RAHHHH APUSH (UNIT 4) AP REVIEW

Manumission in the Chesapeake

• 1782

• Slavery on the decline:

  • The tobacco economy was chronically depressed, and many tobacco planters were shifting to wheat and livestock, a less labor-intensive form of farming that required less slaves

  • Many were committed to the principle of human liberty

  • Evangelical Christianity encouraged some planters to regard their slaves as spiritual equals, consequently, many manumitted their slaves or let them purchase their freedom

  • Widespread manumission gradually brought freedom to one-third of the African Americans in MD

• During the Revolutionary War, rumors of freedom for slaves who joined the British prompted thousands to flee behind British lines

• Some slaves took up arms for the Patriot cause in return for the promise of freedom; others struck informal bargains with their Patriot owners, trading loyalty in wartime for the hope of liberty

• The manumission act in VA allowed owners to free their slaves, granting about 10,000 freedom

Slater to RI

• 1790

• To protect its textiel industry from American competition, Great Britain prohibited the export of textile machinery and the emigration of the skilled craftsmen who could replicate the mills

• The promise of higher wages brought mechanics to the US illegally, such as Samuel Slater

• Slater reproduced Britain’s most advanced British machinery

Bank of the US

• 1791

• Merchants needed capital to finance their ventures and initially sourced it from British suppliers

• The introduction of American banks proved immensely helpful

• Federalists in Congress chartered the Bank of the US, which had branches in eight seaport cities, profited an average of 8% annually, and gave clients easy access to capital

• Jeffersonians attacked the bank as unconstitutional, refusing to renew it after its charter expired in 1811

Post Office Act

• 1792

• The national government created a vast postal system, the first network fo the exchange of information

• Created more than 8,000 post offices by 1830

• Delivered thousands of letters and banknotes worth millions of dollars, along with newspapers that carried information from the Atlantic seaboard to the Mississippi basin

Cotton gin

• 1793

Domestic slave trade

• 1800s

• Planters seeking labor looked to the Chesapeake region, where the African American population naturally increased at an average of 27% a decade, creating a surplus of enslaved workers

• The Chesapeake and Carolina planters provided the human cargo

• The slave trade resulted in a massive transplantation of more than 1 million slaves, where the majority now lived and worked in the Deep South

• Transfer– many planters gave slaves to their sons and daughters who moved west

• Coastal trade–ran to the Atlantic coast and sent thousands to rapidly developing sugar plantations in LA

  • Elicited widespread condemnation by northern abolitionists

  • Sugar was a “killer crop” and the trade was highyl visible

• Inland system– fed slaves to the Cotton South

  • Extensive system

• Many planters doubled as slave traders, earning substantial profits by selling their laborers

  • Planters in the Chesapeake and Carolinas added about 20% to their income by doing so

• Significance: Critical to the prosperity of the fast-developing Cotton South; sustained the wealth of slaveowners in the East

Coastal trade

• Ran to the Atlantic coast and sent thousands to rapidly developing sugar plantations in LA

• Elicited widespread condemnation by northern abolitionists

• Sugar was a “killer crop” and the trade was highly visible

Inland system

• An extensive system that fed slaves to the Cotton South

Steamboats

• 1807

• Halved the cost of upstream river transport and dramatically increased the flow of goods, people, and news

• Steamboats were built with wide hulls to reduce their draft and enlarge their cargo capacity

National Road

• 1811

• To link westward migrants to the seaboard states, Congress approved funds for a road constructed of compacted gravel

• Began at Cumberland in western MD and reached Wheeling, VA

Second Bank of the US

• 1816

• Merchants, artisans, and farmers quickly persuaded state legislatures to charter banks after the Bank of the US was closed

• National Republicans later chartered the Second Bank of the US

Erie Canal

• 1817

• A 364-mile waterway connecting the Hudson River and Lake Erie

• The construction was financed by the New York legislature

  • Vigorously supported by NYC merchants, who wanted access to western markets

  • Supported by New York’s governor, who proposed to finance the waterway from tax revenues, tolls, and bond sales

• Altered the ecology of an entire region

  • Farming communities and market towns sprang up along the waterway

  • Settlers cut down millions of trees to provide wood for buildings and to open the land for growing crops and animals

  • Spring rains caused massive erosion of the denuded landscape

• Brought prosperity to the farmers of central and western NY and the entire Great Lakes region

• Northeastern manufacturers shipped clothing, boots, and agricultural equipment to farm families in exchange for grain, cattle, hogs, and raw materials to eastern cities and foreign markets

• Prompted a national canal boom– business leaders in major cities persuaded their state legislatures to invest in canal companies or to force state-chartered banks to do so

Panic of 1819

• Brought on by bad banking policies

• American imports of English woolen and cotton goods spiked, but farmers faced an abrupt 30% drop in world agricultural prices

