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Processes of State Creation and Democratization in the United States

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The Making of Flawed 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 analysis is guided by five questions:

  1. 1.

    What conditions facilitated or obstructed the creation of the United States as a legitimate state?

  2. 2.

    What conditions facilitated or obstructed the formation of a legitimate and stable democratic regime in the United States?

  3. 3.

    How long did it take to create a legitimate and stable democratic regime in the United States?

  4. 4.

    What kind of democratic regime was formed in the United States?

  5. 5.

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

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Sean Gabb, Smoking, Class and the Legitimation of Power (London: The Hampden Press, 2011), 66–7.

  2. 2.

    See Keith Egloff and Deborah Woodward, First People: The Early Indians of Virginia (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1992); and Karenne Wood, The Virginia Indian Heritage Trail (Charlottesville, VA: Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, 2007).

  3. 3.

    See Rebecca Goetz, The Baptism of Early Virginia: How Christianity Created Race (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 57; and Daniel K. Richter, Facing East from Indian Country: A Native History of Early America (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2009), 75.

  4. 4.

    Quoted in Michael Leroy Oberg, Native America: A History (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010), 17.

  5. 5.

    William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), 42.

  6. 6.

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

  7. 7.

    Quoted in Oberg, Native America: A History, 44.

  8. 8.

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

  9. 9.

    Taylor, American Colonies: 160.

  10. 10.

    See Taylor, American Colonies, 135; and Michael Leroy Oberg, Dominion and Civility: English Imperialism and Native America 1585–1685 (New York: Cornell University Press, 2004), 76.

  11. 11.

    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

  12. 12.

    Ibid.

  13. 13.

    Ibid.

  14. 14.

    Robert Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause: The American Revolution, 1763–1789 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 30–1.

  15. 15.

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

  16. 16.

    Quoted in Alex Roberto Hybel, The Power of Ideology – From the Roman Empire to Al-Qaeda (London: Routledge, 2010), 68.

  17. 17.

    Quoted in Ibid., 70.

  18. 18.

    Quoted in Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 324–5.

  19. 19.

    See “Articles (2 and 3) of Confederation, Agreed to by Congress 15 November 1777.” http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/education/articlesofconfederation.html

  20. 20.

    Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 122–3.

  21. 21.

    Ibid., 604–05.

  22. 22.

    Ibid., 603–06.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., 607–09.

  24. 24.

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

  25. 25.

    Ibid., 17.

  26. 26.

    Middlekauff, The Glorious Cause, 622–55.

  27. 27.

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

  28. 28.

    Ibid., 9.

  29. 29.

    Ibid., 11 and 12.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., 16.

  31. 31.

    Ibid., 20.

  32. 32.

    Donald Ratcliff, “The Right to Vote and the Rise of Democracy, 1787–1828,” Journal of the Early Republic, 33 (Summer 2013), 232–3.

  33. 33.

    Thomas Jefferson, “A Letter of Jefferson on the Political Parties, 1798,” American Historical Review, Vol. 3, No. 3 (April 1898): 488–9.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., 243.

  35. 35.

    See Sean Wilentz, The Rise of American Democracy: Jefferson to Lincoln (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), 206–07; Harry Ammon, James Monroe: The Quest for National Identity (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971), 466; and George Dangerfield, The Awakening of American Nationalism (New York: Harper & Row, 1965), 178

  36. 36.

    Steven E. Woodworth, American Civil War. (Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1996), 145, 151, 505, 512, 554, 557, 684.

  37. 37.

    Ratcliffe, The Right to Vote, 247.

  38. 38.

    William C. Kimberling, “The Manner of Choosing Electors.” http://uselectionatlas.org/INFORMATION/INFORMATION/electcollege_choosing.php

  39. 39.

    “Republican Party Platform of 1860,” in Political Party Platforms http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=29620

  40. 40.

    Ibid.

  41. 41.

    “First Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln,” (March 4, 1861), http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln1.asp

  42. 42.

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

  43. 43.

    Ron Chernow, Grant. (New York: Penguin Press, 2017), 857–8.

  44. 44.

    Ibid., 658–9.

  45. 45.

    Author’s calculations.

  46. 46.

    See Saskia Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: From Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 122–3.

  47. 47.

    Stephen Skowronek, Building a New American State (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 21–2.

  48. 48.

    Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights, 122.

  49. 49.

    Skowronek, Building a New American State, 25.

  50. 50.

    Quoted in Ibid., 40.

  51. 51.

    Ibid., 41–2.

  52. 52.

    Ibid.

  53. 53.

    Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights, 123.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., 130.

  55. 55.

    Ibid., 139.

  56. 56.

    Claudia Zaher, “When a Woman’s Marital Status Determined her Legal Status: A Research Guide on the Common Law Doctrine of Coverture.” www.aallnet.org/mm/Publications/llj/LIJ-Archives/Vol-94/pub_llj_v94n03/2002-28.pdf

  57. 57.

    William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979), Book 1, Chapter 15.

  58. 58.

    Jo Freeman, “The Revolution for Women in Law and Public Policy,” in Jo Freeman, ed., Women: A Feminist Perspective, Fifth Edition (Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1995), 368.

  59. 59.

    Elizabeth C. Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda J. Gage, and Ida Harper, History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. 1 (Rochester, NY: Susan B. Anthony and Charles Mann Press, 1887), 70.

  60. 60.

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

  61. 61.

    Linda Brannon, Gender: Psychological Perspectives (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2005), 154–5.

  62. 62.

    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

  63. 63.

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

  64. 64.

    Stephen E. Ambrose, Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from The Normandy Beaches, To the Bulge, To the Surrender of Germany (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997).

  65. 65.

    Quoted in Robert Dallek, An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917–1963 (Boston: Little Brown, 2003), 604–06.

  66. 66.

    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.

  67. 67.

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

  68. 68.

    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

  69. 69.

    It not being suggested that presently men and women are treated equally, and that blacks have achieved parity with white in the workforce. It is important, however, to recognize that positive changes have ensued. The two groups who 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.” www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gaps-persist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress/

  70. 70.

    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

  71. 71.

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

  72. 72.

    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

  73. 73.

    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.

  74. 74.

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

  75. 75.

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

  76. 76.

    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).

  77. 77.

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

  78. 78.

    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): 564–81. See also “Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy?” BBC News, (April 17, 2014). http://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-echochambers-27074746

  79. 79.

    See Gilens and Page, “Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens,” 564–81.

  80. 80.

    See Heather K. Gerken’s lecture, “Campaign Finance, Dark Money, and Shadow Parties.” http://law.marquette.edu/assets/marquette-lawyers/pdf/marquette-lawyer/2014-summer/2014-summer-p10.pdf

  81. 81.

    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

  82. 82.

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

  83. 83.

    See Gerken, “Campaign Finance, . . .”

  84. 84.

    “Democracy Index, 2018,” The Economist Intelligence Unit. Web. February 24, 2019.

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    Alex Roberto Hybel

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Hybel, A.R. (2020). Processes of State Creation and Democratization in the United States. In: The Making of Flawed Democracies in the Americas. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-21178-3_3

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