This overview from https://www.loc.gov/collections/early-films-of-new-york-1898-to-1906/articles-and-essays/america-at-the-turn-of-the-century-a-look-at-the-historical-context/? is intended to serve as a basis of understanding how Western civilization’s relief from the overarching subjugation of the many by the few started with the freedom realized by the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that was re-energized in the American colonies in 1776 and how that relief was turned by the demands of another revolution, the Industrial Revolution, which triggered the slow displacement of Constitutional protections by the tripartite collaboration of philanthropies, corporations and every level of political control and is still not finished taking US apart…
This was a time of both confidence and ferment. In the cities and the states, political “Progressives” were coming to power, experimenting with reforms such as women’s suffrage, direct election of United States senators, the initiative, recall, the Australian ballot, primary elections, and laws setting minimum wages, work standards, and regulated rates for common carriers and services. Followers of the Progressive movement believed in the perfectibility of man and his society. It was, said historian Samuel Eliot Morison, “an attempt through government action to curb the arrogance of organized wealth and the wretchedness of poverty amid plenty.” Although McKinley certainly was no Progressive, the movement was on the rise; two of the three presidents who followed him were Progressives: Republican Theodore Roosevelt and Democrat Woodrow Wilson.
Still, if you’re looking for a headlong leap into the nitty-gritty, you’ve come to a better than average starting place.
Starting with the pocket-sized account of Guy Alchon’s “The Invisible Hand of Planning” a 1983 account of the early 20th Century of business and government efforts to control their anticipated collision with the free but restless citizenry by using their newly developed social science methods of planned control organized, financed and influenced by philanthropists who shoveled it out by the buggy load until it morphed into the shapeless mystery known today as ‘deep state’ and which, as a result of all their pushing, birthed soulless Technocracy.
Alchon saw their use of the term ‘technocratic’ serving as the science based claim to social authority and policymaking during the social sciences introductory phase.
Before jumping into the tremulous 20th century and beyond we’ll take a look first at the start of our nation’s storied beginnings to see how the 19th Century players side tracked Constitutional governance and more importantly examine the intent of the resets they have inflicted on US since.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1750-1775/albany-plan
The Albany Plan of Union was instigated from London and to encourage the colonists to express their support of the New York colony by showing their presence at the slow moving negotiations between the New York colony and the Mohawk Nation, members of the Iroquois Confederation the British government ordered the colonial officials to meet up in 1754.
The Best Laid Plans…
With the Indian wars looming and France showing their intention to establish their place in the New World’s order of things, the colonies complied with Britains’ orders and used the opportunity to explore cooperative means for their own defense. Benjamin Franklin, a member of the Pennsylvania committee, wasted no time contacting the New York commissioners suggesting a scheme for uniting the northern colonies using an act of Parliament. https://www.nyhistory.org/blogs/benjamin-franklins-plan-for-unification that included a stated intention to gain an understanding of the wants and needs of the people in order to form a stronger policy of support for them.
The Albany Congress met on June 19th 1754 and unanimously voted to discuss the possibilities of union on June 24th; they adopted a final version on July 10th. The Plan proposed the Union of all colonies except Delaware and Georgia.
The colonial governments killed the plan.
While the Albany Plan, from it’s inception, was not intended to be a break away vehicle from Great Britain it became the model for the colonist’s future political endeavors that led to Independence.
https://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1700s/Lee-Independence-Resolution/
Resolved, That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved.
That it is expedient forthwith to take the most effectual measures for forming foreign Alliances.
That a plan of confederation be prepared and transmitted to the respective Colonies for their consideration and approbation…
https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/articles-of-confederation
The Articles of Confederation were adopted by the Continental Congress on November 15, 1777. This document served as the United States’ first constitution. It was in force from March 1, 1781, until 1789 when the present-day Constitution went into effect.
After the Lee Resolution proposed independence for the American colonies, the Second Continental Congress appointed three committees on June 11, 1776. One of the committees was tasked with determining what form the confederation of the colonies should take. This committee was composed of one representative from each colony. John Dickinson, a delegate from Delaware, was the principal writer.
The Dickinson Draft of the Articles of Confederation named the confederation “the United States of America.” After considerable debate and revision, the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation on November 15, 1777.
The Articles of Confederation spanned the years of the The American War of Independence https://www.americanrevolutioninstitute.org/exhibition/revolutionary-beginnings-war-and-remembrance-in-the-first-year-of-americas-fight-for-independence/ (1775-1783)
From April 1775 to June 1776, Patriot, Loyalist and British forces clashed in most of the thirteen American colonies, as well as in Canada and the Caribbean. This exhibition explores three of those conflicts — the Battle of Bunker Hill outside Boston (June 1775), the Siege of Quebec in Canada (December 1775) and the Battle of Sullivan’s Island in South Carolina (June 1776), which took place just days before the Declaration of Independence was adopted. Through letters, maps, prints, paintings and artifacts, Revolutionary Beginnings reveals the importance of these under appreciated battles and the extent of the rebellion across the American colonies in its first year.
https://history.state.gov/milestones/1776-1783/continental-congress
The Continental Congress was the governing body by which the American colonial governments coordinated their resistance to British rule during the first two years of the American Revolution. The Congress balanced the interests of the different colonies and also established itself as the official colonial liaison to Great Britain. As the war progressed, the Congress became the effective national government of the country, and, as such, conducted diplomacy on behalf of the new United States.
In 1774, the British Parliament passed a series of laws collectively known as the Intolerable Acts, with the intent to suppress unrest in colonial Boston by closing the port and placing it under martial law. In response, colonial protestors led by a group called the Sons of Liberty issued a call for a boycott. Merchant communities were reluctant to participate in such a boycott unless there were mutually agreed upon terms and a means to enforce the boycott’s provisions. Spurred by local pressure groups, colonial legislatures empowered delegates to attend a Continental Congress which would set terms for a boycott…
Aside from triggering the Sons of Liberty’s Tea Party the bullying provocations from the British incited a Trump-like Colonial government response known as The Articles of Association. detailing a planned retaliatory economic response of boycotts and embargoes. Congress even drafted an Olive branch petition as a peaceful path to reconciliation differences. King George, like the IRGC, rejected it and the years dragged on.
Congress and the British government made further attempts to reconcile, but negotiations failed when Congress refused to revoke the Declaration of Independence, both in a meeting on September 11, 1776, with British Admiral Richard Howe, and when a peace delegation from Parliament arrived in Philadelphia in 1778.
Ultimately, the British arrogance led to Cowpens and within the year to Yorktown, a British surrender and an anticipated American Independence.
The shooting ended but formal peace negotiations would have to wait until after the Confederation Congress took over the reins of government on March 1, 1781…
For US it was the beginning of a long climb to the top of a longer, unexpected and yet to be recognized as the downward slide to perdition.
