United States

The United States of America is situated on the continent of North America; it spans a geographic area of more than 9.1 million square kilometers (3.5 million square miles). It has widely varied geographic characteristics, from the Great Lakes region of the northern parts of the nation to the Rocky Mountains in the West. The central Great Plains states serve as the agricultural "breadbasket" of the nation. The East Coast borders on the Atlantic Ocean, whereas the West Coast borders on the Pacific Ocean and the South borders on the Gulf of Mexico. Canada is located across the northern border of the nation, and Mexico abuts the nation to the Southwest. The nation also includes the states of Alaska, which lies in in the extreme Northwest of the continent, and Hawaii, a set of islands in the Pacific.

The population of the United States in 2004 was estimated to be in excess of 290,000,000 people. It is a nation of immigrants, with nearly all of the population descending from families that moved to the so-called New World beginning in the 1600s. Roughly 70 percent of the population is of European descent, 12 percent of African descent, and 12 percent of Latin American or South American descent, with smaller populations coming from Asia or descending from the Native American population.

The United States is an advanced industrial society with a large and diverse economy and great wealth. Although the overall standard of living is high, there is a great disparity between citizens in the highest income categories and those who are poor. Generally, the standard of living in the United States is quite high in comparison to other nations. The economic culture within the United States favors capitalism, with government regulation of the economy kept to a relatively low level. Still, there is significant governmental regulation of business and the economy.

the revolution and constitution

The United States became a nation after the Revolutionary War (1776–1781), when it won its independence from England. In 1776 the nation declared its independence and wrote its first constitution, known as the Articles of Confederation. The Articles allotted most political powers to state governments and was judged by many political leaders to be ineffective. Yet the articles reflected a fear of centralized government on the part of the nation's founders, and those fears had to be reconciled with the development of a stronger government in the new Constitution. In response to the shortcomings of the Articles of Confederation, the Constitution that still serves the United States was written in 1787 and ratified soon afterward. The Constitution established a representative democracy. It attempted to balance the fear of strong government with an integrated national government in three ways: by separating the powers of the national government into three separate branches, each with a check over the powers of the other two; establishing a federal form of government that divides governmental powers between the national government and the states; and limiting the powers of the government regarding the individual liberties of citizens.

Since its adoption the U.S. Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times. Its first ten amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, outline the individual rights of citizens, providing for the freedom of expression, the freedom of religion, and the rights of citizens accused of crimes. Three other notable amendments adopted after the U.S. Civil War (1861–1865) were passed to give civil rights to Americans of African descent, although the vestiges of slavery continued to be enforced by law well into the 1960s. These and other amendments have expanded the right of citizens to vote, most notably extending the right to vote to African Americans, women, and citizens over the age of eighteen.

Under the U.S. Constitution political power is separated into three political branches: a legislative branch consisting of two congressional chambers, the House of Representatives and the Senate; an executive branch headed by the president; and a judicial branch headed by the Supreme Court. The two congressional chambers have different types of constituencies. The House of Representatives allocates membership proportionately to the various states on the basis of population, and each state is divided into single-member districts. The Senate has two members from each state. Each branch has constitutional authority over a major function of government and "checks and balances" the other two branches to assure that no single branch becomes too powerful.

The congressional branch has the legislative power to draw up laws and appropriate monies for the implementation of public policy. The specific grants of power to Congress are outlined in Article 1, Section 8, of the Constitution. Most significantly, the powers granted to the Congress are financial, including the authority to levy taxes and appropriate monies; to coin and print money; to prosecute counterfeiting; to grant patents on inventions and copyrights on written work; to write the federal criminal law; and to exercise military powers such as raising an army and a navy and declaring war. As a republic the United States has a system by which elected representatives staff the legislative branch of government. Members of both chambers are elected by the people, with members of the House serving two-year terms of office and members of the Senate serving six-year terms. Members of each chamber may serve an unlimited number of terms.

The executive power of government is given to a president, who serves according to five constitutional roles. The president acts as ceremonial head of state, commander in chief of the military, chief diplomat of the country, head of the administrative branch of government, and chief legislator. As chief legislator the president may propose bills to Congress and has the power to veto legislation. Congress may override the president's veto only by a two-thirds vote in each chamber. The president's primary job is to carry out the laws of Congress, largely through the fifteen major administrative agencies known as the cabinet departments. The heads of those departments are appointed by the president with the advice and consent of the Senate. The president is selected through a complicated process known as the electoral college system. Under that system the candidate who wins a plurality of the vote in each state receives electoral votes equal to the size of each state's congressional delegation (members of the House plus members of the Senate). The successful candidate wins a majority of the 538 electoral votes. Presidential terms are four years in duration, and presidents are limited by the Constitution to serving no more than two terms.

