Period 4 (ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS)

The Rise of Political Parties and The Age of Jefferson

• Jefferson vs Alexander Hamilton

  • Hamilton was the leader of the Federalist Party

    • Federalist Party - Fought for a strong central government; favored manufacturing

  • Jefferson was the leader of the Democratic Republicans

    • Democratic Republican - Favored agrarianism; limited government involvement

• Revolution of 1800 - Marks Jefferson becoming president, marks the first ever peaceful transfer of power’

• Policy Debates

  • Removal of the Whiskey tax

  • Minimized military and political jobs

  • Jefferson was very keen on following things exactly as the constitution said, known as Strict constructionism

  • Federalists were Loose constructionists

• Louisiana Purchase - The purchasing of the Louisiana territory from France; Jefferson became conflicted on whether this purchase was constitutional;

• Corps of Discovery - led by William Clark and Meriwether Lewis; exploration of the northern Louisiana purchase

• Supreme Court

• John Marshall - Expanded the power of the federal court

  • Marbury v Maddison -

    • Judiciary Act - Created new openings for federal judges

    • Midnight Judges - Appointed by John Adams to sway the courts towards federalist beliefs after they left office

    • James Madison did not appoint a federalist judge named William Marbury, which led to a lawsuit saying that under the Judiciary Act, he had the right to take his position

    • Verdict by John Marshall: Established that the Supreme Court had the right to declare laws unconstitutional and declared the judiciary act unconstitutional; led to judicial review which increased the power of the Supreme Court

  • Mucculloch v Maryland of 1819

    • Argument on whether the state had the right to tax the federal bank

    • Verdict by Marshall: States were not allowed to tax national banks, AND Federal law trumps state law, which expanded federal power even more

• Policy battles

  • Barbary states - The US was paying the Barbary pirates to protect America from the seas. In Jefferson’s presidency, the Barbary pirates demanded more commission, but Jefferson refused, which led to mass fighting between the U.S. navy and the Barbary pirates; it was never a full war, a peace treaty was signed

  • War of 1812 - During James Madison’s presidency, America won the battle, and Britain officially left the country alone, which led to the demise of the Federalists, who were against the war

    • Impressment - The kidnapping of Americans onto British ships; one of the reasons why the U.S. went back to war with Britain

    • Frontier issues: The British gave weapons to the native Americans to attack U.S. migrants going west

    • War Hawks - People who like war to defend their country; mostly anti-federalists

    • Hartford Convention - Federalists held a convention which threatened to secede from the union if America went to war with Britainib

Politics and Regional Interests

• Federalists heavily opposed the war of 1812, but when America won that war, there was a surge of nationalism, which led to the party diminishing

• Problems discovered with the war

  • National bank was disestablished by 1811, which meant the U.S. lacked a surge of funds

  • Showed how weak the U.S. infrastructure and transportation were

• Henry Clay - Sought to fix all the issues found in the War of 1812, using the American System

  • American System

    1. Federally funded internal improvements (roads and canals); rejected by Madison because it was seen as an overreach of federal power

    2. Federal Tariffs (taxes on imported goods)

    3. Second Bank of the United States

• Missouri Compromise - when Missouri applied to be a state, there was arguments on if it was a slave state or free state; Missouri would end up becoming a slave state while a new state (Maine) was entered into the union as a free state; The 36 30 line was established which made it so that any territory above that line were automatically free states while any territory below it were considered slave states

  • Reasons why this was argued

    • There was a perfect balance between slave and free states; so if another is added, the side that gets the state will dominate in the federal power

    • Tallmadge Amendment - Proposed by James Tallmadge; proposed that Missouri would ban slavery after 25 years which made southeners mad

American on the World Stage

• Territorial Disputes

  • Treaty of Ghent (1814) - the treaty that ended the War of 1812 but left problems with territories; ended up establishing the U.S. and Canada border later on and agreed to share the Oregon territory with Britain

  • Florida territory - the Spanish were having trouble running Florida territory due to a lack of military in the area; The Spanish ended up selling the territory to the U.S. after expressed interest was raised, this is known as the Adams-Onis Treaty