• As farmers’ income declined, they could not pay dets owed to stores and banks, prompting many of them to go bankrupt

Congress lowers price of federal land

• 1820

• Slave-owning planters, yeomen families, and East Coast migrants were on the move seeking new land

• To meet the demand for cheap farmsteads, Congress reduced the price of federal land from $2.00 an acre to $1.25

• Enticed about 5 million people to states and territories west of the Alps

Gang labor system

• 1820s

• Previously, many planters had supervised workers only sporadically, or had assigned them tasks to complete at their own pace

• The gang-labor system enhanced profits by increasing productivity

Gibbons v. Ogden

• 1824

• The SC, under Marshall, encouraged interstate trade by firmly establishing federal authority over interstate commerce

• Prevented local or state monopolies– or tariffs– from impeding the flow of goods, people, and news across the nation

Boom in cotton production

• 1830s

• The cotton boom immediately tripled the value of good southern farmland, leading to mass dispossession of Native Americans

• Cotton was widely profitable, returning up to 22.5% a year on investment

• Became the cornerstone of the nation’s economy– between 1815 and 1860, cotton accounted for more than half of all US exports

• Large quantities of excess cotton were sold to Great Britain– “Cotton is King”

• Heightened economic inequality

Labor movement emerges

• 1830s

• Wage earners in traditional crafts that required specialized skills formed unions to bargain with their master-artisan employers

  • Resented low wages and long hours, which restricted their family life and educational opportunities

• Union leaders expanded artisan republicanism to include wageworkers

• Condemned the new factory system in which “capital and labor send opposed”

• Advanced a labor theory of value

Middle-class emerges

• 1830s

• The social product of increased commerce– made up of farmers, mechanics, manufacturers, traders, etc.

• A surge in income along with an abundance of inexpensive mass-rpoduced goods fostered a distinct middle-class urban culture

• Middle-class wives became purveyors of genteel culture, buying books, pianos, lithographs, and furniture for their homes

• Upper-middle class families hired Irish or African American domestic servants

• Professionals with other skills were suddenly in great demand and well compensated, as were middling business owners and white-collar clerks

• Middle-class morality– moral and mental discipline

  • Denounced racuous carnivals and festivals

• Ambitious parents were concerned with their children’s moral and intellectual development

• Stressed the values of diligent work and discipline

• Celebrated work as the key to victory– the self-made man

Telegraph

• 1837

• Massachusetts painter-turned-inventor, Morse, devised a telegraph capable of sending signals

• By 1848, telegraph wires connected NY and Chicago

Gradual emancipation in the North

• 1840s

• In 1780, antislavery activists in PA passed the first gradual emancipation law; many northern states followed suit

• Recognized white property rights by requiring slaves to buy their freedoms through years, and even decades, of additional labo

• Freed blacks faced severe prejudice from whites who feared job competition and integration

• Significance: The institution of slavery was being ushered slowly out of existence

Commonwealth v. Hunt

• 1842

• Chief justice Shaw of the MA Supreme Judicial Court upheld the right of workers to form unions and call strikes to enforce closed-shop agreements that limited employment to union members

Industrial Revolution

• Began in Britain, where water and steam made spinning cloth increasingly efficient

• Cloth-making moved out of households and into factories built alongside rivers

• Water-powered production made cloth production soar– a revolution in productivity

• Technological innovation swept through American manufacturing– exemplified by the Sellars, Eli Whitney, etc.

• Mass production spreads– reasonably priced products such as Remington rifles, Singer sewing machines, and Yale locks became common household items

Resurgence of slavery

• Political leaders now argued that slavery was a “necessary evil” required to maintain white supremacy and the luxurious planter lifestyle

• In VA, slave owners pushed back against the wave of manumissions, fearing the possibility of total emancipation

• Later, legislators forbade further manumissions

• In the rice-growing states of SC and GA, slavery remained firmly entrenched

Urban workers and the poor

• Often worked on a short-term basis for arduous jobs

• Poor women washed clothes, husbands and sons carried lumber and bricks for construction projects

• Rarely had enough to “pay rent, buy fire wood, and eatables”

• Congregated in dilapidated housing in bad neighborhoods– lived in crowded boardinghouses, while others jammed themselves into small  basements and attics

State banks

• Many state legislatures chartered banks at the behest of merchants, artisans, and farmers

• These banks were often shady operations that issued notes without adequate specie reserves, made loans to insiders, and lent generously to farmers buying overpriced land

Lancaster Turnpike Company

• Built a 65-mile graded and graveled toll road to Philadelphia that boosted the regional economy greatly

Cotton mill employees

• Thousands of young women from farm families were recruited to work in mills

• In MA, mill owners reassured parents about their daughters’ moral welfare by enforcing strict curfews, prohibiting alcohol, and requiring regular church attendance