The federal judiciary has the authority to interpret the meaning of the Constitution. Under the judicial department's power of judicial review , first established in the Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison in 1803, the courts can declare actions of the Congress or the president unconstitutional and therefore invalid if it is determined that such actions violate principles of the Constitution. The final arbiter in the court system is the U.S. Supreme Court. Members of the federal judiciary, consisting of district judges who hold trials, the Circuit Courts of Appeal, and the U.S. Supreme Court, are appointed to life terms by the president, with the Senate holding the power to confirm those appointments.

Often the written powers of the Constitution have been changed through custom and usage. For example, although the Constitution stipulates that Congress must declare war, military conflicts in recent years have been largely presidential initiatives with Congress acting in a supportive role. Also, although the Constitution calls for treaties to be ratified by the Senate, presidents have entered into so-called executive agreements that require no Senate approval. Starting in the late twentieth century, a debate emerged between those who argue that the Supreme Court should be limited to an interpretation of the original meaning of the Constitution (termed "strict constructionists") and those who believe the Court should attempt to apply the meaning of the Constitution in a meaningful way to contemporary times. In other words, the constitutional provisions often do not tell the whole story of governmental power. Still, the checks and balances of powers given to the three institutions act over the long run to prevent one branch from becoming dominant.

Another basic characteristic of government is federalism, by which political power resides in two levels of government: the national and the state. Each state also has its own executive, legislative, and judicial branches, exercising authority over many policy arenas within its boundaries. The Constitution contains a Supremacy Clause under which state laws may vary from one another, but all must conform to the dictates of the national constitution. The governments, at both the national and state levels, are republican in nature, with elected representatives making governmental policy. In the history of the nation the relative powers of the two levels of government have changed. Under the original document the states and national governments were seen as coequal in powers, with well-defined lines of authority for each, a system known as "dual federalism." Over the history of the nation the balance of power between the two levels has changed, with the national government developing a much stronger financial base after the institution of a federal tax on individual income in the early twentieth century. Since that time, the power of the national government has been enhanced greatly and the responsibilities of the two levels of government have become more overlapping and cooperative in nature. Since the 1980s a movement to devolve power from the national government to the states has gained momentum.

the bill of rights

The rights of U.S. citizens are outlined in the first ten amendments of the Constitution, known as the Bill of Rights. Citizens are assured of freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and certain rights if they are accused of a crime. Freedom of religion consists of two distinct principles. First, no religion can be established as the official national faith in the United States; second, citizens are free to practice religious beliefs according to their individual beliefs. With very few exceptions, citizens are guaranteed the right to express their beliefs through the spoken and written word and even through "symbolic speech." Another right in the Bill of Rights is the Second Amendment provision that "a well regulated militia , being necessary for the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed ." This amendment has led to governmental balancing of the right of individuals to own firearms and the need to regulate increasingly destructive weapons. Citizens are assured due process of the law, including the following provisions. The Fourth Amendment requires that to search a person's home law enforcement officers first must obtain a warrant, signed by a judge, after showing probable cause. The Fifth Amendment guarantees citizens accused of crimes the procedural requirement of indictment by a grand jury and contains provisions against someone being tried twice for the same crime or being forced to testify against oneself in a court of law. The Sixth Amendment assures that certain courtroom procedures are available to an accused person, including a speedy and public trial, the right to hear witnesses against oneself and to call witnesses in one's favor, and the right to be represented by an attorney. Among the assurances of the Eighth Amendment is the antitorture provision that denies the government the power to use cruel and unusual punishment.

