| The United States, has a background of dependency
upon another power. The colonial period lasted a long time.
From the founding of Jamestown to the Declaration of Independence was as
many years as from the Declaration of Independence to the end of WW II.
The imprint of the Mother Country, England was deep and abiding.
The English language became the American language., English ideas
on government and politics, on religion and morality, on literature and
art, on business and education, long dominated American thought.
It is a mistake to assume, that the US was
solely the offspring of England. All the nations of western Europe
were seized about the same time with the same urge for expansion, and for
many years the competition for colonies in America was keen. The
Spanish and the Portuguese long claimed a monopoly of the New World, but
the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588 broke this grip, and ushered in
a period of unbridled competition. The domination of Spain and Portugal
was gradually restricted to most of South America and parts of southern
North America, while the English, French, Dutch and Swedes fought for  the
rest. The United States have within their mists today the descendants
of these early colonial groups, and the institutions they brought with
them from the continent of Europe have indelibly affected the institutions
of English speaking America. There have been many immigrants, of
non English blood, and the first great wave of such immigration came in
the late colonial period from northern Ireland and the German Palatinate.
The English colonies in North America were
not founded by the government directly, but by trading companies or individuals,
proprietors, armed with authority by the state. The stock holders
and the proprietors generally lost heavily on their investments, but their
provided the first great impetus to settlement in British North America.
Geography had much to do with the course
of early American development. There were many different colonies
in part from the broken character of the Atlantic coastline, which invited
separate establishments. Good harbors promoted trade, shipping, and
connections with the Mother Country. Geography also helps to account
for sectionalism. The colonies had too varied economic interests
for all of them to develop along the same lines. The tremendous possibilities
of western expansion made for further differences. The frontier became
a section in its own right. The Appalachian barrier held back the
advance of the English settlers for a time, but when they finally did break
through, the sparse and scattered French had no chance to turn them back.
The constantly shifting environment did much to modify Old World institution,
and the differences between Englishmen and Americans increased.
Colonial Governments grew up in the same
pattern as the English mode., with only such changes as the new environment
and new conditions seemed to require. The colonists demanded from
their governments and mostly received from them the same privileges and
immunities that they would have enjoyed had they lived in England.
Each colony thought of itself as a little England, and resented British
efforts to control. British officials, took a different
view. They claimed for their government full imperial rights, and
particularly through the Navigation
Acts, to lay down the most painstaking regulations for the Americans
to follow. The colonists weights the benefits of British protection
against the irritations of British control. As long as the French
remained in Canada, the need of aid from the British Government for protection
was great, but when the French rule in North America came to an end with
British victory in the French and Indian War, the scene was set for a change.
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