Лингвострановедение США (стр. 4 )

The second was the Sugar Act of 1764. To raise more money from colonial trade the British government told that colonists must pay new taxes on imports of sugar, wine, coffee, textiles, and other goods. More British navy ships were to patrol the American coast to stop smuggling. The third major part of the Grenville Acts was the Stamp Act passed in 1765. According to it colonists had to buy special stamps and attach them to newspapers, licenses and legal papers such as wills and mortgages. The government also told them that they must feed and find shelter for British soldiers it planned to keep in the colonies (the Quartering Act of 1765). These orders seemed perfectly fair to British politicians. It had cost British taxpayers a lot of money to defend the colonies during the French and Indian War. Surely, they reasoned, the colonists could not object to repaying some of this money.

But the colonists did object. Merchants believed that the new import taxes would make it more difficult for them to trade at a profit. Other colonists believed that the taxes would raise their costs of living. They also feared that if British troops stayed in America they might be used to force them to obey the British government. Trade with Britain fell off sharply in summer 1765, when prominent men organized themselves into the “Sons of Liberty” – secret organization to protest the Stamp Act, often through violent means.

Ever since the early years of the Virginia settlement Americans had claimed the right to elect representatives to decide the taxes they paid. Now they insisted that as "freeborn Englishmen" they could be taxed only by their own colonial assemblies. We have no representatives in the British Parliament, they said, so what right does it have to tax us? "No taxation without representation" became their demand. In 1765 representatives from nine colonies met in New York. They formed the "Stamp Act Congress" and organized opposition to the Stamp Act. All over the colonies merchants and shopkeepers refused to sell British goods until the Act was withdrawn. In Boston and other cities angry mobs attacked government officials selling the stamps. Most colonists simply refused to use them.

As the conflict between the British and the colonists increased, the American people divided into two groups. The colonists who supported a possible break with the British were called patriots. Those who remained loyal to the English were called loyalists. At the head of the opposition was Samuel Adams of Massachusetts, a politician and writer who fought tirelessly for independence. Being shrewd and able in politics, Samuel Adams published articles in newspapers and made speeches in town meetings as he wanted to make people aware of their own power and importance.

All this opposition forced the British government to withdraw the Stamp Act. But it was determined to show the colonists that it had the right to tax them. Parliament passed another law called the Declaratory Act. This stated that the British government had "full power and authority (over) the colonies and people of America in all cases whatsoever."

In 1767 the British placed new taxes on tea, paper, paint, and various other goods that the colonies imported from abroad. A special customs office was set up in Boston to collect the new duties. Again the colonists refused to pay. Riots broke out in Boston and the British sent soldiers to keep order.

The presence of the British troops angered colonists and caused disorders. On March 5, 1770 antagonism between citizens and British soldiers brought violence. A Boston mob began to shout insults at a group of British soldiers. Angry words were exchanged. Sticks and stones began to fly through the air at the soldiers. One of the crowd tried to take a soldier’s gun and the soldier shot him. Without any order from the officer in charge, more shots were fired and three more members of the crows fell dead. Several others were wounded. Samuel Adams, who organized opposition to British tax laws in Massachusetts, used this “Boston Massacre” to stir up American opinion against the British. He wrote a letter which described the happening as an unprovoked attack on a peaceful group of citizens. He sent out copies of the letter to all the colonies. To make his account more convincing, he asked a Boston silversmith Paul Revere to make a dramatic picture of the “Boston Massacre”. Hundreds of copies were printed. Adam’s letter and Revere’s picture were seen by thousands of people throughout the colonies. Together they did a great deal to strengthen opposition to British rule.

It was not until 1770 when the British removed all the duties except for the one on tea. But some colonists in Massachusetts were determined to keep the quarrel going. In December 1773, a group of them disguised themselves as Mohawk Amerindians. Led by Samuel Adams, they boarded British merchant ships in Boston harbor and threw 342 cases of tea into the sea. "I hope that King George likes salt in his tea," said one of them.

