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HERBERT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN 

THERE?!? IT'S TWO IN THE MORNING!

...mmm.okayyyy. Five more minu...zzzz

10 Minutes Later

Where am I? and 

Who are you?

Well, I see that you have much to learn. My name is George Roarington, 

otherwise known as one of the founding fathers of this great nation. I was 

looking at your progress on your essay and I am here to help you. But 

because it is due tomorrow, we must get a move on.

Great! Here is the prompt. I'll meet 

you here when you're finished.

Now, hold up there cool cat! I am not going to do this essay for you. I am 

simply going to help you. We will visit some dear friends of mine that might 

assist you in your nationalism paper Let's go! 

Wow! 3/4 of the 

world's cotton!

I have talked to George and I am here to help with your essay. My name is Eli Whitney, and if you don’t know what 

this is I’ll tell you. This is a model cotton gin that I made in the 1700’s; it separates the cotton seed from the fibers. It 

completely changed the cotton industry. Before, people had to separate them by hand; it took a lot of time.   Because 

of the cotton gin, more cotton was made and would bring more money for the United States. We were soon 

producing ¾ of the world’s cotton. You see, we could invent change. We didn’t need help from other countries, just 

the great American mind to come up with something so advanced. If you would like to know more about the cotton 

gin, read this book. 

George and I have talked and I am here to help with your paper. I am Thomas Foxerson and I 

set up the Embargo Act of 1807. To separate us from British and France when they were 

interfering with our trade we decided to refuse to trade and block our ports as a punishment. 

This act showed that we could stand up for ourselves, and that we could stand up to some of the 

most powerful nation in the country. Here you should have this; it's more about the Embargo 

Act.

There, I hope after meeting Foxerson and Whitney that you 

have a greater understanding of this great nation that you 

belong to.

That's it! It was starting 

to get interesting.

No, not at all. We still have much to learn. I 

know that you left off at the Embargo Act so 

why don't we proceed to the War of 1812 

Known as the "second war of independence", the War of 1812 was also between the US and 

Britain. Some of the causes to the start of the war were that Britain was putting a limit on our 

trade, as well as forcing our seamen to serve for them. We were able to drive the British back and 

hold on to our land showing that the American Revolution wasn’t luck. Our nation is powerful 

enough to fight the best military at that time. 

Hmmm...I did not know 

that we fought another 

war with Britain.

Indeed. But speaking of expansion, I will let Thomas Foxerson inform 

you about the Louisiana Purchase as it is an amazing bargain that 

approximately doubled the United States territory.

I am not one to brag but George is right. That was an incredible purchase that doubled the U.S. land. 

But to be more exact, France sold us about 828,000 square miles of land west of the Mississippi 

River. With that purchase were able to control the Mississippi River as well as the port, New Orleans 

which was important for trading. Our nation was growing and we were getting new things like rivers, 

ports, and land which were very important at this time. With all these new things, the United States 

was becoming a country with a lot more to offer. Sorry to add this book to your stack already, but 

this book is very helpful.

The U.S.’s luck did not stop there. I sent two men by the names of Lewis and Clark to explore the 

land. They came back with extraordinary news that they had found and recorded 180 new plants and 

125 new animals that no scientist in the world had found. They also wrote down some natural 

landscapes they had found like waterfalls and mountains. It was like striking the jackpot with all 

these new discoveries. What other nation in the world had found 180 new plants and 125 new 

animals? America had things that the rest of the world didn’t have.    

So we have talked about land, economy, and our diversity, but we must not 

forget what our courts are like today. One man that will surely help you in 

your paper would be Chief Justice John Cardiall.

I hear that you need some assistance with the court system, we there are three very 

important cases that may guide you in your completion of this essay. The first is 

McCulloch v. Maryland. The state of Maryland had put a tax on all business not done 

through the state. However, a man by the name of James McCulloch did not pay. This case 

was brought to the Supreme Court, where Maryland lost. This case started our plan that the 

Federal government has more power than the state.

The second case that remains one of the most popular cases in U.S. History is Marbury v. 

Madison. When President John Adams, left office he put men on a board however when 

the new president came, he did not give the positions to them. In the end Marbury had lost 

because the Judiciary Act of 1789 did not follow the constitution. This court decision 

created judicial review, where the courts could determine if things did not follow the 

constitution.

Another very important case that will be useful to you is Gibbons v. Ogden. The state of 

New York let Aaron Ogden transport people on his steamboat. But the federal government 

gave the same job to Thomas Gibbons. In New York, Ogden had sued Gibbons and he 

won. But when Gibbons asked the Supreme Court, they agreed and Gibbons had won. This 

final decision proved that the federal government’s statement had more power than the 

state’s and could therefore overrule the state. 

These three court cases were very important as to deciding our court system that is present today. 

