Gradually, kings grew stronger and created large kingdoms (Assyria, Babylonia, Egypt). By c. 1000 BCE,  long-distance and overseas trade had become common; in addition, traders began carrying larger quantities of goods. In bustling markets within cities, these quantities became impractical to manage. The barter system had previously established that gold and silver were among the most precious metals; as a result, a few gold ingots could buy hundreds of sheep. In addition, the value of gold was well-known across all civilizations participating in trade; however, items such as bronze vessels had differing values in different locations. The only problem with this new system was that no one had large amounts of gold with which to produce gold coins. In Lydia, the king decided to mint gold and create the first coins; made out of standard amounts of gold and silver, these coins became the first type of money. The government was the only body who could mint coins; it had access to the largest gold mines in the country.

Coinage spread throughout the world and became the norm. These coins could be weighed to determine their value and prevent counterfeiting. The only disadvantage of coins was that they were extremely heavy, as gold has a density of 19.3 g/cm^3. Gradually, markets stopped requiring traders to carry large amounts of gold as money. Instead, the markets agreed that a paper bill would represent a transfer of a certain amount of gold. This transition occurred gradually; however, paper money was used in Song China during the 1100s CE and banknotes became common in Europe during the Renaissance. Along with this transition, coins changed as well; they were made of lighter metals (copper, bronze, iron, etc.) and represented an amount of gold. Theoretically, currency was still the exact same: an amount of gold. However, the gold itself was not transferred; instead, paper bills and copper coins that represented gold were exchanged.

This change arose along with the development of more portable tools to transfer money: banks and credit. Credit allowed traders to sign an agreement representing a transfer of money that would occur eventually. Credit gave rise to the idea of a loan with interest, where a borrower gained money from a lender to pay it back later on interest. Moneylenders and bankers became some of the most profitable professions of the Renaissance and post-Renaissance period due to huge interest loans. Governments also exchanged money, but they had an additional advantage; they could print money to pay off their debts. Printing money was not the panacea it appears to be today; money still had to be backed by a certain amount of gold. If there was no more gold to back a currency, inflation began. These problems plagued countries like the early United States because currency was backed by gold.

Since the 1890s, with the bimetallism movement, people have wondered why our currencies are backed by gold. Several movements have proposed bimetal backing (both silver and gold) or no backing at all. The advantage of a system without backing is that the government has the power to print as much money as it likes. The major disadvantage of such a system is that paper money is only useful if its users agree that it represents a certain amount of money. Since 1971, the United States and much of the world switched indefinitely to money without backing, called fiat money. Now, the US dollar no longer implies a certain amount of gold; as expected, inflation occurred and gold is now much more expensive than it was 50 years ago.

Today, an interesting currency, called the bitcoin, has emerged. The bitcoin is fiat money; it is not backed by gold. Most importantly, however, it is made by a corporation, not by a government. The corporation shows that the government is no longer special in that it has access to large amounts of gold. Theoretically, anyone can make money today. The bitcoin is the first currency made by a corporation that is used on the market worldwide, and it establishes an important point. Currency is a stock and its value can vary depending on the government, just as another stock’s value can vary depending on the corporation it is tied to. Currency can only have a nearly constant value when it is backed by gold or some other precious metal; without this backing, it is similar to any other stock on the market.

A link for more information about the bitcoin: http://www.bitcoin.org/

Today, we have powerful computers. These computers are capable of analyzing hundreds of interactions, but not the millions that occur in a huge molecule. In the past century structural biochemistry and cellular biology has produced several simplified models of large groups of atoms. Examples of these include the side groups of amino acids, helices and sheets found within proteins, the double helix of DNA, the subunits of a ribosome, organelles within a cell, etc. If computers can use these instead of raw data about atoms and forces, they become a much more useful tool.

For example, let’s suppose that we were modeling a cell. Rather than modeling the millions of molecules within the cell, we can use our knowledge of what these molecules do. We can model the cell membrane as an oscillating fluid membrane surrounding the cell and model the DNA within the nucleus as largely static. We can place a certain concentration of molecules in the environment rather than predict how each molecule moves within the environment. By using set interactions between certain molecules (such as protein pathways in the cell membrane and their targets), we can predict how these molecules will move in real-time much faster than if we had to use basic skills.

