chapter 12: the rise of a mass democracy (1824 - 1840) - part 1

part 1 (12.1 - 12.7)

How did American politics change between 1824 and 1840?

• Universal white manhood suffrage enlarged the electorate, while free Black men's voting rights were further restricted.

• Quiet, deferential politics gave way to boisterous mass democracy and strong, competing parties.

• Political conflict, once feared, came to be seen as healthy for democracy.

How did voter turnout change from 1824 to 1840?

• Only about one-quarter of eligible voters voted in 1824.

• The share doubled in 1828 and reached 78 percent in 1840.

What new campaign methods appeared in the Jacksonian era?

Candidates used banners, badges, parades, barbecues, free drinks, and baby kissing to get out the vote.

Who were the four candidates in the election of 1824?

• John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts.

• Henry Clay of Kentucky, "Harry of the West."

• William H. Crawford of Georgia.

• Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, hero of New Orleans.

• All four called themselves Republicans, since organized parties had not yet formed.

What were the results of the election of 1824, and why did it go to the House?

• Jackson won the most popular and electoral votes (99), but no one had an electoral majority.

• Under the Twelfth Amendment, the House chose among the top three candidates: Jackson, Adams, and Crawford.

• Clay finished fourth and was eliminated.

Why did Henry Clay support John Quincy Adams in 1825?

• Crawford had been disabled by a stroke, and Clay hated Jackson as a "military chieftain" and his rival for the West.

• Clay and Adams were both nationalists who supported the American System.

• As Speaker of the House, Clay used his influence to elect Adams on the first ballot.

What was the "corrupt bargain"?

• After Adams won, he made Clay secretary of state, then seen as the path to the presidency.

• Jackson's supporters charged that Adams had bribed Clay with the office.

• No evidence of a formal deal has been found, but the charge tainted Adams's presidency.

Why did the outcry over the "corrupt bargain" matter?

• Trading political favors had once been common practice.

• Now it was condemned as secretive, elitist, and undemocratic, which showed that politics was changing.

• The next president would not be chosen behind closed doors.

What kind of president was John Quincy Adams?

• He was a brilliant diplomat and one of the most successful secretaries of state, but one of the least successful presidents.

• He was cold, tactless, and austere, and he refused to court popularity.

• As the first "minority president," chosen by fewer than one-third of voters, he lacked popular support.

Why did Adams's refusal to use patronage hurt him?

• He removed only twelve officeholders during his entire presidency.

• His supporters had no jobs to reward their work, so they had little reason to keep him in office.

What did Adams propose in his first annual message, and how did people react?

• He urged federal support for roads and canals, a national university, and an astronomical observatory.

• The nation was turning toward states' rights and sectionalism, so the public reacted badly.

• The South especially feared that a government that meddled in roads and education might also interfere with slavery.

Why did Adams's western land policy hurt him?

• Westerners wanted wide-open expansion and resented his attempts to curb speculation in public land.

• They also demanded the removal of Native Americans.

Who were the "Five Civilized Tribes," and why were they called that?

• They were the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw, and Seminole of the Southeast.

• White Americans called them "civilized" because they farmed, raised livestock, adopted Christianity, and some owned enslaved people.

Who was Sequoyah?

• He was a Cherokee who developed a written alphabet for the Cherokee language in 1821.

• Soon the Cherokee wrote a constitution and published a newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix.

Why did the Five Civilized Tribes challenge white justifications for taking Native land?

• Whites had claimed Native peoples did not use the land properly or were "uncivilized."

• The Five Tribes farmed, wrote, and governed themselves much as whites did, so those excuses no longer fit.

How did Georgia defy Adams over the Cherokee?

• Adams tried to use federal authority to protect the Cherokee in northwestern Georgia.

• Georgia's governor threatened to use force and successfully resisted him.

• It was another case of a state nullifying the national will.

How had voting rights changed by the 1820s?

• In the 1790s, most states let only male property owners vote.

• By the 1820s, most states, including every new state since the Revolution, allowed all adult white males to vote regardless of property.

What were the two parties in the election of 1828?

• The National Republicans, led by John Quincy Adams.

• The Democratic-Republicans, led by Andrew Jackson.

How did Jackson's supporters present the election of 1828?

• They portrayed Jackson as a rough frontiersman and champion of the common man.

• They attacked Adams as a corrupt aristocrat who stole 1824 through the bargain with Clay.

• In fact, Jackson lived in a luxurious mansion worked by more than a hundred enslaved people.

