England colonial empire. How Britain Became the Most Powerful Colonial Power
BRITISH EMPIRE(British Empire) - the largest empire in the history of mankind, in the period between the First and Second World Wars, it occupied up to a quarter of the entire earth's land.
The composition of the empire, ruled from the mother country - Great Britain - was complex. It included dominions, colonies, protectorates and mandated (after the First World War) territories.
Dominions are countries with a large number of immigrants from Europe, which have achieved relatively broad rights of self-government. North America, and later Australia and New Zealand, were the main destinations for emigration from Britain. A number of North American possessions in the second half. 18th century declared independence and formed the United States, and in the 19th century. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have been progressively pushing for more self-rule. At the imperial conference of 1926, it was decided to call them not colonies, but dominions with the status of self-government, although in fact Canada received these rights in 1867, the Australian Union in 1901, New Zealand in 1907, the Union of South Africa in 1919, Newfoundland in 1917 (in 1949 it entered part of Canada), Ireland (without the northern part - Ulster, which remained part of the UK) achieved similar rights in 1921.
In the colonies - there were approx. 50 - lived the vast majority of the population of the British Empire. Among them, along with relatively small ones (such as the islands of the West Indies), there were also such large ones as the island of Ceylon. Each colony was governed by a governor-general, who was appointed by the Ministry of Colonial Affairs. The governor appointed a legislative council of senior officials and representatives of the local population. The largest colonial possession - India - officially became part of the British Empire in 1858 (before that, it was controlled by the British East India Company for a century and a half). Since 1876, the British monarch (then Queen Victoria) was also called the Emperor of India, and the Governor-General of India - the Viceroy. Viceroy's salary at the beginning of the 20th century. several times the salary of the Prime Minister of Great Britain.
The nature of the administration of the protectorates and their degree of dependence on London varied. The degree of independence of the local feudal or tribal elite allowed by London is also different. The system in which this elite was given a significant role was called indirect control - as opposed to direct control, carried out by appointed officials.
The mandated territories - the former parts of the German and Ottoman empires - after the First World War were transferred by the League of Nations under the control of Great Britain on the basis of the so-called. mandate.
The English conquests began in the 13th century. from the invasion of Ireland, and the creation of overseas possessions - from 1583, the capture of Newfoundland, which became Britain's first stronghold for conquest in the New World. The path to the British colonization of America was opened by the defeat of the huge Spanish fleet - the Invincible Armada in 1588, the weakening of the maritime power of Spain, and then Portugal, and the transformation of England into a powerful maritime power. In 1607, the first English colony in North America (Virginia) was founded and the first English settlement on the American continent, Jamestown, was founded. In the 17th century English colonies arose in a number of areas east. coast of the North. America; New Amsterdam, recaptured from the Dutch, was renamed New York.
Almost simultaneously, the penetration into India began. In 1600 a group of London merchants founded the East India Company. By 1640, she had created a network of her trading posts not only in India, but also in Southeast Asia and the Far East. In 1690 the company began building the city of Calcutta. One of the results of the importation of English manufactured goods was the ruin of a number of local cultural industries.
The British Empire experienced its first crisis when it lost 13 of its colonies as a result of the British Settlers' War of Independence in North America (1775–1783). However, after the recognition of US independence (1783), tens of thousands of colonists moved to Canada, and the British presence strengthened there.
Soon, English penetration into the coastal regions of New Zealand and Australia and the Pacific Islands intensified. In 1788, the first English appeared in Australia. settlement - Port Jackson (future Sydney). The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815, summing up the Napoleonic wars, assigned to Great Britain the Cape Colony (South Africa), Malta, Ceylon and other territories captured in the con. 18 - beg. 19th centuries By mid. 19th century the conquest of India was basically completed, the colonization of Australia was carried out, in 1840 the English. colonialists appeared in New Zealand. The Port of Singapore was founded in 1819. In the middle 19th century Unequal treaties were imposed on China, and a number of Chinese ports were opened to the English. trade, Great Britain seized o.Syangan (Hong Kong).
During the period of the "colonial division of the world" (the last quarter of the 19th century), Great Britain seized Cyprus, established control over Egypt and the Suez Canal, completed the conquest of Burma, and established the actual. protectorate over Afghanistan, conquered vast territories in Tropical and South Africa: Nigeria, the Gold Coast (now Ghana), Sierra Leone, South. and Sev. Rhodesia (Zimbabwe and Zambia), Bechuanaland (Botswana), Basutoland (Lesotho), Swaziland, Uganda, Kenya. After the bloody Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), she captured the Boer republics of the Transvaal (official name - the Republic of South Africa) and the Orange Free State and united them with her colonies - Cape and Natal, created the Union of South Africa (1910).
More and more conquests and gigantic expansion of the empire were made possible not only by military and naval power and not only by skillful diplomacy, but also because of the widespread confidence in Great Britain in the beneficial effect of British influence on the peoples of other countries. The idea of British messianism has taken deep roots - and not only in the minds of the ruling strata of the population. The names of those who spread British influence, from "pioneers" - missionaries, travelers, migrant workers, traders - to such "empire builders" as Cecil Rhodes, were surrounded by a halo of reverence and romance. Those who, such as Rudyard Kipling, poetized colonial politics, also gained immense popularity.
As a result of mass emigration in the 19th century. from Great Britain to Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the Union of South Africa, these countries created a multi-million "white", mostly English-speaking population, and the role of these countries in the world economy and politics became increasingly significant. Their independence in domestic and foreign policy was strengthened by the decisions of the Imperial Conference (1926) and the Statute of Westminster (1931), according to which the union of the metropolis and dominions was called the "British Commonwealth of Nations". Their economic ties were consolidated by the creation of sterling blocs in 1931 and the Ottawa agreements (1932) on imperial preferences.
As a result of the First World War, which was also fought because of the desire of European powers to redistribute colonial possessions, Great Britain received a mandate from the League of Nations to manage parts of the collapsed German and Ottoman empires (Palestine, Iran, Transjordan, Tanganyika, part of Cameroon and part of Togo). The Union of South Africa received a mandate to govern South West Africa (now Namibia), Australia - to part of New Guinea and the adjacent islands of Oceania, New Zealand - to the West Islands. Samoa.
The anti-colonial war, which intensified in various parts of the British Empire during the First World War and especially after its end, forced Great Britain in 1919 to recognize the independence of Afghanistan. In 1922, the independence of Egypt was recognized, in 1930 the English was terminated. mandate to govern Iraq, although both countries remained under British dominance.
The apparent collapse of the British Empire came after the Second World War. And although Churchill proclaimed that he did not become Prime Minister of the British Empire in order to preside over its liquidation, he nevertheless, at least during his second premiership, had to find himself in this role. In the early post-war years, many attempts were made to preserve the British Empire, both through maneuvering and through colonial wars (in Malaya, Kenya and other countries), but they all failed. In 1947 Britain was forced to grant independence to its largest colonial possession: India. At the same time, the country was divided on a regional basis into two parts: India and Pakistan. Independence was proclaimed by Transjordan (1946), Burma and Ceylon (1948). In 1947 Gen. The UN Assembly decided to end the British Mandate for Palestine and the creation of two states on its territory: Jewish and Arab. The independence of Sudan was proclaimed in 1956, and Malaya in 1957. The first of the British possessions in Tropical Africa became (1957) the independent state of the Gold Coast, taking the name Ghana. In 1960, British Prime Minister H. Macmillan, in a speech in Cape Town, essentially recognized the inevitability of further anti-colonial achievements, calling it "the wind of change."
1960 went down in history as the "Year of Africa": 17 African countries declared their independence, among them the largest British possessions - Nigeria - and British Somaliland, which, united with part of Somalia, which was under the control of Italy, created the Republic of Somalia. Then, listing only the most important milestones: 1961 - Sierra Leone, Kuwait, Tanganyika, 1962 - Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Uganda; 1963 - Zanzibar (in 1964, united with Tanganyika, formed the Republic of Tanzania), Kenya, 1964 - Nyasaland (became the Republic of Malawi), Northern Rhodesia (became the Republic of Zambia), Malta; 1965 - Gambia, Maldives; 1966 - Brit. Guiana (became the Republic of Guyana), Basutoland (Lesotho), Barbados; 1967 - Aden (Yemen); 1968 - Mauritius, Swaziland; 1970 - Tonga, 1970 - Fiji; 1980 - Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe); 1990 - Namibia; 1997 - Hong Kong becomes part of China. In 1960, the Union of South Africa proclaimed itself the Republic of South Africa and then left the Commonwealth, but after the liquidation of the apartheid (apartheid) regime and the transfer of power to the black majority (1994), it was again accepted into its composition.
By the end of the last century, the Commonwealth itself had also undergone fundamental changes. After the declaration of independence by India, Pakistan and Ceylon (since 1972 - Sri Lanka) and their entry into the Commonwealth (1948), it became an association not only of the mother country and the "old" dominions, but of all the states that arose within the British Empire. From the name of the British Commonwealth of Nations, "British" was withdrawn, and later it became customary to call it simply: "The Commonwealth". Relations between members of the Commonwealth also underwent many changes, up to military clashes (the largest between India and Pakistan). However, economic, cultural (and linguistic) ties that developed over the generations of the British Empire kept the vast majority of these countries from leaving the Commonwealth. In the beginning. 21st century it had 54 members: 3 in Europe, 13 in America, 8 in Asia, 19 in Africa. Mozambique, which had never been part of the British Empire, was admitted to the Commonwealth.
The population of the Commonwealth countries exceeds 2 billion people. An important legacy of the British Empire is the spread of the English language both in the countries that were part of this empire and beyond.
Relations between the British and Russian empires have always been difficult, often very unfriendly. Contradictions between the two largest empires led in the middle of the 19th century. to the Crimean War, then to a sharp escalation in the struggle for influence in Central Asia. Great Britain did not allow Russia to enjoy the fruits of its victory over the Ottoman Empire in the war of 1877–1878. Great Britain supported Japan in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905. In turn, Russia strongly sympathized with the South African Boer republics in their war against Great Britain in 1899–1902.
