Chapter 1: Americans institutions

American institutions, they are based on the constitution. Some countries don’t have a
written constitution, for instance the UK and Israel.
The American constitution: 4th of July 1776, it’s called Independence Day. The USA is not a
British colony anymore.
In 1787, they organised a meeting in Philadelphia with federalist and anti-federalist to decide
the future of the country.
In 1789, the ratification of the american constitution.
The first years of the USA were complicated since the constitution didn’t exist yet. There was
no legitimacy.
1791: they voted the bill of rights, they voted for the basic rights of the american. They
also :lcreated “checks and balances”.
1. Laws  legislative branch. They operate in the Capitol  on Capitol hill in
Washington dc. It’s the parliament.
2. Executive branch (president). The white house
3. Judicial Branch. The supreme court
The amendments:
- 1st separation of state and church. But the president of the US swears under oath with
the bible and the constitution. Freedom of speech, of the press, freedom of assembly
- 2nd the right to bear arms. An amendment that is very controversial. Defended by the
NRA and republicans.
- 8th no cruel and unusual punishment (capital punishment)
- The 10th the powers not delegated to the USA by the Constitution are reserved to the
state.
- The 13rd abolition of slavery signed by Abraham Lincoln
- 18th: No products and no alcohol. Beginning of the prohibition
- 19th: right to vote for women.
- 21st: end of the prohibition, you can drink again.
Legislative branch:
- Senate and house of representative  form the congress or parliament
- Two chambers: bicameral
- House of representative: 435 members, 2 years, midterms
 Population shift from Northwest to Sun belt
- Senate: 100, two senators per state and one third is renewed at each election.
Powers: taxes, regulate trade, impeachment procedure, veto presidential
nominations, “bill” (= projet de loi) into law
Executive branch:
- President and Vice-President (FDR elected four times!)
 US born (=/= Arnold Schwarzenegger)
- Primaries: party nominees =candidates
 Summer: delegates at national convention
 Presidential ticket
Popular vote:
- First Tuesday following Monday in November
 After harvesting time, traveling to country seat
- 538 electors
- Winner-take-all: important big states! Electoral vote =/= popular votes (e.g., George
W., Bush, Trump)
- Unlimited campaign money
 “Super pacs” = political Action Committee
Electoral vote:
- Today a formality
- January 20th : Inauguration Ceremony: oath upon the Bible Inauguration Address
- Party change = “lame duck” president
Chief executive makes top appointments.
- January: “state of the Union Adress”
- Veto power
- Commander in-chief
Vice-president to replace president (Kennedy, Nixon)
Cabinet: 15 departments and other high officers
Secretaries of State, treasury, defence, justice, health, housing, etc. Homeland Security
(2002)
Council of economic Advisors, National Security Council.
Federal agencies:
- NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
- CIA (central intelligence agency)
- FBI (federal bureau of intelligence)

4. Judicial branch
Chief Justice and 8 associative Justices elected for life
 Decisions binding for lower courts
 94 district Cours, 13 courts of appeal
Landmark decisions:
1857 Dred Scott (fugitive slave law)
1896 Plessy vs Ferguson (se
1954 Brown vs Board of Education (end school segregation)
1962 School Prayer unconstitutional
1967 against prohibition of marriage between races!
1971 busing
1973 Roe vs Wade (abortion legalized)
2010 no limits to campaign funding

5. Two party system

Federalists vs Antifederalists
Ex: Alexander Hamilton vs Thomas Jefferson
Democrats (intellectuals, workers, South?)
Vs. Republicans (business, GOP = Grand old party)
 Overlap! Historical development …
 Is changing! Tea party!
States, countries, cities, state constitutions
 Marriage and divorce, education road building
 Concurrent powers (e.g., courts, health, taxation)