The British reply to this "Boston Tea Party" was to pass a set of laws to punish Massachusetts. Colonists soon began calling these laws the "Intolerable Acts." Boston harbor was closed to all trade until the tea was paid for. More soldiers were sent there to keep order. The powers of the colonial assembly of Massachusetts were greatly reduced.

On June 1, 1774, British warships took up position at the mouth of Boston harbor to make sure that no ships sailed in or out. A few months later, in September 1774, a group of colonial leaders came together in Philadelphia. They formed the First Continental Congress to oppose what they saw as British oppression. They were deeply worried by the British actions but were divided in their ideas for meeting the crisis. Some hoped to ask the king for help. If George III would aid them, they would remain in the British Empire. They believed there were still some advantages of being tied to England and under Parliament’s rule. Others took the view that Parliament had no authority over the colonies.

The Continental Congress claimed to be loyal to the British king. But it called upon all Americans to support the people of Massachusetts by refusing to buy British goods. Many colonists went further than this. They began to organize themselves into groups of part-time soldiers, or "militias," and to gather together weapons and ammunition.

On the night of April 18, 1775, 700 British soldiers marched silently out of Boston. Their orders were to seize weapons and ammunition that rebellious colonists had stored in Concord, a nearby town. But the colonists were warned that the soldiers were coming. Signal lights were hung from the spire of Boston's highest church and two fast riders jumped into their saddles and galloped off with the news.

In the village of Lexington the British found seventy American militiamen, farmers and tradesmen, barring their way. These part-time soldiers were known as "Minutemen." This was because they had promised to take up arms immediately – in a minute – whenever they were needed.

The British commander ordered the Minutemen to return to their homes. They refused. Then someone, nobody knows who, fired a shot. Other shots came from the lines of British soldiers. Eight Minutemen fell dead. The first shots had been fired in what was to become the American War of Independence.

The British soldiers reached Concord a few hours later and destroyed some of the weapons and gunpowder there. But by the time they set off to return to Boston hundreds more Minutemen had gathered. From the thick woods on each side of the Boston road they shot down, one by one, 273 British soldiers. The soldiers were still under attack when they arrived back in Boston. A ring of armed Americans gathered round the city.

The next month, May 1775, the second Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and began to act as an American national government. It set up an army of 17,000 men under the command of George Washington. Washington was a Virginia landowner and surveyor with experience of fighting in the French and Indian War. The Continental Congress also sent representatives to seek aid from friendly European nations – especially from France, Britain's old enemy. For those still hoping for peace, the delegates sent to George III one last appeal – the Olive Branch Petition. George turned it down and declared that the Americans were rebels.

By the following year the fighting had spread beyond Massachusetts. It had grown into a full-scale war. On July 2, 1776, the Continental Congress finally took the step that many Americans believed was inevitable. It cut all political ties with Britain and declared that "these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states." Two days later, on July 4, it issued the Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration of Independence is the most important document in American history. It was written by Thomas Jefferson, a landowner and lawyer from Virginia. After repeating that the colonies were now "free and independent states" it officially named them the United States of America.

The Declaration of Independence was more than a statement that the colonies were a new nation. It also set out the ideas behind the change that was being made. It claimed that all men had a natural right to "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." It also said that governments can only justly claim the right to rule if they have the agreement of those they govern – "the consent of the governed." Ideas such as these were a central part of the political traditions that the colonists' ancestors had brought with them from England. Colonial leaders had also studied them in the writings of an English political thinker named John Locke. Men like Jefferson combined Locke's ideas with their own experience of life in America to produce a new definition of democratic government. This new definition said that governments should consist of representatives elected by the people. It also said that the main reason that governments existed was to protect the rights of individual citizens.

So Americans considered themselves independent, but they still had to fight and win a war to prove it. After some early successes, they did badly in the war against the British. Washington's army was more of an armed mob than an effective fighting force. Few of the men had any military training and many obeyed only those orders that suited them. Officers quarreled constantly over their rank and authority. Washington set to work to train his men and turn them into disciplined soldiers. But this took time, and meanwhile the Americans suffered defeat after defeat. In September 1776, only two months after the Declaration of Independence, the British captured New York City. Washington wrote to his brother that he feared that the Americans were very close to losing the war.