In addition, there are uses for elementary math in biology. When modeling protein structure, it is generally easy to determine the locations of various secondary structure motives, such as helices, sheets, etc. Determining how these motives interact in forming a larger protein is a much more difficult problem. Assuming we have determined how a helix and a sheet should intersect (using threading or some other means), we still need to account for rotations and translations. These are much more difficult in 3-D than in 2-D, where polar coordinates solves this problem easily. There are two different approaches to this, which are essentially identical. The first involves matrices. While using the matrix is relatively easy, determining an appropriate matrix is much harder. First, you have to notice that the variables simplify from nine to three. Then, you have to solve three equations in three variables; given that most programming languages do not have equation solvers built-in, this causes problems. Instead, we can use spherical coordinates. The difficult part about this approach is careful re-alignment (which is automatically performed by the rotation matrix). You have to set your origin to be a common point, then rotate the θ angle normally (by adding or subtracting mod 2π), but the Φ angle is more difficult. While rotating the Φ angle, we have to add the appropriate value for the points with positive z-coordinates and subtract that value for the points with negative z-coordinates. All of these computations in a protein could not be performed manually. In this case, the math itself is not complicated, but the sheer number of atoms interacting means that computers are necessary.

Modeling interactions between molecules and between cells using computers allows biochemists to predict the results of interactions within a particular cell. Instead of using a trial-and-error process in drug development and medication, we can use computers to predict the result of an interaction between certain molecules or a molecule (a drug) and a cell (the target). If the drug modeling indicates success, then the patient can be provided with this drug. Otherwise, we don’t need to test it. This process greatly accelerates drug development, as we can test all possible drugs in a matter of days, rather than months.

For more detail about protein structure prediction using computers, click here.

Let us take cancer as an example. All of today’s cancer treatments try in vain to determine the difference between cancerous and normal cells. The most popular method today uses the speed of the mitosis in the cells to determine the difference (this occurs in both radiation therapy and chemotherapy). However, hair cells and stomach epithelial cells also divide rapidly; thus the treatment mis-classifies them as cancerous. Another popular method is the use of the location of the cell (this occurs in surgery). However, metastatic tumors spread to other organs of the body; thus, the treatment is ineffective, as it fails to kill all cancerous cells.

The above is even clearer in the case of viral diseases: we have no way of distinguishing infected from healthy cells. Thus, the best treatment today consists primarily of rest and allowing the white blood cells, which can tell the difference, to kill infected ones. This works in diseases like the common cold or influenza with low risk of fatality, but diseases like AIDS or Hepatitis are almost always fatal; we need a better method to cure these. While vaccination does exist for most of these viral diseases, it is not foolproof, as every mutation of the virus requires a new vaccine.

There are few methods of identifying infected cells that are always effective, but there are certain characteristics that all diseases must change in a cell. One of the most obvious of these characteristics is a mutation or insertion into DNA, but it is nearly impossible for a particular drug to pass through the cell membrane, its nuclear membrane, and then determine through the entire tangled stretch of DNA whether there has been a mutation or additional DNA inserted into the original. We need something that can identify an infected cell without entering the cell; thus, treatments must detect changes in the cell membrane. Such changes do exist, but they are much more difficult to detect. The cell membranes of our cells differ slightly from person to person. There is no single change in the cell membrane that a treatment can detect in order to check for infection. The treatment needs personalization to do this. Using an uninfected cell and an infected cell from a patient, we must determine the differences between the cell membranes. Then, we must create a treatment that recognizes this difference and kills, by some means, only the infected cells.

The disadvantages of personalization are primarily in cost. Determining such a treatment for every patient of the disease would cost thousands of dollars for the personnel and equipment used. Large portions of this process, such as determining the differences between two cell membranes, could possibly be computerized. Even so, the cost would still be high. However, these disadvantages are outweighed by the great advantage of almost completely eliminating the risk of cancer, AIDS, and viral diseases that plague us today.

The brief summary of history in the BCEs above brings to notice that no optimal region has ever given birth to a civilization. Mesopotamia was beset with worries: two troublesome rivers, a desert land, open to invasion. Egypt, although protected by the desert, fell in the last two categories after a thousand years. The Indus Valley was such a poor environment that scholars hypothesize that the people were forced to move due to environmental problems, along with possible Aryan invasion. Nubia is not much better off than Egypt, with deserts and six cataracts preventing easy passage down the Nile. The Yellow River Valley is the more troublesome of the two major rivers in China (the other being the Yangtze). Greece is filled with mountains and grows very little food of its own. Phoenicia and Israel are rocky coastlines with little-to-no resources. Persia is a desert of its own, requiring underground irrigation to survive.