The end of open rivalry came in 1907, when, in the face of the growing military power of Germany, Russia joined the Cordially Accord (Entente) of Great Britain and France. In World War I, the Russian and British empires fought together against the Triple Alliance of the German, Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman empires.
After the October Revolution in Russia, her relations with the British Empire escalated again ((1917)). For the Bolshevik Party, Great Britain was the main initiator in the history of the capitalist system, the bearer of the ideas of "rotten bourgeois liberalism" and the strangler of the peoples of the colonial and dependent countries. For the ruling circles and a significant part of public opinion in Great Britain, the Soviet Union, asserting its ambitions, was a hotbed of ideas to overthrow the power of the colonial metropolises around the world by a variety of methods, including terrorism.
Even during the Second World War, when the USSR and the British Empire were allies, members of the anti-Hitler coalition, mutual distrust and suspicion did not disappear at all. Since the beginning of the Cold War, recriminations have become an integral feature of relationships. During the collapse of the British Empire, Soviet policy was aimed at supporting the forces that contributed to its collapse.
The Russian pre-revolutionary literature (including historical) about the British Empire for a long time reflected the rivalry and contradictions of the two largest empires - the Russian and the British. In Soviet literature, attention was focused on British anti-Soviet actions, on anti-colonial movements, crisis phenomena in the British Empire and evidence of its collapse.
The imperial syndrome in the minds of many Britons (as well as residents of other former metropolises) can hardly be considered completely weathered. However, it should be recognized that in British historical science during the years of the collapse of the British Empire there was a gradual departure from traditional colonialist views and a search for mutual understanding and cooperation with the emerging historical science of countries that proclaimed their independence. Turn of the 20th and 21st centuries was marked by the preparation and publication of a number of fundamental studies on the history of the British Empire, including on the problems of interaction between the cultures of the peoples of the empire, on various aspects of decolonization and on the transformation of the empire into the Commonwealth. In 1998–1999, a five-volume Oxford History of the British Empire. M., 1991
Trukhanovsky V.G. Benjamin Disraeli or the story of one incredible career. M., 1993
Ostapenko G.S. British Conservatives and Decolonization. M., 1995
Porter b. The Lions Share. A Short History of British Imperialism 1850–1995. Harlow, Essex, 1996
Davidson A.B. Cecil Rhodes - Empire Builder. M.– Smolensk, 1998
Oxford History of the British Empire. Vols. 1–5. Oxford, New York, 1998–1999
Hobsbaum E. Age of Empire. M., 1999
Empire and others: British Encounters with Indigenous people. Ed. by M.Daunton and R.Halpern. London, 1999
Boyce D.G. Decolonization and the British Empire 1775–1997. London, 1999
The Commonwealth in the 21st Century. Ed. by G. Mills and J Stremlau. Pretoria, 1999
cultures of empire. Colonizers in Britain and the Empire in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century. A Reader. Ed. by C. Hall. New York, 2000
Lloyd T. Empire. The History of the British Empire. London and New York, 2001
Royal Historical Society. Bibliography of Imperial, Colonial and Commonwealth History since 1600. Ed. by A. Porter. London, 2002
Heinlein F. British Government Policy and Decolonisation 1945–1963. Scrutinizing the Official Mind. London, 2002
Butler L.J. Britain and Empire. Adjusting to a Post-Imperial World. London, New York, 2002
Churchill W. World crisis. Autobiography. Speeches. M., 2003
Bedarida F. Churchill. M., 2003
James L. The Rise and Fall of the British Empire. London, 2004
The British Empire was the largest empire that history has ever known. Her power and influence extended throughout the world, shaping it in her own image. The British Empire was never in a static state - it was constantly changing, developing and reacting to ongoing events.
The British Empire of the 1950s is very different from itself in the 1850s and certainly in the 1750s and 1650s. Her policy in the colonies in one part of the world could be very different from the policy in another part. In addition, an incredible number of participants have been in its composition over the many years of its existence. Some of them got there out of greed and selfishness, others, however, had more humanistic motives, although they were often limited by the social foundations of their eras.
Participation in the crown provided many citizens with new opportunities, but for some it brought only restrictions, destruction and deprivation of freedoms and rights.
What period does the history of Britain cover?
It is not so easy to determine from what time the British Empire begins its countdown. As a rule, they talk about its two periods. The First Period (or First Empire) is marked mainly by the time of the colonization of America. They were called the "Thirteen Colonies" and in 1783 they would gain their independence from Britain.
The Second Empire consisted of the remnants of the First, adding India, and was expanded during the Napoleonic Wars, and then continued to expand during the 19th century and even into the early 20th. It is this Second, predominantly Victorian Empire that most people associate with the British Empire, about which they said: "the sun never sets on it!"
What period is often ignored?
More rarely, these two British empires are sometimes referred to as the Second and Third Empires. Historians single out another one: the time of the Norman expansion. During this period, Wales, the Channel Islands, the Isle of Man join England and the first outposts in Ireland are established.
There is often confusion here, because the Normans themselves came from the north of France, and how to understand whether this was a Norman-French or English empire? In fact, the Normans are descended from the Vikings, who moved to the north of France. This Anglo-French empire, so to speak, will later be called Angevin. It really began to break up into two countries - England and France - in time. Although even thereafter England had influence in northern France at Calais until Mary Tudor finally lost control of it in 1558, although the Channel Islands are still technically part of Britain.
Technically, one can speak of Britain as a state only from 1707, so in the period from 1497 to 1707 it should be called England, although Wales was already part of it then. Britain frequently entered into alliances with the French in the 18th and 19th centuries, with the Russians in the mid-19th century, and with the Germans in the 20th century. Her army was regularly called upon to help on the continent, but after the end of the conflicts they did not take part in the settlement or colonization.
Europe was densely populated, it built up a sufficiently high technological level, and peoples became more and more aware of their national and linguistic identity. And Britain, being an island nation, also had a powerful navy and thus could afford to choose which campaigns on the continent to participate in and which not, and therefore paid more attention to maritime trade with non-European markets.
How big was the British Empire?
Of course, the British Empire expanded and developed rapidly over the years. It was greatly expanded by the American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, especially after the defeat of the French in the Seven Years' War. In its prime, its territory reached 35.5 million square meters. km. 
After the American Revolution, Britain lost a lot of territory, although not all, but compensated for these losses by expanding British interests in India. Advances in medicine, transportation, and communications placed Africa on the list of accessible lands, which strengthened European imperialism in the second half of the 19th century.
The First World War added even more colonies to the British Empire in the form of Mandatory Territories - by the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations transferred control of these territories to Britain. By 1924, the United Kingdom still owned between a quarter and a third of all land on the globe, more than one hundred and fifty times the size of Great Britain itself.
The result of World War II was the loss of many imperial territories. Despite the British being the winning side, the empire did not recover from the geopolitical shifts caused by this war and entered a period of final decline. India was the first and largest area to drop dominance, followed by the Middle East and Africa. The Caribbean and Pacific dominions held out a little longer, but most of them also went their separate ways. The last major colony to break away was Hong Kong in 1997.
Technological and industrial excellence
The British did not have a monopoly on technological innovation. Gunpowder, printing press, navigation equipment were developed and improved on the Continent or even further. Europe has been a dynamic place since the fifteenth century, where new ideas are spinning at a staggering pace. Britain benefited from the Renaissance and Enlightenment, and yet it was able to implement these and many other ideas, and as a result, it became the first nation to use the steam engine, which in turn would launch the Industrial Revolution - an avalanche of high-quality, mass-produced goods flooded markets around the world. A technological gap was created that was difficult for non-European countries to compete with.
Muskets, rifles, machine guns, locomotives for trains, steam ships gave the relatively small British army an unrivaled advantage. They faced a much stronger (and perhaps more courageous) enemy, but still defeated, subdued and suppressed it. British weaponry was very effective, and its communications systems enabled it to conserve its meager resources, and its medicine improved so much that it allowed soldiers and sailors to penetrate ever more remote and inaccessible areas. Britain was not the only country to enjoy a technological advantage over non-European nations, but its combination of industrial power, commercial savvy, and maritime influence gave it an edge that was unchallenged until the outbreak of guerrilla warfare in the 20th century.
Maritime benefits
The Royal Navy certainly became a formidable military tool, but that did not mean that Britain would always dominate the seas. Naturally, for an island nation, shipbuilding would be an important industry in a country like England. But, for example, Portugal, and then Spain, achieved much higher results in maritime dominance, starting in the 15th century. They developed their shipbuilding, navigational and remote skills necessary to study and commercialize discovered routes. The British have always been content with scraps of information obtained from the Portuguese and Spaniards. At any rate, it was the Dutch and French who first challenged Portuguese and Spanish control of the seas.
This situation remained until the 18th century. The Glorious Revolution of 1688, when the Dutch king William of Orange took control of the English crown, reduced but did not eliminate the Anglo-Dutch rivalry. However, after (from 1756 to 1763) the Royal Navy took over the wealthy and possibly more powerful Kingdom of France. As a result of the Glorious Revolution, the British took over from the Dutch their sophisticated banking system (including the formation of the Bank of England), which allowed the British to borrow money to build a huge navy. The idea was to return the loans as soon as Britain won the war. The French Navy did not have such an infusion of investment and therefore found it difficult to cope with the task of the Royal Navy, especially on the global scale of what was indeed the first "World War" as British interests extended to every corner of the globe. The French were able to retaliate by helping the American revolutionaries in the 1770s and 1780s in their humiliation of the British. But that in itself would be a false dawn for the French Monarchy. They invested huge sums of money to challenge the Royal Navy (and help the Americans win the revolution) but with no hope of recouping those costs. 
Thus, one of the main reasons for France's own Revolution was that their treasury was depleted after aiding the American revolutionaries. This, of course, indirectly affected the Napoleonic struggle between France and Great Britain. Napoleon concentrated on his terrestrial campaigns, but he was constantly pursued by the Royal Navy. For example, Nelson destroyed Napoleon's fleet while it was anchored off the coast of Egypt in 1798.