Success began to come to the Americans in October 1777. They trapped a British army of almost 6,000 men at Saratoga in northern New York. The British commander was cut off from his supplies and his men were facing starvation. He was forced to surrender. The Americans marched their prisoners to Boston. Here, after swearing never again to fight against the Americans, the prisoners were put on board ships and sent back to England. The American victory at Saratoga was considered the turning point of the war. It was important to Americans because it brought France into the war. From this point on, the French, who had already given secret help to Americans, began to help them openly. In 1778 French leaders signed a treaty of alliance promising guns, ships and money to Americans. French ships, soldiers and money were soon playing an important part in the war.

From 1778 onwards most of the fighting took place in the southern colonies. It was here that the war came to an end. In September 1781, George Washington, leading a combined American and French army, surrounded 8,000 British troops under General Cornwallis at Yorktown, on the coast of Virginia. Cornwallis was worried, but he expected British ships to arrive and rescue or reinforce his army. When ships arrived off Yorktown, however, they were French ones. Cornwallis was trapped. On October 17, 1781, he surrendered his army to Washington. When the news reached London the British Prime Minister, Lord North, threw up his hands in despair. "It is all over!" he cried.

North was right. The British started to withdraw their forces from America and British and American representatives began to discuss peace terms. In the Treaty of Paris, which was signed in September 1783, Britain officially recognized her former colonies as an independent nation. The treaty granted the new United States all of North America from Canada in the north to Florida in the south, and from the Atlantic coast to the Mississippi River.

DISCUSSION

1.  What were the reasons for most American colonists to be quite content by the British rule until 1760s?

2.  How did Navigation Acts passed by the British government limit colonial trade? Did American colonists obey these acts?

3.  Why did the British victory in the French and Indian war lead directly to their conflict with colonists? What kind of proclamation did the English king George III issue in 1763?

4.  When was the Sugar Act passed? What kind of taxes did it raise?

5.  What kind of proclamation did the English king George III issue in 1763?

6.  Why did the order to pay new taxes on imports and to give food and shelter to British soldiers seem perfectly fair to British politicians?

7.  What was the Stamp Act of 1765 intended for?

8.  Americans claimed the right to elect their representatives to the British Parliament to decide upon the taxes they paid. What was their motto?

9.  What do we learn about the Stamp Act Congress of 1765?

10.  What was Samuel Adams’s contribution to American independence?

11.  What occurrence is known as the Boston Tea Party? What was the British reply to this action?

12.  When did the First Continental Congress take place? What was its appeal to colonists?

13.  Were American “minutemen” professional soldiers?

14.  What do we learn about the armed clash that took place in Lexington?

15.  When was the Declaration of Independence issued?

16.  Why did Americans do badly in the beginning of the war against the British?

17.  When did Americans hold their decisive victory over the British? How did they treat captured British soldiers?

18.  Why did the French king agree to help Americans fight against the British?

19.  Why did General Cornwallis have to surrender his army to George Washington?

20.  When was the Treaty of Paris signed? What did the British guarantee to their former colony?

SUPPLEMENTARY ACTIVITIES

Listen to a special program from Voice of America – an intermediate listening comprehension course. Then read the transcript and fill in the blanks.

a)  to be tried in court for murder

b)  to enforce the law

c)  the First Continental Congress

d)  to be in rebellion

e)  to approve a series of documents

f)  the shot heard round the world

g)  the Boston Tea Party

h)  to become involved in a dispute

i)  colonial troops

j)  to destroy the supplies

k)  the American Revolution

l)  to ease the tensions

m)  to seize the weapons

n)  the British policy of taxing

o)  to control trade

VOICE ONE:

This is Sarah Long.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Rich Kleinfeldt with THE MAKING OF THE NATION, a VOA Special English program about the history of the United States.

