I wrote this paper about... 4 months ago for a history class I took, essentially I had to cover a few certain topics in American History (everything pre Gilded Age) and determine what the actually value of USA was, being the unusually optimistic person I am I said it was freedom (many others said Greed).

If you are wondering what I got, it was a 97%. My teacher said I "Wrote too much".

Freedom

Written by Riverknight
 “Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves. “ ~Abraham Lincoln


Concannon, S Riverknight's Value Paper

Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness, those seven words are known by every single american as the undeniable rights of the american people; it is also commonly said to be the values of the american people. But what about freedom, isn't freedom the very value the founding fathers said they fought for; wouldn't freedom be americans value, the true value of America is Freedom. Freedom and America are so closely related that it is mentioned in the national anthem, the constitution and the declaration of independence. But what is freedom,is it something the founding fathers made up to justify rebellion, or is it something right wing politicians makeup to try and build support for elections. The people who believe freedom is a myth and that it is just something people make up to justify their actions are completely wrong, freedom is all around american society and government, freedom is an idea, an idea that allows people to live their lives the way they seems fit, whether you want to live in Alaska and hang out with bears, or live in Hawaii and surf all day, that is freedom, freedom to do whatever people want to do. Freedom has been around even before modern america, the Puritans and Quakers of England sailed the atlantic to find freedom. Freedom allowed the Quakers to establish the Pennsylvania colony and the Puritans established Plymouth colony. Freedom also helped ignite the thirteen colonies into rebellion and was the main reason the colonies fought the British in the revolutionary war but freedom did not quit there, it was also one of the biggest influences on the constitution. Latter on when slavery was heavily debated in Congress, the southerners claimed the federal government would take their freedom, but the government only wanted to free the slaves in slavery. Freedom is at the heart of almost every single american event and it continues to be a main point in our politics and society.

Freedom was always on the minds of the European religious minority, so when the new world was discovered and nations were promoting colonization, many religious minorities jumped on the next ship out for the new world, the most known religious minorities to sail to the new world were the Puritans. Being a religious minority in England, the Puritans were subjected to religious discrimination often so they sailed to the new world and landed in Plymouth. The Puritans, being free from the bounds of the king (for the most part) established their own form of government or as it is referred to today a “city upon a hill”. In Boston (The Puritan capital) people came to settle disputes and had a fair trial as they were given lawyers. The trials at Salem were a huge outlier and should not be a representation of Puritan justice and law. The Puritans soon expanded across modern day Massachusetts establishing towns and colleges, but the further they expanded, the more contact they had with the native americans. The Puritans (believing it was their duty to convert the natives) soon began to try to convert them, but the natives would have none of it, so they took up arms against the Puritans frequently, this resulted in a war known as “King Philip's War”. The war was a disaster for both sides, although Philip (Who might I add was the native leader) was killed in the end by the Puritans, it decimated the colony's economy and 1 out of 10 men were killed in Massachusetts. But it was not a doom and gloom for the Puritans, over three thousand natives died, and the natives of the Massachusetts and the Rhode Island area were not to be feared from again. Freedom was a bitter drink to swallow for the Puritans, it allowed them to govern themselves and to establish a sort of republic; but at the same time it made them fight for themselves, no more could they hide behind England's navy to keep themselves safe, they had to fight for freedom, even if it meant the total collapse of their colonies economy, freedom in their eyes was worth it.

The Quakers were another religious minority who escaped England during the colonial period, they set sail for Pennsylvania and tried to establish heaven on earth, they strived to have no war, no hate and religious freedom. The Quakers centered their utopia in their city Philadelphia, known today as the city of brotherly love. The Quakers would not have been able to do this in England as they had a little amount of freedom in England, but in America they were far enough to be able to have freedom from the King and Parliament. This freedom was not only limited to the Quakers, many other people from Europe settled with the Quakers as well, Swedes, Dutch, and Germans plus the Irish and French. Pennsylvania was not just for the Quakers to settle, it was for all the world to settle. This sort of freedom from a strong, centralized government was non-existent around the world, only in america could one find freedom on this scale.
Freedom soon faded away after new waves of colonist arrived from England, soon the English army arrived and established the crown;s authority over the land. People did not forget what America used to be though, soon enough the English began to start to treat America like it treats the Isles. Soon a war was ignited, a war fought in the name of freedom. There were many reason why the revolutionary war begun, many people would say it was fought because the founding fathers were all a bunch of radical’s who wanted power, but the real reason was because the british choked the colonist into revolt. After the seven years war the British Empire was in heavy need of funds to keep expanding so they taxed all of their citizens, including the colonist, the colonist were not use to so much tax and many of them thought that the centralized government was taking over and stealing their freedom and taxing things so they could steal money from the colonies. Many colonist thought the British were just leeches who were sucking at the colonies As time went by and as the british created more taxes, many of the more... extreme colonist began to stockpile arms and some militias began to confront british patrols, most of these “standoffs” ended in the militias dispersing, but one in Concord did not and one side opened fire on the other, soon a war had begun and the thirteen colonies were split between patriots who thought their freedoms were being taken over by King George and his empire, and the Loyalist who thought that they were all under the sovereignty of the empire and had to make sacrifices for her. As the war continued more and more people found themselves siding with the colonist, mainly due to the british policy of using force to win a disagreement or argument. Eight years after the war had begun, it ended in Paris, a new republic was born that promoted freedom and liberty, the first republic of its kind america was a shining jewel in the west, freedom on the this scale was NEVER seen before and many in Europe did not think it would last... but freedom prevailed and now most countries in the have used our model.