Napoleon attempted to combine the French and Spanish fleets to lure the Royal Navy across the Atlantic and launch an invasion of England. As a result, the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 became the defining naval battle for the next century. The British did not take the bait and ended up blockading the French and Spanish fleets. As soon as these fleets sailed, Nelson unleashed all the power on them, which established the Royal Navy as the master of the seas both in the First World War and after. During the entire 19th century, there was no naval power that could come close to British dominance over sea lanes and trade routes.
Empire administration
The British Empire was certainly not a perfect organization. It encountered a completely unsystematic administration along its volatile path of development. In the early stages of government and trusted management companies were rather inclined to be responsible for the effective management of their outlying outlets. The most famous example of this was the East India Company, which discovered that government business could be just as profitable as a steady stream of taxes from trade—at least in the short term. Over time, riots, natural disasters, and wars pushed these early-accredited companies to their financial limits and beyond.
Set the precedent that the protection of the Crown to any of its subjects extends wherever they live in the world. This principle was continued by James I and all subsequent monarchs. However, this was hampered by the long distances and time for lodging petitions, as well as the ignorance of the work of the Royal Court. In addition, over time, Parliament gained more and more influence over the affairs of the colonies, as the power of the British monarchs steadily declined over the next centuries. Both monarchs and the British Parliament found out for themselves that the rights of settlers and the rights of indigenous peoples often conflicted. Sometimes the monarch gave support to one group while the parliament supported another. These divergent views on rights and duties were later exacerbated by the fact that settler colonies were given their own parliaments in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Undoubtedly, the British Empire left an indelible imprint on the development of the entire world civilization, creating a cultural, military, economic basis that formed the basis of the state structure of most states of the world.
History knows many state formations that have covered a vast territory and have a serious impact on the entire system of international relations, but among them the British Empire clearly stands out both in terms of the area it occupies and in terms of the level of this influence. Having joined the process of colonization of new lands later than the main players in this field - Spain and Portugal - Great Britain was able to tie overseas lands to itself so firmly that they still recognize the authority of the English queen and are members of the British Commonwealth of Nations.
Prerequisites for the formation of an empire
Most of the history of medieval England was spent in the struggle for the unification of the entire island of Britain under its rule. Since 1169, a gradual penetration into neighboring Ireland has been underway, in 1282 Wales became part of England, and after the Stuart dynasty came to power, domination over Scotland was established.
At the beginning of the 16th century, Spain and Portugal began the colonization of lands in the territory of the newly discovered America. England's interest in expanding its sphere of influence, on the one hand, and the contradictions associated with the Reformation, on the other, lead to war with Spain. This country was especially dissatisfied with the capture in 1583 of the island of Newfoundland, which became a strategic springboard for penetrating the territory of America. But after the defeat of the Spanish "Invincible Armada" in 1588, which ended Spanish dominance at sea, nothing limited England in acquiring colonies.
colonial expansion
At the beginning of the 17th century, English settlers appear in North America. At the same time, special companies are being organized for trade with Asian countries, in particular with India. However, at first the British were not lucky. The first colonies, whose purpose was to search for deposits of precious metals, could not exist for a long time. The first major success can be considered the foundation in 1624 of a settlement on the island of St. Kitts. In contrast to the early period, England borrowed the Portuguese experience in the cultivation of sugar cane: it turned out that sugar can bring income no worse than gold.
To limit the influence of other European states in the occupied territories, the English Parliament passed a law according to which only the mother country could trade in the colonies. This provoked an angry reaction from Holland. As a result of several wars, England consolidated its position and even profited well from the Dutch and Spanish colonies. One of the largest acquisitions was Jamaica.
Continental possessions (the colonies of Plymouth, Maryland, Rhode Island, Carolina, Pennsylvania and others) brought much less income than the island ones, but the British appreciated their potential. All these settlements were located on fertile lands. To process them and increase profitability, slaves from Africa were attracted, the Royal African Company, founded in 1672, received a monopoly on the trade.
Things were going well in Asia. In alliance with Holland, England succeeded in violating Portugal's monopoly on trade with Asian states. The East India Company became the conductor of English influence in this region. The coming to power in England of the Dutch Stadtholder Wilhelm made it possible to resolve the contradictions that had arisen between the two countries. In the first half of the 18th century, England's position in India became undeniable.
Considering that the imperial ambitions of England were fully manifested, and the territory of overseas possessions turned out to be comparable to Europe, historians call the period from the capture of Newfoundland to the war of 13 American colonies for independence the "First British Empire".
War of the Spanish Succession
Charles II, the last representative of the Habsburg dynasty on the Spanish throne, died in 1700. Since he had no children, he chose Philip of Anjou, the grandson of the French king, as his heir. Since the threat of merging Spain, France and their colonies into a single power was unacceptable for almost all European states, a major war broke out. It lasted 14 years and ended with the signing of the Peace of Utrecht, according to which Philip of Anjou renounced his claims to the French throne. In addition, according to the agreement, the British Empire included a number of Spanish and French colonies, as well as Gibraltar on the territory of the Iberian Peninsula, which made it possible to control the exit of ships from the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean.
The French colonies in North America and Asia were finally ended after the Seven Years' War (1756-1763). As a result of these events, the British Empire became the world's leading colonial power.
American War of Independence
In addition to success, the UK had to face major troubles. The continental colonies of the British Empire in North America, which had long demanded representation in Parliament, declared their independence. The war, which began in 1775, ended in the defeat of Great Britain. Significant support for the rebels was provided by France and Spain, who did not have any warm feelings for England.
The success turned the Americans' heads and they tried to invade Canada. The French population living there refused to support them, and the idea failed.
The loss of such vast territories became a turning point in the history of the British Empire. Among other things, 13 colonies were a strategically important springboard for further penetration deep into the American continent. Now Great Britain was forced to make territorial annexations in Asia and Africa, although it was not going to leave America. A number of trade agreements were signed with the United States, which brought tangible benefits to the British. Such changes in policy make it possible to speak of a new stage in the history of Great Britain: the Second British Empire.
Establishing power over India
For a long time, the presence of Great Britain in Asia was traced only in the form of trade agreements with the countries of this region, concluded by the East India Company. But by the middle of the 18th century, the Mughal Empire fell into decline, and during the Seven Years' War, the British managed to defeat the French and gain a foothold in Bengal. The East India Company is turning from a trading company into an instrument for expanding the colonial possessions of Great Britain. The method used by the British was simple: independent Indian principalities were forced to seek "help" from the British. For this, they had to pay certain amounts, which went to the maintenance of the English mercenary army in India, and also to coordinate their foreign policy with the English resident.
In fact, most of the territory of India came under British control peacefully. Only in the 19th century the British Empire had to face the resistance of the local population, united in the state of the Sikhs. Only in 1839 did the British manage to inflict a heavy defeat on the Sikhs, from which they could not recover.
Australia
This continent, discovered by James Cook in 1770, occupied a special place in the system of the British colonial empire. Together with New Zealand and Tasmania, the open territories were proclaimed by the captain of the property of Great Britain.
At first, the smallest continent on the planet did not cause much enthusiasm among the British authorities. Its central regions were occupied by the desert, and the land along the coast was not particularly fertile. The British government decided to take advantage of Australia's remoteness from the main sea routes and organize something like a giant prison on its territory. In 1778, the first ship with exiled prisoners entered the territorial waters of the mainland. This practice continued until 1840. The population of the colony, numbering 56 thousand people, mainly consisted of prisoners and their descendants.
The cessation of the import of prisoners into Australia is associated with the discovery of gold deposits on the mainland. Since then, Australia has become one of the main exporters of this precious metal. Another source of income for this colony of the British Empire was the export of wool.
Victorian era
The period of the highest prosperity of the empire experienced from 1815 to 1914. Most of this time was spent under the reign of Queen Victoria (1837-1901), which gave the name to a special era in the history of Great Britain.
During this period, Great Britain, taking into account its overseas possessions, was the largest state in the world. The territory of the British Empire was a little less than 26 million km2, and the population was almost 400 million people. The victorious wars of the 18th century, combined with a skillful foreign policy, made Great Britain the strongest player in the political field. After the defeat of Napoleon, the British colonial empire became one of the authors of the policy of balance of power in Europe, according to which no state could accumulate forces sufficient to successfully confront the united coalition of European countries.
The main reason for this success of Great Britain was the presence of a strong navy in the absence of serious expenses for the maintenance of the land army. The British Empire was rightly called the mistress of the seas. It was not until the end of the period that a united Germany ventured to challenge English supremacy at sea.
Empire at the turn of the century
The beginning of the 20th century was a test of strength for Great Britain. First, Germany was becoming more and more powerful, which, together with the allied Austria-Hungary and Italy, increasingly declared the need to redivision the world. In this regard, the British Empire completely changed its foreign policy by signing allied agreements with Russia and France, relations with which have never been especially warm.
Secondly, when moving deep into Africa, the British unexpectedly ran into resistance from the republics of Transvaal and Orange founded by immigrants from Holland. Since the locals were called Boers, the clash between England and the two South African republics was called the Anglo-Boer War. Although with difficulty, England managed to prevail in this conflict.
Thirdly, there were problems with European possessions. Increasingly, the Irish came forward with demands for independence ("home rule"). Some British politicians thought that granting independence could solve the problem, but the corresponding bill failed several times.
Dominions
Despite its adherence to tradition, English policy was flexible enough to understand the need to change seemingly unshakable principles. The nationalistic ideas spreading in Europe had a great influence on the consciousness of the inhabitants of the colonies. As early as the middle of the 19th century, thoughts arose that self-government could be granted to the colonies in order to prevent the emergence of various unrest.
This principle was first implemented in Canada in 1867. All the continental possessions of the British Empire in North America were united into a dominion. This change in status meant that the decision of all internal affairs was transferred to the jurisdiction of local authorities. International relations and the right to wage war remained with the British administration.
Assigning the status of dominion to the colonies, in fact, saved the British Empire from collapse. Before the outbreak of the First World War, almost all colonies with a white population, in particular Australia and New Zealand (1900), as well as the Boer colonies united in the South African Union (1910), received the right to self-government.