• Lived in better conditions than they did on crowded farmhouses

• Women had greater independence; many used their salaries to help their families or just have spendable income

• As  wages fell and work rules increased, women united to protest

  • Some went on strike, others refused to enter the mills

Boston Manufacturing Company

• Pioneered the first textile plant to consolidate all operations in one factory at Waltham, MA

• Pioneered the Waltham-Lowell System

African Americans

• Thousands of slaves were sent south, destroying about one in every four marriages

• The slave trade often focused on young adults

• The trade separated almost a third of all slave children under the age of fourteen from one or both parents

• Sense of family remained strong– about 75% of slave marriages remained unbroken, and the majority of children lived with one or both parents

Sellars

• American-born artisans had replaced British immigrants at the cutting edge of technological innovation

• Samuel Sellars Jr. invented a machine for twisting worsted woolen yarn to give it an especially smooth surface

• John Sellar improved the efficiency of the waterwheels powering sawmills and built a machine to weave wire sieves

• John’s sons and grandsons ran machine shops that turned out riveted leather fire hoses, papermaking equipment, and eventually locomotives

• Founded the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1824

Industrial workers

• As outwork and factory systems spread, more and more workers became wage earners who labored under the control of an employer

• Men bridled at their status as supervised wageworkers– sought to assert their independence

  • Rejected the terms of master and servant for boss

  • Apprentices rejected masters’ control of their private lives

• Wage earners in traditional crafts that required specialized skills formed unions to bargain with their master-artisan employers

  • Resented low wages and long hours, which restricted their family life and educational opportunities

• Some artisans faced low-paid factory work, while others maintained their own trade

• The industrial system split the traditional artisan class into self-employed craftsmen and wage-earning workers

• Unions were illegal in English and American common law

• Alluding to the American Revolution, they called for a new revolution to demolish the aristocracy of capital

• Women were active in unions as well– increasingly refused to enter the mills

Elite businessmen

• The urban economy made the merchants, manufacturers, bankers, and landlords very rich

• In 1800, the richest 10% of the nation’s families owned about 40% of the wealth

• Government tax policies facilitated the accumulation of wealth– no general taxes on individual and corporate income

• Affluent families set themselves apart by dressing in well-tailord clothes, riding in fancy carriages, and buying expensively furnished homes with servants

• Lived in separate neighborhoods, often in exclusive central areas or at the city’s edge

Canals

• Overland travel was slow and expensive; artisans, farmers, and manufacturers created faster and cheaper ways to get their ever expanding array of goods across the expanding country

• State governments and private entrepreneurs dredged shallow rivers and constructed canals

• A massive system of canals and roads took place linking states along the Atlantic with new states in the trans-Appalachian west

The Midwest

• Contained the largest and most productive contiguous acreage of arable land in the world

• By 1860, nearly one-third of the nation’s citizens lived in its eight states

• Migration here was spurred by transportation improvements during the Market Revolution

American cotton mills

• Many were located along the Alps, where fast-flowing rivers provided a cheap source of energy

• Improved on British technology in mills to compete with England

• Hired young women from farm families for cheap labor

The black belt

• An arc of fertile soil stretching from western SC through central GA, Alabama, and MS

• Provided a landscape that was ideal for cotton cultivation, promoting the slave plantation complex

Western commercial cities

• Began as transit centers, where workers transferred goods to flatboats or steamboats

• As the midwestern population grew, they also emerged as dynamic centers of commerce

• Later became manufacturing centers– capitalized on links to rivers and canals to build warehouses, flour mills, packing plants, and machine shops

New York City

• Remained important for foreign commerce, and increasingly, as a center of finance and small scale-manufacturing

• Grew at a phenomenal rate due to Germany and Irish immigrants

• Became a center of the ready-made clothing industry

• By 1840, NYC’s port handled almost two-thirds of foreign imports into the US, almost half of all foreign trade, and much of the immigrant traffic

Chesapeake

• Slaveownership was more widely diffused– about 60% of families owned at least one slave

• As wealthy tobacco planters moved their estates and slaves to the Cotton South, middling whites came to dominate the Chesapeake economy

• Grain farmers, lawyers, merchants, industrialists, and politicians rose to dominance

Neomercantilism

• A system of government-assisted economic development

• Encourages private entrepreneurs to seek individual opportunity and the public welfare through market exchange

Commonwealth system

• A republican political economy created by state governments

• Funneled state aid to private businesses whose projects would improve the general welfare

Market Revolution

• A term used to describe the economic boom resulting from new banking and transportation systems

Impact of transportation improvements

• Roads, turnpikes, canals, steamboats, the telegraph, and the postal service helped to shrink the vast spaces of NA

