Rhode Island
Rhode Island, officially the State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. Rhode Island is the smallest in area, the eighth least populous, and its official name is the longest of any state in the Union. Rhode Island is bordered by Connecticut to the west, Massachusetts to the north and east, the state shares a short maritime border with New York. It boycotted the 1787 convention that drew up the United States Constitution, on May 29,1790, Rhode Island became the 13th and last state to ratify the Constitution. Rhode Islands official nickname is The Ocean State, a reference to the fact that the state has several large bays, Rhode Island covers 1,214 square miles, of which 1,045 square miles are land. Despite its name, most of Rhode Island is located on the mainland of the United States, the official name of the state is State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, which is derived from the merger of four settlements.
Rhode Island is now commonly called Aquidneck Island, the largest of several islands in Narragansett Bay, Providence Plantation was the name of the colony founded by Roger Williams in the area now known as the city of Providence. This was adjoined by the settlement of Warwick, hence the plural Providence Plantations and it is unclear how Aquidneck Island came to be known as Rhode Island, although there are two popular theories. Explorer Giovanni da Verrazzano noted the presence of an island near the mouth of Narragansett Bay in 1524, subsequent European explorers were unable to precisely identify the island that Verrazzano had named, but the Pilgrims who colonized the area assumed that it was Aquidneck. A second theory concerns the fact that Adriaen Block passed by Aquidneck during his expeditions in the 1610s, historians have theorized that this reddish appearance resulted from either red autumn foliage or red clay on portions of the shore. The earliest documented use of the name Rhode Island for Aquidneck was in 1637 by Roger Williams, the name was officially applied to the island in 1644 with these words, Aquethneck shall be henceforth called the Isle of Rodes or Rhode-Island.
The name Isle of Rodes is used in a document as late as 1646. Dutch maps as early as 1659 call the island Red Island, Williams was a theologian forced out of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Seeking religious and political tolerance, he and others founded Providence Plantation as a proprietary colony. Providence referred to the concept of providence, and plantation was an English term for a colony. State of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations is the longest official name of any state in the Union, advocates for excising plantation asserted that the word specifically referred to the British colonial practice of establishing settlements which disenfranchised native people. Advocates for retaining the name argued that plantation was simply an archaic English synonym for colony, the referendum election was held on November 2,2010, and the people voted overwhelmingly to retain the entire original name. It shares a maritime border with New York State between Block Island and Long Island
Public domain
The term public domain has two senses of meaning. Anything published is out in the domain in the sense that it is available to the public. Once published and information in books is in the public domain, in the sense of intellectual property, works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Examples for works not covered by copyright which are therefore in the domain, are the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes. Examples for works actively dedicated into public domain by their authors are reference implementations of algorithms, NIHs ImageJ. The term is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, as rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required. Although the term public domain did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined many things that cannot be privately owned as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis.
The term res nullius was defined as not yet appropriated. The term res communes was defined as things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight. The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, when the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by British and French jurists in the eighteenth century, instead of public domain they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law. The phrase fall in the domain can be traced to mid-nineteenth century France to describe the end of copyright term. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain. Because copyright law is different from country to country, Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being different sizes at different times in different countries.
According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the public domain and equates the public domain to public property. However, the usage of the public domain can be more granular. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair use rights, the materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival
James Madison
James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and Founding Father who served as the fourth President of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He is hailed as the Father of the Constitution for his role in drafting and promoting the United States Constitution. Madison inherited his plantation Montpelier in Virginia and therewith owned hundreds of slaves during his lifetime and he served as both a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and as a member of the Continental Congress prior to the Constitutional Convention. After the Convention, he one of the leaders in the movement to ratify the Constitution. His collaboration with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay produced The Federalist Papers, Madisons political views changed throughout his life. During deliberations on the Constitution, he favored a national government. In 1789, Madison became a leader in the new House of Representatives and he is noted for drafting the first ten amendments to the Constitution, and thus is known as the Father of the Bill of Rights.