In spite of these constitutional guarantees the record of the United States in the area of human rights is not unblemished. For example, although the Eighth Amendment bans torture, the Supreme Court has never interpreted the death penalty for conviction of certain heinous crimes to be a violation of its provisions, and both the national government and many states have capital punishment provisions. The international organization Human Rights Watch has documented more than occasional instances of police brutality and inhumane treatment of prisoners who are incarcerated in the nation's penal institutions. The United States has more than 2.1 million citizens incarcerated, with more than 43 percent being African Americans, greater than three times their percentage in the population. The total number of prisoners in the United States is the highest in the world. The Bill of Rights expresses a commitment to human rights that remains a standard for the world, yet progress remains to be made.

third parties

Every president of the United States since 1856 has belonged to one of the two major parties. There is, however, a long tradition of third parties—sometimes called minor parties or alternate parties—in American politics. As of 2005 there were at least thirty-seven minor parties registered in the United States, ranging from the Communist Party USA and the Green Party to such little-known groups as the Marijuana Party and the Southern Independence Party.

It is difficult for candidates from minor parties to win nationwide elections because of ballot-access rules, campaign finance laws, and media focus on the major parties' candidates. In spite of the fact that no third party has ever won more than 27 percent of the popular vote in a presidential election (Theodore Roosevelt's Progressive Party in 1912), these groups are still important factors in American politics for the following reasons:

• They provide nonviolent outlets for political discontent.
• They educate voters about specific issues.
• They help to make changes in government policy by challenging the major parties (e.g., third parties contributed to the abolition of slavery in the 1860s and to suffrage for women in 1920).

Some important third parties in U.S. history are:

• Anti-Masonic Party (late 1820s)
• Free Soil and Liberty Parties (1840s and 1850s)
• Progressive and "Bull Moose" Parties (1912)
• American Labor Party (1930s)
• The "Dixiecrats" (1948)
• Libertarian Party (founded 1971).

major leaders since 1945

Since the end of the World War II (1945) the United States has had a number of major leaders. Presidents who have served at least one full four-year term of office since that time include Harry S Truman (1884–1972), Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890–1969), Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973), Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994), Jimmy Carter (b. 1924), Ronald Reagan (1911–2004), George H. W. Bush (b. 1924), Bill Clinton (b. 1946), and George W. Bush (b. 1946). Major congressional leaders have included Speakers of the U.S. House Sam Rayburn (1882–1961), who served in that post for all but four years of the period between 1940 and 1960, and John William McCormack (1891–1980), who was speaker during the passage of Great Society and civil rights initiatives, and Senate Majority Leaders Mike Mansfield (1903–2001), who held the position from 1961 to 1977, and Howard H. Baker (b. 1925), the first Republican to serve in that position since the 1950s. The Supreme Court has been headed by Chief

Justices Frederick Moore Vinson (1890–1953), Earl Warren (1891–1974), Warren E. Burger (1907–1995), and William H. Rehnquist (1924–2005).

citizenship and participation

Each of the fifty states sets rules for citizen voting. It is quite easy to attain voting status. With very few exceptions citizens may register to vote after reaching the age of eighteen. Nonetheless, voter participation in the United States is quite low compared with that in other advanced societies, with turnout in presidential elections often barely exceeding 50 percent of the adult population. Turnout in state and local elections is normally even lower than it is in presidential elections.

Two major sets of organizations that bring their influence to government decision making are interest groups and political parties. Various organized interests establish offices in the nation's capital and hire lobbyists who attempt to inform and influence governmental decision making. In addition, these interest groups form political action committees that make contributions to the campaigns of candidates for Congress and the presidency. Interest groups are of several types, representing business, labor, social, gender, and ethnic groups, and sometimes attempting to represent the public interest or influence decisions on a single issue. The nation has a number of independent organizations involved in assessing national problems and proposing solutions to those problems, such as the Brookings Institution and the American Enterprise Institute. These organizations have great influence in the lawmaking process and often are funded by well-heeled interest groups.

Two major political parties exist in the United States: the Republican Party and the Democratic Party. Each of these parties nominates and campaigns for candidates for major governmental positions, and they serve as the primary recruiting agencies for candidates for public offices from the local to the national level. The Democratic Party traces its origins to the time of President Andrew Jackson (1767–1845) in the 1820s, whereas the Republican Party was founded as an organization committed to the abolishment of slavery in the late 1850s. Political parties in the United States traditionally have not been highly ideological , but have become increasingly polarized in their ideologies since 1980. However, the parties do not have well-integrated policy agendas, and the ideologies of members may vary widely across regions of the country and even from person to person.

See also: Bill of Rights; Constitutions and Constitutionalism; Democracy; Federalism; Human Rights; Judicial Review; Political Parties.

bibliography

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James W. Riddlesperger Jr.