america

• The type of government used in the United States of America is called a federation – a group of local states that join together under a single national government
• The United States of America had started with 13 states in 1776. By 1910 there were 46 states, although this increased to 48 when New Mexico and Arizona joined in 1912
• When the United States of America had won their independence from Britain in the 18th century the Founding Fathers, the leading politicians of the new country, wrote a set of rules for their new government called the Constitution
• If enough states agree then changes could be made to the Constitution later, which were called amendments
• The rules laid down how the government was to be run, what powers it would have and how it would get its money. They also included a system of 'checks and balances' to make sure that no one person or part of the system could become more important than the rest
• Two important levels of government in the USA

  • Federal government, which is national
  • State government, which is local
• Federal government


  • Responsible for defence, foreign relations and inter-state trade
  • Made up of three branches: Executive, Legislative, Judicial
• Executive Branch


  Decision-making, headed by the President who is elected every four years
• Legislative Branch


  Law-making, Congress makes the laws and controls the federal budget, made up of the Representatives and the Senate
• Judicial Branch


  Reviewing decisions and laws, the Supreme Court is the highest appeal court
• State government


  • Headed by an elected Governor, has its own locally elected state Congress and courts
  • Responsible for education, welfare, as well as law and order
• Political Parties


  • Democrats (supported by white people in the Southern states, Irish, Jewish and Italian Americans, and trade unions)
  • Republicans (supported by most white people outside the South, and by businessmen)
• In 1863 President Lincoln described the system of democracy, voting for the government, in the USA as "government of the people, by the people, for the people"
• The 14th Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1868 said that all male citizens, men born in the USA, had the right to vote. However, women could only vote from 1920 and many native and black Americans were excluded from voting because of discrimination
• Between 1850 and 1914, 40 million people came to live in the USA, the numbers increasing year on year, although this did slow down after the First World War
• Reasons people came to America

  • Rich immigrants came to enjoy the wealth and business opportunities
  • Poor immigrants came to escape from persecution or poverty
  • Attracted by the 'American Dream' of living a happy, prosperous life free from oppression
• By 1910 a third of the population of the 12 largest cities in USA were immigrants and another third were the children of immigrants
• By 1914 New York had more Italians than Naples; it had twice as many Irish as Dublin; it had 1.4 million Jewish people in a total population of 4.7 million
• By the First World War a tenth of the population of the state of California was Chinese
• Ellis Island was the reception point in the bay outside New York where all immigrants to the USA were processed before they were allowed in
• Immigrants were given health checks to make sure they were not bringing infectious diseases into USA. They queued to have their papers checked and their details taken before being allowed in
• Once they were allowed into the country most immigrants found themselves living in poverty, in appalling conditions in urban ghettoes
• They were blamed for rising urban crime and drunkenness and increasingly became the victims of violent racism in the 1920s
• Economically immigrants boosted US industry first as workers, then consumers as well
• In 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, in 1903 anarchists were not allowed in, and from 1907 disabled and diseased people were not allowed in
• The First World War encouraged opposition to immigration. There were fears for the loyalty of new immigrants especially from Germany and Austria-Hungary who people began to think might be spies. The Russian Revolution of 1917 added fears about communists coming to the USA to spread their revolutionary ideas
• The 1917 Immigration Act introduced the Literacy Test as a requirement before immigrants could be allowed in to America
• The 1921 Emergency Quota Act introduced the quota system which restricted annual immigration from a country to 3% of the people already in the USA from that country, according to the 1910 census
• The 1924 National Origins Act (AKA the Johnson-Reed Act) reduced the quota down to 2% of people from a country based on the 1890 census
• A cap on the total number of immigrants into the USA was put in place in 1929 restricting total migration to 150,000 a year
• Unregulated immigration from Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico continued throughout the 1920s
• It was not until the 1960s that the quota system of immigration was replaced with a system that did not discriminate against immigrants from particular countries
• Communism is the belief that everyone is equal, that all wealth should be shared equally amongst all of the people
• In 1917 there was a violent revolution in Russia in which the emperor – the Tsar - and the Russian aristocracy were exterminated by Communists
• Many people believed that the Communists wanted to spread revolution around the world. This fear of communist infiltration was known as the 'Red Scare'
• Xenophobia - fear of foreigners - was one of the motivations for Congress to pass laws to restrict immigration in the 1920s
• Many people believed that the Communists wanted to spread revolution around the world
• There was widespread concern that communist ideas could spread to the USA via Eastern European immigrants
• Red Scare


  Fear of communist infiltration
• Communists and anarchists made up less than 0.1% of the American population