• Enabled farmers and merchants to sell goods in distant markets, helped entrepreneurs coordinate business activity, aided immigrants as they relocated, and created a network of information that shaped politics and culture nationally

Cotton complex

• The relationship between northern industry and southern agriculture that drove a major economic transformation

Waltham-Lowell System

• A system where women were hired to work in mills for cheap labor

Benevolence

• Planters in the Cotton Belt took the lead in defending slavery

• Apologists rejected the view that slavery was a “necessary evil,” promoting it as a “positive good” because it subsidized an elegant lifestyle for a white race and provided tutelage for genetically inferior Africans

• Depicted planters and their wives as aristocratic models of “disinterested benevolence” who provided food and housing for their workers

• Embraced Christian stewardship and tried to shape the religious lives of their chattel

  • Acted from sincere Christian belief, hoped to counter abolitionist criticism, and to use religious teachings to control their workers

• Increasingly used religious justifications for human bondage

Paternalism

• Many white planters commited themselves benevolent masters

• Some gave substance to the paternalist ideal by treating “loyal and worthy” waves kindly

Artisan republicanism

• Championed by craft workers, who saw themselves as small-scale producers, equal to one another and free to work for themselves

• An ideology of production based on liberty and equality

Labor theory of value

• Advocated by workers unions, argued that goods should reflect the labor required to make them, and that the income from their sale should go primarily to the producers, not to managers, factory owners, or middlemen

Voting rights expand

• 1810s

• By the 30s, most states allowed nearly all white men to vote

• MD reformers in the 1810s invoked the equal rights rhetoric of republicanism, charging that property qualifications for voting were “tyranny”

• Legislators in MD and other seaboard states grudgingly expanded the franchise

• The new voters elected men who dressed simply and endorsed popular rule

• Farmers and laborers in the Midwest and Southwest challenged the old order– prescribed a board male franchise, and voters usually elected middling men to local and state offices

• Men from modest backgrounds restricted imprisonment for debt, kept taxes low, and allowed farmers to claim squatters’ rights to unoccupied land

Notables system

• The AR weakened the elite-run society of the colonial era but did not overthrow it; families of low rank continued to defer to notables

• Northern landlords, slave-owning planters, and seaport merchants dominated the political system

• Notables mananged local elections by building up an “interest”: lending money to small farmers, giving business to storekeepers, and treating their tenants to rum

• Notable-run system prevented men who lacked wealth and powerful connections from seeking office

Party politics emerge

• 1810s

• Revolutionary-era Americans had condemned political factions as antirepublican

• As the power of notables waned, disciplined political parties appeared in a number of states; parties were often run by professional politicians

• System engineered by Martin Van Buren

• Van Buren’s “Bucktail” supporters turned into the first statewide political machine

• Van Buren used his newspaper, the Albany Argus, to promote his policies and gain the vote in 1821; used patronage as well

• After winning control of the NY legislature, the Bucktails used their power to appoint some six thousand friends to positions in the NY government

• Critics dubbed this a spoils system, but Van buren argued that it was fair, as it reflected the preferences of a majority of the citizenry

American Colonization Society

• 1817

• Founded by a group of prominent citizens; argued for gradual emancipation plans

• Most believed that emancipation should include compensation to masters and that freedpeople should be deported from the US

  • Clay argued that racial bondage hindered economic progress but emancipation without removal would cause a disastrous civil war

• Few people heeded the Society’s pleas– resettled only about 6,000 Africans in Liberia

• Colonization schemes fiercely opposed by most freed blacks, who saw themselves as Americans

Tariff of 1816

• Placed relatively high duties on imports of cheap English cotton cloth, allowing New England textile producers to control the textile market

  • Prevented British imports from dominating the market and slowing American industrialization

• Realizing the appeal of tariffs, Van Buren and his Jacksonian allies hopped on the bandwagon– increased duties on wool, hemp, and other imported raw materials to win the support of farmers

Missouri Compromise

• 1819-1821

• MO applied for admission to the Union

• Congressman Tallmadge of NY declared that he would only support MO’s statehood if its constitution banned the entry of new slaves and provided for their emancipation

• MO whites rejected Tallmadge’s proposals, and the northern majority in the HoR blocked the territory’s admission

• Southerners used their power in the Senate to withhold statehood from ME

• Southern arguments:

  • “Equal rights”-- Congress could not impose conditions on MO that it had not imposed on other territories

  • Argued that the Constitution guaranteed a state’s sovereignty with respect to its internal affairs and domestic institutions

  • Insisted that congress had no authority to infringe on the property rights of individual slaveholders

• Henry Clay devised the Missouri Compromise

• What it did: 

  • Allowed ME to enter the Union as a free state and MO to follow as a free state, preserving a balance in the Senate