He worked closely with President George Washington to organize the new federal government, breaking with Hamilton and the Federalist Party in 1791, he and Thomas Jefferson organized the Democratic-Republican Party. In response to the Alien and Sedition Acts and Madison drafted the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions, as Jeffersons Secretary of State, Madison supervised the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the nations size. Madison succeeded Jefferson as president in 1809, was re-elected in 1813, after the failure of diplomatic protests and a trade embargo against the United Kingdom, he led the U. S. into the War of 1812. The war was a morass, as the United States had neither a strong army nor financial system. As a result, Madison afterward supported a national government and military, as well as the national bank. Madison has been ranked in the aggregate by historians as the ninth most successful president, James Madison, Jr. was born on March 16,1751, at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway, Virginia, to father James Madison, Sr.
and mother Nelly Conway Madison. He grew up as the oldest of twelve children and James Sr. had seven more boys and four girls. Three of James Jr. s brothers died as infants, including one who was stillborn, in the summer of 1775, his sister Elizabeth and his brother Reuben died from a dysentery epidemic that swept through Orange County because of contaminated water. His father, James Madison, Sr. was a planter who grew up on a plantation, called Mount Pleasant. He acquired more property and slaves, and with 5,000 acres, he became the largest landowner, James Jr. s mother, Nelly Conway Madison, was born at Port Conway, the daughter of a prominent planter and tobacco merchant. In these years, the colonies were becoming a slave society, in which slave labor powered the economy
The Federalist Papers
The Federalist is a collection of 85 articles and essays written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay promoting the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven were published serially in the Independent Journal and the New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788. and A. McLean, the collections original title was The Federalist, the title The Federalist Papers did not emerge until the 20th century. Though the authors of The Federalist Papers foremost wished to influence the vote in favor of ratifying the Constitution,78, written by Hamilton, lays the groundwork for the doctrine of judicial review by federal courts of federal legislation or executive acts. Federalist No.70 presents Hamiltons case for a chief executive. 39, Madison presents the clearest exposition of what has come to be called Federalism,51, Madison distils arguments for checks and balances in an essay often quoted for its justification of government as the greatest of all reflections on human nature.
Morris, they are an incomparable exposition of the Constitution, a classic in political science unsurpassed in breadth and depth by the product of any American writer. The Federal Convention sent the proposed Constitution to the Confederation Congress, on September 27,1787, Cato first appeared in the New York press criticising the proposition, Brutus followed on October 18,1787. These and other articles and public letters critical of the new Constitution would eventually become known as the Anti-Federalist Papers, in response, Hamilton decided to launch a measured defense and extensive explanation of the proposed Constitution to the people of the state of New York. Hamilton recruited collaborators for the project and he enlisted John Jay, who after four strong essays, fell ill and contributed only one more essay, Federalist No. He distilled his case into a pamphlet in the spring of 1788, An Address to the People of the State of New-York, Hamilton cited it approvingly in Federalist No.85. James Madison, present in New York as a Virginia delegate to the Confederation Congress, was recruited by Hamilton and Jay, gouverneur Morris and William Duer were apparently considered, Morris turned down the invitation, and Hamilton rejected three essays written by Duer.
Duer wrote in support of the three Federalist authors under the name Philo-Publius, or Friend of Publius, Hamilton chose Publius as the pseudonym under which the series would be written. While many other pieces representing both sides of the debate were written under Roman names, Albert Furtwangler contends that Publius was a cut above Caesar or Brutus or even Cato. Publius Valerius was not a defender of the republic but one of its founders. His more famous name, meant friend of the people and it was not the first time Hamilton had used this pseudonym, in 1778, he had applied it to three letters attacking fellow Federalist Samuel Chase. Chases patriotism was questioned when Hamilton revealed that Chase had taken advantage of knowledge gained in Congress to try to dominate the flour market. At the time of publication the authorship of the articles was a guarded secret, though astute observers discerned the identities of Hamilton, Madison. Following Hamiltons death in 1804, a list that he had drafted claiming fully two-thirds of the papers for himself became public, including some that seemed more likely the work of Madison
United States Bill of Rights
The Bill of Rights is the first ten amendments to the United States Constitution. Proposed following the oftentimes bitter 1787–88 battle over ratification of the U. S, on June 8,1789, Representative James Madison introduced nine amendments to the constitution in the House of Representatives. Among his recommendations Madison proposed opening up the Constitution and inserting specific rights limiting the power of Congress in Article One, Seven of these limitations would become part of the ten ratified Bill of Rights amendments. Contrary to Madisons original proposal that the articles be incorporated into the body of the Constitution. Articles Three through Twelve were ratified as additions to the Constitution on December 15,1791, Article Two became part of the Constitution on May 5,1992, as the Twenty-seventh Amendment. Article One is technically still pending before the states, the door for their application upon state governments was opened in the 1860s, following ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment.
