're running out of time, so let's talk judicial. Congress does not get to pick candidates for the Supreme Court, the president does that, but they do get to approve or disapprove of those selections. The House of Representatives also has impeachment powers over federal officials, (including the president) which means that they can level legal charges against an elected official, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court will oversee the proceedings as the Senate will try the case. If two-thirds finds that person guilty, then they will be removed from office. After this review, I hope you're feeling prepped and empowered. Thank you so much for watching. Hello there! In this video we will be learning about one of the three branches of American government: the judicial branch. We've got videos on the other two branches so be sure to check those out as well! Briefly, I want to take you back to a founding document of our country, the U.S. Constitution. This document established the government and is crucial for understanding how things were originally designed to work. Now, the U.S. government was created with checks and balances built-in. This prevents any one person or group of persons from exercising undue influence or control over the government and the country. We have three main branches: the legislative, the House of Representatives and the Senate; the executive, which is the President; and the judicial, which is the Supreme Court. According to the Constitution, the legislative branch (known as Congress when referring to both houses) is responsible for writing the laws, the executive is responsible for enforcing them, and the judicial branch is responsible for helping interpret the laws and how they should be enforced. Now, article three of the Constitution established the judicial branch with these words: "The judicial Power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior Courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish." The scope and duty of the court system is described later: "The judicial Power shall extend to all Cases, in Law and Equity, arising under this Constitution, the laws of the United States, and Treaties made, or which shall be made, under their Authority;— ...to Controversies between two or more States;—between a State and Citizens of another State;—between Citizens of different States, —between Citizens of the same State claiming Lands under Grants of different States, and between a State, or the Citizens thereof, and foreign States, Citizens or Subjects." Okay, now that was many mouthfuls. Notice that the scope is federal—states have their own laws and court systems. We'll get to that more later, but for now it's enough to remember that the Supreme Court deals with federal issues. Currently, the Supreme Court is comprised of nine judges who are appointed for life by the executive branch and must be confirmed by the Senate. There is one Chief Justice and eight Associate Justices. The Supreme Court is located in Washington DC, and you are able to visit the building and allowed to sit in on proceedings. This is done in an effort to build trust in the institution, as we're more likely to trust something that we can observe. The Supreme Court, often referred to as SCOTUS, is the highest court in America. That means it has the final say on cases within its jurisdiction. I just outlined the basic jurisdiction from section one, but like most things in the Constitution, that has been expanded and defined. It sits atop a structure of appellate (meaning appeals) courts which are a chain of federal courts known as circuit courts that decide all cases of federal law in America. Directly below the Supreme Court are the eleven state circuit courts, the DC circuit, and the federal circuit. You may have heard of the ninth Circuit Court of Appeals: this is the court that covers the ninth region, which includes the entire west coast and several other states, comprising of about twenty percent of the U.S. population. These regions determine where someone brings a case to court: if you live in New Jersey and wish to sue the federal government, you would do so in the third circuit, not in the ninth. Below the circuit courts are the district courts. These are the trial courts that have original jurisdiction over cases. Trial by jury is done only in these courts. If a case is appealed, no juries are used in the higher courts. Judges in these lower courts are also appointed for life by the President with the consent of the Senate. Unlike for the office of the president, there are no specific qualifications laid out in the Constitution for judges. They must, however, adhere to a Code of Conduct which is as follows: "A judge should uphold the integrity and independence of the judiciary. A judge should avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all activities. A judge should perform the duties of the office fairly, impartially, and diligently. A judge may engage in extrajudicial activities that are consistent with the obligations of judicial office. A judge should refrain from political activity." There are various applications of this code, such as not hearing a case judges have personal knowledge or bias in. Before a case can be brought to a federal court, several conditions must be met. According to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Court, these are as follows: "First, under the Constitution, federal courts exercise only judicial powers. This means that federal judges may interpret the law only through the resolution of actual legal disputes, referred to in article three of the Constitution as 'Cases or Controversies'... Second, in an actual case or controversy, the plaintiff (the person bringing the case before the court) in a federal lawsuit must also have legal 'standing' to ask the court for a decision. That means the plaintiff must have been aggrieved, or legally harmed in some way, by the defendant. Third, the case must present a category of dispute that the law in question was designed to address, and it must be a complaint that the court has the power to remedy. In other words, the court must be authorized, under the Constitution or a federal law, to hear the case and grant appropriate relief to the plaintiff. Finally, the case cannot be 'moot,' that is, it must present an ongoing problem for the court to resolve. The federal courts, thus, are courts of 'limited' jurisdiction because they may only decide certain types of cases as provided by Congress or as they identified in the Constitution. When cases are brought before a court, they are done so in what is called an adversarial manner. This means that the plaintiff or prosecutor (the people who are suing) and the defendant (the people getting sued) present their facts and story to a neutral third-party, the judge. The two parties are responsible for doing whatever they legally can to make their best case. There are two types of cases that you can bring before an American court: criminal and civil. According to the Administrative Office of the US Court, "To begin a civil lawsuit in federal court, the plaintiff files a complaint with the court and 'serves' a copy of the complaint on the defendant. The complaint describes the plaintiff's damages or injury, explains how the defendant caused the harm, shows that the court has jurisdiction, and asks the court to order relief. A plaintiff may seek money to compensate for the damages, or may ask the court to order the defendant to stop the conduct that is causing that harm. The judicial process in a criminal case differs from a civil case in several important ways. At the beginning of the federal criminal case, the principal actors are the U.S. attorney and the grand jury. The U.S. attorney represents the United States in most court proceedings, including all criminal prosecutions. The grand jury reviews evidence presented by the U.S. attorney and decides whether there is sufficient evidence to require a defendant to stand trial. Grand juries have 12 -23 people, and are designed to help the prosecutor determine if they possess enough evidence to indict (that is, to bring a formal accusation of a crime against) a suspect, then bring them before the court to stand trial. The other, probably more understood jury, is the trial jury. Criminal juries have twelve jurors, and civil juries usually have between six and twelve. Decisions must be unanimous. Trial juries are responsible for ascertaining "beyond a reasonable doubt" if the defendant is guilty based exclusively off the evidence presented by the prosecution and the rebuttals made by the defendant. The fifth amendment to the U.S. Constitution grants people the right to a grand jury, noting that, "No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when an actual service in time of War or public danger." Grand jury serve an important role in the American legal system. They come into play before a trial. Trial juries determine if someone is guilty while the grand juries evaluate evidence to determine if they are probably guilty. If at the least 12 of the 23 jurors agree, then the grand jury indicts the suspect, and the case goes to trial. But the federal courts aren't the only court system. Again, from the Administrative Office of the US Court: "...the great majority of legal disputes in American courts, civil or criminal, are addressed in the separate state court systems. State courts have jurisdiction over virtually all divorce and child custody matters, probate and inheritance issues, real estate questions, and juvenile matters, they handle most criminal cases, contract disputes, traffic violations, and personal injury cases. In addition, certain categories of legal disputes may be resolved in special courts or entities that are part of the federal executive or legislative branches or state and federal administrative agencies." Alright, that's all I've got! To fully understand any of the three branches of our government would take an entire college-level course, if not more. If you're curious to learn more after you've watched this video, we have a handful of other videos relating to American government and history. But, on to our topic. In order to comprehend any aspect of American governance, one must begin at the almost-beginning: the United States Constitution, which began the ratification process in 1787. Remember that when the British colonies in America rebelled and left the empire, they were intentionally leaving