The years that came after the war were very unstable for the new nation, debt from the war was still unpaid, the economy was in the dirt, but the biggest issue facing the nation was the fact that the nation was really thirteen separate ones and those thirteen separate nations really did not like each other. The Articles of Confederation were basically guidelines for the United States after the war, it gave almost all of the power to the states and very little to the federal government. This made achieving anything on a nationwide scale very difficult and many people knew this. So in 1788 George Washington sponsored a meeting to draft a new government guideline. Each state sent representatives and work soon begun. But when the guideline started to be written many of the representatives were shocked at how much control some representatives were giving to the government, after all the point of the revolution in their eyes was to limit a centralized government, many representatives were shocked and many of them claimed that this new guideline or “constitution” was taking away freedoms from the people. Some of them left the convention and began to spread the news about how the constitution would allow the government to take away freedoms and many people were extremely afraid. But not everyone thought the new constitution was a death sentence. Many people acknowledged the need for a more powerful centralised government. In their eyes the more powerful government would be able to effectively collect taxes, raise armies and protect the nation's interest overseas. Soon a war broke out in each states chamber house, some argued the constitution was bad because it strengthened government and it did not protect the freedoms of the individual. Others argued that the constitution was good and it would help lift the nation from the economic depression and would help protect interest abroad. Although the federalist Prevailed in the end, the government was still very divide. Finally order and law were established in the nation, under the leadership of Washington the nation prospered, but right after his eight year reign, political differences between his cabinet resulted in what Washington feared the most, a government heavily divided. The following years after his presidency were very significant for the small republic, political division harmed the nation but it grew to accept it and thrive.

A bullet whizzes by, smoke rises from the building at the corner of the a small western town, a man yells out in a typical 1960’s western yell and falls to the ground. A figure emerges from the smoke, a man with a poncho on and a cowboy hat on his head. Western music plays as he spits out his cigarette and twirls his revolver into its holster, he walks to the nearby body and says in a rough, gritty tone "It's a hell of a thing, killing a man. Take away all he's got and all he's ever gonna have." The Western music picks up and he rides off on his mighty stallion, heading to his next adventure. THAT is what many people think when they hear about the west, they remember Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp and Buffalo Bill, but they never remember the journey thousands of settlers had to brave to get from the east coast to the untamed wild land beyond the appalachians. Many families and even communities attempted the journey but not many lived through it. To get to the wild lands of the west, people had to cross not only the Appalachian Mountains, but also the great plains, indian lands and the mighty rockies. Disease, starvation and an ever constant Indian threat always hounded them to the west. Many died, but for those who survived, the untouched, vast west was theirs. There's many reasons why the settlers traveled through this also hell on earth to reach the west, in the east during this time their was a very large number of immigrants that had just arrived and would work for little to nothing, this made many middle to lower class families angry, one solution was to leave and head west. Another reason was just freedom itself, the “old america” during this time was experiencing a period of HEAVY disagreement about slavery and many people thought that soon a war would braking, war means martial law and the removal of many freedoms that the ordinary citizen had. So many left the cities of the east for the freedom of the west.