  • Southern senators accepted the prohibition of slavery in most of the Louisiana Purchase, all the lands north of latitude 36 30’ except for MO

Election of 1824

• JQA elected

• Five Republican candidates campaigned for the presidency

• Secretary of State JQA

  • His family’s prestige in MA ensured him the electoral votes of New England

• Secretary of War John Calhoun

  • Withdrew and endorsed Jackson

• Secretary of the Treasury Crawford

  • Denounced Clay’s American System as a scheme to “consolidate” political power in Washington

• Clay of Kentucky

  • Clay campaigned on the American System

  • Promised to strengthen the Second Bank of the US, raise tariffs, and use tariff revenues to finance internal improvements (transport infrastructure)

  • Won praise in the Northwest, which needed better transportation, but elicited criticism in the South

• Andrew Jackson

• No candidate won an absolute majority, so the HoR chose the president from among the three highest vote-getters

• Many Representatives feared that Jackson would become a tyrant

• Clay used his influence as Speaker of the house to thwart Jackson’s election, working to support Adams

• Adams showed his gratitude by appointing Clay secretary of state, a move many Jackson supporters dubbed a corrupt bargain

Corrupt bargain

• 1824

• Clay used his influence as Speaker of the house to thwart Jackson’s election, working to support Adams

• Adams showed his gratitude by appointing Clay secretary of state, a move many Jackson supporters dubbed a corrupt bargain

• Jacksonians vowed to oppose Adams’ policies and to prevent Clay’s rise to the presidency

Clay’s American System

• 1825

• An integrated mercantilist program of national economic development

• Politicians objected to the American System on constitutional grounds– argued that infrastructure improvement was the sole responsibility of the states

Working Men’s Parties

• 1828

• Reflected the values and interests of ordinary urban workers; called for the abolition of private banks, chartered monopolies, and debtors’ pensions; demanded universal public education and a fair system of taxation

• Won some victories, electing a number of assemblymen and persuading the PA legislature to authorize tax-supported schools

• Won office in many cities

• Many politically active workers had joined the Democratic Party

• Significance: Gave political expression to their ideology of artisan republicanism, but their emphasis on proprietorship inhibited alliances between the artisan-based members and the rapidly increasing class of dependent wage-earners

Tariff of Abominations

• 1828

• What it did: Raised duties osignificantly on raw materials, textiles, and iron goods

  • Cost southerners about $100 million a year

  • Planters had to buy higher-cost American textiles and iron goods, enriching northeastern business and workers, or highly taxed british imports, thus paying the expenses of the national government

• Led to strong criticism of President Adams

Election of 1828

• Jackson elected

• Adams refused to “run” for re-election, stating, “If my country wants my services, she must ask for them”

• Van Buren revived the political coalition created by Jefferson, championing policies that appealed to both southern planters and northern farmers and artisans

• Calhoun, Jackson’s running mate, brought SC allies into Van Buren’s party

• Van Buren and the Jacksonians orchestrated a massive publicity campaign– used mass meetings, torchlight parades, and barbecues to celebrate Jackson’s frontier origin and rise to fame

• Jackson’s message appealed to many social groups

  • His hostility to corporations and to Clay’s American System won support from northeastern artisans and workers who felt threatened by industrialization

  • Captured the votes of PA ironworkers and NY farmers who had benefitted from the Tariff of Abominations

  • Remained popular in the South by declaring his support for a “judicious” tariff that would balance regional interests

  • Hostility towards Native Americans reassured white armers

Jackson vetoes National Road bill

• 1830

• Jackson’s main priority was to destroy the American System, believing that government-sponsored plans for national economic development were unconstitutional

• Argued that an extension of the National Road infringed on “the reserved powers of states”

Indian Removal Act

• 1830

• Opposed by Catharine Beecher and Lydia Sigourney

• What it did: Created the Indian Territory on national lands acquired in the LA Purchase in present-day OK and Kansas

  • Promised money and reserved land to Native American peoples who would give up their ancestral holdings east of the MS river

Cherokee Nation v. GA

• 1831

• Marshall denied that the Cherokee nation was a foreign nation, declaring them a “domestic dependent nation”

Worcester v. GA

• 1832

• Marshall and the Court sided with the Cherokees against GA

• Voided GA’s extension of state law over the Cherokees, holding that Native American groups were “distinct political communities, having territorial boundaries, within which their authority is exclusive [and is] guaranteed by the US”

Bad Axe

• 1832

• When Chief Black Hawk and his Sauk and Fox followers refused to leave their land, Jackson sent troops to expel them by force

• The US Army pursued Black Hawk into the WI Territory, killing off 850 of his 1,000 warriors

Jackson vetoes renewal of the Second Bank

• 1832

• Henry Clay and Webster persuaded Biddle to seek an early extension of the bank’s charter, hoping to lure Jackson into a veto that would split the Democrats before the 1832 elections