Today, we tell about the start of the American colonies’ war for independence from Britain in the late seventeen hundreds.

VOICE ONE:

The road to revolution lasted several years. The most serious events began in seventeen seventy. War began five years later.

Relations between Britain and its American colonists were most tense in the colony of Massachusetts. There were protests against …(1) the colonies without giving them representation in Parliament. To prevent trouble, thousands of British soldiers were sent to Boston, the biggest city in Massachusetts. On March fifth, seventeen seventy, tension led to violence. This is what happened.

VOICE TWO:

It was the end of winter, and the weather was very cold. A small group of colonists began throwing rocks and pieces of ice at soldiers guarding a public building. They were joined by others, and the soldiers became frightened. They fired their guns. Five colonists were killed. The incident became known as the Boston Massacre.

VOICE ONE:

The people of Massachusetts were extremely angry. The soldiersMost were found innocent. The others received minor punishments. Fearing more violence, the British Parliament cancelled most of its taxes. Only the tax on tea remained. This … some of …(3) for a while. Imports of British goods increased. The colonists seemed satisfied with the situation, until a few years later. That is when the Massachusetts colony once again … (4) with Britain.

VOICE TWO:

The trouble started because the British government wanted to help improve the business of the British East India Company. That company organized all the trade between India and other countries ruled by seventeen seventy-three, the company had become weak. The British government decided to permit it to sell tea directly to the American colonies. The colonies would still have to pay a tea tax to Britain.

The Americans did not like the new plan. They felt they were being forced to buy their tea from only one company.

VOICE ONE:

Officials in the colonies of Pennsylvania and New York sent the East India Company’s ships back to Britain. In Massachusetts, things were different. The British governor there wanted to collect the tea tax and … (5). When the ships arrived in Boston, some colonists tried to block their way. The ships remained just outside the harbor without unloading their goods.

On the night of December sixteenth, seventeen seventy-three, a group of colonists went out in a small boat. They got a British ship and threw all the tea into the water. The colonists were dressed as American Indians so the British would not recognize them, but the people of Boston knew who they were. A crowd gathered to cheer them. That incident – the night when British tea was thrown into Boston harbor - became known as … (6).

VOICE TWO:

Destroying the tea was a serious crime. The British government was angry. Parliament reacted to the Boston Tea Party by punishing the whole colony of Massachusetts for the actions of a few men. It approved a series of laws that once again changed relations between the colony and Britain.

One of these laws closed the port of Boston until the tea was paid for. Other laws strengthened the power of the British governor and weakened the power of local colonial officials.

In June, seventeen seventy-four, the colony of Massachusetts called for a meeting of delegates from all the other colonies to consider joint action against Britain.

VOICE ONE:

This meeting of colonial delegates was called … (7). It was held in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in September, seventeen seventy - four. All the colonies except one was represented. The southern colony of Georgia did not send a delegate.

The delegates agreed that the British Parliament had no right … (8) with the American colonies or to make any laws that affected them. They said the people of the colonies must have the right to take part in any legislative group that made laws for them.

VOICE TWO:

The First Continental Congress … (9) that condemned all British actions in the American colonies after seventeen sixty-three. It approved a Massachusetts proposal saying that the people could use weapons to defend their rights. It also organized a Continental Association to boycott British goods and to stop all exports to any British colony or to Britain itself. Local committees were created to enforce the boycott. One of the delegates to this First Continental Congress was John Adams of Massachusetts. Many years later, he said that by the time the meeting was held, the American Revolution had already begun.

VOICE ONE:

Britain’s King George the Second announced that the New England colonies … (10). Parliament made the decision to use troops against Massachusetts in January seventeen seventy-five.

The people of Massachusetts made a provincial assembly and began training men to fight. Soon, groups of armed men were doing military exercises in towns all around Massachusetts and in other colonies, too.

VOICE TWO:

British officers received their orders in April, seventeen that time, the colonists had been gathering weapons in the town of Concord, about thirty kilometers west of Boston. The British forces were ordered … (11). But the colonists knew they were coming and were prepared.

