Chapter 2 Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Chapter 2 - Assignment Example It is against this backdrop that intellectual standpoints advanced at the end of 19th century, in the bid to bring about positive changes. Resultantly, this intellectual context birthed the First Reform Era which bequeathed the US history with abolitionism, Reconstruction, Civil and Women’s Rights Movements and farm movements. During the years (1901-1909) Theodore Roosevelt served as American president, he expanded the power and influence and power of the executive arm of the government, particularly, the presidency. Right from the time of the American Civil War, up to the beginning of the 20th century, the US Congress had been retaining the seat of power. However, starting from 1880s, the executive arm began to get increasingly powerful, so that later on, Roosevelt extended this development. Having insisted that the President had the right to use all political power, the Office of the President became the center of American politics, in lieu of political parties and the Congress. With this increased political power, Roosevelt helped fuel the expansion of the American Empire by challenging the ideas of limited government and waging a highly aggressive foreign policy. Being led by strong leaders such as Dorothea Dix and Elizabeth C. Stanton, women did midwife several important reforms during the Progressive Era. Women clamored for the passage of the 19th Amendment which prohibited the act of denying any US citizen, the power to vote, with this denial of votes being based on sex. It is these same women caucuses that redefined the functions of the federal government and widened the scope of the federal government’s roles, in light of health, working conditions, wages, education, sanitation and social welfare. The US Election of 1912 remains unique because it enabled Wilson to win by 42%, against Progressive candidates Taft, Roosevelt and Debs who totaled 58%, and thereby enabling Woodrow Wilson to