When the Republican president candidate Abraham Lincoln won the election in 1860, South Carolina and one year later 10 other southern countries broke away from the USA and created the independent Confederate States of America. David Jefferson was elected as their president, and they formed a new Government in Montgomery. The Confederation started war and had successes at first but soon was unable to withstand the industrial power of the Union. In 1862 President Lincoln announced the emancipation of slaves. In 1865 the Confederation General Lee surrendered[1] to the Union General U. S. Grant and that was the end of the Confederation.
Then the reconstruction of the South started. In the following era, industrial corporations were gaining more and more power and nearly ruled the USA. Alaska was bought from Russia in 1867. The Hawaiian Islands were annexed. USA gained economical power in Latin America. The construction of the Panama Canal also began. In the war with Spain in 1989, the USA gained independence for Cuba and the Philippines. In 1901 Theodore Roosevelt was elected as a new president. Unlike his foregoers he showed to be a quite strong figure and achieved establishing some kind of co-operation between big businesses and the Government. In 1909, the elected Woodrow Wilson continued in Roosevelt’s policy.
In the times of World War I, Woodrow Wilson tried to protect American trade interests and took on the role of international negotiator. For almost 3 years, he kept the United States out of the war. But after Germany sank several American ships, it was no longer possible just to profit from selling goods to the fighting countries. On April 2nd, 1917, The Congress declared war on the Central Powers. American soldiers in France helped the Allies to win the war and so America took part as a victorious country in the negotiations in Versailles. President Wilson was the one to design the Fourteen Points which guided the conference in Paris. They included principles of public-checked diplomacy, freedom on the seas, reductions in armaments and de-colonisation of empires. Other points concerned self determination of the European nations, and also a suggestion to found a League of Nations. In Paris all of the points were accepted, however in the United States, the Senate rejected the treaty (mainly due to the aversion to membership in the League of Nations) on the grounds of traditional American unilateralism, which already started with George Washington.
In the 20's, the American economy was prospering more than any time before. In 1919, the l8th Amendment prohibited the production, sale and transport of alcoholic beverages and so the whole period became known as the Prohibition. However, on the Black Friday in 1929, the stock market in New York crashed. Crisis came and soon about one quarter of all workers were unemployed.
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