Nevertheless, some of these civilizations were amazingly close to far superior land. Mesopotamia is right next to the Fertile Crescent, much more predictable and fertile. Rome and Greece are close to the Danube River Valley, also very fertile. The Yangtze River Valley was more fertile than the Yellow and the Ganges was more fertile than the Indus. So why do civilizations repeatedly arise in seemingly poor locations while good locations go uncivilized and unorganized?

The major characteristics of a civilization include complex societal organization and the development of cities. These are the characteristics that are the key to this analysis. The Fertile Crescent, the Danube River Valley, the Ganges and the Yangtze were all home to prosperous Neolithic communities. On the other hand, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Nubia, the Yellow River, Greece, Israel, Assyria, Persia, Rome, and Carthage had no Neolithic communities that prospered. People moving to these areas from overcrowded Neolithic communities found that greater social organization, more sophisticated technologies, and the development of cities were necessary to survive. On the other hand, people who continued to live in the Neolithic communities saw no need for such characteristics and continued to live in traditional agricultural clan-based villages for thousands of years until contacting a more advanced nearby civilization.

This pattern repeats itself, coining the popular phrase “Necessity is the mother of invention.” In the Middle Ages, Europe had little technological and political advance with respect to the rest of the world due to an already largely functional feudal system. The Arabs and the Chinese were faced with invasion and constant struggle, leading to amazing innovation on their part. The Byzantines prospered in this respect as well, as they were in contact with technologically superior Muslims. The Crusades and the Black Death resulted in Europe coming into contact with much more advanced civilizations and jumpstarted the Renaissance and Reformation.

Similarly, many countries throughout Africa and Asia lost contact with other civilizations throughout the world; when Europe began colonization, they were faced with civilizations far more advanced than their own. Most of these countries rapidly modernized or attempted to do so, either through their own will or forced upon them as a result of their status as colonies. Many of these countries also put into effect new thought systems, such as Chinese Communism and Gandhi’s nonviolence. Repeatedly throughout history, countries entering a Dark Age rapidly advanced when forced to do so or when coming into contact with more advanced countries surrounding them.

The Roman Republic had made one mistake: it had divided Romans into two classes of patrician and plebeian. This effectively created a plutocracy in Rome, with the rich governing the poor. The divide was not visible until after the Punic Wars and the defeat of Carthage. With Carthage a threat in the Mediterranean, for years the Romans had united to defeat them. At the end of the Punic Wars, Carthage was no longer a threat and the ruling patrician class no longer felt the need to defend Rome. Gradually, the Senate became much more money-oriented and position-oriented. This was most clearly highlighted as civil wars overcame Rome over the dictatorship of Sulla in the 80s BC. The generals Pompey and Crassus attempted to convert this war to their advantage by gaining fame through victory over Sulla’s armies. With the defeat of Sulla, Pompey and Crassus instantly became famous throughout Rome. Soon afterwords, Crassus gambled his position as head of the Rome’s legions by gaining first consul and command of all of Rome’s armies. At the same time, Julius Caesar also rose in power through money. Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar then formed the First Triumvirate, effectively making them the leaders of Rome and destroying most of the power of the Senate.

Power-hungry Romans did not stop there. Pompey, Crassus, and Caesar were not pleased being merely one of three rulers of Rome. Each of them wanted to be the only ruler of Rome. As a result, to solidify their power, Pompey fought the Spanish, Caesar the Gauls (inhabitants of Gaul, or France), and Crassus the Parthians (inhabitants of Iran). Crassus was killed in battle, finally falling to his lack of military experience. Pompey commanded his legions through lieutenants in Spain and used his time in Rome without the other members of the Triumvirate to gain control over the Roman Senate, thinking he now had control over Rome itself. Unfortunately, he was wrong; Caesar, after defeating the Gauls, broke the time-honored rule of not allowing legions into Rome itself and crossed the Rubicon at the head of the army, throwing Rome into a civil war.

When Caesar crossed the Rubicon crying, “The die is cast!”, the Roman Republic had effectively ended. Rome’s tradition prevented any military general to enter Italy at the head of his legions in order to avoid civil war within Italy. Pompey’s armies were prepared, but they did not have nearly enough experience, resulting in Pompey’s flight to first Pharsalus in Greece and then to Egypt, where he was killed by Ptolemy, hoping to gain favor with Caesar. The Senate’s power was ruined and Caesar was set to finally take the throne of Emperor and abolish the Roman democracy once and for all but for one problem: the assassination attempt by Brutus and Cassius.

