United States History Commons^™

Is ‘Military Necessity’ Enough? Lincoln’S Conception Of Executive Power In Suspending Habeas Corpus In 1861, Evan Mclaughlin

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

In May 1861, President Abraham Lincoln's decision to suspend habeas corpus in Baltimore following an attack on Federal troops as they marched through Baltimore on April 19th to answer Lincoln’s call to defend the Capitol. To complicate matters further, Congress was still in recess, so they could not legislate a solution to the growing insurgency. In order to check these actions, Abraham Lincoln authorized General Scott to suspend Habeas Corpus between Baltimore and Philadelphia. When John Merryman was arrested, detained, and denied habeas corpus, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney issued an in-chambers decision, Ex Parte Merryman, to voice his …

Marching Morally Towards Equality: Perspective Of Bishop Richard Allen, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

The African American's struggle for equality is fraught with contributions from men and women of various ilk. Amongst these early abolitionists were naturalist Benjamin Banneker, freeman orator Frederick Douglass, and Bishop Richard Allen, who is the focus of this paper. Through an analysis of primary and secondary sources, the author takes on the persona of the late Bishop speaking to a community of his fellow African Americans as he comments on timely events and characters and advises the listeners on a reasonable course of action.

H-Diplo Roundtable Xix, 14 On Dynamic Détente: The United States And Europe, 1964-1975, Thomas Schwartz, Werner Lippert, Luke A. Nichter, Kenneth Weisbrode, Stephan Kieninger

Presidential Studies Faculty Articles and Research

A set of reviews of Stephan Kieninger's Dynamic Détente: The United States and Europe, 1964-1975, with a response from the author.

Think Of The Children: Child Labor Through The Progressive Era In Early Twentieth-Century America, Thomas Clark

History Undergraduate Theses

Child labor in America was a pivotal component of the Progressive reform movement throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Beginning my research, I looked into the role of child labor in the creation of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. The FLSA was the first federal law to abolish child labor successfully. Throughout my research, I noticed a trend of law passage and Supreme Court denial.

The most referenced events involving child labor as an evil to society came in the early part of the twentieth-century. The two most famous events were Mary “Mother Jones” Harris and …

Our History Is The Future: Mni Wiconi And The Struggle For Native Liberation, Nick Estes

American Studies ETDs

From April 2016 to February 2017, Indigenous women and youth led a historic struggle to halt the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline from crossing Mni Sose, the Missouri River, and threatening the drinking water of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation and millions downstream. Rallied under the banner Mni Wiconi, a Lakota assertion meaning “water is life,” centuries of history converged during the protests. It was about more than an oil pipeline. It was struggle over the meaning of history, the defense of land and water, and the rights of Indigenous peoples to determine their own future. When land and …

Granada, Is It Pronounced Gruh-Nay-Duh Or Gruh-Nah-Duh: I Don't Know, But Reagan's Foreign Policy Sucked, Austin Clements

History Class Publications

The history of the Caribbean is one infested with slavery, colonialism, imperialism, and coups d’état. While these are all very important when considering the history of these island nations, what is also equally important is considering that these islands are often seen as tokens and means to convey a message by world superpowers, not as genuine nations that should be respected just as much as any European power. This is especially evident in the history of Grenada, an island nation in the eastern Caribbean. Grenada, throughout its history, has been used as a political pawn and has been bullied by …

Laying Aside Vanities: Neil C. Macdonald And The Nonpartisan League, Mark Myrdal

Senior Honors Theses

The Nonpartisan League was an agrarian political movement founded in North Dakota in the early twentieth century. The League was characterized by its radical rurally-minded platform and its passionate leadership. Neil C. Macdonald, the League nominee for Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1916, was one of the leaders, but was voted out of office in 1918 before the generally accepted peak of the Nonpartisan League. Very little Nonpartisan League scholarship has included Macdonald and this work examines Neil Macdonald and his understated importance in the study of the Nonpartisan League. In this examination, Macdonald proves to be a valuable figure …

Will War's Nature Change In The Seventh Military Revolution?, F. G. Hoffman

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article examines the potential implications of the combinations of robotics, artificial intelligence, and deep learning systems on the character and nature of war. The author employs Carl von Clausewitz’s trinity concept to discuss how autonomous weapons will impact the essential elements of war. The essay argues war’s essence, as politically directed violence fraught with friction, will remain its most enduring aspect, even if more intelligent machines are involved at every level.

Deterrence & Security Assistance: The South China Sea, Tommy Ross

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article identifies how the United States can apply security assistance to support regional security in the South China Sea in order to counter China’s assertive expansion strategy.

Making Peace: Next Steps In Colombia, Seth Cantey, Ricardo Correa

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

After a brief history of the longest-running insurgency in the Western Hemisphere, this article contextualizes recent developments in the transition of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) to legal politics in Colombia. The authors also provide policy recommendations for the US Department of Defense.

Expansibility And Army Intelligence, Rose P. Keravuori

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article provides insights valuable to transitioning America’s military intelligence resources from counterinsurgency operations to the force necessary for responding to a near-peer competitor in a major war.