a system of governance that had one absolutely sovereign person in charge of virtually everything (theoretically at least). There are advantages to a monarchy, but there are also disadvantages, and the framers of the Constitution decided that they would like a different system— one with built-in checks and balances. Hence the three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The president and vice president (and all of their ever-growing number of staff) form the executive branch. The House of Representatives and Senate are the legislative branch, and the Supreme Court (and all of the lower federal courts) comprise the judicial branch. Those three groups must work together. For example, there are certain things the president cannot do without direct approval by Congress (the name we use when we're talking about both the House of Representatives and the Senate), and any laws that Congress passes must be signed by the President. Those laws can then be challenged, interpreted, or nullified in the court system. This system is designed so that no one person, or group of persons, is able to exercise an inordinate amount of authority. Article two of the Constitution created and defined the executive office. You should go read the whole thing, but I'll quote some important sections here so we can begin to understand the office of the president. Article two begins with, "The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America. He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected as follows..." Then paragraph two through four explain the electoral college—another check and balance that serves a purpose but is often confusing. Unfortunately, we don't have time to go into that right now. Paragraph five decrees that, "No person except a natural born citizen... shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years..." Paragraph six describes the transfer of power from the president to the vice president in the event of an extenuating circumstance: "In Case of the Removal of the President from Office, or of his Death, Resignation, or Inability to discharge the Powers and Duties of the said Office, the Same shall devolve on the Vice President..." Paragraph seven allows for the president to be paid, and paragraph 8 prescribes this oath of office: "I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States." Section two begins to enumerate the duties and powers of the president: "The president shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States," and, "he shall have Power to Grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States, except in Cases of Impeachment." In paragraph two of section two you can see the checks and balances that the framers implemented: "[The president] shall have Power, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, to make Treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senator's present concur; and he shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint Ambassadors, other public Ministers, and Consuls, Judges of the Supreme Court, and all other Officers of the United States, whose Appointments are not herein otherwise provided for, and which shall be established by Law: but the Congress may by Law vest the Appointment of such inferior Officers, as they think proper, in the President alone, in the Courts of Law, or in the Heads of Departments." Okay, I know this has been a lot, and it's all written in two hundred thirty plus year old language that you're probably not familiar with, but this is absolutely crucial to understanding our government and our country. There's just a couple more short things I want to pull from the Constitution, and then I'll attempt to explain some of these elements and talk about more modern history. The third section of article two reads as follows: "He shall from time to time give to the Congress Information of the State of the Union, and recommend to their Consideration such Measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient; he may, on extraordinary Occasions, convene both Houses, or either of them, and in case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper; he shall receive Ambassadors and other public Ministers; he shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed, and shall Commission all the Officers of the United States." That last part has become something very often used: the executive order. There's no specific mention of so-called "executive orders" in the Constitution, but they seem to have begun with George Washington, and built up over time into the form they take now. Abraham Lincoln was the first president to use them as we currently do. In fact, his Emancipation Proclamation, a tactical maneuver during the Civil War, was an executive order. Currently, they carry the full weight of the law, but the Supreme Court has decreed the executive orders must align with current legislation, and some have been reversed if they ventured too far into the new legislation category; the president is supposed to execute on Congressional law, not create his own. The last section in article two describes impeachment. But we can't forget the vice president. Although to be fair, the VP hasn't always been regarded as a particularly memorable position. John Adams, this country's first federal vice president, complained to his wife that, "my Country has in its Wisdom contrived for me the most insignificant Office that ever the Invention of Man contrived or his Imagination conceived..." Constitutionally speaking, the vice president has an extremely limited function. His main role is to assume the presidency in case something happens to the president. Which, while it's happened a few times, mostly means a lot of waiting around. The VP is constitutionally the President of the Senate, except he has no vote unless there's a tie vote. But as you can imagine, with the growth in size and scope of the federal government, the vice president has found ways to keep himself busy. While the president and vice president are probably the most well-known members of the executive branch, the Cabinet also plays an important role. This is the advisory body that consists of the heads of the fifteen executive departments and several other agencies that report directly to the president —in some ways, they form the president's inner circle. The executive agencies are: Agriculture, Commerce, Defense, Education, Energy, Health and Human Services, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Interior, Labor, State, Transportation, Treasure, Veterans Affairs, and the Attorney General. Additionally, the Cabinet includes the White House Chief of Staff and heads of the Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Management and Budget, United States Trade Representative, United States Mission to the United Nations, and Small Business Administration. The members of the Cabinet made change with the president. Side note: these departments have mostly been created within the past hundred years by Acts of Congress. So, next time you see a news headline, or have a test question about the executive branch, you'll know what's up. Hi, and welcome to this video on the drafting of the American Constitution. In this video, we will look at the historical background, examine the debates and key decisions made, and explore the aftermath of the convention. The American Revolutionary War came to an end with the treaty of Paris, which was signed on September 3rd 1783. One of the most important aspects of the treaty was not just British recognition of American independence, but also the definition of the United States border. This resulted in a very large grant of new lands to the US: the Northwestern Territory. Five new states north of the Ohio River would be established and admitted into the union. At a stroke, the size of the United States had effectively doubled, and the foundations for the great westward expansion which would take place in the following century had been laid. The central government of the United States at this time was extremely limited in its power. The Articles of Confederation had been drafted around the same time as the Declaration of Independence and were finally ratified in 1781. The Articles of Confederation granted the Congress of the Confederation the power to declare war, raise an army, and negotiate trade but little to no ability to raise funds. Any changes to the Articles required the agreement of nine of the thirteen colonies to pass and could not overrule the state assemblies. It was apparent to many that the Articles were more of a temporary wartime measure than a long-term solution. A small convention of five states met in Annapolis in 1786 to discuss the possibility of amending the Articles of Confederation. The inadequacy of the present set-up was exposed by an armed uprising in Massachusetts from 1786 to 1787 against the local government's handling of war debts and taxation. The rebellion was led by Daniel Shays, a veteran of the American Revolution. The inability of the government to provide a force to suppress the rebellion (the militia which defeated Shays' followers was privately funded) led to calls for a much stronger central government. Delegates from every state, except Rhode Island, agreed to meet in Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation in May 1787. On May 28th the convention agreed to keep proceeding secret and to allow delegates to reconsider any issue previously raised. This would allow the delegates to carefully consider measures at the cost of making swift progress. At the beginning of the convention, it wasn't actually clear how far the discussions were to go. Would the delegates simply revise certain parts of the Articles of Confederation or throw them out completely? What would be known as the Virginia Plan would soon set the tone of the convention. As the name implies, the plan came from the delegates from Virginia, one of the largest states in the Union. The plan was written by James Madison but presented by Edmond Randolph. One of the great sticking points of the Articles of Confederation for large states like Virginia, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania was the nine-of-thirteen-states requirement for change. Although about half of the population lived in the three largest states, they were hamstrung by the per-state voting laws which greatly favored smaller states. The Virginia Plan proposed two legislative bodies and a system of courts to oversee