The Three Reasons America Became A Strong Nation In The Early 1800's

There were acres of fertile land to be stolen from the Indians, a large surplus population in Europe eager to come and farm it, plenty of capital available from British investors, and a steadily growing industrial population in Western Europe, and subsequently in the eastern half of the USA needing cheap food. The Protestant promotion of Bible reading led to a literate and therefore more productive working class. Unskilled labour was cheaply available by import from Africa for the first half of the 1800s, after which it could be replaced by mass immigration from the poorer countries of Europe such as Ireland, Italy and Russia. And during all these years Britain was a superpower strong enough to impose world peace, so that the progress of the USA was not limited by the inconveniences of warfare between 1812 and its self-imposed mayhem of 1861-65.The thirteen colonies that became the USA were originally colonies of Great Britain. By the time the American Revolution took place, the citizens of these colonies were beginning to get tired of the British rule. Rebellion and discontent were rampant. For those people who see the change in the American government and society a real Revolution, the Revolution is essentially an economic one. The main reason the colonies started rebelling against 'mother England' was the taxation issue. The colonies debated England's legal power to tax them and, furthermore, did not wish to be taxed without representation. This was one of the main causes of the Revolutionary War. The Revenue Act of 1764 made the constitutional issue of whether or not the King had the right to tax the thirteen colonies an issue, and this eventually "became an entering wedge in the great dispute that was finally to wrest the American colonies from England" (Olsen, 6). It was the phrase 'taxation without representation' "that was to draw many to