Expansibility And Army Special Operations Forces, Eric P. Shwedo

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article examines how Army Special Operations might prepare to expand in the event of a major war by resolving impediments to growth, improving recall procedures, and developing plans to expand training capacities.

The Belarus Factor In European Security, Alexander Lanoszka

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

This article challenges strategists to reconsider longheld assumptions associated with the alliance between Belarus and Russia when planning military support for the Baltic states.

The Geopolitics Of Rare Earth Elements: Emerging Challenge For U.S. National Security And Economics, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Rare earth elements (REE) contain unique chemical and physical properties such as lanthanum, are found in small concentrations, need extensive precise processes to separate, and are critical components of modern technologies such as laser guidance systems, personal electronics such as IPhones, satellites, and military weapons systems as varied as Virginia-class fast attack submarines, DDG- 51 Aegis destroyers, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, and precision guided munitions. The U.S. has some rare earth resources, but is heavily dependent on access to them from countries as varied as Afghanistan, Bolivia, and China. Losing access to these resources would have significant adverse economic, …

A Reevaluation Of The Damage Done To The United States By Soviet Espionage, April Pickens

James Madison Undergraduate Research Journal (JMURJ)

Popular opinion and many historians portray the effects of Soviet espionage on the United States as disastrous. Although covert Soviet efforts undeniably harmed America, their extent and gravity has been greatly exaggerated. This paper evaluates primary and secondary sources on the subject to strike a delicate balance between minimizing and inflating the effects of Soviet activities. It acknowledges that espionage did some damage, but questions the legal status, extent, and effect of much of the Soviets’ “stolen” information, ultimately arguing that most Soviet espionage was actually more harmful to the Soviet Union than to the United States.

Withdrawal: Reassessing America's Final Years In Vietnam, Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Books and Book Chapters

Withdrawal is a groundbreaking reassessment that tells a far different story of the Vietnam War. Daddis convincingly argues that the entire US effort in South Vietnam was incapable of reversing the downward trends of a complicated Vietnamese conflict that by 1968 had turned into a political-military stalemate. Despite a new articulation of strategy, Abrams's approach could not materially alter a war no longer vital to US national security or global dominance. Once the Nixon White House made the political decision to withdraw from Southeast Asia, Abrams's military strategy was unable to change either the course or outcome of a decades' …

Exorcising Power, John Jarzemsky

Theses and Dissertations

This paper theorizes that authors, in an act I have termed “literary exorcism,” project and expunge parts of their identities that are in conflict with the overriding political agenda of their texts, into the figure of the villain. Drawing upon theories of power put forth by Judith Butler, I argue that this sort of projection arises in reaction to dominant ideas and institutions, but that authors find ways to manipulate this process over time. By examining a broad cross-section of English-language literature over several centuries, this phenomenon and its evolution can be observed, as well as the means by which …

“A Disconnected Dialogue: American Military Strategy, 1964-1968,” Oklahoma Humanities, Vol. 10, No. 2, Fall-Winter 2017., Gregory A. Daddis

History Faculty Articles and Research

"The admission, supported by a careful reading of the historical record, begs larger questions: How do we remember American strategy in Vietnam? What language do we use to describe a war that proved so tragic, not only for the United States but, perhaps more importantly, for the millions of Vietnamese who lost their lives in a decades-long civil war? In coming to grips with a complex war, Americans, then and now, have relied on a series of tropes to streamline their conversations about a distasteful war."

Whose Rebellion? Reformed Resistance Theory In America: Part I, Sarah Morgan Smith, Mark Hall

Faculty Publications - Department of History and Politics

Students of the American Founding routinely assert that America's civic leaders were influenced by secular Lockean political ideas, especially on the question of resistance to tyrannical authority. Yet virtually every political idea usually attributed to John Locke was alive and well among Reformed political thinkers decades before Locke wrote the Second Treatise. In this two-part essay, we trace just one element of the Reformed political tradition: the question of who may actively and justly resist a tyrant. We focus on the American experience but begin our discussion by considering the early Reformers.

Remembering An Abolitionist, Ambassador John R. Miller (May 23, 1938-October 4, 2017), Eleanor Kennelly Gaetan, Donna M. Hughes

Dignity: A Journal of Analysis of Exploitation and Violence

A memorial for Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, John R. Miller (May 23, 1938-October 4, 2017). Ambassador Miller believed modern-day slavery, encompassing sex trafficking and forced labor, requires a principled global offensive that the United States is morally obligated to lead. In the four formative years he led the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, 2002 to 2006, John Miller set the office’s course as diplomatically aggressive and programmatically creative. He made the annual Trafficking in Persons report more than a bureaucratic submission, putting daring heroes at the center, and insisting on compelling …

Texas, War, And Empire: The American Empire In The Conquest And Annexation Of The Floridas And The American Southwest, Jon A. Welk

