American History

After the English North American colonies declared their independence in 1776, the conventional interpretation was that there were 13 little sovereigns (states) wielding power over their citizens. So, after winning independence and with a rewritten constitution, the new nation had to unify itself, put its ideals into practice, and form a stable United States. Needless to say, the early national period in America was overfilled with political, economic and social confusion. Little sovereigns found it difficult to harmonize their attitudes toward various aspects of political and social life. Simultaneously, it was the early national period that set the stage for the development of sound political, educational, and social frameworks. Given the relevance of religion and the growing role of education in the early American states and taking into account the impact which opening borders and immigration produced on the speed and quality of the national development, education, religious deregulation, and immigration can be fairly regarded as the three major influences that predetermined what the American states would become.

The Early National Period and religion
Throughout the colonial period in America, religion had been the source of the major controversies and one of the most serious social influences. The revolution and the subsequent formation of the United States shifted the emphasis from religion as the tool of ruling and governance to religion as an effective and never changing companion of the major social, political, and economic processes in America. More importantly, the early national period was associated with the gradual deregulation of religion and with the growing diversity of religious attitudes and beliefs  the diversity, which opened the way to religious inclusiveness and tolerance and predetermined the religious landscape of the modern America.

It is difficult not to agree to Noll in that that period was one in which American evangelicalism became increasingly commercial in its methods. The disestablishment of religion, which occurred in most states around the time of the Revolution but not until the first third of the nineteenth century in parts of New England, opened up a nationwide free marketplace in religion. In other words, it was due to the Revolution and the establishment of the new, independent American state that the deregulation of religious beliefs resulted in the subsequent multiplication of various religious sects and increased church membership.

Whether such multiplication of religions and sects was beneficial for America is difficult to define, but it was clear that since the earliest years of the American nation, such multiplicity have been governing the major social and cultural processes in society, turning religious diversity and tolerance into the basic features of the American democratic vision. In many aspects, what happened to religion during the early national period made churches and sects adjust their principles and standards to those of the conventional marketplace the growing level of religious competition led churches and sects to assume the need for improving their competitiveness and attracting retaining additional members this, however, was not possible without making churches dynamic, adaptable, and growing. As a result, religious deregulation in the early American state not only predetermined the role of religious diversity and tolerance in the system of the democratic beliefs, but also aligned religion with the principles of commercial and industrial expansion, and thus turned religion into an indispensable component of daily life in America.

The early national period and education
Religion alone would have been failed speed up the major democratic processes in America and that was a unique combination of religion and education that helped the first thirteen colonies to gradually expand and grow into a solid political power. Education during the early national period was still in its infancy, but under the influence of Thomas Jefferson education became the national priority for the years ahead in its current state, America votes for universal education and positions education and enlightenment as the basic sources of democratization in the country. Thomas Jefferson is fairly regarded as the founder of the modern elementary education which, for Jefferson, was more important than higher education on the premise that it was safer to have the whole people respectfully enlightened than a few in a high state of science and many in ignorance as in Europe. Jefferson was confident that primary education was the necessary source of enlightenment and set the six objectives for primary education as the tool of growing an informed and a productive voter (1) to provide every citizen with the information needed for the transaction of his own business (2) to enable every citizen to calculate, to express and preserve ideas and accounts in writing (3) to improve citizens morals and faculties through reading (4) to help citizens understand their duties, competencies, and functions (4) to help citizens know their rights and exercise these with order and justice and (6) to support citizens in their desire to observe with intelligence and faithfulness the quality of social relationships, within which they have to exist. As such, universal education became inseparable from the vision of democratic citizenship in America, and it is not surprising that led by those principles, Americans were able to establish one of the most efficient and professional systems of education in the world.

The early national period promoted the need for primary education to be public, accessible, and free those became the basic standards of the modern educational system in America. Although Jeffersons influence on the development and implementation of the current educational networks was not overwhelming, he was the one to change the direction of formal education development in the country. The establishment of the University of Virginia by Jefferson became the starting point in the United States movement to educational and social highs.

The early national period and immigration
Immigration is another major influence, which predetermined what America would become. Immediately after the Revolution, America became accessible and available to thousands of European immigrants, which predetermined its fate as of increasingly diverse society. The colonial years had been marked with the growing restrictions on immigration and the peer control of the colonial authorities over the quality and effectiveness of the labor force, but the Revolution made it possible to ease the existing immigration constraints since 1790, citizenship was available to everyone after two years of residence in the American territory, and only in 1798 was that term extended to require 14 years of residence as the necessary precondition for obtaining the American citizenship. The influence of those trends on the future of America was two-fold on the one hand, by opening its borders to immigrants, the American state became one of the most diverse and the most inclusive societies in the modern world on the other hand, by setting the rigid standards of citizenship, America initially positioned itself as the country that closed itself to low-quality labor force and illegal immigrants. Present day America is well-known for the strict requirements, which it imposes on those, who seek to become its citizens, but everyone who is willing to work for his own benefit and for the benefit of the American nation is welcome to become its part.

Conclusion
The early national period set the stage and conditions for the development and growth in America. In many aspects, the earliest political and social trends determined what America would become in future. It would be fair to assume that religion (or rather, religious deregulation), education, and immigration became the three major source of influence on the speed and direction of the social, economic, political, and cultural development in America. Those three influences created conditions necessary for the American state to become the major carrier of democratization in the whole world.