Chapter 10: Democracy in America (The Age of Jackson)

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the rise of democratic politics, the market revolution, sectional controversies, Indian Removal, and the Bank War during the Jacksonian Era.

Dorr War

An 1841–1842 political crisis in Rhode Island where propertyless wage earners held a People's Convention, drafted a constitution granting universal white male suffrage, and inaugurated Thomas Dorr as governor, prompting federal troops to suppress the movement.

Democracy in America

A two-volume analysis published in 1835 and 1840 by the French writer Alexis de Tocqueville, which characterized American democracy not merely as a set of political institutions, but as a cultural "habit of the heart" rooted in equality and active voluntary associations.

Information Revolution

The rapid expansion of printing and the public sphere in the early nineteenth century made possible by the application of steam power to printing presses, which drastically lowered production costs and multiplied newspaper output.

Penny Press

Mass-circulation newspapers priced at one cent per issue rather than the traditional six cents, introduced by publications such as the New York Sun that catered to popular audiences with crime coverage, sensationalism, and exposés of misconduct.

Minstrel Shows

Popular nineteenth-century theatrical entertainments where white performers in blackface caricatured African Americans as foolish, dishonest, or comical, solidifying an ideology of racial inferiority.

New York Constitution of 1821

A revised state constitution that eliminated property qualifications for adult white male voters while requiring Black men to possess a freehold estate valued at $\$250$ to exercise the franchise.

Constitution of the Cherokee Nation (1827)

A written constitution establishing three separate departments of government, designating tribal lands as communal property, and prohibiting individuals of African descent from holding public office.

Jim Crow

A stage character portraying a happy, childlike plantation slave, created in 1829 by minstrel actor Thomas D. Rice, whose name later became the standard term for southern racial segregation laws and customs.

Franchise

The legal right to vote in public political elections.

American System

A government-sponsored economic blueprint advanced by James Madison and Henry Clay resting on three pillars: a new national bank, protective tariffs on foreign manufactures, and federally financed roads and canals.

Tariff of 1816

The first true protective tariff in United States history, enacted to shelter domestic infant industries—particularly cheap cotton textiles—from foreign competition while admitting non-competing goods tax-free.

Second Bank of the United States

A private, profit-making institution chartered by Congress in 1816 for twenty years to act as the federal government's financial agent, collect taxes, pay debts, issue currency, and prevent local banks from overissuing paper money.

Specie

Gold or silver coinage of intrinsic value used as currency and legally required to back paper bank notes.

Panic of 1819

The nation's first major peacetime financial collapse, caused by falling overseas crop demand, credit contraction, and reckless western land speculation, which triggered widespread bankruptcies, debt relief laws, and deep public distrust of banks.

McCulloch v. Maryland

An 1819 landmark Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice John Marshall affirmed that the Second Bank of the United States was a constitutional exercise of congressional authority under the "necessary and proper" clause and that states could not tax it.

Era of Good Feelings

The contemporary label given to the two-term presidency of James Monroe ($1817\text{--}1825$), characterized by one-party Republican governance in the absence of organized national two-party competition.

Tallmadge Amendment

An 1819 proposal by New York representative James Tallmadge to ban the further introduction of enslaved persons into Missouri and grant freedom to enslaved children born there upon reaching age twenty-five.

Missouri Compromise

An 1820 legislative settlement drafted by Jesse Thomas and Henry Clay that admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, while prohibiting slavery across the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude $36^\circ 30'$.

Monroe Doctrine

An 1823 foreign policy declaration drafted by John Quincy Adams asserting that the Americas were closed to further European colonization, pledging U.S. neutrality in European wars, and warning European powers against interfering in independent Latin American nations.

Corrupt Bargain

The charge leveled by Andrew Jackson's supporters that Henry Clay used his influence as Speaker of the House to secure John Quincy Adams the presidency in 1825 in return for an appointment as secretary of state.

"Liberty Is Power"

A bold assertion delivered by President John Quincy Adams in December 1825 advocating an expansive, activist federal state that promoted commerce, sciences, a national university, and internal improvements.

