adapted from The Expansion of the United States
from A Short History of the World
by H.G. Wells
The region of the world that displayed the most immediate
and striking results from the new Inventions in transport was
North America. Politically, the United States embodied, and its
constitution crystallized, the liberal ideas of the mid-eighteenth
century. It dispensed with state-church or crown, it would have
no titles, it protected property jealously as a method of
freedom, and it gave nearly every adult male citizen a vote. Its
method of voting was crude, and therefore its political life soon
fell, but that did not prevent the newly emancipated population
from developing an energy, enterprise, and public spirit far
beyond that of any other contemporary population.
Then came that acceleration of locomotion. It is a curious
thing that America, which owes most to this acceleration in
locomotion, has felt it least. The United States has taken the
railway, the river steamboat, the telegraph, and so forth as
though they were a natural part of their growth. They were not.
These things happened to come along just in time to save
American unity. The United States of today was made first by
the river steamboat, and then by the railway. Without these
things, the present United States would have been altogether
impossible. The westward flow of population would have been
far more sluggish, it might never have crossed the great central
plains. The first state established beyond the river was the
steamboat state of Missouri in 1821. But the rest of the
distance to the Pacific was done in a few decades
if we had the resources then, it would be interesting to show
a map of North America year by year from 1600 onward, with
Select ALL the correct answers.
Which two statements express central ideas of the text?
The United States now includes many cities that have a population over 100,000.
In the early years of the United States, most male citizens had the freedom to vote.
Transportation and communication have served to unify United States citizens.
Old maps of the United States show very little migration beyond the East Coast.
Historically, Innovations in travel led to westward expansion in the United States.
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