In less than two centuries, the United States transformed from a rural new nation to a superpower.?
336267
Part of it is that we have a geographical advantage. We do not share borders with countries that might invade us. We are out of the reach of all our worst enemies, at least with conventional weapons/forces.\n\nAnother is the historical blank slate we started with. Since we more or less destroyed all the former inhabitants of this land, we did not start off as a nation with any significant ethnic disputes. We also did not have to compete with former inhabitants for resources. We pretty much took all the best parts of the country over for ourselves and forced the descendents of the former inhabitants onto worthless property with no or few natural resources.\n\nWe also were not saddled with the outdated cultural hierarchy that many European nations still have to reckon with, which left us free to get straight to business once industrialization became a consideration.\n\nThe turning point in American history, I would think, probably has something to do with the near extinguishing of its former inhabitants. That one shameful act nevertheless enabled us to start with a clean slate, which is one reason why were able to become so powerful so quickly. If we hadn't created a huge ethnic problem for ourselves by importing slaves, all our immigrants (whether European or African or whatever) would have come willingly and would have cast off their old beliefs to start anew. Slavery was probably our biggest mistake, and we are still feeling the repurcussions of it today. Capitalism was not founded on slavery; that's ridiculous.
94031
None.  No other country declared or gained independence in 1776
716870
Yes it does prove that. Also the belief that god wanted american's to have the country span from coast to coast. The american mentality was they were doing the "barbarians" (Natives) a favour by converting them and taking over their land.
766561
SUPER, THE U.S IS SUPER.
583962
I think industrialization is what happens when a country becomes more modern, a side affect of progress etc.
84091
As President Grant said in his memoirs, the South stopped working for compromise when they could no longer command political dominance of the country. Back in the early 1980's, the Commerce Department put out a series of books on the economic history of the United States, which brought up many aspects of early US history that are now forgotten.\n\nAfter the revolution, when the country was a bankrupted swath of states along the Atlantic Ocean, there seemed no way the country could survive economically. Then, the industrialization of the American Northeast was financed in large part by hard currency achieved through the export of cotton and tobacco. These were the only resources the US had in large quantities that had a monopoly throughout the world, and this was of course produced exclusively in the South. The grains produced in the Northeast and later in the Midwest were largely barred from European markets because of the British Corn Laws and other agricultural protective measures across the world.\n\nYou must remember, this was before the advent of sectionalism, and many across the country gave their political loyalty to the Whig Party, which represented Business both large and small. As a result, the South would reap huge profits on cotton (which thus became an industry only for those rich and powerful enough to hold large amounts of land and large numbers of slaves) and then invest those profits in the North to build industry. This also gave the South a certain amount of extra influence in how things were done across the country.\n\nAs the North began to also grow rich because of its expanding industrial base, leaders in the North began to also throw their political and economic weight around. In the 1830's, Northern and Midwestern sections brought about a very protective tariff against foreign manufactured goods and European luxuries (hence the name Sectionalism).\n\nAs we have seen all throughout our history, when a domestic industry is protected by increasing the price of foreign competition, rather than using the protection to increase their market share and long term health, American business will simply increase their prices to maximize their short term profits. This was the case here as well. The leaders in the North, because they needed semi-skilled labor which is not condusive to slavery, started to fund the political movement to abolish slavery which, when gold was discovered in California and people had to travel through Missouri and actually see the way slaves were treated, became an uncontrollably emotional issue. The South found themselves now having to pay higher prices for goods they could not produce themselves, even though they had made those goods possible, and found their peculiar institution which was the basis of their own wealth attacked as being immoral.\n\nThe two sections of the country had found themselves growing farther apart, and the differences were becoming too stark for the Southern leaders to deal with. While they defended African slavery as moral and humanitarian, they lived in mortal fear of becoming slaves themselves. The Whig Party began to unravel, with those in the North going to the Republicans and the South going to the Democrats. With the very idea of slavery being called into question, the South demanded a concession in the Compromise of 1850 that they felt would force the whole country to recognize the institution of slavery, the Fugitive Slave Act. This completely backfired on the South, because now to the people in the North, slavery was no longer just some bad thing that was happening far far away that you could pretend was someone else's problem (like Darfur today). The new law now required Northern communities to arrest and hold captive black people in their local jails with their local police for no other reason than because someone in the South said the black person was a runaway slave (there was no hearing, and no evidence allowed other than the statement of