Years later, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a poem about what happened. The poem tells about the actions of Paul Revere, one of three men who helped warn the … (12) that the British were coming:

Listen my children and you shall hear

Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.

On the eighteenth of April in seventy-five

Hardly a man is now alive

Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, “If the British march

By land or sea from the town tonight

Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch

Of the North Church tower as a signal light,-

One if by land; and two if by sea;

And I on the opposite shore will be,

Ready to ride and spread the alarm

Through every Middlesex village and farm

For the country folk to be up and to arm.”

VOICE ONE:

When the British reached the town of Lexington, they found it protected by about seventy colonial troops. These troops were called “Minute Men” because they had been trained to fight with only a minute’s warning. Guns were fired. Eight colonists were killed.

No one knows who fired the first shot in that first battle of the … (13). Each side accused the other. But the meaning was very clear. It was called “…” (14).

VOICE TWO:

From Lexington, the British marched to Concord, where they … whatever … (15) the colonists had not been able to save. Other colonial troops rushed to the area. A battle at Concord’s north bridge forced the British to march back to Boston.

It was the first day of America’s war for independence. When it was over, almost three hundred British troops had been killed. Fewer than one hundred Americans had died.

VOICE ONE:

The British troops had marched in time with their drummers and pipers. The musicians had played a song called “Yankee Doodle”. The British invented the song to insult the Americans. They said a Yankee Doodle was a man who did not know how to fight. After the early battles of the revolution, the Americans said they were glad to be Yankee Doodles.

(MUSIC)

VOICE TWO:

Following the battles at Lexington and Concord, the Massachusetts government organized a group that captured Fort Ticonderoga on Lake Champlain in New York State. The other colonies began sending troops to help. And another joint colonial meeting was called: the Second Continental Congress. That will be our story next week.

VOICE ONE:

Today’s MAKING OF A NATION program was written by Nancy Steinbach. This is Sarah Long.

VOICE TWO:

And this is Rich Kleinfeldt. Join us again next week for another Special English program about the history of the United States.

UNIT 5

PART I

THE WESTWARD MOVEMENT

In 1800 the western boundary of the United States was the Mississippi River. Beyond its wide and muddy waters there were great areas of land through which few white people had traveled. The land stretched west for more than 600 miles to the foothills of the Rocky Mountains and was known at the time as Louisiana.

In 1800 Louisiana Territory belonged to France. Americans feared that Napoleon, who was the ruler of France, might send French soldiers and settlers to Louisiana and so block the further westward growth of the United States. Then the Americans were very lucky, as in 1803 Napoleon was about to go to war with Britain and needed money. For fifteen million dollars he sold Louisiana to the United States. “We have lived long but this is the noblest work of our whole lives,” said one of the American representatives who signed the agreement. Louisiana stretched north from the Gulf of Mexico to the Canadian border and west from the Mississippi to the Rocky Mountains. Its purchase almost doubled the land area of the United States.

The Louisiana Purchase was authorized by President Thomas Jefferson, who was a keen amateur scientist and sent an expedition to explore Louisiana. Jefferson wanted to know more about the geography, people, animals and plants of the lands to the west of the United States, he also hoped that the explorers might find an easy way to cross North America to the Pacific Ocean. The expedition of 1804 to 1806 was led by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark. It gave people in the United States their first information about the Louisiana Territory. The expedition traveled almost 4000 miles, and though they failed to find an easy overland route to the Pacific they showed that the journey was possible.

Soon other Americans were exploring and settling lands in the West. Moving across the Mississippi River into the huge area of the West presented exciting challenges and new problems to Americans who moved into the lands west of the Mississippi River for the same reason that they had always moved west—for cheap and plentiful land. Large numbers of settlers started farms in Iowa, Arkansas, and Missouri in the 1820s and the 1840s much of the Mississippi River Valley was settled, and interest began to grow in lands farther west.

