Building And Keeping A

There are five key ingredients in building a continental empire. A strong continental

empire must be able to up-hold these five key things to survive. These five all important

things are a strong central government; foreign policy, to deal with other countries;

manifest destiny, to deal with matters of land; infrastructure, which deals with state

business, transportation, and financial matters; and the ability to solve internal problems

such as social, economic, and political problems. America is a continental empire and runs

itself using these five things. The most important of these is probably the strong central

government. A strong central government insures that the government will be able to run

smoothly in a time of crisis and have the capability to make sound decisions that will

benefit the American populace. Foreign policy was developed so that America would

know where it stood when it came to dealing with other countries. It was important that

America dealt with international problems in a uniform manner. Manifest destiny deals

with the issue of how America and Americans will acquire land. Infrastructure is America

working together. America depends on many things to keep it running, when these things

cross paths we develop an infrastructure. America must solve internal problems all of the

time. What these problems are and how we solve them is what shapes America. America

slowly began to build a continental empire.

In order to achieve the five things needed to create a continental empire America

had to start slow. They first had to gain the trust of their people and settle the differences

between them. This trust was partly gained by heroes of the Revolutionary War becoming

politicians. An example of this was George Washington. He led troops into battle during

the war and then became president. American people found it very difficult to start a

rebellion or disagree with someone that had led them to victory against Britain. With

George at the helm of America we were well on our way to developing a continental

empire. This trust in America was secured by actions. Our government kept making the

people happy by writing a bill of rights and a constitution that gave Americans the

freedom that they had wanted when they went to war with Britain. The people wanted

rights that they felt were fair and necessary to their existence. The government outlined

these rights in the Bill of Rights. The people agreed with them. The constitution outlined

rules to form a more perfect Union. Americans excepted the contents of the Constitution

and began to build their lives around it. With this a continental empire was developed,

now all they had to do was keep it running.

America had built a continental empire when it broke away from the rule of Britain

in the late 1700's and the early 1800's. As America moved into the mid 1800's it had to

keep its continental empire alive. To keep it alive America continued to make wise

decisions that kept Americans happy. There were a lot of compromises between the

government and its people. These compromises kept both parties happy. One of these

compromises was the Compromise of 1850. The issue of whether the new states would

be slave or free states arose. To solve this problem Henry Clay developed a plan that made

most everyone happy. His plan was to admit California as a free state, to give popular

sovereignty to Utah and New Mexico, and allow slavery but not slave trade to exist in

Texas. This compromise did not sit well with extreme abolitionists or extreme southerners

but made most everyone else happy. In the early times of the continental empire it was

important to keep everyone believing in America. To reestablish that Lincoln wrote the

Gettysburg Address. It restated what Americans believed in and got them fired up for

their country. The Gettysburg Address fueled America's continental empire. The United

States was running smoothly on all fronts except that of slavery.

Slavery nearly split America into two separate countries. Had the South won they

would have seceded from the Union and continued to practice slavery on their half of the

continent. The North did not want the South to secede from the Union. At first they tried

to solve the problem peacefully but they ended up going to war over it. The North won

the Civil War and slavery was abolished. America also got to stay together as a whole

country. The continental empire was preserved throughout the mid 1800's.

America's