legal matters. Power would flow from the first branch, which would select the second branch, and both would select the judges and the president. What made the plan controversial was the fact that the number of members of the first branch, the future House of Representatives, was to be decided by the number of free men in each state. The question of how slaves should be considered in calculating the number of representatives for each state would lead to the infamous three-fifths Compromise. The cost of Southern support was to count each slave as three-fifths of a person, meaning states with very large slave populations would gain many representatives. The smaller states countered the Virginia Plan with the New Jersey Plan. The latter plan looked to revise rather than replace the Articles of Confederation. The main points of the plan were to have a single legislative body and to retain the per-state voting and the nine-of-thirteen states agreement for bills to pass. By July, little progress had been made and some delegates were threatening to dissolve the convention without passing a resolution. To save the convention, the greatly respected elder statesman Benjamin Franklin offered a compromise: two legislative branches, one determined by proportional representation and the other by states. Franklin himself was more in favor of a single body chosen by the people but realized a compromised solution was better than none at all. On July 16th, the compromise was passed by a narrow margin. At the end of July, the delegates took an eleven-day break and a small committee of five delegates from across the Union compiled the first draft of the Constitution. The convention rejoined on the 6th of August and debated the new document before them. By this point of the convention there was a great feeling of urgency to wrap things up, and a tendency to defer finer details of the discussion to committees. The addition of a Bill of Rights was proposed but rejected very late in the convention. Crucially, the convention added the mechanism for amending the Constitution at a later date. For the final draft of the Constitution, the Committee of Style condensed twenty-three articles into seven and greatly streamlined the text. The best-known example was the preamble of the Constitution. What now reads as "We the people of the United States..." had initially been "We the people of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New Jersey, etc." The document was written in broad terms, avoiding too much detail and allowing for interpretation. It was written to provide checks and balances and to avoid any one branch of the government from having too much power. Unsurprisingly, with such an array of conflicting interests and priorities among the delegates present, the final document was deeply controversial. Some even called for another convention the following year but this was sharply rejected by those who had toiled for four months to complete the Constitution. Thirty-nine delegates chose to affix their name to the final draft, accepting the compromises and imperfections as necessary evils to maintain the Union. Eventually, all thirteen original states ratified the Constitution from December 1787 to may 1790. Rhode Island, absent from the convention, was the last state to ratify, passing by just two votes. Twelve amendments came in the first fifteen years following the ratification of the Constitution. The first ten are amongst the most important rights in the United States today. Free speech, legal protections, and other key liberties came with the original document but were augmented in the amendments which followed. Of course, the lofty ideals about rights and liberty were not realized when a substantial proportion of the population was born into slavery. The three-fifths Compromise empowered the slave states for decades after the Constitution was signed and the failure to address the elephant in the room in the 18th century, helped create the conditions for the bloodiest war in American history in the 19th. But that's a topic for another lesson. One of the most controversial parts of the Constitution, especially in more recent years, is in the election of the President of the United States. The 12th amendment of 1804 resolved the matter of electing the President and Vice President. The president of the United States is elected not by the people directly but by the Electors of the Electoral College. This mechanism has so far allowed four presidents to win the presidency without winning the popular vote. The Constitution of the United States is a remarkably durable document, skillfully written with scope for change, allowing it to retain its relevance for more than two centuries. As we have seen with this overview, there were a huge number of challenges to overcome from the outset. The weakness of the Articles of Confederation required substantial revision to create a new type of government for an emerging nation. Over the course of four months in the summer of 1787, at the same site where the Declaration of Independence was written, the Constitution of the United States was drafted. Significant compromises were made and a high price was paid to get the Constitution through, but the delegates who made up the convention ultimately succeeded in their goal in creating a new form of government. Before we go, let's look at a few review questions: Number one: Which state did not attend the convention? A) North Carolina B) New Hampshire C) Delaware Or D) Rhode Island The answer is D, Rhode Island. There were several reasons Rhode Island did not attend, the most notable being its staunch adherence to the Articles of Confederation. Number two: Which of the following powers did the government lack under the terms of the Articles of Confederation? A) to raise taxes B) to negotiate trade C) to declare war Or D) none of these The answer is A, to raise taxes. The states were given the power to tax under the Articles of Confederation, not the government. Number three: What was the main aim of the Virginia Plan? A) lowering taxes B) a standing army C) proportional representation Or D) state representation The answer is C, proportional representation. The Virginia Plan looked to revise the disproportionate influence smaller states enjoyed under the Articles of Confederation. Thanks for watching, and happy studying! The term "Manifest Destiny," coined in a partisan newspaper in 1845, became synonymous with the ambition and scope of American territorial expansionism. By the 1840s, that urge of expansion had made major strides. The doctrine of Manifest Destiny led the United States into war with Mexico, with Native American tribes populating the country's western territories, and eventually with Spain for control of overseas colonial possessions. The concept of the United States having a Manifest Destiny to expand in size westward across the North-American continent was a long-standing fascination dating back to the founding of the country. But it was more than just territorial enlargement. Under Manifest Destiny, territorial enlargement was necessary because of the exceptionalism of the U.S. as a quasi-democratic society and defender of liberties. As for a material beginning of Manifest Destiny, we can look back to 1803 when Thomas Jefferson inked the Louisiana Purchase with Napoleon, doubling the territory of the U.S. overnight. President Jefferson was committed to using the gains to build what he called an "empire of liberty" with western settlers, whom he envisioned as self-sufficient farmers upholding the ideals on which the country was founded. The territorial ambitions of the westward-looking policy expansion received energetic support from Andrew Jackson, who invaded Florida in 1818, with the resulting Adams-Onis Treaty bringing that territory into the U.S. and also laying an official American claim to the Oregon Country in the Pacific Northwest. The concept of Manifest Destiny was gaining traction – and moral strength from religious influences. It was widely believed by proponents that Americans were chosen by God to expand their republic from the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean. Americans, so the thinking went, had an obligation to expand the size and global power of their country to extend the benefits of their moral mission to as many people as possible. President Jackson also oversaw a massive American settlement of southern and southeastern territories that displaced Native American tribes, who were forced to sign their lands over to the U.S. and relocate west of the Mississippi River, under what became known as the Trail of Tears. This treatment of indigenous peoples sparked occasional outbursts of sympathy from certain sectors of the American population, but the calls for land grabs were getting louder. The narrow-minded outlook of a supposedly universalist Manifest Destiny continued to create contradictions, especially in U.S. relations with its southwestern neighbor Mexico, which had become independent from Spain in 1821. The Mexican government had encouraged settlement by individuals in its territory of Texas, using land grants and American settlers soon came flooding in. However, these American immigrants repaid their Mexican benefactors not with gratitude but with contempt, as they began openly defying Mexican authority. It all erupted into violence in the early 1830s, with American Texans declaring their independence from Mexico in 1836. Shortly after taking office in 1845, President Polk negotiated 49 degrees north latitude as the border between American Oregon territory and British Canada, comprising the states of Washington, Oregon, Idaho and parts of Wyoming and Montana. And the next prize was Mexico's territory to the west of Texas. As a deliberate provocation, in June 1845, Polk sent a force under Zachary Taylor ostensibly to defend American settlers in Texas, but really to seek a pretext to spark war for more Mexican lands. He even told commanders of the U.S. Pacific naval fleet to seize Californian ports preemptively if war erupted. Taylor's troops marched 150 miles south of the Nueces River – the traditional Texas-Mexico border – all the way to the Rio Grande, in essence invading Mexico. Justifiably, the Mexican army attacked Taylor's force near the Rio Grande, and President Polk then had the pretext for armed conflict he wanted. The U.S. went to war with Mexico in may 1846. The fighting lasted roughly two years and led