Popularized in Shakespeare’s play Julius Caesar, Caesar’s assassination was the last play the Senate could make in an attempt to regain power and reestablish a democracy. Brutus hoped to follow the tradition of his ancestor who had driven the monarchy out of Rome and drive Caesar out, but his alliance with Cassius was doomed to fail. The plebeians, in support of Caesar and then Marc Antony and Octavian, his successors, drove Brutus and Cassius out of Rome. Later, the duo was defeated in the Battle of Philippi by the newly formed Second Triumvirate, consisting of Marc Antony, Octavian, and Lepidus. However, history repeated itself. Marc Antony and Octavian quickly dominated the triumvirate and fought each other for power. Lepidus, trying not to make Crassus’s mistake, stayed out of the fighting, but was forced into exile nevertheless. Marc Antony gained Cleopatra’s alliance from Egypt in an attempt to defeat Octavian, but Octavian defeated Marc Antony in the Battle of Actium in 31 BC. The Roman Republic was finally over in 27 BC with Octavian’s destruction of Augustus.

Traditional treatments for allergies attack the H1 receptors, binding to them and preventing histamine from doing so, thus preventing the inflammatory response. These treatments are called “H1 antihistamines” and located in almost every allergy medication, like Claritin and Zyrtec. However, there are problems with this type of medication: H1 receptors are scattered throughout the entire body, so only high dosages of antihistamine can attach to every H1 receptor. In addition, antihistamines effectively destroy the body’s immune response, preventing the body from successfully responding to an actual antigen, such as a cold virus or a flu virus.  

I suggest a new treatment for allergies; this treatment attacks histidine decarboxylation. Rather than inhibiting histamine’s bonding to the H1 receptors, we can inhibit the production of histamine. This is done by competitively inhibiting histidine decarboxylase, the enzyme that catalyzes the production of histamine through histidine decarboxylation.  

Histidine is an essential amino acid with an R-group containing an imidazolium ring (shown below). It is one of the few basic amino acids. Histamine is produced when the carboxyl group of histidine is replaced by a single H atom, releasing a molecule of carbon dioxide. This reaction is catalyzed by the enzyme histidine decarboxylase, produced by many organisms, ranging from Escherichia coli to the human body.   This is a diagram of the reaction of histidine decarboxylation, showing the chemical structures of both histidine and histamine:  

A group of 4 chemicals known as catechins (catechin, epicatechin, epigallocatechin, epicatechin-3-gallate, and epigallocatechin-3-gallate), part of the flavonoid family, are known to inhibit histidine decarboxylase. A catechin has the general structure including three rings with six atoms each: two of the rings are connected together due to a shared bond, and one which connects itself to the other two through a bond. Some catechins include an extra ring as part of a gallate group, and others include a hydroxyl group on the third ring. The catechins inhibit various oxidation reactions (such as histidine decarboxylation), but always in the order of epigallocatechin-3-gallate strongest, then epicatechin gallate, then catechin, and finally epicatechin. These reactions are also inhibited by quercetin and myricetin (other flavonoids), but to a lesser degree. Catechins have been proven to hold a variety of health benefits aside from inhibiting allergies, because they possess anticarcinogenesis effects by inhibiting tumorigenesis and inhibiting mutagenic activity. The catechins can be found in a variety of sources, but most potently in green tea. 30% of green tea flush is catechin. Other common sources of catechins include black tea, red grapes, and other red fruits. Commercially produced catechins are usually isolated from green tea flush via chemical means. The diagram below shows the general structure of a catechin, which enables a catechin to bind to and inhibit histidine decarboxylase:  

The diagram below encapsulates what I have discussed above:  

This diagram shows histidine decarboxylation occuring inside a mast cell, followed by the mast cell releasing histamine, which attaches to a H1 receptor in the surroundings. The H1 receptor then triggers an allergic response. The diagram also shows two cures: a H1 antihistamine, attaching to the H1 receptor, and a catechin, inhibiting the histidine decarboxylase.