Oregon was one of the areas in the West which attracted Americans. This territory stretched from Alaska in the north to California in the south and inland through the Rocky Mountains to undefined borders of Louisiana. In the early 1800s, Oregon was claimed by four different countries – Great Britain, the United States, Russia, and *****ssia owned Alaska, and Spain ruled California. But in Oregon the British and the Americans were in the strongest position. Both already had trading posts scattered along Oregon’s coasts and rivers. Soon American political leaders began to fear that Britain would gain complete control of the area. To prevent this they made great efforts to persuade more Americans to start farms in Oregon.

At first Americans traveling to Oregon went by ship. They sailed from the east coast ports of the United States, around South America and up the long Pacific Coast. The journey was expensive and it lasted for months. Settlers began traveling to Oregon by land in 1832. They usually started their journey from Independence, Missouri, a town on the Mississippi River, to Oregon. Large wagon trains were making the 2,000-mile (3,200-kilometer) journey. The overland route became known as the Oregon Trail. A wagon train usually consisted of about twenty-five wagons, each wagon could carry a load of 2 – 2,5 tons and was pulled by a team of either mules or oxen. The journey took from four to six months. The people who made it faced many dangers along the trail. Floods and blizzards, prairie fires and accidents, disease and starvation – all these took many lives. Indians sometimes attacked, trying to stop the settlers moving through their lands. Snow was a danger once the wagon trains reached the Rocky Mountains. Often wagon wheels broke or metal tires fell off from the changes in temperatures. Despite the hardships, “Oregon fever” gripped many Americans in 1840s. People left their worn-out farms in the east, packed their possessions on wagons and set off for the west. Though all of them settled south of the Columbia River, but they far outnumbered British people in the area. In 1843, they set up a temporary government. These settlers wanted the United States to stop sharing control of the area with Great Britain.

In 1845 a magazine editor first used the term “manifest destiny”. He wrote that it was the manifest destiny, or certain fate, of the United States to stretch from ocean to ocean. Many people in all parts of the country agreed with him.

Texas interested the people in the United States chiefly because of its rich soil. In the early 1800's southern cotton growers had begun migrating west from Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia. The soil in these states had become worn out. The farmers looked for better land in the Gulf regions. Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama became important cotton-growing states. In the 1820s, planters were looking to Texas as a real source of rich land on which to grow cotton, using slave the early 1830s, there were 30,000 settlers from the United States living in Texas. Most were from the South, and many owned slaves. Slavery and other troubles soon led to quarrels between the Americans in Texas and the Mexican government. Mexico had ended slavery and objected to the holding of slaves by Americans living in Texas. At the same time, Mexicans began to wonder whether loyalty of the Texas settlers was to the United States or to Mexico. They tried to stop more Americans from entering Texas.

In October 1835 the Texan Americans, or Texans, rebelled. On March 2, 1836, they declared their independence. Sam Houston was placed in charge of the army. On April 21, 1836, Texas troops under his command won a victory that ended the war. They attacked and defeated the larger Mexican army near the San Jacinto River. Texans set up their own government like that of the United States and chose Sam Houston as their first president.

Many Americans expected that Texas would be annexed, or added, to the United States after winning its independence. Over the next several years, however, the American government avoided the issue. They feared war with Mexico since Mexico had not recognized the independence of Texas. They also did not want to stir up trouble over slavery.

In the election of 1844, James K. Polk became President of the United States. During the campaign, he had called for the annexation of both Texas and Oregon. Since most people living in Texas were Americans, they wanted Texas to be a part of the United States. On March 1, 1845 Texas became a state.

President Polk sent an agent to Mexico to talk about the border dispute and to try to buy California and New Mexico. When Polk heard that Mexican officials would not meet with this agent, he sent the troops to the north bank of the Rio Grande. Mexico saw this as an invasion of its land. On May 13, 1846, Congress declared war on Mexico. As the war went on, some Americans began to demand more territory. A few even wanted to annex all of Mexico. Most Americans at least wanted to get California and New Mexico. The government also wanted Mexico to agree that Texas was part of the United States. American soldiers invaded Mexico and defeated the Mexican September 1847 they had occupied Mexico City, the capital of the country.