Since the early 20th century both federal and state courts have used the Fourteenth Amendment to apply portions of the Bill of Rights to state, the process is known as incorporation. There are several original engrossed copies of the Bill of Rights still in existence, One of these is on permanent public display at the National Archives in Washington, D. C. However, the government that operated under the Articles of Confederation was too weak to adequately regulate the various conflicts that arose between the states. The Philadelphia Convention set out to correct weaknesses of the Articles that had been apparent even before the American Revolutionary War had been successfully concluded, the convention took place from May 14 to September 17,1787, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The convention convened in the Pennsylvania State House, and George Washington of Virginia was unanimously elected as president of the convention, the 55 delegates who drafted the Constitution are among the men known as the Founding Fathers of the new nation.
Thomas Jefferson, who was Minister to France during the convention, Rhode Island refused to send delegates to the convention. However, the motion was defeated by a vote of the state delegations after only a brief discussion. Madison, an opponent of a Bill of Rights, explained the vote by calling the bills of rights parchment barriers that offered only an illusion of protection against tyranny. The quick rejection of this motion, endangered the entire ratification process, thirty-nine delegates signed the finalized Constitution. Thirteen delegates left before it was completed, and three who remained at the convention until the end refused to sign it, Gerry, elbridge Gerry wrote the most popular Anti-Federalist tract, Hon. Mr. Gerrys Objections, which went through 46 printings, the essay particularly focused on the lack of a bill of rights in the proposed constitution, many were concerned that a strong national government was a threat to individual rights and that the president would become a king.
Jefferson wrote to Madison advocating a Bill of Rights, Half a loaf is better than no bread, if we cannot secure all our rights, let us secure what we can
Articles of Confederation
Its drafting by a committee appointed by the Second Continental Congress began on July 12,1776, and an approved version was sent to the states for ratification on November 15,1777. The Articles of Confederation came into force on March 1,1781, a guiding principle of the Articles was to preserve the independence and sovereignty of the states. The federal government received only those powers which the colonies had recognized as belonging to king, the Articles formed a war-time confederation of states, with an extremely limited central government. Actually the adoption of the Articles made no change in the federal government. That body was now taken over as the Congress of the Confederation, as the governments weaknesses became apparent, especially after Shays Rebellion, individuals began asking for changes to the Articles. Their hope was to create a national government. Initially, some states met to deal with their trade and economic problems, however, as more states became interested in meeting to change the Articles, a meeting was set in Philadelphia on May 25,1787.
It was quickly realized that changes would not work, and instead the entire Articles needed to be replaced, on March 4,1789, the general government under the Articles was replaced with the federal government under the Constitution. The new Constitution provided for a stronger federal government by establishing a chief executive, courts. The Articles of Confederation would bear some resemblance to it, over the next two decades, some of the basic concepts it addressed would strengthen and others would weaken, particularly the degree of deserved loyalty to the crown. It was an era of constitution writing—most states were busy at the task—and leaders felt the new nation must have a written constitution, during the war, Congress exercised an unprecedented level of political, diplomatic and economic authority. It adopted trade restrictions and maintained an army, issued fiat money, created a military code, to transform themselves from outlaws into a legitimate nation, the colonists needed international recognition for their cause and foreign allies to support it.
The monarchies of France and Spain in particular could not be expected to aid those they considered rebels against another legitimate monarch, foreign courts needed to have American grievances laid before them persuasively in a “manifesto” which could reassure them that the Americans would be reliable trading partners. Without such a declaration, Paine concluded, “he custom of all courts is against us, Congress created three overlapping committees to draft the Declaration, a Model Treaty, and the Articles of Confederation. The committee met repeatedly, and chairman John Dickinson presented their results to the Congress on July 12,1776, there were long debates on such issues as sovereignty, the exact powers to be given the confederate government, whether to have a judiciary, and voting procedures. Under the Articles, the states retained sovereignty over all governmental functions not specifically relinquished to the national government, the individual articles set the rules for current and future operations of the United States government.
Article XIII stipulated that their provisions shall be observed by every state. John Dickinsons and Benjamin Franklins handwritten drafts of the Articles of Confederation are housed at the National Archives in Washington, after the war, especially those who had been active in the Continental Army, complained that the Articles were too weak for an effective government
Luther Martin
Luther Martin was a politician and one of the United States Founding Fathers, who refused to sign the Constitution because he felt it violated states rights. He was a leading Anti-Federalist, along with Patrick Henry and George Mason, Martin was an early advocate of American independence from Great Britain. In 1785, he was elected to the Confederation Congress by the Maryland General Assembly, Martin was elected as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. When he arrived on June 9,1787, he expressed suspicion of the secrecy imposed on the proceedings. On June 27, Martin spoke for more than three hours in opposition to the Virginia Plans proposal for proportionate representation in both houses of the legislature. He was known for his ability to talk and as stated by William Pierce he was educated for the Bar …, Martin served on the committee formed to seek a compromise on representation, where he supported the case for equal numbers of delegates in at least one house.