England in World Wars
The open entry into a major conflict that affected in one way or another all the states of the planet contradicted the traditional policy of self-withdrawal from European problems. However, the First World War showed that England was not as strong as before. By 1918, the world leadership was lost and passed to the growing strength of the United States. However, following the negotiations in Versailles and Washington, Great Britain, along with the other victorious powers, divided the former German colonies. This gave 4 million km2 of new territories.
In the interwar period, the British Empire, like the rest of the European states, was going through a serious crisis. The economy has not fully recovered from the strain. The situation became even more complicated during the years of the global economic crisis.
In view of this, Great Britain supported the policy of appeasement of Nazi Germany, which was showing revanchist sentiments. But this did not help to prevent a new world war. In terms of its scale, it was even more destructive than the previous one: German aircraft bombed London several times. At the end of the war, Great Britain had to coordinate its policy with the American one.
Collapse of the British Empire
The weakening of the mother country and the rise of national consciousness led to an independence movement in the colonies that did not become dominions. In 1947, Britain was forced to grant independence to India. Burma and Ceylon became independent states the following year. In addition, Britain had to give up the mandate to govern Palestine, where a Jewish state was created. For the longest time, Great Britain held on to Malaya, but after a war that lasted 13 years, it was forced to give in on this issue as well.
1960 went down in history as the year of Africa. Large-scale national demonstrations showed Great Britain that it was no longer possible to maintain power on the Black Continent. By 1968, of the vast possessions in Africa, only Southern Rhodesia remained under British rule, which gained independence a few years later. In general, by the 1980s, the process of decolonization was completed, although the imperial ambitions of Great Britain manifested themselves in the war with Argentina over the Falklands. But the victory in this war could not revive the empire: its collapse was a fait accompli. As a memory of her, the Commonwealth of Nations was left, which was formed under the auspices of Great Britain with the participation of independent states located in the territories that were part of the British Empire before.
The British colonial empire began to take shape in the 17th-18th centuries. In the struggle with Spain, Holland, France, England sought commercial and maritime hegemony. As a result of the capture and plunder of the colonies, huge capitals ended up in the hands of the English bourgeoisie, which contributed to the rapid development of English industrial production. The Whigs, who defended the interests of financiers, merchants and industrialists, insisted especially energetically on the conduct of an aggressive foreign policy. The Tories took a more moderate position on the question of the colonial conquests of England.
In the XVIII century. England conquered vast territories in Canada, Australia, South Africa, and India. By the middle of the XIX century. England became the largest colonial and commercial and industrial power.
Ireland occupies a special place in the British colonial empire. This is the first English colony, which the English feudal lords tried to conquer back in the 12th century, and then in the 16th-17th centuries. In 1800, Ireland was united with Great Britain in an alliance that destroyed the remnants of Irish autonomy. Ireland had its representation in the English Parliament. However, the people of Ireland fought for complete independence, and its deputies in parliament defended the idea of home rule (autonomy). This idea in the 80s of the XIX century. was also perceived by the liberals, who needed the support of the Irish in the fight against the conservatives. In 1886, the Liberal government introduced a bill to Parliament to grant limited self-government to Ireland. However, this law was rejected by the House of Commons. A new law giving Ireland autonomy passed in the House of Commons in 1893, but was rejected by the House of Lords. It was only in 1914 that Parliament was forced to pass a law on home rule, according to which the autonomy of Ireland acquired the usual status of a dominion. The introduction of this act was delayed until the end of the war.
All other British colonies were governed according to their legal status. Back in the 18th century the division of the colonies into conquered and resettlement was established. The conquered colonies, dominated by the native population, did not have political autonomy and were governed by a governor-general appointed by the mother country. Representative bodies from local residents played the role of an advisory body under the governor.
In those colonies dominated by white settlers, the British government made concessions. The ruling classes of England feared a repetition of the events that led to the end of the 18th century. to the loss of a large part of their North American possessions. Meeting the demands of white settlers, mostly from England, they were forced to grant self-government to some colonies of the settler type.
Relations with Canada have especially changed. In the 50-60s of the XIX century. economic ties between England and this North American colony were already so strong that the British government met the demands of its inhabitants for the expansion of self-government. In 1867 the government of Canada was reorganized on new grounds. The four provinces of Canada formed a confederation called the Dominion of Canada. From now on, the governors appointed by the English king ruled Canada only through the federal council of ministers responsible to the legislative bodies - the Senate and the House of Representatives of the dominion.
Not only in Canada, but also in other colonies inhabited by immigrants from the metropolis, in the 50-60s of the XIX century. representative institutions were formed. In 1854, the Cape Land received self-government from the South African possessions, and in 1856 - Natal.
In Australia, the first representative institutions were introduced in the 40s of the XIX century. In 1855, the constitutions of individual colonies were developed here, and then approved, providing for the introduction of a bicameral parliament and the limitation of governor's power. In 1900, separate self-governing colonies of Great Britain on the Australian continent were united into the Commonwealth of Australia. The 1900 constitution declared Australia to be a federal state. Legislative power was exercised by Parliament, which consisted of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Executive power was vested in the governor-general.
New Zealand received a constitution in 1852.
India was the largest English colony. conquered in the 18th century. East India Trading Company, this country was subjected to ruthless robbery. In 1813, the English Parliament abolished the East India Company's monopoly on trade with India, and many English companies gained access to its markets. The colonization of India was accompanied by high taxation, the seizure of communal lands and natural resources of the country by English landlords and capitalists. Indian industry and agriculture went into decline.
In 1857-1859. in India there was a powerful liberation uprising. It began among the Indian soldiers (sepoys) recruited into the troops of the East India Company. The main driving force of the uprising was the peasants and artisans, but the princes were at the head, dissatisfied with the loss of their possessions. The uprising was brutally suppressed.
The national industry of India, although slowly, developed, and with it the national bourgeoisie also strengthened. In 1885, a political bourgeois party, the Indian National Congress, was created. The main requirement of the Congress program was the admission of Indians to the government of the country. In 1892, by the Indian Councils Act, representatives of the Indian bourgeoisie were admitted to legislative advisory councils under the Governor-General of India and provincial governors. Access to the executive bodies was opened to Indians in 1906. Two Indians were introduced to the Council of Indian Affairs (in London), one Indian was appointed to the executive council under the Governor General, and Indians were given access to the executive councils of the provinces. In 1909, the Indian Legislative Councils Act was passed, according to which the number of members of the legislative council under the governor-general and the councils under the governors of the provinces was significantly increased, so that wider circles of the Indian bourgeoisie could take part in them. So, by the end of the XIX century. a number of English colonies turned into dominions, self-governing colonies. As they developed, the dominions more and more claimed the role of an equal partner in relations with the mother country. To regulate these relations, since 1887 "colonial conferences" began to be held regularly, in 1907 they were called imperial.
Chapter 16. UNITED STATES OF NORTH AMERICA
colony management. The largest colonial empire by the middle of the XIX century. became British, including colonial possessions in all parts of the world (Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta in Europe; India, Ceylon, South America, etc.).
Great Britain created a fairly flexible system of government, which made it possible to operate on the principle of “divide and rule” and in many cases maintain a colonial regime without a cumbersome apparatus, relying on the local top (the system of indirect control).
The supreme legislative power in the British Empire was held by the British Parliament, as well as by the government, which could issue regulations for the colonies by "orders of the King in Council". The system of central administration of the colonies until the middle of the XIX century. was not organized. The special position of Secretary of State for the Colonies appeared in 1768, but it was not until 1854 that the Ministry of the Colonies was created. The highest court of appeal for the colonial courts was the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council of Great Britain.
Starting from the XVIII century. there was a general division of all the colonies into “conquered” and “settlement”, in relation to which two types of British colonial administration gradually developed. The "conquered" colonies, usually with a "colored" population, did not have political autonomy and were governed on behalf of the crown through the organs of the mother country by the British government. Legislative and executive functions in such colonies were concentrated directly in the hands of the highest government official - the governor (governor-general). The representative bodies that were created in these colonies actually represented only an insignificant stratum of local residents, but even in this case they played the role of an advisory body to the governors. As a rule, a regime of national, racial discrimination was established in the "conquered" colonies. This is evidenced, in particular, by the example of India, a “conquered” colony that occupied a special place in the colonial policy of the mother country.
The capture and subjugation of India was carried out from the 17th century. The East India Trading Company, which received numerous privileges from the British crown. The trading apparatus of the company actually turned into an apparatus for managing the occupied Indian territories (Bengal, Bombay, Madras). Throughout the 18th century the company carried out open robbery of the local population, which led to disastrous consequences and forced the English Parliament to intervene in the activities of the East India Company. In 1773, the first Act of Parliament was issued to govern India. According to this act, all the affairs of the company were henceforth transferred to the jurisdiction of the Board of Directors, some of which had to be replaced periodically. The governor of Bengal received the office of governor-general of all British possessions in India. In addition, an act of 1773 provided for the creation in India of the Supreme Court, formally separated from the executive power in the colony. By an act of 1784, the activities of the company were subordinated to a special board of control, headed by a chairman, who later became Minister of Indian Affairs. However, until the late 50's - early 60's. 19th century In India, a dual system of administration and legal proceedings was maintained - through the bodies of the British crown and the East India Company.
A new stage in the development of the British administration of India came in 1858, after the uprising of Indian soldiers in British service (sepoys). India was placed under the direct control of the English crown and proclaimed an empire. The Queen of England became the Empress of India, and the secretary of state for India, whose post was established within the British government, headed the central administrative apparatus. Under the Secretary of State, the Council for Indian Affairs was created, which had advisory functions. In India itself, all power was concentrated in the hands of the Governor-General, who received the title of Viceroy and exercised his powers jointly with the Executive Council. In its wide composition, including persons appointed by the Governor-General, this body was called the Legislative Council and could perform legislative functions. Separate provinces of India were governed by governors and had their own legislative councils, and a number of Indian principalities formally acted as sovereign states.