• Jackson vetoed the rechartering bill with a masterful message that blended constitutional arguments with class rhetoric and patriotic fervor

  • Jackson argued that Congress had no constitutional authority to charter a national bank

  • Condemned the bank as subversive of state rights, dangerous to the liberties of the people, and a privileged monopoly that promoted “the advancement of the few at the expense of… farmers, mechanics, and laborers”

  • Noted that much of the bank was foreign-owned, and such a powerful institution should be “purely American”

• Eastern workers and western farmers blamed the Second Bank for high prices and stagnant farm income

• Other Jackson supporters had prospered during a decade of strong economic growth, and cheered Jackson’s attack on privileged corporations

Bank destroyed

• 1833-1834

• Jackson appointed Taney as head of the Treasury Department

• Taney transferred the federal government’s gold and silver from the Second Bank to various state banks

• An abrupt and illegal transfer which Jackson justified by claiming that his re-election represented “the decision of the people against the bank”

• Henry Clay passed a resolution that censured the president and warned of executive tyranny– “...the concentration of all power is in the hands of one man”

Ordinance of Nullification

• 1832

• When Congress re-enacted the Tariff of Abominations, South Carolinans adopted the Ordinance of Nullification

• What it did: Prohibited the collection of tariffs in SC and threatened secession if federal officials tried to collect them

• Argued that a state had the right to void, within its borders, a law passed by Congress– a states’ rights argument

  • Based on The SC Exposition and Protest by Calhoun, which contended that protective tariffs and other national legislation that operated unequally on the various states lacked fairness and legitimacy

• Webster took a national interpretation, celebrating popular sovereignty and Congress’ responsibility to secure the general welfare

Jackson’s rebuttal to the Ordinance of Nullification

• 1833

• Jackson declared that SC’s Ordinance of Nullification violated the letter of the Constitution and was “destructive of the great object for which it was formed”

• At Jackson’s request, Congress passed a military Force Bill, authorizing the president to compel SC’s obedience to national laws

Compromise tariff

• 1833

• Jackson acknowledged SC’s complaints with a new tariff act that, over the course of a decade, reduced rates

• Export-hungry midwestern wheat farmers joined southern planters in advocating low duties to avoid retaliatory tariffs by foreign nations

Whig Party

• 1834

• Arose when a group of congressmen contested Jackson’s policies and his high-handed, “kinglike” conduct

Taney named SC chief justice

• 1835

• Partially reversed the vested-property-rights decisions of the Marshall Court and gave constitutional legitimacy to Jackson’s policies of states’ rights and free enterprise

Specie Circular

• 1836

• An executive order that required the Treasury Department to accept only gold and silver in payment for lands in the national domain

• Critics erroneously charged that the Circular drained so much specie from the economy that it sparked the Panic of 1837

Charles River Bridge

• 1837

• Taney declared that a legsialtive charter did not necessarily bestow a monopoly, and that a legislature could charter a competing bridge to promote the general welfare

  • “While the rights of private property are sacredly guarded, we must not forget that the community also has rights”

Significance: By limiting the property claims of existing canal and turnpike companies, Taney allowed legislatures to charter competing railroads that would provide cheaper and more efficient transportation

Panic of 1837

• The cause:

  • The Bank of England tried to boost the faltering British economy by sharply curtailing the flow of money and credit to the US

  • Suddenly deprived of British funds, American planters, merchants, and canal corporations had to withdraw gold from domestic banks to pay their foreign debts

  • British textile mills drastically reduced their purchases of raw cotton, causing its price to plummet

  • Within two weeks, every American bank had stopped trading specie and called in its loans, turning a financial panic into an economic crisis

• State governments attempted to stimulate the economy by increasing their investments in canals and railroads, but as governments issued more bonds, they were unable to pay the interest charges, sparking a greater financial crisis

• The consequences:

  • Threw the American economy and the workers’ movement into disarray

  • Canal construction had dropped by 90%, prices and wages had fallen by 50%, and unemployment in seaports and industrial centers had reached 20%

  • Many Americans bland the Democrats, especially Van Buren

• Van Buren, holding to his philosophy of limited government, refused to revoke the Specie Circular or take actions to stimulate the economy

Trail of Tears

• 1838

• Not all the Cherokees had resettled in Indian Territory as per their agreement

• Van Buren ordered Winfield Scott to enforce the treaty; Scott’s army rounded up 14,000 Cherokees and marched them 1,200 miles

• Along the way, 3,000 Native Americans died of starvation and exposure

“Log cabin campaign”

• 1840

• The Whigs nominated Harrison of OH for president and Tyler of VA for vice president

• The Whigs wanted a president who would rubber-stamp their program for protective tariffs and a national bank