One major obstacle to freedom in America was the existence of slavery. However, as long as there had been slaves there had been people fighting it. Well, the problem was with slavery was that the south could not prosper without it. In the time between 1815 and 1860, the North embraced the market revolution, which basically changed the Northern economy from agricultural one, so an economy of goods, wages and services, so the North had no need for slaves to plant fields or do any hard labour as they could hire an immigrant to do it for a little bit more. Well the South still was largely an agricultural economy and had yet to “urbanise” and therefore still needed people to do hard labour for little to no money. So when the Northern abolitionist began to try and stop slavery, the southern elite threatened with succession and a new set of laws known as the “Fugitive slave act”. This law allowed southern men to look for “fugitive” slaves in the North, and if they found a runaway slave they had protection by the government to bring said slave back to the good ol’ south! Well as one could predict, this law was not very popular in the North. , the first test of whether slavery would expand would be known as the Missouri act of 1820, this act allowed the people of Missouri to vote on whether slavery should be allowed or not. Well it did not take long before southern men began to settle in Missouri to try and vote on the pro-slavery ballot. This caused (as one would expect) violent encounters between the pro and anti slavery factions within Missouri. Members of the government realised a compromise was needed, one that would help the North and South. But soon another question emerged about slavery, when the United States forced the Mexican government to the them much of now what is south-western America, the new debate in congress was whether slavery should be allowed to expand into these new territories.So in 1854 (McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom.)the Kansas-Nebraska act, it did two important things, it repealed the Missouri compromise and admitted two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska. These new territories also were allowed to decide if they were pro-slavery or anti-slavery. Nebraska quickly became anti-slavery, but Kansas soon became a war zone as abolitionist from the North poured into the state to try and influence the decision. This “war” which is referred to as the “bleeding of Kansas” was made immortal by an abolitionist from the North named John Brown. If you can imagine a biblical hero from the Old Testament who was re-incarnated into the antebellum times, John brown would be your creation. He viewed slavery as the bane of god and thought only violent actions can force the “heathens” in the South to outlaw slavery. After decapitating a few people in Kansas he would later move back up north and prepare for his most notable feat. In 1859 John Brown devised what would be known as “The Raid on Harpers Ferry”. Essentially what he tried to do was to take an American fort and all its ammunition and then rally all the nearby slaves and essentially invade the South. Well sadly for John Brown things did not go according to plan, he took the American fort easily enough, but he did not anticipate the people of Harpers Ferry to essentially besiege him and wait for Government forces to arrive. The next day Colonel Robert (E)dward Lee would arrive with a detachment of the US Marines and quickly quell Brown’s invasion of the South. But that is not why John Brown is famous, during his rather quick trial, John Brown not only defended himself perfectly, but he put slavery on trial, he was on the offensive and even made it seem that slavery was evil to slave owners. But alas he was sent to die only a mere two months after his invasion. An interesting fact about John Brown is who watched him die, many people came to watch but most notably were the future commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, Robert (E)dward Lee and his fellow Virginian Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. But more interesting was John Wilkes Booth, who would later kill Abraham Lincoln. (McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom.) Freedom for the Africans who suffered slavery was most likely the most heated debated thing in the history of the United States of America, it boiled over many times but was usually extinguished before anything truly devastating could happen and would result in a political stalemate. The only person who could see that the only way the South would give up slavery was John Brown, he reckoned the only way to do it, was to force the South by military action, only a mere two years after his death, did his prophesy come true.

If you asked most people who were the “bad guys” of the civil war, 60% would say the Confederacy, if you asked why they were the bad guys, most would say “They owned slaves and fought for the right to own them”. Well the truth is that only 33% of the southern population owned slaves. The South did not just secede due to slavery, it was a combination of states right, steaming political tension and that the southerners though Lincoln would favor the North. The question of whether the States had the right to chose their stance on subjects or whether the Federal government could chose was always debated in Congress and after 50 years of compromised the first state to succeed the Union, South Carolina left due to not enough states rights, in their Declaration of Secession they state, (McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom.) “In the year 1765, that portion of the British Empire embracing Great Britain, undertook to make laws for the government of that portion composed of the thirteen American Colonies. A struggle for the right of self-government ensued, which resulted, on the 4th of July, 1776, in a Declaration, by the Colonies, "that they are, and of right ought to be, FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES; and that, as free and independent States, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent States may of right do." ” South Carolina basically say that they can and are going to succeed and that they are protected by the Constitution when they succeed. When South Carolina seceded, many “deep” southern states followed suit, this all happened when Lincoln was president-elect, so when Lincoln took charge of a nation that had 1/3rd of its states taken away and add on to that 1/3rd of the army. He tried to get all Pro-Union detachments of the army North to try and save the army, most commanders did just that.... except Robert Anderson, Anderson and his small command retreated from mainland South Carolina to the half finished Fort Sumter. In Sumter he was besieged, so when Lincoln learned of this he tried to re-supply it, but the Confederates opened fire and the Civil War began. Lincoln immediately called for 75,000 troops to assemble for an invasion of the deep south. This immediately forced four more southern states to secede as they deemed Lincoln to be abusing his powers and spitting on the Constitution by attacking succeeded states, therefore threatening their freedom. (McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom.) Thus the civil war started, 4 years later and close to 700,000 lives later slavery was abolished and the “southern way of life” broken. The South was exhausted in everything and many of their leaders were locked up and don’t forget that they were not allowed to be states, a bitter taste to fight for freedom for many. The question asked after the war was did the average southerner fight for freedom for states and themselves, or to protect the southern elite who imprisoned a whole people for economic gains, the question to this day remains unanswered. Throughout the civil war the Confederate government insisted they were fighting for freedom of states rights and to preserve “The Southern Way of Life”, for the most part they did fight for freedom but sadly if you follow each reason they succeeded it always leads to slavery. States right was the right for states to choose the right to allow slavery. Not all of the Southern elite fought for slavery, most fought for their states, when the seven deep south states succeeded, Robert (E)dward Lee wrote in a letter to his son stating, “I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than a dissolution of the Union.” (Lee, Robert. "Robert E lee's letters) and although Lee owned slaves, he never bought one, all his slaves were from his wife's father and Lee thought that slavery was a “political, social and moral evil” but he also thought that only god could force it to be abolished. Even Thomas Jackson did not truely think of slaves as beat, he illegally allowed slaves to learn how to read and write in his Sunday school teachings before the civil war and freed most of his slaves when they got old. It is unfair to say that all southern men fought for slavery as 66% did not own any and it is also unfair to say that ALL southern elite detested slaves and thought them the scum of the earth. As Jefferson Davis said early on into the civil war, “If the Confederacy falls, there should be written on its tombstone: Died of a theory.” The Confederacy was a theory, a theory to see if Freedom for states to decide their future was possible.