At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. as a result of the rise of the liberation movement, the British Parliament passed a series of laws on Indian councils (1861, 1892, etc.), which, however, only slightly expanded the representation of indigenous people in the deliberative bodies of the colonial administration.
Another type of government developed in the colonies, where the majority or a significant part of the population were white settlers from Britain and other European countries (North American colonies, Australia, New Zealand, Cape Land). For a long time, these territories did not differ much from any other colonies in the form of government, but gradually acquired political autonomy.
The creation of representative bodies of self-government began in the resettlement colonies in the middle of the 18th century. However, the colonial parliaments had no real political power, because the supreme legislative, executive and judicial power remained in the hands of the British governors-general. In the middle of the XIX century. in a number of provinces in Canada, the institution of "responsible government" was established. As a result of a vote of no confidence by the local assembly, the appointed Governor's Council, which played the role of the colonial government, could be dissolved. The most important concessions to the resettlement colonies were made in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries, when, one after another, they achieved further expansion of self-government and, as a result, received the special status of dominions. In 1865 was adopted Act on the Validity of Colonial Laws, by which the acts of the colonial legislatures were invalidated in two cases: (a) if they were in any respect contrary to the acts of the British Parliament extended to that colony; b) if they were contrary to any orders and regulations issued on the basis of such an act or having the force of such an act in the colony. At the same time, the laws of the colonial legislatures could not be invalidated if they did not comply with the norms of the English "common law". The legislatures of the colonies received the right to establish courts and issue acts regulating their activities.
In 1867 the British Parliament passed the Act about British North America- the constitution of Canada, which served as a model for subsequent constitutions of the British dominions. This act formalized the unification of a number of provinces and territories (Quebec, Ontario, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) into a single federal dominion called "Canada".
The British North America Act embodies the main features of British constitutional practice, combined with the experience of building a federation in the United States. According to the form of government, Canada was a kind of monarchy, since the head of state was proclaimed by the British monarch, represented in the dominion itself by the governor-general. Legislative power was vested in Canada's federal parliament, which consisted of two chambers: the Senate, appointed by the Governor General, and the elected House of Commons. Parliament had the right to issue new laws on all major issues of the life of the federation, as well as to adopt amendments to the constitution concerning the activities of the federal government. Other constitutional amendments could only be carried out by the British Parliament at the request of the Parliament of Canada.
The executive power in the Canadian federation belonged to the representative of the British crown - the governor-general, endowed with very broad rights, including the right to appoint and dissolve the House of Commons at any time, repeal any law passed by the parliament of a separate province. In addition, the governor-general could not approve a bill passed by the federal parliament and submit it to the discretion of the British crown. However, this ratio of legislative and executive power soon ceased to correspond to the political practice of the development of the dominion. As in Great Britain itself, unwritten constitutional customs have significantly changed the actual distribution of the prerogatives of the main state bodies. Since the end of the 19th century the governor-general could exercise his powers only after consultation with his government council; within the Council, a cabinet of ministers stood out, headed and formed by the prime minister, subject to the confidence of the House of Commons (“responsible government”).
In the provinces of Canada - the subjects of the federation - provincial legislatures were created with very broad competence.
In 1901, the Commonwealth of Australia was created in a similar way - a federal state that united several self-governing colonies in Australia. The bicameral federal parliament consisted of a Senate and a House of Representatives elected by the people of each state. At the same time, Australian Aborigines and people of Afro-Asiatic origin were deprived of voting rights. In 1907 and 1909 New Zealand and the Union of South Africa became dominions respectively.
After the formation of the dominions, their foreign policy and "defense matters" remained the responsibility of the British government. Since the end of the XIX century. one of the forms of relations with the dominions was the so-called colonial (imperial) conferences held under the auspices of the ministry of colonies. At the 1907 conference, at the request of the representatives of the dominions, new organizational forms were developed for holding them. Imperial conferences were henceforth to be held under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, with the participation of the Prime Ministers of the Dominions.
At the end of XIX - beginning of XX century. simultaneously with the capture of vast territories in Africa (Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Somalia, etc.), British expansion intensified in Asia and the Arab East. The sovereign states that existed here were actually turned into protectorate semi-colonies (Afghanistan, Kuwait, Iran, etc.), their sovereignty was limited by treaties imposed by England and the presence of British troops.
Colonial law in the British dominions consisted of acts of the British Parliament (“statutory law”), “common law”, “rights of equity”, as well as decrees and orders of the ministry of the colonies and regulations adopted in the colony itself. The widespread introduction of the norms of English law in the colonies began in the second half of the 19th century, when the colonies became trading “partners” of the metropolis and it was necessary to ensure the stability of the exchange of goods, the security of the person and property of British subjects.
Intertwined with the traditional institutions of local law of the conquered countries, reflecting both their own and externally imposed social relations, colonial law was a complex and controversial phenomenon. In India, for example, British law-making and colonial law created highly sophisticated systems of Anglo-Hindu and Anglo-Muslim law that applied to local residents. These systems were characterized by an electrical mixture of English, customary, religious law and judicial interpretations. In the colonial law of Africa, the norms of European law, local customary law, and colonial laws that copied the colonial codes of India were also artificially combined. English law was applicable to English settlers in all parts of the world. At the same time, in the resettlement colonies, “common law” was applied in the first place, and English law could not be applied if this was not specifically indicated in an act of the British Parliament.
Chapter 2. United States of America
Organization of government in the North American colonies of England. The colonization of the Atlantic coast of North America by England began almost a century after the capture by Spain and Portugal of vast territories of Central and South America. The history of British colonial rule dates back to 1607, when Fort Jamestown was founded by English settlers.
The population of the first British colonies, founded by trading companies, consisted of indentured servants (paupers and prisoners), i.e. persons obliged within three or four years to pay the company the cost of their passage to the New World, and their "managers". In 1619 the first Negro slaves appeared. Then the wave of political and religious dissidents and other free settlers grows.
American colonial society from the moment of its inception was by no means homogeneous, egalitarian. It included planters and bourgeois, free small farmers and paupers, merchants, shipowners and servants. Social contradictions were superimposed by religious contradictions that existed between different areas of Protestantism (Calvinists and Lutherans), Catholics, as well as other beliefs and sects. Acute contradictions existed between the plantation South, whose economy was based on slavery, and the industrial and agrarian North, where capitalist relations developed.
The first colonies (Virginia, Plymouth, Massachusetts) were purely commercial enterprises, and their legal status was determined by colonial charters, which were a kind of agreement between the British crown and the shareholders of a company. In its subsequent development, relations between the crown and the colonies increasingly acquired a political character.
The system of British colonial government in its main features took shape by the end of the 17th century. By this time, there were 13 colonies, which, according to their legal status, were divided into three groups. Rhode Island and Connecticut, which had charters of self-governing colonies, were in fact a kind of republic, since all government bodies on their territory were elected. Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland were owned by private owners. The remaining eight - Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Virginia, North and South Carolina and Georgia - were the possessions of the British crown. These colonies were ruled by governors, but bicameral legislatures were also created. Decisions of the colonial legislatures could be overruled either by crown-appointed governors with an absolute veto, or by the king through the Privy Council.
The granted royal charters provided the colonists with those rights, freedoms and guarantees that were in force in the metropolis itself. Among them are the equality of all before the law, the right to a fair trial by jury, the principle of competition in criminal proceedings, freedom of movement, freedom of religion, guarantees from cruel and barbaric punishments, etc.
Political and legal institutions and views in the English colonies developed under the influence of England, but it is natural that they primarily expressed the economic needs of the colonial society. From the very beginning, two opposing tendencies were revealed in the emerging colonial constitutionalism - reactionary and democratic. The first was most fully expressed in Massachusetts, where a theocratic oligarchy was established that suppressed any manifestation of democracy, free thought and religious tolerance. Power in this "puritan republic" belonged to aristocratic and bourgeois elements.
The bearer of the second trend was the Connecticut colony, formed by religious and political dissidents expelled from Massachusetts. The governing bodies of Connecticut - the governor and the General Court (representative institution) were elected, and the granting of active suffrage to the inhabitants of the colony was not associated with any religious requirements.
Even more democratic was the self-governing colony of Rhode Island. In this “little republic”, as it is called in American historiography, a representative form of government was introduced with a unicameral legislature, the separation of the church from the “state” was carried out, frequent elections were provided, the right of collective and individual legislative initiative of citizens with equal rights, holding referendums .
The political and economic relations of the colonies with the mother country from the beginning of the 17th century until the declaration of independence in 1776 were determined by the policy of artificially restraining the development of capitalist relations, limiting the economic activity of the bourgeoisie of the colonies, whose foreign trade was completely placed under the control of England.
During the first six decades of the 18th century, immediately preceding the American Revolution, the English Parliament passed laws that stifled industry and commerce in the colonies. The Navigation Act, the laws on trade in essentials, on stamp duty, and many others, adopted in London without the participation of representatives of the colonies, caused outrage in all sections of colonial society. At the same time, the military and administrative oppression of the metropolis increased. At the same time, significant political and ideological changes were taking place in the colonies themselves - the desire to free themselves from British colonial oppression grew, unifying tendencies made their way, expressed in the actual establishment of confederate relations between the colonies.
American Revolution and Declaration of Independence. The American Revolution has certain features that distinguish it both from the preceding English bourgeois revolution and from the Great French bourgeois revolution that broke out soon after its completion. The first feature of the American Revolution is that it took place in a territory that actually did not know feudalism as a socio-economic formation. American society of the revolutionary period did not know hereditary aristocracy, landlords and serfs, state bureaucracy (except for the British administration alien to it), workshops, guilds, privileged clergy and other feudal attributes of Europe. This society was for the most part democratic in its spirit, in its moods and convictions. Social contradictions in it were less acute than in continental Europe.
The second feature of the American Revolution is that it pursued national liberation goals. This revolution began as a struggle - initially peaceful and then armed - against British colonial oppression.
The American Revolution began as a national liberation movement that developed into a war for independence, but as events unfolded, social contradictions were increasingly manifested in it; as a result of the growing divisions in American society, the war for independence simultaneously became a civil war. This split found its most striking expression in the movement of loyalists, who took the side of the British crown and openly opposed the rebellious people. A number of representatives of the wealthiest strata who joined the national liberation movement recoiled from it, realizing that independence and democracy go hand in hand.