 Let’s start out by representing a^2+b^2 in terms of a+b and ab. This can easily be done by saying (a+b)^2-2ab = a^2+b^2. How about for three variables? Well, we’re given a+b+c and ab+bc+ac, and we need to represent a^2+b^2+c^2. We try (a+b+c)^2 = a^2+b^2+c^2+2ab+2bc+2ac, but that’s not quite right. Instead, (a+b+c)^2 – 2(ab+bc+ac) works. See the pattern yet? It turns out that a_1^2+ … +a_n^2 = (a_1+…+a_n)^2 – 2(a_1a_2 + …. + a_na_1). Perhaps we could generalize this formula?

Let’ s try representing a^3+b^3 in terms of a+b and ab. This can be done by using (a+b)^3 – 3ab(a+b). a^4+b^4 = (a+b)^4 – ab(4(a+b)^2-2ab). And so on… Although it’s difficult to find a formula for a_1^m+a_2^m+…+a_n^m, we can obviously represented any specific symmetric sum of this form in terms of the sums a_1+a_2+…+a_n and a_1a_2+…..+a_na_1.

I did mention a connection to polynomials, which I’ll explain before moving back to symmetric sum problems. Let’s take a look at a quadratic with roots r and s. This is (by the Factor theorem) equivalent to c(x-r)(x-s) = cx^2-c(r+s)x+c(rs), where c is any arbitrary real number. How about a cubic with roots r, s, and t? That’s c(x-r)(x-s)(x-t) = cx^3-c(r+s+t)x+c(rs+st+rt)-c(rst). Notice that the expressions in parantheses are all symmetric sums. This can easily be generalized to any nth degree polynomial. The ratio between the coefficients after the first and the first can always be expressed in terms of symmetric sums involving the roots of the equation. So, if you’re given the polynomial x^3-3x^2+2x-1 = 0, although it’s difficult/almost impossible to find the roots, it’s easy to determine the sum of the squares of the roots, by the formula given above. (in case you’re interested, this is called Vieta’s and is very useful in solving symmetric sum problems and polynomial problems).

There’s one type of symmetric sum that I haven’t covered here, ones that don’t appear in Vieta’s and also aren’t just sums of powers of numbers. An example is ab^2+ac^2+ba^2+bc^2+ca^2+cb^2. This is a rather difficult symmetric sum to find in terms of the usual a+b+c, abc, and ab+bc+ac. Let’s try (a+b+c)^3, because that gives the right degree. (a+b+c)^3 = a^3+b^3+c^3+3ab^2+3ac^2+3ba^2+3bc^2+3ca^2+3cb^2. This doesn’t work, because to write out a^3+b^3+c^3, we need ab^2+ac^2+ba^2+bc^2+ca^2+cb^2. Let’s try (a+b+c)(ab+bc+ac) = ab^2+ac^2+ba^2+bc^2+ca^2+cb^2 +3abc. Close, but we need to subtract the 3abc from both sides and we’re done!

The above problem outlines a general strategy for most symmetric sum problems: try to get the same degree as the desired sum by multiplying, then subtract off the remainder. And remember, polynomials and symmetric sums go hand in hand.

When containment was implemented, the Soviet Union had already spread its communism through Eastern Europe while China and Mongolia had declared themselves Communist on their own. Immediately, hot spots flared: the recently defeated and newly divided Germany, Greece, Turkey, and Korea. These countries were still recovering from World War II and the Soviet Union wanted to spread their influence there as well. In addition, Britain and France had worn out in World War II, leaving the leadership of the “free” world to the United States.

The United States announced the Truman Doctrine in order to combat Communism in Greece and Turkey, more generally, countries struggling against Communism. However, this wasn’t enough; western Europe teetered on the balance and desperately needed some guidance, aka money, to strengthen their democracies and protect them from the Communists. This was accomplished by the Marshall Plan. Greece and Turkey were stabilized and Western Europe came firmly under the United States’ control, where it would stay for the next 40 years.

However, Germany still remained a question mark. The country had been divided in British, French, American, and Soviet sectors after the war, while the city of Berlin, an “international” city, had also been divided. Very quickly, the British, French, and American sectors united into West Germany and West Berlin, respectively, while the Soviets created East Germany and East Berlin. The Soviets longed to control all of Germany, especially the industrial heartland of the Rhine. They started by sealing the road connecting West Berlin to West Germany and trapping thousands of West Berliners without access to supplies, in the hope that the city would submit. The United States, based on containment, created a round-the-clock system of airplanes that airlifted food and supplies into West Berlin. This continued for over a year until the Soviets opened the roads once more.

