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The Challenges of State Creation and Democratization in the United States

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The Challenges of Creating Democracies in the Americas

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Abstract

This chapter explains the state-creation process of the United States and the formation of its “flawed” democratic political system. The chapter addresses five questions:

  1. 1.

    What were the main challenges the people of the United States encountered as they sought to consolidate and legitimize the power of the state?

  2. 2.

    What were the main challenges the people of the United States faced as they strove to create a political system?

  3. 3.

    What compelled the people of the United States to gradually democratize its political system?

  4. 4.

    What kind of democratic system did the people of the United States create?

  5. 5.

    How well does the democratic system created in the United States compare with those formed in Spanish American states and developed states?

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Alan Taylor, American Colonies: The Settling of North America (New York: Penguin, 2001), 170.

  2. 2.

    Quoted in Michael Leroy Oberg, Dominion and Civility: English Imperialism and Native America 1585–1685 (New York: Cornell University Press, 2004), 44.

  3. 3.

    Quoted in Ibid., 17, 18, 34, and 52.

  4. 4.

    See Taylor, American Colonies, 135; and Oberg, Dominion and Civility: English Imperialism and Native America 1585–1685, 76.

  5. 5.

    James T. Lemon, “Colonial America in the Eighteenth Century.” See Table 6.2: Comparison of White and Black Population by Region, 1700 and 1785, 126. http://www.asdk12.org/staff/bivins_rick/HOMEWORK/230028_ColonialLife.pdf.

  6. 6.

    Ibid.

  7. 7.

    Ibid.

  8. 8.

    Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763-1789 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 30–31.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., 32, 35, 36, 51 (quote), and 52.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., 122–123.

  11. 11.

    See Gordon S. Wood, Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic 1789–1815 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 7.

  12. 12.

    Ibid., 17.

  13. 13.

    See Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 622–655.

  14. 14.

    See Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote. The Contested History of Democracy in the United States, (Philadelphia, PA: Basic Books, 2000), 7.

  15. 15.

    Ibid., 9.

  16. 16.

    Ibid., 11 and 12.

  17. 17.

    Ibid., 16.

  18. 18.

    Ibid., 20.

  19. 19.

    See Donald Ratcliffe, “The Right to Vote and the Rise of Democracy, 1787-1828,” Journal of the Early Republic, 33 (Summer 2013), 232–233.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., 247.

  21. 21.

    See “Republican Party Platform of 1860,” in Civil War Era: Teaching American History teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/republican-party-platform-1860 .

  22. 22.

    Ibid.

  23. 23.

    See “First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln,” (March 4, 1861), in “Inaugural Addresses of the Presidents of the United States: from George Washington 1789 to George Bush 1989.” The Avalon Project—Laws of War: Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague IV; October 18, 1907, Yale Law School, 2008). avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp.

  24. 24.

    The act allowed people in the territories of Kansas and Nebraska to decide for themselves whether or not to allow slavery within their borders.

  25. 25.

    Quoted in James M. McPherson, Drawn with the Sword: Reflections on the American Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 116.

  26. 26.

    See Ron Chernow, Grant. (New York: Penguin Press, 2017), 857–858.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., 658–659.

  28. 28.

    See Saskia Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 122–123.

  29. 29.

    See Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State, (Cambridge University Press, 1982), 25.

  30. 30.

    Quoted in Ibid., 40.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 41–42.

  32. 32.

    Ibid., 41–42.

  33. 33.

    See Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages, 123.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 130.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., 139.

  36. 36.

    See Barbara Welter, “The Cult of True Womanhood: 1820-1860,” American Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 2, 1966, 152.

  37. 37.

    See Linda Brannon, Gender: Psychological Perspectives (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2005), 154–155.

  38. 38.

    Quoted in “Woodrow Wilson and the Women’s Suffrage Movement: A Reflection,” Woodrow Wilson Center, (June 4, 2013). http://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/woodrow-wilson-and-the-womens-suffrage-movement-reflection.

  39. 39.

    See Daniel McCool, Susan M. Olson, and Jennifer L. Robinson, Native Vote (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 19.

