USA (Linguistic Culture), страница 4

The new Republican Party, which sprang up in 1854, with Abraham Lincoln as one of its chief founders, demanded that slavery be kept within old boundaries set out in 1820. Tremendously important in awakening the nation’s consciousness was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852), 300 000 copies of which were sold within the first year and which was soon translated into dozens of foreign languages.

In November 1860 Abraham Lincoln was elected the sixteenth president of the USA. “Honest Abe”, was a shrewd politician and a person of strong principles. Abraham Lincoln was convinced that America could not be divided on the question of slavery and said “A home divided against it cannot stand. I believe this Government cannot endure permanently, half slave, half free”.

His votes were drawn only from the Northern States. A few days after A. Lincoln’s election the South Carolina convention voted for secession. Soon six other southern states Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas followed the lead. In February the congress of seceded states formed the Confederate States of America and announced slavery as the corner – stone of their constitution.

In April 1861 the civil war between the North and the South began. Although abolition of slavery was to be one of its problems, the war was fought not only to destroy slavery but first of all to preserve the union. When the Civil war broke out, the North could expect an easy victory. It had superiority in material resources and more than double the population of the South. On the other hand, the South was in some respects very favorably placed for resisting invasion from the North. The country abounded in strong positions for defense, which could be held by a relatively small force while the northerners had to advance long distances, thus exposing their lines of communication to attack. As soldiers, the Southerners started with certain superiority for most of them were accustomed to fighting as a normal and suitable occupation for men. Besides, among their leaders there were two men of great military talent – generals Jackson and Lee, while the Northerners lacked such brilliant officers. During the first stages of the war the Union Armies had a lot of failures. But Lincoln himself read books on strategy, scanned military maps, and outlined plans of campaigns. And his determination soon began to be widely felt and appreciated by common people. The belief that he could be trusted spread quickly and at the end the Northern army acted as an emancipating crusade.

Lincoln’s greatness of mind and heart were unexcelled. In his famous “Gettysburg Address” (1863) Lincoln made public his great plans of reconstructing the country on a new, more democratic basis: “The great task remains before us – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom – and the government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth”.

Since 1862 the blacks were allowed to join the Northern army and by the end of the war one Northern soldier in eight was black. Soon the segregated troops proved themselves in battle: 38,000 were killed, a rate of loss 40 times higher than among white troops.

In the summer of 1863 the North army won several decisive battles and cut Tennessee and Arkansas. In a series of fierce battles the North lost 60,000 but gained the main objectives, destroying everything on its way that might help the Southerners continue the fight.

In 1864 Abraham Lincoln was unanimously renominated President. He gave the closest attention to the final military phase of the war, visiting the army. On April 3, 1865, Jackson and Lee had to recognize the futility of further resistance. The confederate soldiers laid down their arms and were allowed to return to their homes in peace. The war lasted four years and cost the nation 600,000 lives but the concept of an indissoluble union won universal acceptance.

A more technically advanced and productive economic system resulted from the war. The war forced the Government to proclaim emancipation for slave-soldiers fighting for the Union. In 1865 it was followed by the antislavery amendment to the Constitution making slavery illegal throughout the whole country.

On April 14, 1865 during a theatrical performance in Washington, Lincoln was lethally wounded by a southern conspirator John Booth and early next morning he died. The feat of Abraham Lincoln’s life is best summed up in the lines of the poem by Walt Whitman dedicated to the memory of this great American. Shortly before his death, the president endorsed suffrage for “very intelligent” blacks and former black soldiers in the Union army. After Lincoln’s assassination President Andrew Johnson continued Lincoln’s moderate policies. The 14^th Amendment, defining national citizenship including blacks, was passed by Congress in 1866 and was ratified despite rejection of most Southern states.

That Northern victory launched the era of Congressional Reconstruction which lasted 10 years starting with the Reconstruction Acts of 1867. Under that legislation the 11 Confederate states were readmitted to the Union and had to accept the 14-th and later the 15^th Constitutional Amendments, intended to ensure the civil rights of the black freedmen.

At first Reconstruction of the Union seemed to hold many promises for Black men and women in the South, who were allowed to leave their former owners and move to other states. But in reality the Northern efforts brought few serious changes in the status of black people. The laws did not guarantee any social rights of the Blacks. They did not require redistribution of land or wealth and power and only temporarily interrupted white supremacy in the South. Without land and property black freedmen again became dependent on white landowners and worked for them as tenants. Harsh labor-contract laws, imprisonment for minor crimes, work under deplorable conditions for coal, lumber, or railroad-building corporations left most blacks in situation slightly improved from slavery. The political rights of Black people were not secured either. Under the free interpretation of the 15^th amendment the freedmen were actually denied suffrage on the grounds that they lacked education and property.

At the same time the white opposition to the Reconstruction in the Southern states was growing. In 1869 the racist organization Ku-Klux-Klan added violence to the whites’ resistance. Despite federal efforts to protect black people, they were intimidated at the polls, robbed of their earnings, beaten, or murdered. The Klan’s purpose was not only economic (to keep the slavery) but also openly political and social, as Klansmen also attacked white philanthropists and schoolteachers who openly showed their support of the Black people. None who helped to raise the status of the blacks was safe.

The K.K.K’s actions moved Congress in 1871 to pass two Force acts directed against its violence. These acts permitted the use of martial law against the Klansmen, but for a long time proved unsuccessful in combating the Klan’s activities. In 1870s the failure of the Reconstruction became apparent. American reform movements achieved only partial success.