• Whigs organized songfests, parades, and mass meetings that drew new voters into politics

• Whigs assailed “Martin Van Ruin” as a manipulative politician with aristocratic tastes

• Portrayed Harrison as a self-made man who lived in a log cabin, drinking hard cider, a drink of the common people

  • Untrue– Harrison lived in a series of elegant mansions

• The Whigs welcomed women to campaign festivities

Tyler succeeds Harrison

• 1841

• Tyler did not govern as a Whig– he had served in the House and the Senate as a Jeffersonian Democrat, firmly committed to slavery and states’ rights

• Tyler only joined the Whigs to protest Jackson’s stance against nullification

• Vetoed Whig bills that would have raised tariffs and created a new national bank

• Tyler soon became a president without a party

Education

• Republican ideology encouraged publicly supported schooling

• Farmers, artisans, and laborers wanted elementary schools that would instruct their children in reading, literature, and arithmetic

• In New England, locally funded public schools offered basic instruction to most boys and some girls, but in other regions, there were few publicly supported schools

• Few legislatures acted on public education until the 1820s– a new generation of educational reformers established state-wide standards

• Reformers required the study of American history to bolster patriotism and shared cultural ideals

Van Buren

• Pioneered the party politics system

• Grew up in the landlord-dominated society of the Hudson River Valley

• Sought an alternative to the system of deferring to local notables; wanted to create a political order based on party identity, not family connections

• Rejected the traditional republican belief that political factions were dangerous

• Claimed that political parties restricted an elected official’s inherent “disposition to abuse power”

• Van Buren’s “Bucktail” supporters turned into the first statewide political machine

• Van Buren used his newspaper, the Albany Argus, to promote his policies and gain the vote; used patronage as well

• After winning control of the NY legislature, the Bucktails used their power to appoint some six thousand friends to positions in the NY government

• Critics dubbed this a spoils system, but Van Buren argued that it was fair, as it reflected the preferences of a majority of the citizenry

• Helped defeat many of Adams’ proposed subsidies for roads and canals

African Methodist Episcopal Church

• 1816

• Founded by Richard Allen, who condemned colonization and claimed American citizenship

• Was allowed to buy his own freedom

JQA

• Criticized for his support of the treaty-guaranteed land rights of Native Americans, guarding them against expansion-minded whites

• Aloof, inflexible, and paternalistic

Jackson

• The hero of the Battle of New Orleans; benefitted from the surge of patriotism after the War of 1812

• Born in the Carolina backcountry and formed ties to influential families through marriage and a career as an attorney and slave-owning cotton planter

• His common origins symbolized the new democratic age; attracted votes thanks to his reputation as a “plain solid republican”

  • Dubbed “Old Hickory”

Jacksonians/Democrats

• Called themselves Democrats to convey their egalitarian message

• Fought for equality– argued that the republic had been corrupted by legislation that gave a few individuals privileges not enjoyed by the entire citizenry

• Mostly Catholic immigrants and traditional Protestants

Whigs

• Largely evangelical Protestants

• Took their name to identify themselves with the pre-Revolutionary American and British parties that had opposed the arbitrary actions of British monarchs

• Accused “King Andrew I” of violating the Constitution by creating a spoils system and undermining elected legislators

• Celebrated the entrepreneur and the enterprising individual– “This is a country of self-made men”

• Welcomed the investments of “moneyed capitalists”; championed a “holy alliance” among laborers, owners, and governments, calling for a return to Clay’s American System

• Included farmers, bankers, and shopkeepers who favored Clay’s American System

Southern Whigs

• The majority were poorer whites who resented the power and policies of low-country planters, most of whom were Democrats

• Rejected the Whigs’ enthusiasm for high tariffs and social mobility; led by Calhoun

• Calhoun believed that the northern Whigs’ rhetoric of equal opportunity was contradicted by slavery, which he considered a critical American institution, but also by the wage-labor system of industrial capitalism

• Calhoun urged slave and factory owners to unite against their common foe– the working class of enslaved blacks and propertyless whites

Anti-Masons

• The Anti-Masons opposed the Order of Freemasonry, which was an organization of men seeking moral improvement by promoting the welfare and unity of humanity

• Anti-Masons were highly skeptical of the Order’s ideology, mysterious symbols, and semisecret character, especially after the kidnapping and murder of a Mason who had threatened to reveal the Order’s secrets

• Anti-Masons espoused temperance, equality of opportunity, and evangelical morality, leading them to gravitate to the Whig Party

Second Bank

• The bank was privately managed and operated under a twenty-year charter from the federal government

• The bank was designed to stabilize the nation’s money supply, promising to redeem notes on demand with specie; kept state banks from issuing too much paper money and depreciating its value

