U.S. Politics and Economy in the 1820s-1830s: Key Events and Figures

Corrupt Bargain

(1824) Alleged deal where Speaker Henry Clay backed John Quincy Adams in the House; Adams became president and appointed Clay Secretary of State.

Minstrel Shows

19th-century stage acts where white (and later Black) performers used blackface to caricature African Americans.

Whigs

Party formed in the 1830s around Henry Clay and J.Q. Adams; promoted Congress-led economic development (Bank, tariffs, internal improvements).

Spoils System

Jackson's rotation in office—awarding federal jobs based on party loyalty rather than long tenure.

Jacksonian Democrats

Movement/party elevating the "common (white) man," suspicious of concentrated economic power, favoring limited federal role in the economy.

Tariff of Abominations (1828)

Very high protective tariff on imports.

Nullification Crisis (1832-33)

South Carolina declared federal tariffs null and void; Jackson threatened force; ended with compromise tariff and Force Bill.

John C. Calhoun

SC politician/VP; leading theorist of states' rights and nullification.

Bank War (1832-36)

Jackson's effort to destroy the Second Bank of the U.S. (veto recharter, remove deposits to "pet banks").

Panic of 1837

Financial collapse driven by credit contraction, speculation, specie pressures (e.g., Specie Circular, British tightening).

Dame Schools

Small, fee-based schools run by women teaching basic literacy to young/poor children.

Charity Schools

Philanthropy-funded urban schools for poor children.

MA Constitution of 1780 (education)

State charter declaring a civic duty to promote education for virtue and knowledge.

James Carter's vision

Early 1830s plan for state supervision, professional teacher training, standardized methods.

School Law of 1827 (Massachusetts)

Required towns to maintain schools and lengthened terms.

MA State Board of Education (1837)

State oversight body; Horace Mann as first secretary.

Universal Access

Schooling for all children regardless of wealth/status.

Increased State Control

Greater state role in curricula, training, and oversight.

Religious Neutrality

Minimizing sectarian doctrine in public classrooms.

Congregationalists

Dominant New England Protestant denomination with local church autonomy.

Unitarians

Liberal Protestants stressing reason and moral reform.

Schoolmaster Resistance

Teacher/local pushback against outside inspectors or new methods.

Parochial schools

Church-run schools (often Catholic).

Common Schools

Tax-supported public elementary schools for all children.

Public School Society (NYC)

Private body managing early city 'public' schools before full municipal control.

Nativists

Anti-immigrant activists favoring cultural/religious uniformity.

Barto's wagon

Popular early 19th-century school reader/moral tale.

Rate bills

Per-pupil fees charged to families for 'public' schools.

Transcendentalists

New England intellectuals prioritizing individual conscience, nature, and self-reform over custom/institutions.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Leading transcendentalist; champion of self-reliance and nonconformity.

Henry David Thoreau

Transcendentalist writer; advocated conscience over law and simplicity close to nature.

Second Great Awakening

Wave of Protestant revivals stressing free will, self-improvement, and mass conversion.

Burned-Over District

Revivals-swept region of western/central New York.

Utopian Communities

Experimental societies seeking cooperative life, often rethinking property, family, and labor.

Dorothea Dix

Reform advocate for the mentally ill and prisoners.

Temperance Movement

Mass campaign to curb/eliminate alcohol consumption.

Women's Rights Convention at Seneca Falls (1848)

First U.S. women's rights convention; issued the Declaration of Sentiments.

American Colonization Society (ACS)

Founded 1816 to promote gradual emancipation and settlement of Black Americans in Liberia.

Liberia

West African colony established with ACS support; independent in 1847.

David Walker

Free Black abolitionist; author of Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829).

Sojourner Truth

Formerly enslaved abolitionist and women's rights orator.

The Liberator

William Lloyd Garrison's Boston newspaper demanding immediate emancipation and equal rights.

William Lloyd Garrison

Leading immediatist; co-founder, American Anti-Slavery Society; editor of The Liberator.

Frederick Douglass

Formerly enslaved orator/writer; editor of The North Star.

Moral suasion

Strategy of appealing to conscience/Christian ethics to end slavery.

Abolitionists' perceptions of the Constitution

Split—Garrison saw it as pro-slavery; Douglass argued it could be read as anti-slavery.

Elijah Lovejoy

Abolitionist newspaper editor murdered by a mob in Alton, Illinois (1837).