to the U.S. taking vast territories from Mexico in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. In that treaty, the U.S. agreed to pay 15 million dollars worth of damages to the Mexicans. Also in the treaty Mexico renounced its claim to Texas and was deprived of territories that would become part of the states of New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Wyoming, Utah, and California. With the American claim to territory in the Oregon Country already resolved and the Gadsden Purchase of 1853 adding southern territory to Arizona and New Mexico, the United States had opened up enormous tracts of land for settlement. The underside of the bountiful land and freedoms promised by Manifest Destiny was large-scale plundering of wealth and territories controlled by "foreigners," the very same Native Americans and Mexicans who were the original inhabitants of the lands conquered under the expansionist program. Harsh critics were on the scene from the very outset, among them a young politician named Abraham Lincoln, then establishing his status as an Illinois congressman. After hostilities in the Mexican-American War began in 1846, Lincoln emphatically pointed out that President Polk had "...unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced a war with Mexico." Later, General Ulysses S. Grant, one of Lincoln's most effective military commanders in the Civil War, would call the Mexican-American war "the most unjust war ever undertaken by a stronger nation against a weaker one." When Americans began moving in large numbers to the so-called "Far West" in the 1840s, the contradictions inherent in Manifest Destiny exploded even more. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo put roughly 100,000 Mexicans under U.S. jurisdiction. More than 300,000 Native Americans, meanwhile, were already resident on the lands gained through the Louisiana Purchase and the Mexican-American War. The Anglo-Saxon, Protestant overtones of Manifest Destiny posited that Native Americans and Mexicans needed to be shoved out of the way. Violent warfare with these populations was the result. After the Civil War, it reached a frenzy, when the army was able to concentrate its full efforts on "winning the west." In reality, this meant hunting down and even committing genocide against Native Americans. The Battle of Wounded Knee in December 1890, in South Dakota – also called the Massacre of Wounded Knee – marked the end of the series of wars under the Manifest Destiny banner. U.S. troops murdered roughly 300 Lakota, mostly women and children. The sway of the once-mighty Native American tribes was in ruins, and one era of Manifest Destiny was over. It made a brief revival in the 1890s, with the U.S. taking aim at Cuba and managing to take Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Guam, and Hawaii, though the Philippines later revolted and became recognized as an independent nation after World War Two. Okay, we've covered a lot in this video, so let's look at a review question before we go, to see what you can remember: All of the following were instances of support for American territorial expansion under Manifest Destiny, except? A. James K. Polk's 1844 presidential campaign B. Herman Melville's 1815 novel White Jacket C. Abraham Lincoln's public remarks on the Mexican-American war delivered in 1846 Or D. Theodore Roosevelt resigning as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in 1898 to take a military command in Cuba The correct answer is C. Lincoln remarked that President Polk had unnecessarily and unconstitutionally commenced a war with Mexico. Thanks for watching, happy studying. Hi, and welcome to this brief overview of the United States Civil War, its causes, and results... that should be easy enough to do in ten minutes, right? Okay, first, let's just glance at the big picture. The war officially began in 1861 and finished in 1865, but there were lots of things that built up to this over a period of 30-40 years. Let's try to discuss the build-up, real quick. Here's a list of important events and things to know, before we jump in to the big picture: 1828 Congress passed the Tariff of 1828. It is also called the Tariff of Abominations by its opponents in the cotton South. 1830 In North Carolina v. Mann, the Supreme Court of North Carolina, ruled that slave owners had absolute authority over their slaves and could not be found guilty of committing violent acts against them. 1831 Nat Turner's Rebellion 1833 The Compromise Tariff of 1833 The North's pseudo-apology for the Tariff of Abominations 1846 - 1850 The Wilmot Proviso 1850 The Compromise of 1850 1854-1861 Was Bleeding Kansas 1857 Was Dred Scott v. Sanford 1859 Was John Brown's Raid And those are just some of the political issues going on. Economically, the North and South differed in nearly every way. The North was growing in urban populations (people who lived inside of cities), whilst the Southern population remained largely dispersed. The Northern states were increasingly industrialized and had five times the number of factories as the South as well as ninety percent of the nation's skilled workers. The South's economy depended heavily on agriculture and international trade. Therefore, tariffs and import duties weighed extra heavily on the South. Tobacco and cotton were especially important to the economy so weather also impacted their GDP, which was less than half of that of the North. Once the war started, the North would hamstring the South's economy by creating a trade embargo and then out-produce weaponry at a rate of thirty to one. Population-wise, the North contained 2.5 times the number of people, which would mean a vastly outnumbered Southern force. So, now that we've gotten some of our general issues out of the way, let's start a war. Many people will say that the Civil War was all about slavery, but that's only partially true. Yes, some Southern leaders argued it was, men like Alexander H. Stevens, who said, "Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth." But, as with every story, there's more than meets the eye. You see, some Southerners argued it wasn't so much about slavery as it was about the North pushing them around politically and saying they were not allowed to leave the Union. They argued that, just like when the colonies revolted against the oppression of Britain during the American revolution, the southern states had a right to revolt against the oppression of the North. Now, you may be wondering, "uh, what oppression are you talking about? The Southerners are the ones with the slaves!" Well, the South argued that the over-taxation on all their internationally traded goods, the increased centralization of the government (decreasing the power of the States), and the general ridicule for Southern culture was an affront that should not have to be endured. "Simply, that the machinery of the Federal Government, under which we have lived, and which was designed for the common benefit, has been made the means of despoiling the South, to enrich the North;... the workings of the iniquitous tariffs, under the operation of which the South had, in effect, been reduced to a dependent colonial condition, almost as abject, as that of the Roman provinces, under the proconsuls; the only difference being, that smooth-faced hypocrisy had been added to robbery, inasmuch as we had been plundered under the forms of law. We are, in fact, fighting for independence." - General Raphael Semmes The South believed that the Constitution amounted to a contract that could be left freely by a state, since it was originally entered into freely by the States. To which, Lincoln unequivocally said: "No." "I hold that, in contemplation of universal law, and the Constitution, the union of these States is perpetual... it follows that...no State upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union." - President Lincoln So, let's talk the major moments of the war: April 12, 1861- Southern forces fire upon Fort Sumter, South Carolina; the Civil War has formally begun. April 15, 1861- President Lincoln calls for 75,000 militia to stop the rebellion, four additional southern states secede from the Union in the following weeks. Lincoln requests 43,000 more volunteers. On June 3, 1861- A skirmish near Philippi in West Virginia, is the first clash of Union and Confederate forces in the east. On June 10, 1861- Battle of Big Bethel, the first land battle of the war is in Virginia. June 20, 1861-At the culmination of the Wheeling Convention, what later became West Virginia, officially separated from Virginia. July 21, 1861- The Battle of Bull Run (or First Manassas), where Thomas Jonathan Jackson becomes "Stonewall" Jackson. August 10, 1861- Battle of Wilson's Creek, The Confederate victory emphasizes the strong southern presence west of the Mississippi River. August 28-29, 1861- Fort Hatteras at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, falls to Union naval forces. This begins the first Union efforts to close southern ports along the Carolina coast. February 6, 1862- Surrender of Fort Henry, Tennessee. The loss of this southern fort on the Tennessee River opened the door to Union control of the river. February 22, 1862- Jefferson Davis is inaugurated as President of the Confederate States of America. March 9, 1862- The naval battle between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia (the old USS "Merrimack"), is the first "ironclads", fought in Hampton Roads, Virginia. April 24-25, 1862- A Union fleet of gunships under Admiral David Farragut passes Confederate forts guarding the mouth of the Mississippi River. On April 25, the fleet arrived at New Orleans where they demanded the surrender of the city. Within two days the forts falls into Union hands and the mouth of the great river is under Union control. June 6, 1862- The Battle of Memphis, Tennessee; the Mississippi River is now under complete Union control. September 17, 1862- The Battle of Antietam (or Sharpsburg), Maryland, is the bloodiest single day of the U.S. Civil War. January 1, 1863- The Emancipation Proclamation goes into effect. Applauded by many abolitionists including Frederick Douglass, there are others who feel it does not go far enough to totally abolish slavery. March 3, 1863- Conscription, or the drafting of soldiers into military service, begins in the North. It had begun in the South the year before. May 1-4, 1863- The Battle of Chancellorsville, Virginia, is General Lee's