The American Revolution left intact the slave system of the South, which for 80 years after the end of the Revolutionary War held back the development of American capitalism. It also had little effect on property relations that developed during the colonial period, eliminating only the remnants of feudalism in land relations. However, one cannot deny its enormous achievements - the gain of independence, the creation of a single federal republic, the constitutional and legal institutionalization of bourgeois-democratic rights and freedoms.
At the initiative of the Virginia legislature, which appealed to all the colonies to convene an annual congress to discuss the "general interests of America", on September 5, 1774, the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, in which all the colonies except Georgia were represented. Among the congress delegates were George Washington, B. Franklin, J. Adams and other prominent figures who played an important role in the American Revolution. Congress adopted decisions that inevitably led to a break with the British mother country: the import of British goods and exports from the colonies was boycotted. The execution of the decisions of the congress was entrusted to the elected liaison committees in the colonies.
In April 1775, the Battle of Lexington took place, which marked the beginning of the national liberation war. The Second Continental Congress, which met in Philadelphia on May 10, 1775, was openly a rebellious body, although it addressed the king with a final message of conciliation. The delegates to the congress, elected not by the colonial assemblies but by the revolutionary congresses and conventions, were very determined. They adopted a declaration of reasons and the need to take up arms, as well as a decision to unite the troops of the colonies and to appoint George Washington commander in chief.
A huge influence on the course of revolutionary events and on the political and legal consciousness of the colonists had Virginia Declaration of Rights, approved by the Virginia convention on June 12, 1776. This declaration is one of the most important documents in the history of American constitutionalism. It was K. Marx who had in mind when, in a letter to A. Lincoln, he wrote about America as a country “where the idea of a great democratic republic arose for the first time, where the first declaration of human rights was proclaimed and the first impetus was given to the European revolution of the XVIII century...”
The Virginia Declaration of Rights proclaimed that all human beings are by nature equally free and independent, and have inherent rights, which they cannot renounce themselves or deprive their posterity of such. These inherent rights included "the enjoyment of life and liberty through the acquisition and possession of property" as well as "the pursuit and attainment of happiness and security."
Since the issue of religious freedom and tolerance was of great importance in the American colonies, a great resonance in the colonies was caused by the provision of the declaration that the choice of religion and the way it was practiced "can be determined only by reason and conviction, and not by force and violence."
The declaration proclaimed that all power resides in the people and comes from the people, and the rulers are trusted servants of the people and are responsible to them. Of particular importance for its time was Art. 3 declaration, in which one of the most revolutionary demands of that era was enshrined - the right of the people to change the government, to overthrow it if it acts contrary to the interests of the people. The unique feature of the declaration was the provision that "freedom of the press is one of the bulwarks of freedom in general, and it can never be limited by anyone except a despotic government."
An outstanding role in the development of American democracy and constitutionalism was played by Declaration of Independence 1776 This document, written by T. Jefferson and approved by the Third Continental Congress, was certainly revolutionary in its time.
The Declaration of Independence proclaimed the former English colonies “free and independent states” meant the emergence of 13 independent sovereign states on the Atlantic coast of North America. Although the declaration contains the words "United States of America", this does not mean that the United States in the modern sense of the word was created as a single federal republic. The very act of declaring the former British colonies as independent sovereign states was an event of exceptional importance not only for the Americans themselves, but for the rest of the world.
The declaration said: “We hold the following truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal and endowed by the Creator with certain inalienable rights.” The Declaration passed over in silence the issue of slavery, it extended the principle of equality not to all people, but only to white male owners, because the indigenous people of America - the Indians, who were not slaves, were not included in the political community, like slaves.
Among the "certain inalienable rights" the declaration includes the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This list does not include private property rights. It was no accident that T. Jefferson "forgot" to include private property in the declaration. He did not consider the ownership of private property to be a natural human right. In his opinion, it was a product of historical evolution. The exclusion of the right of private property from the list of natural rights did not at all mean its abolition, which would be simply unthinkable in bourgeois America.
The Declaration states that in order to secure natural rights, “people create governments whose just authority is based on the consent of the governed.” This formula completely breaks with the divine theory of the origin of the state. According to the declaration, the state is based on a social contract concluded between people, and not between the ruled and the rulers.
Of paramount importance was the provision of the declaration on the right and even the obligation of the people to change or overthrow the government objectionable to it: “But when a long series of abuses and violence ... reveals a desire to subjugate the people to absolute despotism, then the right and duty of the people is to overthrow such a government and create new guarantees for ensuring their future security." The Declaration of Independence has never been a legal document in the true sense of the word and is not part of the body of current American law, but its prescriptions had a great influence on the entire course of the development of American constitutionalism, on the political and legal consciousness of the American people.
State constitutions. On May 10, 1776, the Continental Congress passed a resolution proposing that the colonies establish their own governments "which would best promote the happiness and security of their founders." However, the process of adopting constitutions by the colonies began somewhat earlier, when New Hampshire adopted its first constitution on January 6, 1776, and did not fully end until June 13, 1784, when the same state adopted its second constitution. The Virginia constitution, adopted on June 29, 1776, served as a model for many states.
All state constitutions began with the Declaration of Rights or the Bill of Rights, which listed the traditional rights and freedoms for English subjects - release from custody on an “easy” bail, prohibition of cruel punishments, a “quick and fair” trial, the “habeas corpus” procedure. ". The constitutions also enshrined such rights and freedoms that the British of that time were not endowed with: freedom of the press and choice, the right of the majority to replace and change the government. Some states added to this list rights borrowed from English constitutional documents or their own political experience: freedom of speech, assembly, petition, bearing arms, inviolability of the home, prohibition of retroactive laws. A number of states prohibited the seizure of property without due compensation, the application of wartime laws in peacetime, compulsion to testify against oneself, etc.
All constitutions proceeded from the principle of separation of powers, leaning towards the Lockean model with its supremacy of Parliament. Because of this, in all states, with the exception of New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, the position of the executive branch was weaker than that of the legislature. Only in two states were governors given the right of suspensive veto, in most states judges were appointed not by the executive branch, but by legislatures and declared independent.
The proclamation of the principle of popular sovereignty by all constitutions did not prevent the founders from granting political rights, primarily electoral rights, only to the owners. To hold elected office, most states not only introduced a high property qualification (to hold a senatorial position in New Jersey and Maryland required £1,000, and in South Carolina - £2,000), but also religious restrictions.
State constitutions were adopted by conventions, that is, constituent assemblies. Few constitutions provided for a special procedure for changing them. In other states, amendments were adopted in the same manner as the constitutions themselves, that is, by specially convened conventions.
Articles of Confederation. In June 1776, the First Continental Congress appointed a committee to prepare the Articles of Confederation. The draft he prepared was approved by Congress on November 15, 1777. However, the process of ratification by all 13 states dragged on for more than three years, and the Articles of Confederation came into force only on March 1, 1781. The Articles of Confederation legally formalized and secured, as stated in the preamble, the creation “ eternal Union between the States." In Art. II specifically emphasized that "each state shall retain its sovereignty, liberty, and independence, and all power, jurisdiction, and right, except as expressly delegated by this confederation to the United States assembled in Congress." The name of the confederation, it is said in Art. 1 would be "United States of America", which should be understood as "United States of America". It was about 13 independent republics. The Confederate Union of 13 sovereign states (states) set itself primarily foreign policy tasks. Under the then conditions, it was a war of independence against Britain. It is not surprising that after the victory and gaining independence in full, this union lost its meaning.
The Confederation of the United States of America was not a state in the proper sense of the word. It was not a union state, but a union of independent states. Therefore, the Articles of Confederation are a kind of international treaty, and not the basic law of a single state. Although the confederate union of sovereign American states was not a state in the proper sense of the word, but within its framework some economic, political and psychological foundations were laid for that American statehood, the legal basis of which was the Constitution of 1787.
The Articles of Confederation did not establish a single citizenship. In Art. IV speaks of "freemen of each of these states", of "freemen in the various states" (not only slaves, but also paupers, vagabonds and evaders of justice are excluded from them), and not of citizens of the union.
"For the more convenient administration of the affairs of the United States," established under the Articles of Confederation Congress(in fact, the old Continental Congress was preserved), which included delegates (from two to seven), annually appointed by the states in the manner prescribed by them. Delegates could be recalled and replaced by others at any time. Each state in Congress had one vote. In the event of a split (for example, two for, two against), the delegation would lose its vote. Congress was not a parliament in the usual sense for that time. It was a "meeting of diplomats", and the delegates were not deputies, but "diplomatic agents".
Congress formally had all foreign policy powers. He declared war and made peace, sent and appointed ambassadors, concluded international treaties, and managed trade with the Indian tribes. In the domestic sphere, his powers were very modest. Suffice it to say that he did not have the right to tax and thus was deprived of his own financial base. All military and other activities of Congress were funded by the states. Although he formally had the right to set "standards of monetary units", in fact, the states minted their own coinage. Thus, the narrowness of the scope of powers was aggravated by the organizational impotence of the Congress (for the adoption of the most important decisions, the consent of 9 states out of 13 was necessary).
Congress, after the victorious conclusion of the Revolutionary War, passed the landmark Northwest Ordinances of 1784, 1785, and 1787, which created the legal basis for US territorial expansion and established the procedure for creating new states and admitting them to the union.
US Constitution 1787 The adoption of the US constitution was due to real economic, political, social and ideological circumstances. The collapse of the "eternal Union", monstrous particularism, economic chaos, the threat of civil war - all this required the creation of a single state based on 13 practically independent states.
In February, 1787, Congress passed a resolution calling for a special convention in Philadelphia in May, of delegates appointed by the states, for the sole purpose of revising the Articles of Confederation. However, the convention went further, it adopted a constitution.
The Philadelphia convention was a small but impressive board of 55 delegates. 39 of them were delegates to Congress, the rest had experience of political activity in their states. All the delegates to the convention were wealthy people. It included prominent figures of the era.