And as these court cases occurred we were slowly developing our own court system. We hadn’t 

used the same system that they use in England. We wanted to determine how things would be 

settled in the United States without any other influences. This little book is for you. I have to go, but 

you can read about the Fletcher v. Peck trial which shows the first time that the Supreme Court 

declares a state law unconstitutional and the Cohens v. Virginia trial.

In the year 1819, A Spaniard by the name of Onís and American John Quincy Adams signed a document 

that gave us the land that is currently Florida. With this buy, the United States land grew even more. It 

also set a line that separated the United States from New Spain, now Mexico. The United States was now a 

country that was getting really large at a time where land meant control.

I've been talking to my buddy Roarington, and he told me to talk to you about the Monroe Doctrine. The Monroe 

Doctrine was named after me, James Monroe, and was an idea that if European countries tried to get involved with 

us then we would see it as an attack and would respond. Today this idea relates to our current day foreign policy, 

which tells us the relationship between the United States and other countries. With this new idea, the United States 

of America was getting more confidence. Our nation had to be confident that they could take on any country that 

would threaten us. We were starting to see ourselves and an independent nation that could take on even the most 

powerful nations. You should really take this; it will explain everything and more.

Hello there, young one, George Roarington has asked me to talk to you about the American System. I go by Henry 

RacClay and I was one of the men that came up with this system. There were three important ideas to the system. 

Number one was to tax Americans to protect their industries. Number two was the creation of a national bank. And 

third was the setup of national roads. The national road connected all the cities where we were able to travel on and 

have a route to communicate with other cities. Before, it was such a hassle traveling from city to city but when the 

roads came along we were able to keep up with each other and talk with one another forming a bond between cities 

near each other. 

The Second Bank of the United States also contributed to a similar bond. It managed the United States’ 

money having a united place to deal with the money of the United States. With all these developments 

because of the American System, America was now becoming an independent nation by forming 

communication systems and shared places to represent all of the people. This is a pretty complicated subject 

so I think that this book will help you a lot when writing your essay. Good Luck!

Put all those books down and follow me, But let’s not forget about literature; nationalism isn’t just about those 

“smart guys” like Thomas Foxerson, John Quincy Adams, and Henry RacClay. We must not forget about our 

poets and authors like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Henry David Thoreau, and Edgar Allan Poe. All these 

guys were part of a change in America known as the Romantic Movement. These romantic writers liked to write 

about nature and its importance as well as emotions and imagination. To separate themselves from England, they 

often described the idea of the frontier that was only present in the United State. A philosopher by the name of 

Ralph Waldo Emerson says in one of his lectures that “We have listened too long to the courtly muses of 

Europe. We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands; we will speak with our own minds.”

“The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls” is a poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poem 

starts by describing the motion of the sea saying that the tide rises and then the tide falls. 

The day starts to close, and a man is going into town. In the second scene, it is nighttime 

and the tide continues to rise and fall. The white hands of the sea erase his footprints off the 

shore. In the final stanza, it is now morning. The horses are up, stamping, and neighing, but 

the man does not come back. And once again, the tide rises and then falls.  

This poem shows the relationship between nature and humans. In all aspects, the poem says 

that no matter what, humans have to accept that nature will go on with or without them. 

Humans cannot do anything to change this fate and nature so too big to make an impact. As 

long as humans have been on this earth that we share, nature has been here for longer. Nature 

will always continue but both us humans and animals cannot escape death. Even me, ruler of 

the animal kingdom, will have to give up some time.    

As you can see, Longfellow’s work also influences the people by representing his thoughts through 

poem. Longfellow was telling the American people the ugly truth. Humans will eventually die but 

nature has been on this earth for as long as we knew. The people should not look to European 

countries for all the answers. They should not lean of them to give them all the answers like death. 

Americans should communicate with each other to find the real meaning of death. Nature is the 

compared subject and something that not common in European countries because of the many 

people occupying the land.

Thoreau’s “Walden, or Life in the Woods” is an essay that describes Thoreau’s experiment in finding out what life is. 

In the first section, Economy, humans share the same survival strategies as us animals. In the Where I Lived, and 

What I Lived For section of the essay, Henry says that we must live a very basic lifestyle, without excess. We must 

simply live off the minimum to be the closest to nature. The section Solitude, he expresses that if you are living in 

solitude you can connect with nature. However solitude does not just mean physical distance from another but being 

mentally isolated from others. In the fourth section, Thoreau points out that we must be content with the daily work. 

You will be working for your own food and doing only what is necessary for yourself. Brute Neighbors is the last 

section, and says that the ants are fighting almost as if they are at war.      

Through the text, Henry David Thoreau strongly believes that to have a happy life, we must 

turn to nature. We must travel to the wilderness and explore all of its possibilities. We must 

live a humble life and be separated from others with different opinions. And once everybody 

accepts this lifestyle we are able to form a universal mind, which is a group that all think the 

same as well as have the same beliefs.   Thoreau is what we call a transcendentalist. These 

people think that we should go beyond our experiences to determine where we shall go and 

what we should do. 

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