greatest victory but results in the death of "Stonewall" Jackson. July 1-3- The Battle of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The bloodiest battle of the Civil War dashes Robert E. Lee's hopes for a successful invasion of the North. July 13, 1863- Draft Riots begin in New York City and elsewhere as disgruntled workers and laborers, seething over the draft system that seemingly favors the rich, attack the draft office and African American churches. The riots continue through July 16. November 19, 1863- Dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg. President Abraham Lincoln delivers the Gettysburg Address. February 17, 1864- Is the first successful submarine attack of the Civil War. The CSS H.L. Hunley, a seven-man submersible craft, attacked the USS Housatonic outside of Charleston, South Carolina. Struck by the submarine's torpedo, the Housatonic broke apart and sank, taking all but five of her crew with her. Likewise, the Hunley was also lost and never heard from again until discovered in 1995 at the spot where it sank after the attack. February 27, 1864- In Georgia, Camp Sumter Prison Camp opens. Universally referred to as Andersonville Prison Camp, it will become notorious for overcrowded conditions and a high death rate among its inmates. June 8, 1864- Abraham Lincoln is nominated by his party for a second term as president. July 11-12, 1864- Attack of the Defenses of Washington. November 8, 1864- Abraham Lincoln is reelected president of the United States, for a second term. April 3, 1865- The Union troops occupy Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia. April 9, 1865- Is the Battle of Appomattox Court House and Surrender, Appomattox Court House, Virginia. After an early morning attempt to break through Union forces blocking the route west to Danville, Virginia, Lee seeks an audience with General Grant to discuss terms. That afternoon in the parlor of Wilmer McLean, Lee signs the document of surrender. On April 12, the Army of Northern Virginia formally surrenders and is disbanded. April 14, 1865- President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated by actor John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theater in Washington, DC. On the same day, Fort Sumter, South Carolina is re-occupied by Union troops. April 26, 1865- General Joseph Johnston signs the surrender document for the Confederate Army of the Tennessee and miscellaneous southern troops attached to his command at Bennett's Place near Durham, North Carolina. May 4, 1865- General Richard Taylor surrenders Confederate forces in the Alabama, Mississippi, and East Louisiana. May 10, 1865- Confederate President Jefferson Davis is captured near Irwinville, Georgia. So, that was a lot of information and you may not really care or know what to do with it all, so let me help you wrap it all up. The war drug on far longer than one might expect, if you just looked at statistics. The North produced 3,200 firearms to every 100 produced in the South. Only about 40 percent of the Northern population was still engaged in agriculture by 1860, as compared to 84 percent of the South. Free states attracted the vast majority of the waves of European immigration through the mid-19th century. About seven-eighths of the foreign immigrants settled in free states. As a consequence, the population of the states that stayed in the Union was approximately 23 million as compared to a population of 9 million in the states of the Confederacy. This translated directly into the Union having 3.5 million men of military age, as compared to 1 million for the South. About 75 percent of Southern males fought the war, as compared to about half of Northern men. The North had five times the number of factories as the South, and over 10 times the number of factory workers. In addition, 90 percent of the nation's skilled workers were in the North. The South should have stood no chance, but due to blunders from the North, excellent military leadership in the South, and other political factors, a long, bloody war resulted. There are, of course, many many other things we could discuss in this video, but it's already super long, I'm losing my breath, my mouth is dry, etc. So maybe another time. Until then, thanks for watching, be sure to like, subscribe, and as always, happy studying. Part moral rallying point, part strategic war measure, the Emancipation Proclamation is one of the most important documents in American history. Its issuance by President Abraham Lincoln on September 22, 1862 marked a major turning point in the American Civil War. In the document, eradicating slavery became a concrete goal of the Union and its bitter military struggle with the Confederacy. Let's start things off by looking at what caused this document to be written in the first place. It had taken the U.S. president some time to arrive at a point when he was comfortable stating abolition as a war aim. We know from the time he first took office in march 1861 that Lincoln believed slavery to be repulsive. Just one month after he took office, the Civil War broke out after rebels in South Carolina captured Fort Sumter, and though much of the momentum propelling the country into war had come from the violent national division on the question of slavery, Lincoln refused to proclaim the Union as fighting for slavery's abolition. At least, not right away. There wasn't exactly a clear line between the Union and the Confederacy as being pro-abolition and pro-slavery. The Union had taken over the slave-holding states of Delaware, Kentucky, Maryland, West Virginia, and Missouri on its southern flank, and much as the abolitionists and so-called "radical Republicans" who supported Lincoln would be loathe to admit, the Union needed the resources and manpower of these slave states to defeat their southern opponents. Lincoln couldn't risk alienating that support as the war entered its opening stages – especially since the Union soon found it had a much-tougher foe on its hands than originally thought. Kicked off by the First Battle of Bull Run in July 1861, a series of decisive Confederate victories marked the early years of the war, as incompetent commanders, poor supply, and general lack of strategy hampered the Union severely. Lincoln was in an ever-more awkward position. Now more than ever, he needed the support of every single state of the Union, including the border slave holding states. But he also needed moral support for the Union side and the war from the soldiers fighting it – a drive for victory that could compensate for and perhaps eventually overcome the Confederacy's superior skills on the battlefield. His balancing act was delicate. Real calls for emancipation were already coming from distinguished military men in the Union. In August 1861, Major General John C. Fremont, who several years earlier had been the first Republican candidate for the presidency, was facing brutal guerrilla warfare from rebels in Missouri. To weaken the power of the enemy in that state, under his own authority he declared the slaves of all Missouri secessionists to be free. In May of the next year, David Hunter, another Union Major general, declared freedom for slaves in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Wary of the potential for these declarations to cause tumult in the Union's border slave holding states, Lincoln had to cancel both emancipation orders; but he began quietly to urge the border states to abolish slavery gradually. Hunter's order had also called for the arming of freed slaves, and it was this potential military advantage of emancipation that may have convinced Lincoln to issue his own proposal for emancipation. The draft Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln submitted to his Cabinet for consideration in July 1862, could undermine the foundations of the Confederacy by freeing the slaves in the South and allowing them to join Union Forces, and thereby fight with conviction for the government that had freed them. The goal was both military and economic: tap into an enormous reserve of manpower and thereby also rob the South of its main source of labor. At the first reading of Lincoln's draft, the Cabinet resisted, persuading their boss that the Union first needed a military victory on the field to precede the proclamation and thereby lend weight to it. Lincoln couldn't wait long, because the war had become a bloodbath. With the Battle of Antietam, fought on Union-controlled Maryland territory on September 17, 1862, the president got his victory – though it was a pyrrhic victory, won at too great a cost to have been worthwhile. One day of fighting resulted in 2,100 Union deaths and 1,550 Confederate deaths. Union General George McClellan and his lieutenants achieved some success against Robert E. Lee, commander of the Confederate troops, but they failed to follow through with these advances. Still, they had repulsed a Confederate attempt to invade Maryland. Lincoln moved quickly. The Emancipation Proclamation issued on September 22nd was actually in the form of an ultimatum, requiring Southern states to return to the Union within roughly three months or have their slaves declared free. When the Confederacy refused and the timetable expired, on January 1st, 1863, Lincoln delivered the final, official version of the proclamation as a presidential order in a speech. In it, he declared that all slaves in Southern, Confederate-controlled territories "...shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free." The proclamation officially opened up the ranks of the Union army to African Americans and called for the organization of black regiments. As the Union general staff came into its own it actually began conquering large swaths of Confederate territory– thanks mainly to skilled generalship by Ulysses S. Grant and William Tecumseh Sherman– many freed slaves in these areas began to swell the Union ranks. Thanks in large part to the proclamation, roughly 180,000 African American soldiers, including freed slaves, would fight for the North during the remainder of the war and contribute to the final victory, achieved in April 1865. Lincoln's order gave a fresh dose of energy to the moral aspect of the Union fight. For the North, the war now had a very powerful motivating end goal: the destruction of slavery. As they swept into Southern states, Union troops were liberators. Internationally, the legs were cut out from under the Confederacy's sources of foreign