Pre-Revolutionary War Surge of Immigration
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn talks about the two major forces at work during the fifteen years preceding the American Revolution. "One, of course, was the constitutional struggle with Britain was building up," Professor Bailyn says. "But the ...
Eighteenth Century Migration to America
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn talks about eighteenth century migration to North America, which he describes as being very different from the migration of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, in which immigrants from small villages or ...
Successors to George Washington
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn analyzes the abilities of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, who served as the third and fourth U.S. presidents respectively. Professor Bailyn explains that Jefferson was a good administrator and an excellent pol...
Fueling the Abolition Movement
Historian and author Ira Berlin explains that the key event in the abolition of slavery was the Revolutionary War. "The ideology of the American Revolution--the notion that all men are created equal--is every corrosive to the institution of slavery,...
Resistance and Rebellion
Historian and author Ira Berlin explains that slaveholders were generally able to prevail upon non-slaveholders to help them squelch resistance among the slave population. "But ultimately," Professor Berlin notes, "...slavery is destroyed by what we...
Emancipation
Historian and author Ira Berlin explains that slavery in the United States was not a regional institution. It existed in the north as well as the south, until the north committed to put an end to slavery sometime after the American Revolution. Profe...
Articles of Confederation, The
Historian Peter Onuf explains that the Articles of Confederation represented the only way of creating an effective alliance among the American provinces. However, Professor Onuf adds that the Articles of Confederation were limited in their usefulnes...
A Young Nation Moves Forward
Historian and author Bernard Bailyn talks about some of the key challenges the young United States faced in its early years. Among the most pressing was growing the economy to keep pace with the rapidly expanding population. Other challenges include...