On the other side of the world, Korea had also been divided into two halves: North and South, Communist and democratic-republic. China, Korea’s northern neighbor, became Communist in 1949, and thus, North Korea’s invasion of South Korea in 1950 posed a strong threat towards United States strongholds in Japan, nearby, and by some politician’s imagination, the United States itself. The United States urged the United Nations to declare a police emergency, condemn the invasion, and send aid to South Korea, starting the Korean War. The War itself is a mystery; North Korea and South Korea still exist today. Technically, containment succeeded here, as communism was contained in North Korea, but at the cost of thousands of lives, unlike my previous two examples. From now onwards, the United States would go to war to protect containment, not just provide money and supplies.

The 1960s were characterized by containment galore. Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam War, the list goes on and on. In some places, it succeeded; in others, it failed. The United States failed to push Castro out of Cuba in Bay of Pigs, but prevented the Soviet Union from planting missiles there and threatening the United States. The United States miserably failed in Vietnam, and ironically due to interference spread Communism to Laos and Cambodia thanks to Nixon’s bombing raids. But all of the examples share one common idea: in all of them, people lost their lives, and in all of them, the United States sent military force to work. This was a dramatic change in the style of containment from the days of the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan.

The 1970s were an era of detente, where the Cold War eased; SALT came about; we recognized China. Containment seemed to be dying, but it did not. The last example of containment returned to the original, non-military style, with financial aid and funding. In Afghanistan, the Soviet Union invaded to take over the Taliban and aid Communist rebels. We then aided the few non-Communists in the country, but only with financial aid. The 1980s changed their focus, from containment to the Reagan Doctrine, which called for shrinking Communism, and with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of Communism in 1989, both ideas were vague and out-of-place in the United States.

The ideas start even before the Civil War ends; Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation states that slaves would be freed in all areas of the Confederacy, or the “rebellious states.” Such an idea was unheard of, but it added moral value to the war. A year later, Lincoln started suggesting a Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution: that of abolishment of slavery. This Thirteenth Amendment woul eventually be passed after the war, thanks to delays and debate. It tooks a backstage while more important war-concerning legislation is pushed through. Lincoln did publicly announce one policy relating to Reconstruction; Southern states would not be punished severely. He created the 10% plan; in other words, 10% of the Southerners in one state must accept Union control and swear loyalty oaths in order for the state to rejoin the Union. Later, he added that the Southern state must ratify the Thirteenth Amendment; this heleds allow the Thirteenth Amendment to pass. However, before this plan can be carried out, Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth, a radical who believed that he was defending the South. Ironically, as a result of Lincoln’s death, the South would suffer much more than under Lincoln’s skilled leadership.

With Lincoln dead, President Johnson took command and added another clause to Lincoln’s plan for readmitting Southern states. He stated that the 10% could not come from people with wealth above $25,000. Over the course of 1865, many of the Southern states rejoined the Union as they met Johnson’s requirements. When Congress met in December 1865, the Radical Republican leaders decided that Johnson, as a Democrat, would not punish the South sufficiently. Thus began the political war: Presidency vs. Congress, Democrat vs. Radical Republican; this echoed of the war that had greatly increased the power of the Presidency under Andrew Jackson, only 30 years earlier. Johnson was famous for his record number of vetoes: 29. The Radical Republicans, in an attempt to undermine Johnson, gradually “influence” elections until they create the 2/3 majority necessary for overriding a veto; this effectively disarms the President. The only casualty in this war is the South; Southerners are faced with the horrors of incorporating the Freedmen’s Bureau Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1866, and the Reconstruction Act of 1867. The last act aforementioned was the worst; Southerners were now under martial law formally, the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution racked Southern principles, and Johnson, their only savior, was powerless to stop Congress. The South found itself without any hope but to turn to illegal activities; one classic example was the Ku Klux Klan. The Klan was an anti-African American, anti-foreigner, white supremacist racist terrorist organization that would characterize the South for the period of Radical Reconstruction. Meanwhile, President Johnson found himself at the mercy of a clever Congressional scheme; after vetoing the Tenure of Office Act, Johnson had fired his Secretary of War Edmund Stanton out of defiance. The House of Representatives drew up articles of impeachment and the Senate tried Johnson; he was acquitted by a single vote (that of Republican Senator Edmund G. Ross from Kansas). Powerless, he remained in office for the few months until in 1869, he was replaced by former-General, now-President Ulysses S. Grant.