funding: Britain and France, with anti-slavery governments, could no longer justify continued support for a pro-slavery government fighting against an anti-slavery opponent. This momentum also helped the Republican party unite around a simple, effective mission: ending slavery in the United States. Lincoln used this focus to introduce the 13th Amendment in 1864, which by February of 1865 had passed both houses of Congress in proposal form and was officially out to the states for approval. After Lincoln's assassination shortly after war's end in April, the amendment eventually passed, in December of that year. Inspired by the Emancipation Proclamation and representing its culmination, the amendment eliminated the institution of slavery that had divided the country for so many years. Let's end with a review question to see what you can remember: All of the following are true of the Emancipation Proclamation, except? A) It gave official sanction to the enlistment of African Americans in the Union army. B) It declared all slaves in Southern Confederate states to be free. C) President Lincoln issued it partly to undermine the economic foundation of the Confederacy. Or D) According to its terms, three months after its issuance, all slaves in the states of Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri were freed. The answer is D, Slaves in all of the Southern Confederate states were freed. Thanks for watching, happy studying. Hi, and welcome to this Mometrix video on the Industrial Revolution. This is a very broad topic that we could take in any number of directions, but for today we'll focus our attention on a particularly important part of the Industrial Revolution: the British textile industry. In this video we'll trace the origins of the Industrial Revolution, examine the social changes that new technology brought about, and see some of the negative effects of industrialization. We'll also take a look at the fascinating story of the Luddites, an infamous but often misunderstood protest movement in northern England. So, what was the Industrial Revolution, and when and where did it occur? Put simply, from around 1760 to 1840 a series of technological advances in steam power, iron, and textiles dramatically altered the industrial output and economies of Western Europe and the United States. We should also note that historians tend to refer to this period as the First Industrial Revolution. The Second Industrial Revolution, sometimes known as the Great Acceleration, took place from 1870 to 1914, and was defined by chemistry, electricity, and steel. Depending on who you ask, we are either presently in the third industrial revolution, or just about to enter the fourth; but that's a discussion for another day. The Industrial Revolution was the transition of manufacturing from muscle to steam power. The limitations of animal and human labor gave way to the seemingly boundless possibilities of mechanical production. In the textile industry, innovations such as the flying shuttle and the spinning jenny greatly increased output while sharply reducing costs and labor. Each improvement built upon past advances and prompted further innovation. The development of steam power demonstrates this process as well as any. In the early 17th century, sometime before the period associated with the Industrial Revolution, the first steam engines were used to pump water from mines. Thomas Newcomen devised the first widely used engine in 1712. Scottish engineer James Watt greatly improved the efficiency of Newcomen's design, over several years after first tinkering with one of the machines, in 1763. In partnership with Matthew Bolton, an English businessmen from Birmingham, the Boulton-Watt engines required 75 percent less fuel and made steam-powered engines viable for commercial use in other industries. The first steam-powered mills opened in Manchester in 1783, and by 1800 forty-two such manufactories, as they were called, were in operation. The use of coal to power engines soared, so methods of extracting and transporting coal also developed accordingly. Canals and eventually railways, which of course were made possible by steam power, made the transportation of goods far quicker and cost effective. Innovations led to better machine tools, which led to better machines, which led to better machine tools, which led to... well, I think you get the idea. Of course, it was not just coal which powered the Industrial Revolution, but also investments. James Watt's quest to produce an efficient steam engine was made possible by the resources and financial backing of Matthew Bolton. This was far from the only instance of an inventor benefiting from the support of a business partner. The London Stock Exchange was founded in 1770, and the New York equivalent in 1790, which allowed businessmen to invest in new ventures. A savvy investment in the latest technology promised a handsome return to an investor, while an inventor would be afforded the resources to make that technology a reality. We can see from these examples that, the key technological advances of the period came from building upon existing designs, and were greatly aided by concurrent events. The Industrial Revolution transformed the world and raised the standards of living for some. But, not everyone benefited from the changes. Mechanized production required less labor which meant that wages and working conditions, of the factories that sprung up, were usually terrible. With no regulations to abide by, and an abundance of easily replaceable workers available, factory owners had little incentive to offer good pay or working conditions. Factories were hot and dangerous places to work. A 14-16 hour work day was quite common. If the male workers were overworked and underpaid, things were even worse for women and children. Women earned considerably less than male colleagues, and young children toiled for even less. We should be careful not to overstate just how widespread changes to working practices were as a result of the Industrial Revolution. Agriculture and domestic service were still the top two employers of British workers by 1851. There were about 5.5 million non-mechanized workers compared to 1.5 million factory workers and coal miners. In some areas of the country, working patterns changed very little. A six day week was the standard, until after the First World War, but workers tended to have a pretty relaxed attitude towards showing up on a Monday. Saint Monday, the tradition of skipping the first work day of the week, was common in some areas right through the Industrial Revolution. Employers had little option but to tacitly accept that, in the words of one mining pit owner, "It was beyond all probability that any number of men could be got to work on a Monday." So, while we should acknowledge that the working conditions of some people were slow to change or weren't especially brutal, a great many workers were subject to the worst excesses of factory work. Resistance to dismal working conditions took different forms. There were numerous instances of workers banding together to fight for better wages and working conditions. In April of 1820, 60,000 workers across central Scotland went on general strike. The strike was put down by the British army and the ringleaders were either executed or exiled. A similar outcome awaited those who participated in the 1831 Merthyr Rising in Wales. Violent clashes between the army and protesters resulted in 24 killed and death sentences passed on two leaders. One of those sentences was reduced to exile to Australia. One of the better known protest movements against the ills of industrialization was the Luddites. Today the term Luddite is used to describe a person who fears or dislikes technology. And the common perception of the 19th century group has been of workers who, threatened by technological progress, took to destroying machines. The luddites were not in fact opposed to new technology but to the tendency for factory owners to bypass acceptable labor practices of the time and underpay skilled workers. They believed that skilled workers, who had served apprenticeships, should operate certain machines and produce quality goods for fair pay. The origins of the term come from the legendary character Ned Ludd, a young apprentice who destroyed machines in protest of poor treatment and working conditions. An outlaw and source of inspiration, Ned Ludd followed in the tradition of mythical English folk heroes. In homage to Robin Hood, Luddites claimed to have received orders from General Ludd by way of Sherwood Forest. There was a certain sense of merriment in the movement; some followers even took to marching in drag as the wives of General Ludd. For a few short years, the Luddites engaged in protests which sometimes turned violent. Destruction of property was met with harsh punishment in order to deter others; generally execution or exile. A handful of clashes between Luddites and soldiers took place across Yorkshire in 1812, and three Luddites were executed for the murder of a mill owner. By 1813 the group had largely vanished. In truth, the Luddites owe their enduring legacy not so much to their achievements as to effective branding. A catchy name and a sense of swagger and style greatly overstated their influence at the time. Machine breaking was hardly a new form of protest nor did it end with the dissolution of the followers of General Ludd after 1813. The Luddites personified the worries of people that technological advances also came with a loss of humanity. The 19th century essayist and historian Thomas Carlisle wrote at the time that, "Men are grown mechanical in head and in heart as well as in hand." It's not difficult in the present day to empathize with the thought of being concerned by the human costs of technological progress. To quickly review: we looked at the Industrial Revolution from the perspective of the British textile industry, and examined the social changes and the different reactions to industrialization. Here are a couple of review questions, before we go. Number one: Which of the following was not a driver of the Industrial Revolution? A) Steam B) Textiles C) Iron Or D) Steel The answer is D. steel. Steel was one of the drivers of the Second Industrial Revolution. Number two: The Luddites were motivated by: A) Fear and hatred of technology B) A desire for fair wages C) Communist propaganda Or D) none of these The answer is B. a desire