Summary Of How The States Got Their Shape

Globals, Locals, and Mobals: In the book “The Power of Place,” Harm de Blij introduces a new viewpoint of geography. Geography is much more than the terrain and physical makeup of the world. It is the culture, education, conditions, foods, politics, language, and opportunities. These things make people and places unique, and capture the true meaning of Human Geography.

Globalization- movement between people, ideas, and cultures. Moves people to interact on a global scale.

Geography is the biggest part of a story. Every book, poem, short story, movie, play, and basically anything with a storyline has geography, it’s what makes a story good. Writers use geography to show readers a more indepth point of view of what they were thinking while writing. This is all stated in “Geography Matters” by Thomas C. Foster, he helps the readers realize how important geography is in their lives. In the Crucible by Arthur Miller, geography is a big impact on people's lives and actions. After reading these stories it makes the readers think how much the location and people they grew up with impacted them. Furthermore, geography is a big part in any story as shown through “Geography Matters,” The Crucible, and my own life.

When the Founding Fathers wrote the Constitution in 1787, the United States just had 13 states. The Founding Fathers believed that more states would want to join the Union in the future. They saw that it would be significant for new states to have the same form of government as the original states had. Since then there are now over 50 states that have similar characteristics which were developed centuries ago; although, resembling the creation of new ideas and inventions, current state government had many problems from being the way it is today, it also has many important features that benefit many people, as well as plays an important role in how American democracy and government works.

With each state having its own government, disputes arose between individual states. A Federal court system was important and was greatly needed to settle the disputes. States often fought over trade and power. A federal court that controlled all of the states would have helped tremendously. If all the states followed the same rules and had the same federal court, they would have all been

The first half of the nineteenth century in the United States of America was a time of tremendous change for the nation. Firstly, change began as Thomas Jefferson was elected president, which meant the beginning of the Democratic-Republicans reign in office. But this development of the modern United States led not to a unified nation, yet it led to one divided. The expansion and development of ideas and land exposed great regional differences in the United States between 1800 and 1848. Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase had not only provided the country with land to farm, but it had doubled the size of the United States. Decisions over what to do with the new land separated the country. This is clearly seen in disputes concerning the United States’

According to Document E, all of the states decided to claim land as their own, but had no regard for other state lines, and boundaries overlapped. All of the states wanted more land than they had. This caused many disputes over land between the states. Once again the government was not able to much to settle these problems. Under the Articles of Confederation the United States central government was very weak. Congress and the Legislative Branch were the only powers of government. Congress did not have the power to actually unify the nation and create compromises, they had to ask for the states to create a settlement over the land boundaries. This did not do much, and the states did not give up these

America’s power was first split into two separate governments between a central government and a state government. These two governments each had powers of their own, as well as powers that they shared. The state was given the power of setting up local governments, holding elections, establishing schools, passing marriage and divorce laws, and regulating in-state businesses. The central government was given the power of regulating

This ended with each of the states acting as their own individual countries. The founding fathers decided that it would be a good idea for the benefit of the country, to create a new constitution. So again, in Philadelphia, in 1787, with the help of James Madison they wrote a new constitution that gave the states and federal government shared power. The constitution guarded against tyranny through, federalism, separation,checks and balances, and the great compromise.

They came up with the Great Compromise. The Great Compromise gave both the little states and big states advantages. In Document D, it says, “The number of representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty thousand, but each state shall have at least one representative.” This gives the advantage to the large states in the House because they have more representatives. But, if the big states had more power than the small states in legislature, it would be tyranny. So, to keep that from happening, the small states must get equal representation. Document D states “The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two senators from each state…” This gives the advantage to the small states because even though their population is less, there are more representatives from the small states. The Great Compromise guards against tyranny because it gives the big states the advantage in the House of Representatives, and the little states the advantage in the Senate, which balances the

This worked out to satisfaction of the smaller states and for the larger states they were given a House of Representatives that would consist of a larger body of representatives for each state in proportion to the amount of the people in that state.

When the treaty of Paris was signed in 1783, the Americans had thought that they had enough land between the Atlantic coast and the Mississippi river. Yet in 1803, by the Louisiana Purchase, the area of the United States doubled and not long after, it was augmented by the half-purchase-half-conquest of Florida. By the end of 1820, as many as 6 states were created, east of Mississippi-Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Alabama (1819), Maine (1820) and Missouri (1821). By the 1830s, the frontier line had been carried to Iowa, Missouri and Arkansas-about one-third of the way across the continent. By the 1840s, the expansionist policy, typified by the Manifest Destiny doctrine, became very strong with many sections willing to go to war to acquire more land. Slavery became a bone of contention between the Northern and southern states with the control of the senate in question. The South wanted expansion to increase slave states, the North to keep the balance with free states and the West wanting expansion to increase their land. The antagonism between the North and the South sees the beginnings of sectionalism leading to the civil war later. The spirit of equality becomes a banner with which the expansionist policy was proclaimed. Phases Of Development Before the 1830s, most sections of the west passed through the same phases of development in a regular order. The first white men to usually enter a new area were the

Geography is an important factor to consider when you look at this worlds past, present, or future. So whether it be the earths physical geographic features, the geopolitics stirring up trouble across the globe, or the economics of growing or shrinking countries; geography plays a major role. In todays society, geographic knowledge is one of the most important and valuable tools to possess. Without it, we are victims of ignorance and endanger ourselves, others, and the world. This ignorance, possessed by many, is posing a great risk of self-destruction. The author of “Why Geography Matters More Than Ever”, Harm de Blij, makes many strong points on this matter, but occasionally makes unsupported and unclear statements which tend to stray off topic.

American federalism has changed drastically since its genesis. In 1776 the thirteen colonies adopted the Articles of Confederation in order to coordinate their efforts in the war for independence. The Articles of Confederation bound the states together in two main aspects; foreign and military affairs. The Articles of Confederation worked well while all the states had a common cause. However, as soon as the war ended and interests began to change, it became obvious that the Articles were not enough. This brings on the creation of Federalism (Reinventing American Federalism).

Human geography is defined as “The study of interrelationships between people, places and environment and how these vary spatially and temporally across and between locations” (Castree, Kitchin and Rogers, 2013). It looks at how society shapes the environment and vice versa. Although physical geography and human geography are separate fields they both concentrate on spatial processes; physical geography more on the natural and physical sciences and human geography on the way in which human lives are shaped by processes in nature (Castree et al., 2013). A key principle of