Let us start at the beginning, not necessarily in time, but more in structure, though they are intertwined by the founding of the United States. For, in the beginning, there was no United States, but a collection of Colonies, peopled mainly by white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants of various stripes and beliefs, interspersed with other colonials from various parts of Europe, living amid the indigenous people who called the North American continent their home before the first white settler knew of its existence. Already, there was a diverse spread of human being here, before even one shot was fired in anger.
Of course, this is not the "melting pot" of which many were taught in school growing up. The people who came to North America were in earnest to maintain the homogeneity of their various religious and ethnic groups, in the face of a mounting tide of tolerance building up in Europe in the 1600's. The Protestant Reformation had allowed Christian groups of various and sometimes subtle persuasion to grow profusely across the face of the Old World, eventually causing an increase in strife as groups bumped up against one another within the same borders, who shared a common root but were so opposed in belief that they thought the other blasphemous.
The New World was seen as a way to, at once, allow these groups their individuality in the face of the growing tide of religious and social division in the Old World, while simultaneously providing a natural buffer of space between these self-same groups that would avoid conflict. As each group was able to gather together sufficient people, provisions, and money to do so, they would strike out for the new and mysterious continent in order to settle into new and hopefully less stressful accommodations. They brought with them the hope of establishing a new order in a new place.
What they got for their trouble, in many instances, was the idea that perhaps they had been a bit hasty in leaving behind the comfortable world for the pioneer world. No amount of planning and provisioning could prepare them for what came with landing on new and virgin soil. Many a colony found itself in a desperate fight for survival from the very start, and several would wind up disappearing into the mists of history. For the Old World to get a toehold on the New World, they would have to fight for survival in a way that was more akin to Biblical times than the times they were in.
What that struggle for survival, and the expansion of the colonial populations meant, ultimately, is that the disparate groups that were so willing to remove themselves to the hinterlands of organized society in order to be free to worship and work as they wished, would have to grow back together to provide mutual support and strength in order for all to survive. Outposts slowly expanded, became stable, were able to set up trade among themselves and with their mother countries, common currencies were established, common law was threshed out, and slowly, self-government came about to maintain order.
So, when we look to see the root of what would become America, it was the slow, inexorable growing together of groups which sought to maintain their independence but at the same time forge links to other groups to form a more cohesive and self-supporting society. It took the crucible of survival in a hostile land to bring together groups which were more interested, initially, in remaining apart. Even this, though, would not be enough to smooth over the basic disagreements between groups, and the need for a cohesive society could not eliminate the thought by each group that it should be the one to lead.
This set the table for what was to come. With the intercession of England in Colonial affairs, and not for the best, a system which might have evolved over generations was forced to move at a greater pace, breaking the normal reticence of some, allowing others a moment to bring their passion for human society to the fore, and laying the groundwork for one of the greatest experiments in government to be conceived. As we shall see, the sudden implosion caused by war, could not help but form a system that would still carry deep flaws, flaws evident even to this day.
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