Chapter 2: the founding myths

US  great diversity
- Cultural
- Regional
- Ethnic: successive wave of immigration
BUT common principles and beliefs AIM? Build unity, American-ness.
1. Freedom and the american dream
- Most important value since the beginning (independence in 1776) = freedom
- US = “land of the free and the home of the brave”.
 - Americans  US = God-given haven, land of opportunities and new beginning, land
of plenty
- Promised Land  idea of American Dream
i.e., belief in equal opportunities, prosperity, better life. This means that if you don’t
succeed in the US, it’s your fault.
- American Dream// “from rags to riches” Horatio Alger’s novels
- Success < hard work (// puritans)
- Hard work = rewarded by God  middle class! (Material possessions)
 no moral stigma attached to wealth (status // personal worth!)
- Consequence: Immigrants attracted! Statue of liberty, Emma Lazarus poem: The new
colossus.
- American Dream  real for some but not every immigrant!
(slavery/ segregation/ discrimination/ poverty/ inequalities)
- Paradox:
Statue of liberty: torch/ beacon/ welcoming/ enlightening BUT
Medical and languages tests + some = sent back!

2. The “Melting Pot” Theory

- US = nation of immigrants
- Official moto: e pluribus unum = out of many, one
- Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur’s letters from an American farmer “here, individuals of
all nations are melted into a new race of a man.”
- Melting pot = idea of mixing newcomers to get a perfect American citizen (new man)
- WASPs = white Anglo-Saxon Protestants = dominant from the very start (1620)
 NORM for newcomers (assimilation // adapting to established patterns)
Integration = make the best of both worlds’ vs assimilation = forget your culture
There is a discrepancy between what people think and the melting pot.
English is not the official language in the US, so a lot of Latinos want an education in Spanish.
= Ideal? Racism? Sexism? Trump voters?
3. “Frontier” Traits:
- C. 18th and c.19th  settlement of the West
- Natural border between the colonies (civilised world) and the wilderness (far west).
 Adaptability, pragmatism, individualism, self-sufficiency, “self-reliance”. (//
Transcendentalist philosophy)
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Walt Whitman
God in Nature, man “is” part of it …
- 19th century settlement of the west  American identity
- God is present in the nature, so God is present in us
 - Frederick Jackson Turner’s ‘Frontier hypothesis’
- American Pragmatism (William James, John Dewey):
“Can do” spirit: do it yourself; self-help movements.
- Power of individualism against European tyranny
- “Rugged individualism” 1920s Herbert Hoover, in Favor of private over collectivism
and government intervention. If someone is poor, it’s their fault.
- Wary of government intervention NGOs (non-government organizations) 
volunteering, phliantropy = still alive!
- 19th century: Social Darwinism
= competition, “survival of the fittest”
 Process of selection cf in the UK, Herbert Spencer and in the US, Yale sociologist
William Graham Sumner
- Ambivalence about welfare state (who is responsible for problems? The state or
individuals?)

4. Mobility: Americans on the move!

- 10% move each year cf frontier days heritage.
- Live across continent: family reunion on Thanksgiving
- Americans = forward-looking, future oriented, work for children
- Social mobility (climbing the social ladder), no class structure, consciousness (but
ethnicity, race) 12,5% = under poverty line!

5. “Manifest destiny”
- Export US model civilization abroad
- Westward expansion (justify colonisation)
- 1845, journalist John Sullivan continent allotted to American people by providence,
territory by divine right
- Justification of the global leadership (vs. isolationism)
- Territory = settled  new frontier

Chapter 3: A land of immigrantsll

The US = a nation of immigrants,

Various waves: first trappers (criminal reason, want to kill bear to sell fur)
Successive waves
Reasons:
- Political
- Religious (pilgrims)
- Economic (american dream)
 - Better living conditions (country at war)
 They all wanted to live the american dream, to succeed, a promise.
In the past: 80% from Europe
Now: 15% from Europe
Now: 55% from central and south America or Caribbean
30% from Asia
US  50% of the world’s total immigration
More than 40 million Americans = foreign-born
1. First immigrants
- Spanish explorers: South, Southwest via Mexica, California
- French fur traders: from Canada to the Great lakes, down to the Mississippi River
 Establishing trading posts in New Orleans
- English settlers (most numerous):
1608 Virginia, Jamestown  Pocahontas
1620 New England, Plimoth Plantation, // Mayflower, PILGRIM FATHERS
= Puritan separatists, Calvinist work ethic, writing
 Cultural influence, religion
- East coast permanently settled:
c. 17th and c.18th mainly by British immigrants
NY (Dutch settlers  New Amsterdam)
New Jersey
Pennsylvania (German immigrants) e.g Deutsch, PA Dutch
Delaware (Swedish immigrants)