Spoils System

The practice introduced to the federal level by Andrew Jackson—termed "rotation in office"—of appointing party loyalists to federal positions, such as postmasters and customs officials, rather than maintaining permanent bureaucrats.

Kitchen Cabinet

An informal group of advisers, comprised mostly of influential newspaper editors, who counseled President Andrew Jackson, helped compose his speeches, and coordinated party communications.

Producing Classes

A Jacksonian Democratic concept referring to manual laborers, artisans, and farmers whose physical work created real social wealth, contrasted against "nonproducers" like bankers, speculators, and merchants.

Whig Party

A political party formed in the 1830s that advocated Henry Clay's American System, arguing that an activist federal government, national bank, protective tariff, and public moral guidance through schools and temperance fostered national prosperity and freedom.

Tariff of Abominations

The southern moniker for the Tariff of 1828, which raised import duties sharply on manufactured woolens and raw materials like iron, provoking South Carolina's legislature to threaten nullification.

Exposition and Protest

An 1828 essay drafted secretly by Vice President John C. Calhoun for the South Carolina legislature that justified nullification on the grounds that sovereign states had formed the federal government by compact and retained the right to void unconstitutional federal laws within their boundaries.

Force Act

An 1833 statute passed by Congress at Andrew Jackson's request authorizing the president to employ the U.S. army and navy to enforce federal customs laws during the South Carolina nullification crisis.

Indian Removal Act of 1830

A federal law signed by Andrew Jackson that allocated funds to uproot eastern Native American nations and forcibly relocate them to lands west of the Mississippi River.

Black Hawk War

An 1832 armed conflict in which Sauk war leader Black Hawk led over $1,000$ followers back across the Mississippi River to reclaim their ancestral lands in Illinois before being defeated by federal and state forces.

Worcester v. Georgia

An 1832 Supreme Court ruling establishing that Indian nations were distinct political communities with territorial boundaries in which state laws had no authority, giving the federal government exclusive jurisdiction to negotiate with them.

Trail of Tears

The Cherokee term for their forced military deportation from Georgia to Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma) during the winter of $1838\text{--}1839$, during which at least one-quarter of the $18,000$ Cherokees perished.

Sequoyah

The Cherokee scholar who developed the Cherokee syllabary writing system, allowing the Cherokee Nation to write personal letters, publish the bilingual newspaper Cherokee Phoenix, and record official government business.

Osceola

A Seminole leader of Red Stick Creek origin who waged guerrilla warfare against the United States military during the Second Seminole War ($1835\text{--}1842$) to resist forced expulsion from Florida.

William Apess

A Pequot activist, War of 1812 veteran, and Methodist preacher who published the 1829 autobiography A Son of the Forest to challenge Indian Removal and advocate for harmonious racial coexistence.

Bank War

The fierce political conflict during Andrew Jackson's presidency sparked by his 1832 veto of the congressional recharter of the Second Bank of the United States, which he condemned as an unaccountable monopoly favoring the wealthy.

Soft Money and Hard Money

The Jacksonian currency debate distinguishing between paper bank notes subject to depreciation ("soft money") and gold or silver specie seen by hard-money advocates as the only genuine, stable currency.

Pet Banks

Select state banks, often chosen because of political ties to the Jackson administration, that received federal deposits removed by executive order from the Second Bank of the United States beginning in 1833.

Specie Circular

An executive decree issued by the Jackson administration in July 1836 stipulating that the federal government would accept only gold and silver as payment for public lands to halt speculative paper money inflation.

Panic of 1837

A severe economic depression lasting from 1837 to 1843, triggered by a British financial downturn, reduced demand for American cotton, credit contractions, and land speculation failures.

Independent Treasury

A financial policy enacted under Martin Van Buren in 1840 that completely divorced the federal government from private and state banking institutions by keeping public revenues exclusively in the U.S. Treasury Department.

"Log Cabin" Campaign

The 1840 Whig presidential election strategy that successfully promoted wealthy candidate William Henry Harrison as a common, log-cabin-born frontiersman and military hero while denouncing Martin Van Buren as an out-of-touch aristocrat.