The Purdue Historian

Arguments surrounding American Imperialism focus heavily on the 1890s and after, but preceding actions by the United States in the process of continental expansion present an image of imperialism in the first half of the nineteenth century. This paper examines the annexation of Florida, Texas, and the rest of the American Southwest through the lens of Mexican-American relations and international imperial competition to determine whether the United States was exercising an imperial agenda between 1803 and 1848. It then reapplies pre-existing arguments on American imperialism by Frank Ninkovich, Thomas McCormick, Dane Kennedy, and others to the same 1803-1848 timeline as …

The Indian Removal Act: Jackson, Sovereignty And Executive Will, Daniele Celano

The Purdue Historian

From King Andrew I to Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson had no shortage of nicknames symbolic of the opposing opinions of the president responsible for the forced removal of all Native peoples from the American South. While on its face the Indian Removal Act of 1830 appears to be little more than a racist executive order purporting large-scale land theft, the Act was also a manifestation of executive power and competing constitutional interpretations of sovereignty. In using his presidential authority to demand Indian removal, Jackson not only restructured national Indian policy, but further challenged both the power balance between state and …

The Santa Fe Expedition’S Impact On Texas Annexation, Daniele Celano

The Purdue Historian

The American Southwest to this day conjures images of burly pioneers and freedom beyond the bounds of established civilization, a unique spirit that harkens back to the era of the Lone Star Republic of Texas. Not only was the state once its own sovereign nation, it gained independence from Mexico through raising a true civilian army compromised overwhelmingly of the classic frontiersmen, live-off-the-land Texan that made up the new nation’s population. While depictions of the quintessential Texan against the promotion of its vast lands ripe with unhindered opportunity drew masses of Americans to Texas, the propaganda hid a web of …

Dividing Germany, Accepting An Invitation To Empire: The Life, Death, And Historical Significance Of George Kennan's "Program A", John Gleb

Claremont-UC Undergraduate Research Conference on the European Union

This paper will attempt to reinterpret the early Cold War moment in Euro-American relations that gave rise to and ultimately destroyed George Kennan’s plan to reunify and neutralize Germany—the so-called “Program A” of 1948–49. Kennan envisioned his Program as the first and decisive step towards creating a “free European community” capable of acting as a non-aligned “third force,” thus ending the Cold War on the Continent. But before it could be presented to the United States’ European allies, Britain and France, some of the plan’s principal features were leaked to the New York Times. These features, as described in …

Under Pressure: The Nonpartisan League In South Central Minnesota, Jonathan Soucek

Journal of Undergraduate Research at Minnesota State University, Mankato

The Nonpartisan League attempted to enter Minnesota politics in 1918, with Charles Lindbergh, Sr. as the League-endorsed candidate for governor in the Republican primaries. As the League moved into Minnesota in 1917, it hoped to achieve the same success it had in North Dakota. Unfortunately, the United States entered World War I in April of 1917 as the Nonpartisan League began to organize in Minnesota. The League opposed America’s entry into the war, but supported the war effort when the United States declared war on Germany. League opponents and much of the general public, however, labeled the Nonpartisan League a …

The Politics Of Shorter Hours And Corporate-Centered Society: A History Of Work-Time Regulation In The United States And Japan, Keisuke Jinno

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Shorter working hours drew much attention as a means of fighting unemployment and crisis in capitalism during the first half of the twentieth century. Nowadays, shorter work-time is rarely considered a policy option to fix economic or social issues in the United States and Japan. This dissertation presents a history of work-time regulation in the United States and Japan to examine how and why its developments and stalemate took place.

In the big picture, developments of work-time regulation during the first half of the twentieth century were a part of concessional modifications of class relations, a common phenomenon in many …

Designing Simplicity To Achieve Technological Improvement: The General Electric J79 Turbojet Engine; Innovations, Achievements And Effects, Matt C. Brimer

Theses

With the beginning of powered, manned flight, the piston engine drove a propeller or multiple propellers to provide the thrust for lift required to overcome the forces of drag and gravity for flight. As aircraft speeds gradually increased over time, the power needed to overcome the aerodynamic inefficiencies of the propeller to greater speeds and altitudes were quickly realized as a hindrance to the potential of aircraft. With the turbojet engine, this new mechanism and subsequent aerodynamic changes revolutionized aircraft to increased speeds and altitude never before achievable with a piston engine. The United States, after acquiring further and more …

Understanding The Essex Junto: Fear, Dissent, And Propaganda In The Early Republic, Dinah Mayo-Bobee

Dinah Mayo-Bobee

Historians have never formed a consensus over the Essex Junto. In fact, though often associated with New England Federalists, propagandists evoked the Junto long after the Federalist Party’s demise in 1824. This article chronicles uses of the term Essex Junto and its significance as it evolved from the early republic through the 1840s.

Book Review Of Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams And The Grand Strategy Of The Republic By Charles N. Edel, Dinah Mayo-Bobee

Dinah Mayo-Bobee

Review of Nation Builder: John Quincy Adams and the Grand Strategy of the Republic by Charles N. Edel.

Book Review Of Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter Of Monticello: Her Life And Times By Cynthia A. Kierner, Dinah Mayo-Bobee

Dinah Mayo-Bobee

Martha Jefferson Randolph, Daughter of Monticello: Her Life and Times. By Cynthia A. Kierner. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2012. Pp. ix, 281.)