for fair wages. The Luddites did not oppose technology but sought fair wages for skilled work. Thanks for watching, and happy studying. Hi, and welcome to this video on World War Two. Today, we'll be looking at an overview of the origins, key events, and themes of the Second World War. This won't just be a summary of the war in Europe; we'll be also looking at the Pacific theater and the importance of the home front, how entire societies were mobilized to sustain such a monumental war effort, and we'll also briefly look at the key outcomes and how they shape the world as we know it today. To begin, let's quickly remind ourselves of the highlights of World War One. Put simply, the world's major powers fought a grueling war of attrition from 1914-1918. It was a global conflict but the most important leader of the war was the Western front: two opposing lines of trenches stretched across Western Europe. After suffering heavy losses, the Allies finally triumphed over the Central Powers. The fighting came to an end on November 11, 1918 when the German Empire signed an armistice with Britain, France, and the United States. After several months of negotiation the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919. For the defeated Germans, the treaty seemed harsh and caused years of bitter resentment. They were forced to accept responsibility for causing the war and required to pay huge reparations. For the French, the treaty was quite lenient and a German revival was the cause of a great deal of anxiety. Ferdinand Foch, a French general, famously declared that Versailles was not a peace but a 20-year armistice. He was right. The years following World War One were a bleak period of European history, particularly in Germany. The humiliation of Versailles in a global economic downturn caused hyperinflation, massive unemployment, and political violence. These were the conditions which allowed extremist voices to be heard, and in January 1933 Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor. Within a year, Hitler and the Nazi party consolidated power. Promising to revive German fortunes, Hitler pursued an aggressive foreign policy to undo Versailles and to make Germany self-sufficient. The idea of Lebensraum (which means "living space") was to greatly expand German territory in Eastern Europe. Above all else, he opposed what he saw as the threat of Jewish Bolshevism and saw the defeat of the Soviet Union as his destiny. Hitler's foreign policy was a series of gambles with increasingly escalating stakes. In 1936 he ordered the reoccupation of the Rhineland which had been demilitarized by Versailles. The German army was under orders to withdraw at the first sign of resistance but none came. That same year the German air force, the Luftwaffe, gained combat experience by supporting the Nationalist side in the Spanish Civil War. Believing the French and the British did not have the stomach for another fight, Hitler's demands increased. The Anschluss, the joining of Germany and Austria under German rule, took place on march 12, 1938. Hitler then demanded the Sudetenland from Czechoslovakia, a region with 3 million Germans. The British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain met with Hitler in September 1938 to hash out a peaceful solution to the Sudetenland crisis. An agreement was reached and Chamberlain claimed he had secured "peace in our time." Less than six months later though, the remainder of the Czech state was annexed by Hitler. From 1936-1938, Hitler successfully sought out reoccupation efforts, taking possession of the Rhineland, Austria, and the Sudetenland. Still not satisfied, Hitler pressed for yet more territorial concessions and succeeded in claiming Memel from Lithuania in March 1939. Once again, the British and French failed to oppose Hitler's brazen demands and by the summer, Hitler turned his attention to the port city of Danzig, modern-day Gdansk. In August, to the great surprise of the rest of the world, Germany agreed to a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, essentially agreeing to carve up Poland. Danzig was a majority-German territory which had been ceded to Poland by the treaty of Versailles. Seeking yet another bloodless victory, Hitler demanded the Poles hand over Danzig to reconnect East Prussia with Germany. This ended up being one demand too many and with French and British support, the Poles refused. World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Germany invaded Poland. Hitler's hopes of keeping the war localized between Germany and Poland were dashed when the British and French declared war on September 3rd. The Poles resisted fiercely but were outmatched by the German army, and a bad situation became worse when the Soviet Union invaded from the east on September 17th. Poland fell after a month of fighting, caught in an utterly hopeless strategic position between two hostile powers. The Allies did very little to assist the Poles. Hitler had gambled on a quick victory in Poland and left the German border with France lightly defended. An Ally attack would probably have succeeded but the experience of such catastrophic losses in World War One made the Allies reluctant to go on the offensive. After the fall of Poland, very little fighting took place in Europe in the winter of 1939-1940. The French did not want another war inside France and to bear the brunt of the casualties as they had done in World War One. The plan was to do much of the fighting in the Low Countries and to avoid heavy casualties. The British dispatched an army to assist the French, and the expectations from the Allies, and indeed most of the world, was another long war of attrition. Apparently, the Germans did not get the memo. Fretting about fighting another lengthy war for which they were not prepared, the German high command spent the winter of 1939-1940 trying to find a way to achieve a quick victory. A bold plan devised by Erich von Manstein proposed a surprise attack through the Ardennes forest to cut off the Allied army in Belgium. The plan succeeded beyond even the wildest dreams of the Germans. Believing the area to be impassable, it was the weakest section of the Allied line and no match for the main thrust of the German attack. The Allies were slow to respond and allowed a local set-back to become a catastrophic defeat. The British army narrowly escaped complete annihilation at Dunkirk thanks to a frantic evacuation that whisked over 300,000 soldiers back to Britain in eight days. With France on the brink of defeat, Italy opportunistically entered the war on June 10, 1940, hoping to gain a share of the German spoils. Two weeks later, the French capitulated and Britain stood alone against the Axis. The English channel was all that separated the Germans from complete victory; English calls to reach a settled peace were rebuffed by the new Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Hitler ordered the Luftwaffe to achieve air superiority over Britain to make an invasion possible, waging an aerial campaign over the skies of England in the summer of 1940. The Royal Air Force was aided enormously by the development of radar technologies to detect incoming planes and the bravery of a large number of foreign pilots. In fact, more than 500 pilots from across the world aided Britain during her darkest hour, 400 of which were from Poland, New Zealand, Canada, and Czechoslovakia. Ultimately the RAF prevailed in the German plan for an invasion of Britain was cancelled. Let's leave Europe for a moment and turn our attention to the war as it played out in the Pacific. It's generally accepted that the German invasion of Poland was the start of World War Two, but hostilities had broken out in Asia some years before. The second Sino-Japanese War began on July 7, 1937 with the Japanese invasion of China. Japan had fought on the Allied side of World War One, honoring an alliance with Britain. The Japanese experience of the First World War was quite minor compared to the horrific losses endured by the other sides. German territories in Asia and the Pacific were easily seized with few casualties. In the years following the war, the Japanese political landscape altered to a militarized, ultranationalist outlook known as Showa Statism, effectively Japanese Fascism. In 1931 the Japanese invaded Manchuria following the Mukden Incident, an event used as a pretext for the invasion by the Japanese army. In 1937, with tensions running high between China and Japan, a clash between troops near Beijing on July 7th escalated into a full-blown war. The Chinese capital of Nanjing was captured in December of 1937 and subjected to a massacre so severe that it continues to place a strain on Sino-Japanese relations to this very day. Despite the losses in large portions of territory taken away, the Chinese refused to give in and the Japanese simply didn't have the manpower to subdue the entire country by force. Japan's diplomatic standing was damaged by the war with China and led to a series of trade restrictions with the United States. In September 1940, Japan signed the Tripartite Pact with Italy and Germany bringing the nations into a loose alliance as the Axis Powers. A lack of natural resources meant that Japan was dependent on foreign trade, primarily from the United States. A failure to reach a settlement saw the U.S. cut Japan off completely in August 1941. A lack of oil was a major problem for the Axis powers and would lead to some disastrous decisions. Now, back to Europe. Hitler made the fateful decision to break the non-aggression pact with Russia and launched an invasion on June 22, 1941. Hitler believed that after overcoming the Russian forces on the border, the Red Army would crack. He said quote, "we need only kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will come crashing down" end quote. Operation Barbarossa was initially successful; the German army encircled and destroyed several Russian divisions while advancing hundreds of miles. But Hitler had drastically underestimated the lengths the Soviets would go to for survival. 1500 military factories were dismantled and reassembled beyond the Ural Mountains and out of reach of the German military. Workers labored 16 hours a day to dramatically increase war production to previously unimaginable levels. The Red Army suffered enormous losses in men and material but actually grew in size as the war went on. 30 million men would be conscripted by the Red Army from 1941 to 1945. 