  • Monroe Doctrine - Said that the lands on the continent west of the U.S. were strictly for the U.S. to deal with, and European militaries were not allowed to intervene; done for trade purposes and keeping Europe away

Market Revolution: Industrialization and Society

• Market Revolution - the linking of northern industries with western and southern farms, which was created by advances in agriculture, industry, and transportation; marked Americans’ transition from an agrarian society to a capitalistic society

• Transportation changes

  • National Road - Connected Maryland and Illinois in 1000 miles of paved road

  • Canals were implemented, such as the Erie Canal in new york, which also led to the invention of the steamboat

  • The steamboat, a new invention in the early 1800s, was a reliable and efficient way to send and receive materials

  • Railroad - linked regions for trade and manufactures

• Technology

  • Eli Witney - created interchangeable parts for guns; the factory system became popular as a result

• Agricultural

  • Eli Witney - Created the Cotton gin, which increased efficiency in separating cotton seeds to cotton fibers; created the spinning machine that turned cotton fibers into fabric, which transformed agriculture

  • Subsistence Farming - farming made for survival, a prominent system before this period, and was replaced with commercial farming

  • Commercial farming - Focused on crops for money; led to international trade as well

• Societal changes

  • Migration

    • European Immigrants - Irish people came because of the great potato famine at the time, and German people came for new economic and democratic reasons

    • Led to mass employment in northern industries

    • Immigrants brought their culture with them

    • Nativists - People who were against immigration

  • The middle class began to expand in the north, which was its society with different norms

    • Temperance - No alcohol

    • Religious Affiliation mattered a lot

    • Had money to spend on LEISURE

  • Women Changes

    • Cult of Domesticity - women's job is to raise babies and provide a home that was a haven of rest for her family, while her husband was meant to bring all the money; firmly established in this period, and even more in the middle class

    • Lowell Factory - Staffed mostly by women with very little pay and long hours

Expanding Democracy

• Panic of 1819 - occured as an effort to control inflation and caused many state banks to close; caused mass economic downfalls, job loss, and increased incarsery rates do to not being able to pay off debts; Resulted in outcry to change the voting systems, as only people with poperty could vote

• Democratic republicans

  • At the time they were the only poltical party as the federalist party was dismantled, however as time progressed they began to seperate into two parties

  • Democrat - believed in limited federal power and strict interpretation of the constitution

  • National Republicans - Believed in expansive view of federal power; loose constitution interpretation

• Election of 1824

  • Had 4 canidates within the democratic republicans

  • Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and Henry Clay (Fourth one doesnt really matter)

  • Jackson tecnically won the popular vote but because no canidate won the elctorial votes, the decision for president went to the house of the representatives

  • Henry Clay used his influence to help Quincy Adams win the elction which infuriated JAckson, which led to jackson calling the election a “Corrupt Bargain”

Jackson and Federal Power

• By the late 1820s, the democrats and whigs (originally national republicans) started becoming their own seperate political parties

• Democrats believed in limited power in federal government, free trade, and local rule, and they didnt like corporate monopolies, high tariffs, and national banks; led by andrew jacksoj

• Whigs believed in involved central government, national bank, protective tariffs, and federally funded internal improvements, and didnt like crimes commited by immigrants; led by Henry Clay

• Tariff of 1828 - Raised Import taxes by 30-40% which is MASSIVE; latter removed by John Calhoun, refering to it as the tariff of abominations

• Doctrine of Nullification - John Calhoun argued that if a state found a federal law unconstitutional, they didn’t need to abide to that law, which led south carolina to take advantage and Andrew Jackson to intervene

• Force Bill - Gave Andrew Jackson permission to enter South Carolina with military to prevent any possible rebellion; led to the tariff being reduced

• National Bank

  • Second bank Of the United States was supposed to be rechartered in 1832, however Andrew Jackson veto’d the bill to do so because he felt as it was not constititutional