Before the convention closed, he convinced that the new government would have too much power over state governments. Failing to find any support for a bill of rights and another Maryland delegate, John Francis Mercer, walked out of the convention. In November 1787, in a speech to the Maryland House of Delegates, he assailed the Constitutional Convention, not only for what it was attempting to do, but for how it was going about the job. Instead, convention delegates had taken it upon themselves to make a start by creating an entirely new system of government. To Martin, such an effort was akin to launching a coup détat and he lamented the ascension of the national government over the states and condemned what he saw as unequal representation in Congress. He owned six slaves of his own but opposed including slaves in determining representation, at the convention, Martin complained, the aggrandizement of particular states and individuals often had been pursued more avidly than the welfare of the country.
The assumption of the term federal by those who favored a national government irritated Martin, in April 1788, it voted to ratify the Constitution, the seventh state to do so. In June, when New Hampshire became the state to ratify, the required threshold had been reached. Three years later, the first 10 amendments were added, around 1791, Martin turned to the Federalist Party because of his animosity toward Thomas Jefferson, who, in 1807, spoke of him as the Federal Bull-Dog. Martins postwar law practice grew to one of the largest and most successful in the country. The beginning of the 1800s saw Martin as defense counsel in two controversial national cases, in the first case, Martin won an acquittal for his close friend Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase in his impeachment trial in 1805. Two years later, Martin was one of Aaron Burrs defense lawyers when Burr stood trial for treason in 1807, after a record 28 consecutive years as state attorney general, Martin resigned in December 1805
New Hampshire
New Hampshire is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Massachusetts to the south, Vermont to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, New Hampshire is the 5th smallest by land area and the 9th least populous of the 50 United States. Concord is the capital, while Manchester is the largest city in the state and in northern New England, including Vermont. It has no sales tax, nor is personal income taxed at either the state or local level. The New Hampshire primary is the first primary in the U. S. presidential election cycle and its license plates carry the state motto, Live Free or Die. The states nickname, The Granite State, refers to its extensive granite formations, the state was named after the southern English county of Hampshire by Captain John Mason. New Hampshire is part of the New England region and it is bounded by Quebec, Canada, to the north and northwest and the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Massachusetts to the south, and Vermont to the west.
New Hampshires major regions are the Great North Woods, the White Mountains, the Lakes Region, the Seacoast, the Merrimack Valley, the Monadnock Region, and the Dartmouth-Lake Sunapee area. New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any U. S. coastal state, New Hampshire was home to the rock formation called the Old Man of the Mountain, a face-like profile in Franconia Notch, until the formation disintegrated in May 2003. Major rivers include the 110-mile Merrimack River, which bisects the lower half of the state north–south and ends up in Newburyport and its tributaries include the Contoocook River, Pemigewasset River, and Winnipesaukee River. The 410-mile Connecticut River, which starts at New Hampshires Connecticut Lakes and flows south to Connecticut, only one town – Pittsburg – shares a land border with the state of Vermont. The northwesternmost headwaters of the Connecticut define the Canada–U. S, the Piscataqua River and its several tributaries form the states only significant ocean port where they flow into the Atlantic at Portsmouth.
The Salmon Falls River and the Piscataqua define the southern portion of the border with Maine, the U. S. Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2002, leaving ownership of the island with Maine. New Hampshire still claims sovereignty of the base, the largest of New Hampshires lakes is Lake Winnipesaukee, which covers 71 square miles in the east-central part of New Hampshire. Umbagog Lake along the Maine border, approximately 12.3 square miles, is a distant second, Squam Lake is the second largest lake entirely in New Hampshire. New Hampshire has the shortest ocean coastline of any state in the United States, Hampton Beach is a popular local summer destination. It is the state with the highest percentage of area in the country. New Hampshire is in the temperate broadleaf and mixed forests biome, much of the state, in particular the White Mountains, is covered by the conifers and northern hardwoods of the New England-Acadian forests
New York (state)
New York is a state in the northeastern United States, and is the 27th-most extensive, fourth-most populous, and seventh-most densely populated U. S. state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south and Connecticut and Vermont to the east. With an estimated population of 8.55 million in 2015, New York City is the most populous city in the United States, the New York Metropolitan Area is one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. New York City makes up over 40% of the population of New York State, two-thirds of the states population lives in the New York City Metropolitan Area, and nearly 40% lives on Long Island. Both the state and New York City were named for the 17th-century Duke of York, the next four most populous cities in the state are Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, while the state capital is Albany. New York has a diverse geography and these more mountainous regions are bisected by two major river valleys—the north-south Hudson River Valley and the east-west Mohawk River Valley, which forms the core of the Erie Canal.