• Cautious monetary policy pleased creditors

• Expansion-minded bankers demanded an end to central oversight

• Many ordinary Americans worried that the Second Bank would force weak banks to close, leaving them holding worthless paper notes

Republican motherhood

• American families underwent a demographic transition

• Women accepted greater responsibility for the welfare of the family; supported by Christian ministers

• Women were encouraged to eschew public roles and instead care for their children, a responsibility that gave them power over future generations and society as a whole

• Women were called to ensure their husbands’ and sons’ moral well-being and bring up their children in the principles of democracy

Demographic transition

• Women progressively bore less children

• Young men migrated to the west, increasing the number of never-married women in the East and delaying marriage for many

• White urban middle-class couples deliberately limited the size of their families to leave children an adequate inheritance

• Mothers, influenced by new ideas of individualism nad self-achievement, refused to spend their entire adulthood rearing children

Rotation and decentralization

• Jackson used patronage to create a disciplined national party

• Rejected the idea of “property in office”; he insisted on a rotation of officeholders when a new administration took power

• Government jobs were like the spoils of war, and Jackson used those spoils to reward his allies and win backing for his policies

Finney begins Protestant revival campaigns

• 1832

• Finney began his emotional revivals in towns along the Erie Canal

• Preached a doctrine of free will, stating that “God has made man a moral free agent” who could choose salvation

• Message of free will attracted members of the new middle class, who emphasized self-discipline, sought to improve their material condition, and welcomed Finney’s assurance that heaven was within their grasp

• In Rochester, Finney preached every day for six months, converting influential merchants and manufacturers

  • These manufacturers promised to attend church, practice temperance, and work hard; encouraged their employees to do the same

• Opposition:

  • Skilled workers in strong craft organizations resisted– argued that they needed better wages and schools more urgently than sermons and prayers

  • Many poor people ignored Finney’s revival, as did Irish Catholic immigrants, many of whom hated Protestants

• Revivalists from New England to the Midwest copied Finney’s message and techniques– the success of the revivals “has been so general and thorough… that the whole customs of society have changed”

The Second Great Awakening

• 1823

• Significance: Stimulated an array of long-lasting reform movements

• Many rejected the Calvinist emphasis on human depravity, choosing to celebrate reason and free will

  • Groups such as the Unitarians discarded the concept of the Trinity and emphasized reason

• Ministers and popular writers linked individual salvation to religious benevolence– “The mark of a true church… is when members’ heads and hearts unite in working for the welfare of the human race”

• The Second GA fostered cooperation among denominations– many interdenominational societies founded

Appeal… to the Colored Citizens of the World

• 1829

• Written by David Walker

• Protested black “wretchedness in this Republican Land of Liberty,” representing a radical challenge to the beliefs of white citizens

• Quickly went through three printings and reached free African Americans in the South

The Book of Mormon

• 1830

• Joseph Smith claimed to have translated ancient hieroglyphics on gold plates shown to him by an angel named Moroni

• Told the story of ancient Jews from the Middle East who had migrated to the Western Hemisphere and were visited by Jesus Christ after his Resurrection

• Explained the presence of Native peoples in the Americas and integrated the New World into the Judeo-Christian tradition

Minstrel shows

• 1830s

• Featured white actors in blackface presenting comic routines that combined racist caricature and social criticism

• By the 1840s, hundreds of minstrel troupes toured the country

• Largely used by white performers to depict African Americans as lazy, sensual, and irresponsible

• Also criticized white society, ridiculing the alleged drunkenness of Irishmen, parodied the halting English of German immigrants, denounced women’s demands for political rights, and mocked the arrogance of wealthy men

• Declared white supremacy most of all

Shaker communities

• Peak membership in the 1830s

• Shakers embraced common ownership of property, accepted strict oversight by church leaders, and pledged to abstauin from alcohol, tobacco, politics, and war

• Repudiated sex; relied on conversions and the adoption of young orphans to increase their numbers

• Placed community governance in the hands of both men and women

• Founded twenty communities, mostly in New England, New York, and OH

• Renowned for their agriculture and crafts, especially furniture making

• Many joined the shakers, attracted by their communal intimacy and sexual equality

Nat Turner’s Revolt

• 1831

• Nat Turner, a slave in VA, recieved a spiritual vision, prompting him and his friends to rise in rebellion where at least 55 whites died

• Turner hoped to seize weapons from a nearby armory and take up a defensive position in a swamp, but only 60 slaves joined his cause

• The white milita quickly dispersed his force and took their revenge; Turner died identifying his mission with that of his Savior– “Was not Christ crucified?”

• Outcomes:

  • Sowed terror across the South, but Southerners were unwilling to pass a law that provided for gradual emancipation

  • Southern states toughened their slave codes, limited black movement, banned independent slave preaching, and prohibited anyone from teaching slaves how to read