• Internal Improvements

  • Jackson and his followers believed that any form of internal improvements was a stretch too far in federal power

• Indian Removal

  • Indian Removal Act - forcibly removed all indians from their land to the Oklahoma territory

  • Worcester vs Georgia - The Cherokee Nation was a native american tribe that sued the state of Georgia as they viewed their forced removal as unconstitutional; the Supreme Court sided with Cherokee Nation, BUT

  • Treaty of New Echota - Exchanged Cherokee land to restricted land west of the Mississippi River

  • Trail of Tears - the travel native americans took after the indian removal act led to a lot of death

The Development of American Culture

• Romanticism - Expressed in literature, arts, etc.; trades in an era of rational thinking with one of emotion and desire

• Architecture

  • Switch to Greek and Roman architecture rather than English structures

• Literature

  • Books started shifting to incorporate romantic styles from British books, in order to entice different ideas such as westward expansion

• Art

  • Hudson River School - Represented the landscapes found in America in realist ways that represented themes of expansion

  • Romancism sacrificed realism for sentiment and emotion

• Transcendentalism - A Philosophical idea that came about during the early 1800s, which believed in self-determination and reflection towards spiritual awakening

  • Ralph Waldo Emerson - Discussed topics of individualism and self-reliance

  • Henry David Thoreau - Writer of the Transcendentalism movement

• Utopian communities - Communities that moved away from society on their own

  • Shakers - Shared property; Died off because of distaste toward sex

  • Oneida communities - Shared property and believed in equality for all, thought that everyone in the community was one big family

The Second Great Awakening

• The Second Great Awakening - A series of religious revivals among Protestant Christians that emphasized righteous living, personal restraint, and a strong moral rectitude that would lead a person and society to salvation

• Causes

  • Market Revolution made people believe that if people worked hard enough, they would be able to save their selves for salvation

  • Rise of Democratic and individualistic beliefs

  • Rejection of rationalism in favor of romanticism

• Charles Grandison Finney - founded a new form of preaching with great emotion with plain language for common folks to understand

The Age of Reform

• Market revolution was the cause of the age of reform

• Religious Reform

  • Christian Reform in Mormonism

    • The founder was named Joseph Smith

    • Difference was that the church was swaying away from the morals of Jesus Christ, and Mormonism was the way to bring the church back, all written in the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith

    • They would eventually move to the Utah territory

• Temperance (Avoidance of Alcohol)

  • Induced by the Second Great Awakening to cure social ills

  • The American Temperance Society - Directed their efforts to working class men to attack the use of alcohol

• Abolitionism (The fight against slavery)

  • Gradual End vs Immediate End was the debate here

  • William Lloyd Garrian - writer of the Liberator that said white people needed to stand against slavery through moral argument and not violence; also created the American Antislavery society

  • Frederick Douglass - Published a book about his life in slavery, which emphasized the dehumanization in the slavery movement

• Womens rights

  • Seneca Falls Convention - Addressed women's rights in American society; led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott

  • Declaration of Sentiments and Resolution - written like the declaration of Independence but included women into it and the grievances that were brought until women

African Americans in the Early Republic

• Culture

  • Kept their names and languages from their previous homes to maintain their culture

  • Maintained culture through folktales and dance, which was spread throughout the south

  • Maintained religions

  • Despite the attempts to erase culture, enslaved people still attempted to maintain their culture

• Resistance

  • The Haitian Revolution brought fear onto the white plantation owners, which led to the suppression of any idea of rebellion

  • Nat Turner’s Rebellion - Led by Nat Turner; Led a rebellion by killing white enslavers; was eventually stopped, but led to the death of hundreds of enslaved people and much stricter regulation

  • United States vs Aminstad - Aminstad was a ship with enslaved black people, in which they killed the crew and captain on the boat before they arrived on the east coast, for which they awaited trial; the court was in favor of the enslaved black people and they were granted freedom

  • Many Southern enslavers believed that black people were more like farm animals, which made them believe that they benefitted from enslavement, with rebellion however these ideas would be growingly more difficult to justify