The Ku Klux Klan hadn’t gone anywhere; it was active throughout the elections of 1868. In those years it attempted to prevent African-Americans from voting in the Southern states, even through court cases. Apparently since the language of the Fourteenth Amendment stated that any restrictions had to apply equally to everyone regardless of race, they created grandfather clauses (if your ancestor could not vote on or before January 1, 1867, then you couldn’t vote), literacy tests (tests to determine whether you could analyze the Constitution on the spot), or poll taxes (small taxes that only were collected from African-American voters). They also used many illegal techniques, including terrorism. Aptly described in a political cartoon by Thomas Nast, these terrorist attempts resulted in the destruction of the African-American voting base. After all, which person would prefer to vote rather than to live? Grant barely won the popular vote, but handily won the electoral vote thanks to more careful poll-counting and avoidance of the Klan.

With the Grant Administration now supporting the Radical Republican politics, there was no hope of redemption for the South. The Fifteenth Amendment required that voting would not be denied based on race; this had no effect whatsoever. The Klan continued to use tactics such as grandfather clauses, literacy tests, and poll taxes to deny voting rights to African-Americans. Thanks to suppression of several Klan rebellions throughout the South, the 1872 election was much fairer. Grant, once again, won handily, only to face a terrible economic crisis. Southern economic Reconstruction, never having succeeded, simply collapsed in on itself; the Panic of 1873 ensued. Northerners cared more for their financial troubles than for those of the South; the South simply wished that Reconstruction were gone forever. As official after official in the Grant Administration was found to be corrupt, the Administration lost its power over the people. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 sealed matters; although it protected African-American civil rights; public opinion catastrophically dropped as a result.

The election of 1876 between Republican Rutherford B. Hayes and Democrat Samuel Tilden showed that the nation was tired of Reconstruction. Both candidates campaigned on a platform of ending Reconstruction. In one of the closest races in history, marked by scandal, Reconstruction ended as part of the Compromise of 1877 with which Hayes was made President. Reconstruction had finally come to an end, having accomplished nothing other than the rights of African-Americans in name only. The Supreme Court cases of Plessy v. Ferguson served to emphasize this; segregation and the Klan would live on as reminders of the failures of Reconstruction.

In 1795, President George Washington realized that backcountry farmers need an avenue to take their goods, in the form of wheat, to the Eastern cities. With the whiskey tax in place, the long-time solution of “ferment the wheat and send it over the hills” failed. As a result, Washington suggested a brand-new idea: send it down the Mississippi, store it in New Orleans, and send it through the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean to the coast. The problem was that no one knew who had control of the Mississippi for a large portion of the river (up till Spanish Florida) and after that it was Spanish. In addition, New Orleans was Spanish and the United States had no Right of Deposit. To make matters worse, no one knew where Spanish Florida began and the United States ended…until Washington sent Pinckney to Spain to negotiate a treaty. Pinckney’s Treaty stated the 38th parallel was the border, the Mississippi was international waters, and the United States had the Right of Deposit in New Orleans. For five years, backcountry farmers happily shipped goods down the Mississippi and up the coast…until the rise of Napoleon on the opposite side of the globe.

Napoleon Bonaparte began conquering Europe and surprised Spain completely, who believed that their revolutionary neighbor was in a state of anarchy. Now, their neighbor was greedy for land, and the Spanish Army was not in prime condition. The Spanish King backed down and handed Napoleon a small gift in exchange for peace: the territory of Lousiana, including the city of New Orleans and the Right of Deposit (which had just been canceled by Spain). The United States suddenly found Pinckney’s Treaty inactive and President Jefferson, a lover of the farmers, realized action had to be taken. He sent a delegation to France to buy the Right of Deposit or the city of New Orleans for $5 to $10 million dollars. France turned around and offered to sell them the entire territory of Louisiana for $15 million dollars. Although the American delegation did not know this, France had been running out of money as a result of the Revolution and the War sweeping Europe that Napoleon had begun. What the American delegation did know was that they were only allowed to spend $10 million dollars and this was way too much land (more than the United States at the time) along with $5 million dollars too expensive. Nevertheless, they signed the treaty and hoped Jefferson and the Democratic-Republican Senate would approve it.