The delegates to the convention were quite clearly aware of the importance of the tasks assigned to it - to stop the further development of the revolution, create a "more perfect union" and guarantee the rights of owners.
The constitution lacks some of the important political and legal principles found in the Declaration of Independence, the state constitutions, and the Articles of Confederation. It does not mention the sovereignty of the states, the right of the people to rebel, the natural rights of man, the social contract. In this respect, it took a step backward compared with the practice and ideology of the preceding revolutionary period. Nevertheless, for its time it was certainly a revolutionary document and had a huge impact on the development of constitutionalism in many other countries of the world.
The American constitution, as it was approved by the convention and then ratified, is a very brief document. It consists of a preamble and 7 articles, of which only 4 are divided into sections. The organization, competence and interaction of the highest authorities of the republic was based on the American version of the principle of separation of powers, created not so much in accordance with the theories of D. Locke and C. Montesquieu, but taking into account their own experience. It should be especially emphasized that the founders of the constitution never thought of creating three independent authorities. According to their views, power is one, but it has three branches "legislative, executive and judicial. To prevent the concentration of powers, fraught with the establishment of the tyranny of one branch of power, the constitution established a system of "checks and balances", which rests on the following fundamental principles.
First, all three branches of government have different sources of formation. The bearer of legislative power - Congress consists of two chambers, each of which is formed in a special way. House of Representatives elected by the people, that is, by the electoral corps, which in those days consisted only of white male proprietors. Senate- state legislatures. The president - the bearer of executive power is elected indirectly, by an electoral college, who in turn are elected by the population of individual states. Finally, the highest body of judicial power - the Supreme Court - is formed jointly by the president and the senate
Secondly, all government bodies have different terms of office, since every two years they are re-elected by one third. The President is elected for 4 years, and members of the Supreme Court hold their positions for life.
Such an order, according to the “founding fathers”, was supposed to provide each of the branches of power with a certain independence in relation to others and prevent the simultaneous renewal of their composition, i.e., to achieve stability and continuity of the upper echelon of the federal state machine.
Thirdly, the constitution provided for the creation of such a mechanism within which each of the branches of power could neutralize the possible usurper tendencies of the other. In accordance with this, the Congress received the right, as a sovereign legislative body, to reject any legislative proposals of the President, including financial ones, which he can introduce through his creature in the chambers. The Senate may reject any nominee proposed by the President for the highest civilian federal office, as its approval requires the consent of two-thirds of the Senate. Congress can finally impeach the president and remove him from office.
The president's most important constitutional means of influencing Congress was a suspensive veto, which can only be overridden if a bill or resolution rejected by the president is re-approved by a two-thirds vote in both chambers.
The members of the Supreme Court are appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. This means that nominees proposed by the President for the highest judicial positions must be approved by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. The Constitution created the prerequisites for granting the Supreme Court the right of constitutional review, which was the most important means of restraining the norm-setting activities of both Congress and the President. Federal judges themselves could be removed from office in accordance with the impeachment procedure, which was carried out by both houses of Congress.
The system of "checks and balances" was supposed not only to prevent the usurping tendencies of each of the three branches of power, but also to ensure the stability and continuity of the functioning of state power itself.
The constitution laid the foundations for a federal form of government, although there is no corresponding concept in its text. The federation was the result of a class compromise between the bourgeois and the slave owners, frightened by popular unrest and conference turmoil.
The American constitution laid the basis for the federation on a dualistic (dual) principle, by virtue of which the subject competence of the union was established, and everything else (with some reservations and clarifications) was the responsibility of the states. The provisions of the original text were soon amended by the Tenth Amendment of 1791, which declared: "The powers not delegated to the United States by this Constitution, and the exercise of which is not prohibited by it to the individual states, shall be reserved, respectively, to the states or to the people."
The prescription of Art. VI, which established the principle of the supremacy of federal law in relation to the legal institutions of the states. The Constitution not only proclaimed the principle of the supremacy of federal law, but also provided a mechanism for ensuring its implementation, namely, the provision that, in the event of a conflict of laws, state judges must always give preference to federal law. This constitutional provision is the cornerstone of the entire edifice of American federalism.
Bill of rights. The original text of the federal constitution did not contain a specific article or section on civil rights and freedoms, although some of them mostly contained separate provisions. This kind of neglect of civil rights and freedoms caused great dissatisfaction among the democratic-minded sections of the population and even jeopardized the ratification of the constitution. Already in June 1789, the first 10 amendments were introduced to the first congress, convened on the basis of the constitution, at the suggestion of D. Madison, which by December 1791 were ratified by the states and simultaneously entered into force. The amendments that make up the Bill of Rights are equivalent in their meaning to defining the legal status of an American citizen. Amendment X did not deal with civil rights at all, IX established the principle of inadmissibility of restricting the rights of citizens not directly mentioned by the constitution. Amendment III, which regulates the standing order of soldiers in peacetime and wartime, has become an anachronism in the modern era. The remaining seven amendments dealt with political and personal rights and freedoms. Thus, Amendment 1 spoke of freedom of religion, freedom of speech and the press, the right of the people to peacefully assemble and petition the government; The II Amendment guaranteed the people the right to keep and bear arms; The fourth amendment proclaimed the inviolability of person, home, papers and property. The Fifth Amendment spoke of trial by jury and procedural guarantees, and the prohibition of the gratuitous seizure of private property. Amendments VI, VII and VIII were devoted to procedural principles and guarantees, they determined the range of criminal and civil cases that were to be considered by juries. These same amendments prohibited excessive taxes and fines, as well as cruel and unusual punishments.
The adoption of the Bill of Rights was an undeniable victory for American democracy. At the same time, it should be borne in mind that this document, like the constitution itself, says nothing about socio-economic rights and freedoms. The brief prescriptions contained in the Bill of Rights have been elaborated in numerous Supreme Court decisions and detailed in hundreds of Acts of Congress.
Creation of the federal state apparatus. By the time the Constitution came into force on March 4, 1789 (on the same day the first US Congress met for its first session), the newly created federal republic, stretching along the Atlantic coast for 2 thousand miles, was going through a difficult time: the confederation left behind an empty treasury and public debt; although customs duties were introduced, there was no apparatus for collecting them; the executive branch was absent, as was the federal judiciary; the army consisted of only 672 officers and soldiers. And this is in conditions of social unrest, economic chaos, and separatist tendencies. The international situation was also very complicated and fraught with danger.
After April 30, 1789, when George Washington took office as the first president of the United States, an apparatus of executive power was hastily created. Laws are passed on the creation of the first departments - state, military and financial. The position of Attorney General is established. In February 1790, the Supreme Court was going to its first session.
In September 1789 Congress passed the Judiciary Act, which lays the legal foundation for the federal judiciary. According to this law, the Supreme Court consisted of the chief judge and 5 associate judges (subsequently, the number of the Supreme Court changed several times, but since 1869 it has remained unchanged - 9 judges). The United States was divided into 13 judicial districts, which, with the exception of Maine and Kentucky, were combined into three judicial districts. Thus, a three-tier judicial system of the federation was established, organizationally not connected with the judicial systems of individual states. In addition, the 1789 Act laid the foundations for the US Attorney Service.
Of great importance for the US judiciary was the decision of the Supreme Court in the "case of Marbury v. Madison", issued in 1803. The essence of the matter is as follows. A certain W. Marbury asked the court to issue a writ ordering Secretary of State J. Madison to issue him a patent for the office of justice of the peace in the Federal District of Columbia, to which he was duly appointed. Considering this case, Chief Justice J. Marshall came to the conclusion that Art. 13 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, which authorizes the court to issue such orders, is contrary to the provisions of the US constitution. Thus, the principle “any law that contradicts the constitution is void” was formulated, which was put in the basis of the doctrine and practice of constitutional supervision.
In the first three decades, the foundations of the statutory law of the federation are laid. Congress passed in 1789 a "package of laws" that included the Naturalization Acts, the Aliens Act, the Hostile Aliens Act, and the Insurrection Act. The latter provided for punishment in court for criminal conspiracy to overthrow the government, for disseminating defamatory information about the US government, Congress and president. This law was clearly contrary to the provisions of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.
In the first two decades after the entry into force of the constitution, the XI and XII amendments were adopted. The first of these, adopted in 1795 at the urging of those who limited the power of the union and expanded the rights of the states, established the immunity of the states from prosecution by citizens of another state or foreigners. The XII Amendment (1804) supplemented the procedure for electing the president by introducing separate voting for candidates for president and vice president.
Political parties. The American constitution completely ignored parties. At that time, there was a sharp hostility in public opinion towards parties, or, as they were then called, factions. The elections for the first president and congress were non-partisan. However, practice has shown that the bourgeois-plantation bloc that has come to power cannot be monolithic. The first administration of George Washington was apparently monolithic, but even then there were serious disagreements between A. Hamilton, who headed the Treasury, and Secretary of State T. Jefferson. Both of them convinced George Washington to run for a second term. An open split occurred in the summer of 1793 when Jefferson announced his resignation. Although it was not satisfied until the end of that year, in fact the parties had already become a reality of political life. The federalists, headed by A. Hamilton, expressed the interests of the industrial North, while the Democratic Republicans of T. Jefferson relied primarily on the slave states of the South. Initially, the parties acted as factions in Congress, then the caucuses (meetings of party factions) created by them became bodies through which candidates were nominated. By the end of the first decade of the republic's existence, the parties practically monopolized the elections. In 1796, the presidential elections were already openly partisan. The first two presidents - J. Washington and D. Adams - were federalists. In 1800, as a result of a split in the votes of the electoral college, the Republican T. Jefferson was elected president by the House of Representatives. Presidents J. Madison (1809-1817), J. Monroe and J. Adams (1825-1829) belonged to the same party.
The two-party system that developed at that time, which did not yet have a clear organizational design, lasted until 1824. The presidential elections that took place that year testified to the collapse of the party system, which consisted of Jeffersonian Republicans and Federalists. The formation of new parties that replaced the old two-party system proceeded under difficult conditions, because class differentiation had not yet ended in American society.