2. The 19th and Early 20th centuries

A. The Two European Waves

- Great migration in mid nineteenth century: 1840-1860: 10m immigrants (AIM = new
opportunities)
Common heritage: language, culture, religion
 Homogeneous population
Northern Europeans, Dutch, British = WASP
- 2nd wave = “new immigrants”: 1870-1920: 20m
Italians, Austria-Hungarians, Russians, Poles.
= Catholics, Slavs, Jews
  “nativist” racism!
Ku Klux Klan (cf. decline after the civil War): KKK = “Koons (black), Kikes (jews),
Katholics” (=Blacks, Jews, Catholics).
 BUT immigration  boosting the economy  US = WORLD LEADER

1907: 1,300,000 entries (Statue of liberty, Ellis Island)

= poor workers, illiterate, unskilled, exploited by Anglo-Saxon “old stock” (looked down upon
as taking jobs).
Old stock = ancient immigrants who forgot where they came from and didn’t help the new
immigrants.
 Social Darwinism
- Industrial growth, movement west, rail boards, land available
New immigrants =/=
 Suspicions and fears // cohesiveness of the WASP social fabric*
BUT after 2 generations = integral part of MAINSTREAM AMERICAN SOCIETY

B. The quota acts of the 1920s

- Flow of immigrants  restrictive measures to stem the tide.

e.g., against the Chinese
1882 – 1943 Chinese Exclusion Acts
e.g., against Japanese (1907)
- But overall:
Open door policy
1917: literacy tests, you need to be able to read/ write to enter the USA
1921: Quota Act (percentage 1910 residents)
1924 Quota (percentage 1890 residents)
Officially, AIM = ethnic balance, to avoid the big replacement
éIn fact: “preferential immigration”: 43% British!
N.B: no immigration during Great Depression
3. From Mid-20th century to nowadays
A. Third world immigration
- shift since 1960s: 2000  Mexicans = 27%  non-WASP majority
- settlement from cities to “sunbelt”
B. family reunification policy
Lyndon B. Johnson : 1965 ends national origins system.
 Emphasis on « family reunification » to help candidates.
= “brothers and sisters act”  nowadays 80% of the total immigration
Family-oriented vs. merit-oriented immigration
 Single but skilled men > to Canada, Australia

C. Immigration Act of 1990

 Increasing number of qualified workers immigrant visas up from 53’000 to
140’000
- Still 2/3 are family members
- Several sorts of visa:
Family immigrants/ employment-based immigrants/ diversity immigrants cf lottery!
- Lottery for 50 000 green cards (conditions = high school education and/ or
experience).
- 12 000 000 foreign applicants!

D. Illegals and refugees

- “pull” and “push” factors.
2000-mile border with Mexico  up to 1m pa arrested! But several attempts.
 Rio Grande River  “wetbacks”.
 Pregnant women, underground birth clinics because American citizenship!
INS (immigration and Naturalization Service):
10 to 12m “illegal aliens”
 Mostly Mexicans = 55% Chicanos
Other from Nicaragua/ El Salvador
Favorite places: Sunset states (CA)
Then: Illinois/ NY
Amnesty programs: 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) if
 Resident since 1982: 3m benefitted.
 Sanctions against employers
However: moonlighting and illegal
1994 Operation Gatekeeper: fence south San Diego.
Bill Clinton: more border control “undocumented aliens” vs. refugees
More government money
- BUT economic needs:
Fruit picking, nannies, gardening, cooking, hotel cleaning.
1994 Califoria Proposiiton 187:
 Deny services to illegals, e.g., education, health.
= ruled unconstitutional
2004 President Bush: guest worker program
 Temporary legalization (3 years) 2006 Secure Fence Act 700 miles high tech
(remote cams/ satellite control/ drones)
 Private border control, coyotes = les passeurs
Samuel Huntington :
The clash of civilizations
 « dilute » American identity ?
(pb = many immigrants = from Hispanic countries vs WASPs)
2003 matricula consular = Mexican ID:
 Undocumented Mexicans get services:
= health, education, bank account, driver’s licence
Development