Why was the campaign of 1828 known for mudslinging?

• Adams's backers called Jackson's mother a prostitute and his wife an adulteress, and printed coffin handbills about his duels.

• Jackson's backers called Adams's billiard table "gambling furniture" and falsely said he had procured a servant girl for the Russian tsar.

What were the results of the election of 1828, and what did they show?

• Jackson beat Adams 178 to 83 in the Electoral College.

• Jackson swept the South and West, while Adams held New England.

• Political power had shifted from the wealthy eastern seaboard toward the states across the Appalachians.

What experiences shaped Andrew Jackson's character?

• As a boy in the Revolution, a British officer slashed him with a saber, leaving scars and a lifelong hatred of the British.

• He was orphaned young, fought duels, and carried two bullets in his body.

• He had a violent temper and little formal schooling.

What made Jackson's presidency unique?

• He was the first president from the West and the first nominated at a formal party convention (1832).

• He was only the second president without a college education, after Washington.

Why was Jackson a complicated "champion of the common man"?

• He widened political participation for ordinary white men.

• But he was a frontier aristocrat who owned ninety-five enslaved people and a fine mansion, the Hermitage.

• He believed in Black inferiority, hated abolitionists, and ignored the Supreme Court when removing Native peoples.

What happened at Jackson's inauguration in March 1829?

• Crowds of ordinary people flooded into the White House, breaking furniture and china.

• Jackson had to escape through a side door; the crowd left when punch bowls were set out on the lawn.

• To traditionalists, this "inaugural brawl" recalled the French Revolution.

What was the Petticoat Affair?

• Cabinet wives, egged on by Vice President Calhoun's wife, snubbed Peggy Eaton, wife of the secretary of war.

• Jackson defended her and eventually replaced his whole cabinet.

• It worsened his relationship with Calhoun, who was replaced by Martin Van Buren on the 1832 ticket.

How did Jefferson describe Jackson?

He recalled that Jackson could not speak in the Senate because of his rage, and called him "a dangerous man."

What was the spoils system?

• It rewarded political supporters with government jobs.

• Senator William Marcy named it in 1832: "To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy."

• Jackson brought it into the federal government on a large scale.

How did Jackson defend the spoils system?

• He said government work was simple enough for any ordinary American to learn quickly.

• Rotating officeholders prevented an aristocratic, bureaucratic class from forming.

What were the costs and benefits of the spoils system?

• It brought in incompetent and dishonest officials, like Samuel Swartwout, who stole over $1 million as New York customs collector.

• But patronage gave people a reason to stay loyal to a party, which helped build the two-party system.

Who was Alexis de Tocqueville, and what was his main insight?

• He was a young Frenchman who toured America in 1831 and wrote Democracy in America.

• He said the thing that struck him most was the "general equality of condition" among the people.

What two dangers did Tocqueville see in American democracy?

• "Tyranny of the majority": pressure for conformity that left little independence of mind.

• Radical individualism: people isolated, believing their fate was entirely in their own hands.

What did Tocqueville think kept American democracy healthy?

No hostile neighbors, a vigorous free press, voluntary associations like churches and parties, and civic "habits of the heart."

How did American suffrage compare with Europe's around 1830?

• About 1.2 million Americans, nearly 50 percent of adult white men, voted in 1828.

• France's 1830 revolution gave the vote to fewer than 200,000 property owners, and Britain's Reform Bill of 1832 to about 800,000.

Why did New England switch to supporting high tariffs in the 1820s?

• Its wool and textile industries were booming.

• Leaders like Daniel Webster concluded that its future depended on factories, not shipping.

How did the Tariff of 1828 pass?

• Jacksonians proposed very high rates, expecting the bill to fail and embarrass Adams.

• To their surprise, it passed, and Jackson inherited the problem.

Why did the South hate the Tariff of Abominations?

• Southerners sold cotton in an unprotected world market but had to buy manufactured goods at tariff-raised prices.

• The Old South was in hard times, and the tariff was a convenient scapegoat.

What deeper fear lay behind southern opposition to the tariff?

• Southerners feared federal interference with slavery.

• The Missouri debates and Denmark Vesey's planned slave rebellion in Charleston (1822) raised that fear.

• If Washington could impose a tariff, it might someday abolish slavery, so they took a stand on states' rights.

What was the South Carolina Exposition (1828)?

• It was a pamphlet secretly written by Vice President John C. Calhoun.

• It called the tariff unjust and unconstitutional.

• Going beyond the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, it said states should nullify the tariff.