Western New York is considered part of the Great Lakes Region and straddles Lake Ontario, between the two lakes lies Niagara Falls. The central part of the state is dominated by the Finger Lakes, New York had been inhabited by tribes of Algonquian and Iroquoian-speaking Native Americans for several hundred years by the time the earliest Europeans came to New York. The first Europeans to arrive were French colonists and Jesuit missionaries who arrived southward from settlements at Montreal for trade, the British annexed the colony from the Dutch in 1664. The borders of the British colony, the Province of New York, were similar to those of the present-day state, New York is home to the Statue of Liberty, a symbol of the United States and its ideals of freedom and opportunity. In the 21st century, New York has emerged as a node of creativity and entrepreneurship, social tolerance. On April 17,1524 Verrazanno entered New York Bay, by way of the now called the Narrows into the northern bay which he named Santa Margherita.
Verrazzano described it as a vast coastline with a delta in which every kind of ship could pass and he adds. This vast sheet of water swarmed with native boats and he landed on the tip of Manhattan and possibly on the furthest point of Long Island. Verrazannos stay was interrupted by a storm which pushed him north towards Marthas Vineyard, in 1540 French traders from New France built a chateau on Castle Island, within present-day Albany, due to flooding, it was abandoned the next year. In 1614, the Dutch under the command of Hendrick Corstiaensen, rebuilt the French chateau, Fort Nassau was the first Dutch settlement in North America, and was located along the Hudson River, within present-day Albany. The small fort served as a trading post and warehouse, located on the Hudson River flood plain, the rudimentary fort was washed away by flooding in 1617, and abandoned for good after Fort Orange was built nearby in 1623. Henry Hudsons 1609 voyage marked the beginning of European involvement with the area, sailing for the Dutch East India Company and looking for a passage to Asia, he entered the Upper New York Bay on September 11 of that year
President of the United States
The President of the United States is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the executive branch of the government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces. The president is considered to be one of the worlds most powerful political figures, the role includes being the commander-in-chief of the worlds most expensive military with the second largest nuclear arsenal and leading the nation with the largest economy by nominal GDP. The office of President holds significant hard and soft power both in the United States and abroad, Constitution vests the executive power of the United States in the president. The president is empowered to grant federal pardons and reprieves. The president is responsible for dictating the legislative agenda of the party to which the president is a member. The president directs the foreign and domestic policy of the United States, since the office of President was established in 1789, its power has grown substantially, as has the power of the federal government as a whole.
However, nine vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having elected to the office. The Twenty-second Amendment prohibits anyone from being elected president for a third term, in all,44 individuals have served 45 presidencies spanning 57 full four-year terms. On January 20,2017, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th, in 1776, the Thirteen Colonies, acting through the Second Continental Congress, declared political independence from Great Britain during the American Revolution. The new states, though independent of each other as nation states, desiring to avoid anything that remotely resembled a monarchy, Congress negotiated the Articles of Confederation to establish a weak alliance between the states. Out from under any monarchy, the states assigned some formerly royal prerogatives to Congress, only after all the states agreed to a resolution settling competing western land claims did the Articles take effect on March 1,1781, when Maryland became the final state to ratify them.
In 1783, the Treaty of Paris secured independence for each of the former colonies, with peace at hand, the states each turned toward their own internal affairs. Prospects for the convention appeared bleak until James Madison and Edmund Randolph succeeded in securing George Washingtons attendance to Philadelphia as a delegate for Virginia. It was through the negotiations at Philadelphia that the presidency framed in the U. S. The first power the Constitution confers upon the president is the veto, the Presentment Clause requires any bill passed by Congress to be presented to the president before it can become law. Once the legislation has been presented, the president has three options, Sign the legislation, the bill becomes law. Veto the legislation and return it to Congress, expressing any objections, in this instance, the president neither signs nor vetoes the legislation
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 2 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 124.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the