759199
About the time our original 13 states adopted their new constitution, in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of  Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:\n\n "A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.  A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.  From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."\n\n "The average age of the worlds greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.  During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:\n\n 1.  From bondage to spiritual faith;\n 2.  From spiritual faith to great courage;\n 3.  From courage to liberty;\n 4.  From liberty to abundance;\n 5.  From abundance to complacency;\n 6.  From complacency to apathy;\n 7.  From apathy to dependence;\n 8.  From dependence back into bondage "\n\n Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law, St. Paul, Minnesota, points out some interesting facts concerning the 2000 Presidential election:\n\n Population of counties won by:  Gore: 127 million; Bush: 143 million;\n\n Square miles of land won by:  Gore: 580,000; Bush: 2,427,000\n\n States won by:  Gore: 19; Bush: 29\n\n Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by:  Gore: 13.2;  Bush: 2.1\n\n&nbs p;Professor Olson adds: "In aggregate, the map of the territory Bush won was mostly the land owned by the tax-paying citizens of this great country.  Gore's territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in government-owned tenements and living off government welfare..."\n\n Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the "complacency and apathy" phase of Professor Tyler's definition of democracy, with some 40 percent of the nation's population already having reached the "governmental dependency" phase. If the Senate grants Amnesty and citizenship to 20 million invaders called illegals and they vote, then goodbye USA in less than 5 years.\n\nJust something to think about........... And no, I don't have any suggestions. I don't see how we can just stop and change what is happening, as most people won't comply with the kind of radical changes it would take. Start making sure you have your own retirement savings now, before it is too late.
45599
Brad got it, but the question itself is incorrect.  The State of Franklin, formed in 1784 from land used by North Carolina to pay War debts, was part of the union held lands but never became one of the United States.\nThe ratification vote went 7 to 6 in favor, but this was 2 less than the number needed.  The land was then passed into the Southwest Territory which became the State of Tennessee a few years later.
439756
It's happening right now before your eyes. The USA is becoming marginalized just like Europe and most recently England. It will be drastically apparent in about 20 years, as China begins to approach the US economy in overall size (GDP).\n\nIt is interesting to see that some Americans are starting to sense something historical is happening. Historians of the future 100 years from now, will look back at the early 1990's when China first started taking off. Yes, it has been happening for that long, but 99% of Americans just didn't pay attention, now there is no stopping China and India from becoming the center of the world for what probably will be for the rest of the existence of humanity.
932857
Kind of a trick question.  What would come to be the United States was governed first by the Continental Congress from 5 September to 26 October 1774.  The Second Continental Congress oversaw the conduct of the War for Independence.\n\nThe "United States" was declared in the Declaration of Independence , July 4, 1776.  However, the very first actual government, The Articles of Confederation, did not take effect until March 2, 1781 when the first Congress of the United States Assembled convened for the first time.  The War for Independece was not concluded until September 3, 1783 with the Treaty of Paris.
1128847
If the United States is isolated from other countries because other countries no longer want anything to do with the United States, then the United States will no longer be a superpower because there will no longer be anything super about it...the United States will become a third world country in this scenario because there won't be any imports or exports and the United States will be in constant fear of being attacked by other countries.
996042
Decline in some areas, maybe (manufacturing comes to mind)...but in terms of research, development, and especially services...these are what will buoy the US over the next fifty years.\n\nThis is what happens during the development of a one-world economy. The idea of the nation is, in some ways, obsolete.
678130
A great country that, unfortunately, has strayed far from the ideals of the Founders.
200615
He was the President of the Union, why would he want a smaller country if the Conferate States of America left the Union?
218246
Oh, definately the states had power. They were just working out that national stuff at the time of the articles of confederation.
149586
There is a new movie out right now about this: CSA.  It is a documentary about life in the US after the South wins, and defeats the North, so that the whole country is run by the South (rather than having two separate countries, a different scenario of a Southern victory.)\n\nThe premise of the movie is that the differences would be surprisingly small.\n\nIt is hard to know how things would be now.  Perhaps of the CSA had been a separate country, it would have faced an eventual and successful slave revolt (funded and supported by the remains of the Republican party in the North) and the CSA would be known as New Uhuru, or something.
1087422
A 2nd world nation is one in the process of industrialization.