1941 was also the year the United States entered the war. The Japanese, believing war with the U.S. was inevitable, tried to gain the upper-hand with a preemptive strike against the American fleet at Pearl Harbor. Hoping to cripple the American naval presence in the Pacific and force a settled peace, the Japanese attacked on the morning of December 7th. The American fleet lost several ships but crucially, the aircraft carriers and repair facilities were largely undamaged. The Japanese had planned for a decisive naval battle with battleships which ultimately never came. It would be aircraft carriers rather than battleships which would prove the deciding factor in the Pacific. The United States declared war on Japan and this was met with declarations by Germany and Italy in accordance with the Tripartite Pact. The U.S. agreed to concentrate on Germany first, with about two-thirds of the American war effort being directed to Europe. Much of that effort came in the form of bombing German factories and infrastructure. Unlike the British, the Americans were unwilling to deliberately target German civilians and launched daytime raids at an attempt for greater accuracy. Postwar American studies of strategic bombing showed only moderate success in crippling German industry. After an invasion of Sicily in 1943 achieved limited success, the Allies finally granted Stalin's wish of opening up a second front on the west in 1944. Operation Overlord was the largest naval invasion in history. On June 6th, known as "D-Day", troops from America, Britain, Canada, and nine other countries stormed the beaches of Normandy and secured a foothold. By September, most of France had been liberated from Nazi occupation. The Allied forces made steady progress, with some setbacks, in the west while the Soviet forces advanced in the east. A last-ditch effort by the German army to reverse the tide in the west came in the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944. The counteroffensive failed and though the cause was utterly hopeless, the Germans fought on for another five months. With Berlin about to fall to the advancing Russians, Hitler committed suicide on April 30, 1945. Germany formally surrendered on May 8, 1945, ending the war in Europe. In the pacific, the United States adopted a strategy of island hopping. Rather than trying to take everything, the U.S. would invade only the islands on the most direct route to Japan. Naval bombers and submarines wreaked havoc on Japanese shipping lanes, crippling supply lines and preventing much-needed raw materials from reaching Japan. Unlike the Allies in the Atlantic, no serious effort was made by the Japanese to counter submarine raids. By the summer of 1944, the United States had captured Guam and Saipan, providing a base for raids on the Japanese home islands. While the United States had been reluctant to attack civilians in Europe, no such quarter was given to the Japanese. That the Japanese had struck first led to hardened American attitudes. 120,000 Japanese American citizens were forcibly interned within the United States from 1942 to 1945. On march 9th and 10th, 1945, American B-29 bombers carried out a massive air raid on Tokyo, killing around 100,000 and destroying one million homes. With Japan on the brink of collapse in 1945, there was no doubt whatsoever of an Allied victory. For the Japanese, there was no hope of winning but only enforcing favorable peace terms by making an invasion of Japan as costly as possible. In August 1945, Stalin honored his promise to declare war on Japan and the Red Army swiftly crushed the Japanese forces in Manchuria. The development of nuclear weapons had begun in August of 1942. It was a major research and development project that cost over $2 billion and took three years of dedicated research by many scientists to make a reality. President Harry Truman ultimately made the decision to use atomic weapons. On the 6th of August 1945 an atomic bomb codenamed Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima. Estimates of the number of deaths range from 90,000 to 140,000. Among the dead were about a dozen American prisoners of war. Three days later a second bomb codenamed Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki killing up to 80,000. Truman argued that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki saved thousands, perhaps millions, of Japanese and American lives, by making an invasion of Japan unnecessary. It has also been argued that an invasion of Japan could have been avoided anyway if the emperor's position was guaranteed. Regardless, Japan offered to surrender on August 15, 1945. In a rare public address to the people, the Emperor of Japan declared quote, "the war situation has developed not necessarily to Japan's advantage" end quote. Quite the understatement! The war officially ended on September 2, 1945. The war was not just a clash of armies but entire societies. The Nazis oversaw the systematic murder of Europe's Jewish population from 1941-1945. At least 6 million Jews were killed in German concentration camps. Including other persecuted groups, there were up to 11 million victims of the holocaust. To field such huge armies, the economies of the major powers were centered on wartime production. Millions of American women supported the war effort; half a million were employed in aircraft production. You've probably seen some variation of a Rosie the Riveter poster or magazine cover. The image of a young determined woman declaring "We can do it!" stems from a 1943 issue of the Saturday Evening Post representing the many women who proved they were equals of men in the workplace. Many American women also served in the armed forces directly performing a variety of supporting roles. Women of the medical corps braved dangerous conditions to treat wounded soldiers just behind the front lines. Other marginalized sections of American society also made important contributions to the American war effort. Native Americans had a unique skill set which was used effectively in the Pacific dealing with radio transmissions: The security of these transmissions was vital. If the enemy could intercept and understand a message, they would have a major advantage on the battlefield. With tribal languages almost completely unknown outside of North America, Native Americans were ideal candidates for radio operators. The idea was first contemplated in the final months of the First World War. The American Expeditionary Force was able to maintain the element of surprise during the summer offenses of 1918 in part thanks to the efforts of Choctaw and Cherokee signalmen. Just like the Germans in 1918, the Japanese were never able to make much sense of the transmissions made by the code talkers. Navajo and other Native American signalmen developed a sophisticated military vocabulary to make rapid and accurate tactical transmissions under extreme conditions. Code talkers participated in every assault made by the Marine Corps in the Pacific from 1942-1945. More than 800 transmissions were sent by Navajo signalmen in the first crucial 48 hours of the American invasion of Iwo Jima in February 1945. While Native Americans served alongside white soldiers, the same was not true of African American troops; the armed forces did not desegregate until after the war. The most famous African American combat unit of the Second World War was the pilots of the 332nd Fighter Group. Based out of Tuskegee, Alabama, and at a time when Jim Crow laws were enforced in the Southern United States, the Tuskegee airmen overcame racial discrimination to earn the right to fly combat missions. It was believed at the time that African American pilots were inferior to white airmen and not capable of effective leadership. The pilots of the 332nd proved how ill-founded these views were, with an exemplary record of service in World War Two. The 6,000 trucks of the Red Ball Express were primarily driven by African Americans and moved thousands of tons of supplies to the front lines in the summer and fall of 1944. In all, about 1.2 million African Americans contributed to the American war effort, laying the foundations for the desegregation of the armed forces in 1948. This is one of the great contradictions of the United States: fighting against fascist tyranny with a segregated army. Similarly, the British fought for freedom with the resources of a vast colonial empire. The war brought about many changes, especially in how people saw the world. There are simply too many outcomes to list completely in one video, but some key points are important to note. One of the first priorities for the victorious Allies was to rebuild after years of chaotic destruction. American aid under the Marshall Plan helped the shattered nations of Western Europe to recover. Change was in the air in other parts of the world. At the end of World War Two about one-third of the world's population was under colonial rule. A period of decolonization took place in the 1940s and 1950s. To name just a few: India gained independence from Britain in 1947, Indonesia from the Netherlands in 1945, and a very long struggle for freedom began in French Indochina in 1945. To prevent wars by encouraging peace and international cooperation, the United Nations was founded in 1945. In the aftermath of the war, the understanding between the United States and the USSR swiftly broke down. Europe became divided as Eastern European countries came under Communist influence. Nowhere was this split more apparent than in the partition of Germany which lasted until 1989. In 1949, the nuclear monopoly enjoyed by the United States ended when the Soviet Union successfully detonated an atomic bomb. Fear and mistrust between the United States and the Soviet Union would not ignite into a full-scale war but would simmer in the decades-long Cold War. Let's go through a few review questions to see what you remember: 1. What was the Sudetenland Crisis about? A) German territorial claims B) German rearmament C) The joining of Austria and Germany D) none of these The answer is A. German territorial claims. 2. Most of the United States attention in World War Two was against which country? A) Japan B) Italy C) Russia Or D) Germany The answer is D. Germany. Question number 3. The first atomic bomb was dropped on which Japanese city? A) Tokyo B) Osaka C) Hiroshima Or D) Nagasaki The answer is C. Hiroshima. Thanks for watching, and happy studying.