When in 1872 the Amnesty Act was adopted, terrorism against blacks even widened. Between 1874 and 1876 a series of “race riots” swept across the South. Nighttime visits; whippings, and murder became common phenomena. After that thousands of blacks started migrating to the North, first to Kansas City and then farther North. Thus the nation ended over 16 years of bloody war without establishing real freedom for Black Americans.

The Indian Policy

The plight of the Indian population was even worse. The land-hungry American pioneers stopped at nothing in their drive to the West. In 1830 the Indian Removal Act was passed. The terrible implementation of this Act produced the darkest chapter in American history. The story of treaties and broken agreements, raids and massacres, was repeated in the settlement of the trans-Mississippi West and the Northwest.

The period after the Civil War was the period of the reservation policy. The blocks of land where Indians were forced to live were usually the poorest barren places where nobody else wanted to live. Extermination of the buffalo herds eventually led to destruction of the traditional Indian life as they had always lived on the buffalo hunt, and their ritual and worship had been dedicated to its success. The disappearance of the buffalo left the Indians starving, purposeless and hopeless.

By the 20-th century poverty, perpetual hunger, European diseases and hostilities had reduced the Indian population in reservations to only 250000.The Indian civilization was facing extinction. Indians were not allowed to keep their traditional culture, dances, religion and language.

1. Answer the questions.

1. What was the situation with Indians and black slaves in the USA after the Independence?

2. Were Indians and Blacks really granted the Civil rights?

3. Why did the abolition issue become particularly stressful in 1850?

4. How did the southerners regard slavery?

5. How did the secession process develop?

6. What was Abraham Lincoln attitude to slavery?

7. How did the Civil War actually start and how long did it last?

8. Were the black slaves liberated immediately after the Civil War?

9. What instruments were designed by Southern whites to terrorize blacks?

10. What were the activities of the K. K. K.?

11. Why did black Americans fail to achieve real equality during the term of reconstruction?

2. Render the texts in English:

После революции многие политические деятели, в том числе и Дж. Вашингтон, думали, что рабство, запрещенное в северных штатах, постепенно, будет исчезать и на Юге.

Однако ход событий был совсем иным. Выращивание хлопка, сахарного тростника и табака на рынок требовали организованного труда. По мере того, как США расширяли свои границы, присоединяя или осваивая новые территории, Юг поднимал вопрос о распространении рабства на вновь образовавшиеся штаты. Возможность политического отделения южных рабовладельческих штатов становилась все более реальной. В апреле 1861 г. семь из них подняли мятеж с целью сохранения рабства и распространения его по всей стране.

Приход к власти А. Линкольна ознаменовал начало давно назревавшей гражданской войны. Военные действия длились с 1861 по 1865 г. и нанесли стране огромный урон. Некоторые города (Колумбия, Ричмонд, Атланта) были сожжены до основания, многие заводы и железные дороги разрушены. На первом этапе война северян велась нерешительно, “по конституционному”, что привело к ряду их военных поражений. Однако в 1864-1865 гг. были разгромлены основные силы южан и в апреле 1865 г. взята столица рабовладельческих штатов, город Ричмонд. Победа Севера сохранила страну как единое государство. Она уничтожила господство плантаторов и рабство и создала условия для капиталистической индустриализации и освоения западных земель. Победил фермерский (так называемый американский) путь развития капитализма. Однако взаимная ненависть на долгие годы разъединяла южан и северян.

Гражданская война не принесла действительной свободы черным рабам, освобожденным без земли. По стране бродили тысячи бывших невольников, потерявших хозяев и привычное место работы.

Индейцы в Америке. В течение двух веков американское правительство вело настоящую войну против “краснокожих”, виноватых только в том, что они занимали прекрасные плодородные земли. Это была долгая кровопролитная война, исход которой был предрешен. Силой и обманом индейцев заставляли подписывать договоры о капитуляции и под вооруженным конвоем отправляли в резервации, на самые бесплодные, не пригодные для жизни человека территории. Это было сознательная политика “расчистки” нового континента от его хозяев.

3. Discussion Points:

I. The main reasons of the Civil War.

2. The abolition of slavery.

3. Abraham Lincoln and his Contribution to American history.

LECTURE N 8

Years of Growth

1896 Ford Quadricycle

After the end of the Civil War the United States continued the acquisition of the new territories. The United States acted like an imperial nation, gathering and settling new territories, pushing aside those who stood in its path. In 1867 the United States bought Alaska from Russia, later Spain gave most of its oversea empire to the USA – Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico and a small Pacific island Guam. At the same time the USA also annexed Hawaii and a group of islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Having started as a colonial country, the USA quickly became a colonial power herself.

In the early 1900s the American government wanted to build a canal across the Isthmus of Panama to join North and South America. As the Columbian government was slow to give the Americans permission to build the canal, in 1903 president Theodore Roosevelt sent warships to Panama. The warships helped a small group of Panamanian businessmen to rebel against the Columbian government and to give the Americans Control over a ten-and-a-half-mile wide strip of land called the Canal Zone.

Parallel to the acquisition of the oversea lands the USA continued the settlements of North American territories. After the “Gold Rush” in California gold and silver were also discovered in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona, Wyoming and Dakota. Some former mining settlements grew into permanent communities. New towns sprang up throughout the gold and silver regions.

Within twenty-five years after the end of the Civil War the Great Plains were divided into States and territories of the USA. Ranchers were feeding large herds of cattle on the “sea of grass”; farmers were using the latest harvesting technology on the large irrigated fields of “Great American Desert” to grow wheat. By 1890 the separate areas of settlement on the Pacific Coast and along the Mississippi River had moved together and the wilderness had been largely conquered.