The Mexican-American War was ended by a peace treaty signed in February 1848. The United States paid Mexico $15 million for all the land north of the Rio Grande and the Gila River. Today these lands form the American states of California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico and parts of Colorado and Wyoming. Several years later the United States found that the best southern railroad route to the Pacific coast was south of the Gila River. In 1853 the United States paid Mexico $10 million for the strip of land that now forms the southern part of Arizona and New Mexico.

Including Texas, the United States had gained a huge area of over 1 million square miles. It had good soil, many natural resources, and ports on the coast of California. The annexation of Mexican lands completed the “manifest destiny” of the United States. It now stretched across the North American continent from ocean to ocean. In little more than half a century it had grown from a small nation on the shores of the Atlantic into one of the largest countries on the world.

DISCUSSION

1.  What nation did Louisiana belong to in1800? How far did this territory stretch?

2.  Why did Americans dislike the presence of the French in North America?

3.  How can you comment on the quotation: “We have lived long but this is the noblest work of our whole lives”?

4.  Why did American president send an expedition of Lewis and Clark to Louisiana?

5.  How far did the territory of Oregon stretch? Why did it attract American settlers?

6.  How did American farmers travel to Oregon? What dangers were they exposed to during the journey?

7.  What does the term “manifest destiny” mean? When did the idea of “manifest destiny” become popular in the United States?

8.  Why was Texas so attractive for Americans?

9.  Why did Texans rebel against Mexican rule?

10.  What territories were annexed to the United States after the Mexican-American war?

GUIDED TALK

Make short reports on these topics. Use the words given below.

1.  Louisiana Purchase. Lewis and Clark expedition

to stretch west, to block the growth, to sign an agreement, to double the area, to be authorized, to send an expedition, to lead an expedition, to find an overland route

2.  “Oregon Fever”

to present an exciting challenge, to start a farm, to be claimed by smb., a trading post, to gain complete control of the area, a wagon train, to be pulled by a team of mules or oxen, to face many dangers, despite the hardships, a worn-out farm, to set off for the west

3.  Texas rebellion

manifest destiny, worn-out soil, a source of rich land, slave labor, to rebel, to declare independence, to win a victory, to set up the government, to win independence

4.  The Mexican-American war

to be annexed, to avoid the issue, invasion, to declare war on smth./ smb., to occupy the capital, to sign a peace treaty

PART II

A DIVIDED NATION

By the middle of the 19th century America grew much bigger. The country acquired many new 1850s the United States stretched over forest, plain and mountain, but adding new territories also brought problems. It raised the question of whether the new states would allow slavery. Leaders in the North felt it should not be allowed, while Southern leaders, on the other hand, supported the spread of slavery. Differences between the North and the South did not begin or end with slavery. The two areas had been growing apart for more than fifty years. The North and the South developed different social, economic and political ways.

During colonial times, they shared certain social patterns. Most of the people were of British heritage, or background. They shared the same language, customs, and law. They also had similar political views. There were differences even then, however. In general, planters dominated social life in the South, while in the North, no single group set the pattern of living. Education was more widespread in the North than in the South. In the years before 1860, the North changed more than the South, and the two areas became even less alike. The population of the North grew rapidly. Cities became important. Immigration brought a great variety of people to the northern states. The white population of the South grew slowly. Immigration into the South was also slow, and its impact was slight. The large number of black slaves in the South further set the two sections apart. The North and South also moved in different directions economically. In the early days of the United States, life in both parts of the country centered around farms and small villages. The South remained an agricultural area and did not develop much industry, the most important part of the southern economy was the large plantations. On them, tobacco, rice, sugar cane, and cotton were grown, using slave labor. Economic ideas changed slowly in the South. Southern leaders were generally against high taxes, government spending, and federal banks. They fought against raising import duties, as the South imported most of its manufactured goods and relied upon foreign manufacturers for both necessities and luxuries of many kinds.