The Northwest half of the United States was the most important to the Union in terms of population, economy and trade. But should people who never experienced/saw slavery in action be able to dictate whether it is morally right or wrong, the ultimate answer to that question is yes. Slavery is the most disgusting act a human can perform, it is one thing to tell another human that you are better than them, but it is totally barbaric to put them in bondage for your personal gain. My opinion was shared by the majority of Northerners in 1860 (McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom.) when Abraham Lincoln won the presidential election, but another half of the country did not, therefore they seceded from the union based on their thought that Lincoln would attempt to end slavery. Abraham Lincoln said throughout the war that the reason the North was fighting was to preserve the Union, he stated in the Gettysburg address, “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom; and that government of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”. These words say that all these men died to protect the Freedom of the United States and to preserve the Union. But towards the end of the war when Lincoln won his reelection and that the war was going to end in a Union victory he started to push freedom for slaves through congress. It passed towards the end of the war and most were pleased it did pass but some were not happy at all. Although many of the Northern population supported the destruction of slavery, many did not, most of them were new immigrants who did not want to compete with ex-slaves for jobs, the rest were Northern Democrats who saw Lincoln as a tyrant who abused his power. Lincoln faced opposition from these groups but for the most part people were behind their president and although in the beginning of the war Lincoln told them that they fought for the Union, most realised they fought to end slavery and the majority were fine with this as they had been bombarded with anti-slavery media for most of their lives. Slavery was the cause for the union to continue fighting in the civil war and the majority of the Northern population agreed with the Government that it was best to crush the rebellion, and end slavery.


Freedom is the true value of America, from the Puritan and Quaker minorities who fled England and the Netherlands to try and establish freedom to the colonist who defied an empire to preserve it. And later on to the Abolitionist who fought for the rights of the African in bondage, but Freedom was also the reason the South seceded from the Union, freedom for states to chose their own destiny was one of the many reasons why the civil war was fought. The North also had a right to defend the two million slaves that suffered daily under the southern regime. Freedom is very valuable to Americans and even today many think it is under attack, from tea-party picketers who hate Obama to “internet warriors” demanding free movies, freedom is now used more as a word to try and get people motivated behind someone or something. Freedom is not as precious as it use to be and many people take advantage of it and don’t quite remember all the risk and sacrifices that were made by previous american generations to gain it. Freedom and American are one in the same, America cannot exist without freedom and freedom cannot exist without america and hopefully freedom will continue to be america's main value.



This essay was written by Riverknight


Citations
All my information that I do not know and most of my quotes are from “Battle cry of Freedom” written by James M. McPherson.
McPherson, James. Battle Cry of Freedom. 2. N/A. New York: Oxford history of, 1988. 904. Print. <http://books.google.com/books/about/...d=GXfGuNAvm7AC>.
Lee, Robert. "Robert E lee's letters." Civil War Daily Gazette . N.p.. Web. 14 Jan 2014. <http://civilwardailygazette.com/2011/01/23/robert-e-lees-letter-against-secession-to-a-point/>.