  40. 40.

    Quoted in Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 (Boston: Little Brown, 2003), 604–606.

  41. 41.

    The reference point used here is not 1776, when the United States declared its interdependence, but 1783, when it was recognized as an independent state by The Treaty of Paris.

  42. 42.

    As noted earlier, there were more than two economies, but the two just identified were the ones that generated the greatest tension.

  43. 43.

    See Frank Newport, “In U.S., 87% Approve of Black, White Marriage, vs. 4% in 1958.” www.gallup.com/poll/16397-approve-blacks-whites.aspx; and Frank Newport, “Americans Today Much More Accepting of a Woman, Black, Catholic, or Jew as President.” www.gallup.com/poll/3979/americans-today-much-more-accepting-woman-black-catholic.aspx.

  44. 44.

    By no means, it is being suggested that presently men and women are treated equally, and that blacks have achieved parity with whites in the workforce. The two groups that have not experienced major improvements in the workforce since the 1980s are African Americans and Hispanics. Their earning capacity remains markedly lower than that of whites. On the other hand, Asian men earn 117 percent as much as white men. See Eileen Patten, “Racial, gender wage gaps persist in U.S. despite some progress.” Pew Research Center, (Pew Research Center, July 1, 2016). www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gaps-persist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress/.

  45. 45.

    See Charts 2-K and 2-L in “Reelection Rates of Incumbents in the House,” (December 7, 2006), http://www.thirty-thousand.org/documents/QHA-08.pdf.

  46. 46.

    “Congress and the Public,” http://www.gallup.com/poll/1600/congress-public.aspx.

  47. 47.

    Norm Ornstein, “The Pernicious Effects of Gerrymandering,” National Journal, (December 4, 2014). http://www.nationaljournal.com/washington-inside-out/the-pernicious-effects-of-gerrymandering-20141203.

  48. 48.

    See Seth E. Masket, Jonathan Winburn, and Gerald C. Wright, “The Gerrymanderers Are Coming! Legislative Redistricting Won’t Affect Competition or Polarization Much, No Matter Who Does It.” American Political Science Association, Vol. 45, Issue 1 (January 2012), 39–43.

  49. 49.

    See “National Primary Turnout Hits New Record Low,” (October 10, 2012), http://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/national-primary-turnout-hits-new-record-low/

  50. 50.

    Quoted in Philip Kotler, Democracy in Decline (London: SAGE Publications, 2016), 41.

  51. 51.

    Henry Milner, “Does Proportional Representation Boost Turnout? A Political Knowledge-based Explanation.” Presented at the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems, Toronto, Canada (September 6, 2009).

  52. 52.

    U.N. Women in Politics: 2017 http://www.unwomen.org/-/media/headquarters/attachments/sections/library/publications/2017/femmesenpolitique_2017_english_web.pdf? la.

  53. 53.

    Martin Gilens and Benjamin I. Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” in Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 12, Issue 3, (September 2014): 564–581. See also “Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy?” BBC News, (April 17, 2014). http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746.

  54. 54.

    See Gilens and Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” 564–581.

  55. 55.

    Adam Liptak, “Courts Take on Campaign Finance Decision,” in The New York Times, (March 26, 2010). http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/us/politics/27campaign.html.

  56. 56.

    “McCutcheson, et. al. v. FEC” (Case Summary), Federal Election Commission http://www.fec.gov/law/litigation/McCutcheon.shtml.

  57. 57.

    See Heather K. Gerken, “Campaign Finance, Dark Money, and Shadow Parties, in Marquette Law Review.” https://law.marquette/edu/assets/marquette-lawyers/2014-summer-p10.pdf.

  58. 58.

    See World Audit Political Rights, http://www.worldaudit.org/democracy.htm. Italy, Belgium, France, Portugal, and Spain ranked below the United States in 2017.

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  1. Marina del Rey, CA, USA

    Alex Roberto Hybel

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Hybel, A.R. (2020). The Challenges of State Creation and Democratization in the United States. In: The Challenges of Creating Democracies in the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21233-9_3

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