In 1828, the Jeffersonian Republicans were replaced by the Democratic Party, in the creation of which President E. Jackson (1829-1837) played a decisive role. In the 30s. on the ruins of the federalist party, a new political organization of the bourgeoisie of the North, the Whigs, arises. At the same time, caucuses were replaced by national party conventions that monopolized the procedure for nominating presidential candidates; a rotation system (“loot system”) emerged, according to which a change in the president’s party affiliation is accompanied by a replacement of the federal apparatus along party lines.
The two-party Whig Democrat system differed in some ways from its predecessor. A specific feature of this system was that none of the main parties had a dominant influence in the traditional regions of its original origin. The absence of a clear ideological confrontation, characteristic of the original parties, also determined the diversity of their mass base.
The sharp aggravation of contradictions on the question of slavery set in the 50s. 19th century Both parties are in an extremely difficult position. Efforts to save the Whig Democrat system ended in complete failure. As a result of a series of splits, the Democratic Party turned into an extremist slave-owning faction. A complex internal party struggle also took place in the Whig camp. They eventually withdrew from the political arena, and in 1854 the Republican Party was formed to criticize the slave system.
US territorial expansion. In the period from the adoption of the constitution to the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861, the territory of the United States increased several times due to purchases and direct aggression. In 1803, taking advantage of a favorable situation, T. Jefferson bought from Napoleon a huge Louisiana stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada for $15 million. This deal, made contrary to the constitution and apart from Congress, doubled the original territory of the United States. As a result of the Mexican-American War of 1846-1848. Mexico ceded to the United States Texas, California, Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah and part of Colorado, the area of which exceeded the territory of Germany and France. In subsequent decades, the United States carried out territorial expansion by the same methods. In 1867, Tsar Alexander II sold huge Alaska (its area is almost three times the size of France) to the Americans for a negligible sum ($7.2 million). As a result of the Spanish-American War of 1898, the United States captured Puerto Rico, about. Guam, Philippines, occupied formally declared independent Cuba. Thus, the beginning of the imperial geopolitics of world domination was laid.
Civil War 1861-1865 The contradictions between the slave-owning South and the industrial North in the first three decades of the existence of the United States began to grow rapidly as the economic rise of the slave-owning states. The huge profits brought by slave labor on plantations that produced cotton, sugar cane and tobacco required new slaves and new territories. After the admission of Illinois to the union, the country turned out to be 2 free states and 10 slave states. In order to maintain the existing balance between the slave and free states, in 1820 Congress passed a law according to which the union included both the slave state of Missouri and the free state of Maine. In addition, a resolution was approved that established the northern limit of the spread of slavery west of the Mississippi River. This political deal, known as the first Missouri Compromise, was an attempt to maintain the historic equilibrium of the representation of the slave and free states in the Senate. Further concessions to slave owners on the issue of slavery in the newly formed states (New Mexico, Utah) led to the second Missouri Compromise of 1850, according to which the population of the respective territories decided for themselves whether to be free or slave states. The predominance of slave owners in the federal government allowed them to abandon the Missouri Compromises in 1854, as a result, any restrictions on the spread of slave ownership to other states and territories were eliminated.
The election in November 1860 to the presidency of a prominent supporter of the abolition of slavery, one of the organizers of the Republican Party, A. Lincoln, showed changes in the balance of social forces in favor of the abolitionists and meant the collapse of the long-term political hegemony of the slave owners.
At the end of 1860 - beginning of 1861, the ruling slave-owning circles of 13 southern states took an extreme measure - secession, that is, secession from the federation and the proclamation in February 1861 of the Confederate States of America. Shortly after the official accession of A. Lincoln to the presidency (in March 1861), the Confederates rebelled, trying to forcibly overthrow the constitutional government, proclaimed a new constitution for the Confederate States of America. In an effort to extend slaveholding relations throughout the entire union, the Confederates began the Civil War on April 12, 1861, which lasted four years and ended on May 26, 1865.
The victory of the capitalist North was historically a foregone conclusion, but a radical change in the course of the Civil War, which was initially more favorable for the southerners, came after the solution of the fundamental issue of the bourgeois-democratic revolution - the question of slavery. Initially, slavery in the territories of the rebellious states was abolished by President A. Lincoln's Proclamation of January 1, 1863. Then, at the end of the Civil War (1865), the XIII amendment to the constitution was adopted, which prescribed: “In the United States or any place subject to their jurisdiction, there shall be no slavery or servitude, unless it is a punishment for a crime for which the person has been duly convicted.”
The Civil War brought major changes to the US legal and political system. Of great importance were the provisions of the XIV Amendment, which prohibited the states from enacting laws restricting the benefits and privileges of US citizens; prohibited states from depriving anyone of liberty or property without due process of law, or from denying anyone within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
These two amendments created legal conditions not only for the liberation of blacks, but also for their equal rights with white citizens. However, the progressive prescriptions of the 13th and 14th amendments were "torpedoed" by Supreme Court decisions in 1883 and 1896, which found the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional and state laws establishing "separate but equal opportunities" for whites and blacks as constitutional. The last "Civil War Amendment" - XV, adopted in 1870, prohibited discrimination in elections: "The right to vote of citizens of the United States shall not be denied or limited by the United States or any state on the basis of race, color, or in connection with the former location in bondage." However, the provisions of this amendment were dead for a century for former slaves.
An important consequence of the Civil War was a significant strengthening of presidential power under A. Lincoln, which actually had a significant impact on the development of this institution throughout the subsequent history of the United States and ended with the establishment of "imperial presidential power."
The bloody Civil War left the South in a state of economic and political chaos. It took 12 years of Reconstruction (1865-1877) to fully integrate the southern states into the union. Normalization came only after the withdrawal of federal troops from the states of the defeated confederation. Since that time, the new Democratic Party has completely seized influence in this region. The rapid development of capitalism in the South begins, socially and economically, both historical regions of the United States become more and more the same, although many differences remain to this day.
From the end of the Civil War to the beginning of the 20th century, tremendous changes took place in the United States in all spheres of society. From the agrarian republic, as it was back in the 60s. In the 19th century, the country turned under Presidents W. McKinley and T. Roosevelt (at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries) into an industrial power. In 40 years, the US population has grown from 31 million to 76 million people. During this time, 15 million immigrants arrived in the country, of which a significant part were immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe. Large industrial cities grew rapidly: New York, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Detroit. 12 new states were admitted to the union. The border has disappeared, separating the Americanized territories and the Wild West. Indian tribes were expelled from their ancestral lands and forcibly relocated to reservations. The destruction of the planter class opened wide the doors to booming capitalism. There are trusts, joint-stock companies, banks that occupy command posts in the economy. At the same time, the class polarization of society deepens, the strike struggle grows rapidly and acquires an organized character. If at one time the sharpness of capitalist contradictions was mitigated by the presence of “free lands” in the West, then by the end of the 19th century. this factor is gone.
In the same years, mass workers' organizations arose. In 1869, the Noble Order of the Knights of Labor was created, which defended the principles of industrial democracy.
In 1876 the Socialist Labor Party was formed. An important event in the development of the American trade union movement was the creation in 1886 of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), which in the following decades was the backbone of the trade union movement. A significant role in the development of the American labor movement was played by the industrial workers of the world trade union organization of socialist orientation, created in 1905.
State of the United States in the late XIX - early XX century. The transformation of the United States into a world power with its own colonial empire was accompanied by significant changes in all divisions of the political system. However, these changes, generally aimed at expanding the functions of the central authorities, did not always find their expression in the legal system. For the most part, they were factual in nature and were incorporated not into a legal, but into an actual constitution (the Americans say: “a living constitution”). During this period, there are only two amendments to the constitution - XVI and XVII, ratified in 1913. The XVI amendment significantly expanded the tax powers of Congress. Since then, the income taxes he has imposed have accounted for the bulk of budget revenues. The 17th Amendment abolished the old procedure for appointing senators and introduced direct elections. This measure not only democratized the procedure for forming the Senate, but also significantly increased its prestige and influence.
Of great importance to the Congress was the “parliamentary revolution” of 1910, as a result of which the previously omnipotent Speaker of the House of Representatives was deprived of the right to appoint members of all standing committees of the House and membership in a very important committee of rules that determines the procedure for passing bills and resolutions. This measure contributed to the establishment of more flexible relations between the standing committees and influential pressure groups, since the same ratio of party representatives was established in the committees as in the houses of Congress. At the same time, measures were taken to eliminate the deliberate procrastination of the legislative procedure (the incessantly repeated roll call voting at the request of the minority in order to determine the quorum). All this helped to increase the efficiency of the congress.
After the assassination in September 1901 of President W. McKinley, T. Roosevelt became the head of the executive branch, who, after being re-elected in 1904, held this position until 1909. Under him, the era of “congressional rule”, that is, his relative independence from the presidency. Previous presidents (Harrison, Cleveland and McKinley) considered themselves agents of Congress, that is, interpreted presidential power in a parliamentary spirit. T. Roosevelt not only demonstrated in practice the supremacy of presidential power in domestic and foreign policy, he formulated his own concept of strong presidential power, accountable not to Congress, but directly to the people.
The name of T. Roosevelt is associated with the first serious crisis that shook the two-party system that developed after the end of the Civil War. In the presidential election of 1912, T. Roosevelt split with the Republican Party and put forward his candidacy for president from the Progressive Party. The National Convention of the New Party, which met in Chicago in August 1912, adopted a platform in which the old two-party system was subjected to crushing criticism. Recognizing corporations as “an essential part of modern business”, the platform at the same time put forward a number of radical demands: to democratize the procedure for nominating candidates, to grant voting rights to women, to curb electoral corruption, to improve working conditions for workers, to ban child labor, to establish a minimum wage, etc. The Progressive Party managed to collect about 4 million votes and get 88 seats in the Electoral College (the Democratic Party candidate received respectively 6 million votes, 435 seats in the Electoral College). It was the success of Roosevelt and the defeat of the Republican Party. But the Progressive Party never became a third party.
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