The Democratic-Republican belief that the Senate, or any government institution, had only the power to do what the Constitution allowed them to do (strict constructionism) limited them greatly from approving the treaty. Technically, they could not buy land; they could only approve treaties. However, Jefferson stated that he wanted a nation of farmers and he needed more land…which meant the Louisiana Purchase was an amazing offer. The Senate approved it and Jefferson signed the treaty into law… meaning the Louisiana Territory was, for the first time, American.

We all know of the folklore of this purchase: the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the Pike Expedition. Although this is true, many more pressing problems were waiting in the wings. The remaining territory between the Appalachians and the Mississippi (the backcountry) was quickly carved up into states and each had to decide between slave and free. The slave states, formerly a minority, gradually rose in number until they had achieved a balance between slave and free with the addition of Alabama. In addition, the Ohio River became the dividing line between slave and free. Louisiana was the only state west of the Mississippi – but that would soon change. Missouri applied for statehood – and not only did it want to be slave (upsetting the balance), but it also was north of the Ohio. Speaker of the House Henry Clay of Kentucky writes a bill admitting Missouri to the Union as a slave state, along with a portion of Massachusetts: Maine (free). In addition, he stated that the 36° 30′ latitude line was the border between slave and free for the entire Louisiana Purchase. Through this act, the Arkansas Territory was created (a slave territory) and the Unorganized Territory was shortened (a free territory formerly the entire Louisiana Purchase area).

A new idea soon emerged in American history: manifest destiny. This idea stated that it was “manifest [that the United States'] destiny is to overspread the continent.” Soon, the United States grabbed more and more territory: Spanish Florida, Texas, portions of Maine, Wisconsin, and Oregon (under the Webster-Ashburton Treaty), and second-to-last the Mexican Cession. This was another large chunk of land that included California, Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, Arizona, and portions of Texas. It was obtained through the Treaty of Guadulupe Hidalgo at a price of only $15 million (once again). Soon, gold was found in California and the California Gold Rush began. California decided that it could skip the territory stage as it already had enough people to become a state… the only problem being California was right in the middle of 36° 30′. In 1850, the “gag” rule of Congress about slavery falls to pieces as slavery emerges once more. Henry Clay, now a Senator, comes forth once again with a great compromise: the Compromise of 1850. In this bill, California is admitted as a free state, the territories of Utah and New Mexico decide on slavery based on popular sovereignty, the slave trade is banned in Washington, D.C., and, probably most remembered of all, the Fugitive Slave Law is passed.

If I were to say any one law is most responsible for the Civil War, it would be the Fugitive Slave Law. This law requires people to take escaped slaves to trial by a federal commissioner, who is given $5 for releasing the slave and $10 for turning the slave back to a slaveholder. The lure of money was enough – perhaps a slave could get by once, maybe twice, but inevitably the slave will go to the slaveholder. Northerners were outraged. Many explicitly refused to follow the Fugitive Slave Law. The Whig Party, formed as an opponent to the Democratic Party, dissolved after slavery disputes tore apart the party’s platform. Many abolitionist Whigs joined the Republican Party, while the pro-slavery Whigs joined the Democratic Party. Harriet Beecher Stowe, to show a sign of protest, writes the bestseller Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the book that revealed the evils of slavery. The Republican Party grew through this book, and an act soon after that would start war in the Unorganized Territory… soon to be called Kansas.

In 1853, manifest destiny drove the United States to make a transcontinental railroad…the best path of which lay through the South, and into Mexico. The United States government bought the Gadsden Purchase from Mexico for $10 million dollars. Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois realized an excellent way to gain votes was through building a transcontinental railroad through his state, as well as through Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Ohio. The only problem was the giant Unorganized Territory, which Douglas set out to organize. He divided it into two territories: Kansas and Nebraska. Knowing the South would be drastically opposed to the act, he decided to add an even more controversial issue (I do not think he could have gained many votes by this). He stated that the territories of Kansas and Nebraska could determine their slavery status by popular sovereignty (an idea first introduced by Clay in the Compromise of 1850). The repeal of the hated Missouri Compromise attracted Southern voters, but the Northerners were not happy when the bill passed. Thousands of colonists flooded into Kansas on the day of the voting, as well as Missourian residents who were pro-slavery. Both sides claimed victory (hence the existence of Kansas City, Missouri) and soon war broke out. Bleeding Kansas would last the next seven years until the Confederacy seceded and Kansas became a free state.