Chapter 14

Big Ideas

• The Second Great Awakening, liberal social ideas from abroad, and Romantic beliefs in human perfectibility fostered the rise of voluntary organizations to promote religious and secular reforms, including abolition and women's rights.

• Various groups of American Indians, women, and religious followers developed cultures reflecting their interests and experiences, as did regional groups and an emerging urban middle class.

New Ideas: Liberalism in Religion

DEISM

• Less revelation, more reliance on reason

• Less Bible, more science

• But they believe in God

  • Gave human beings capacity for moral behavior

UNITARIANISM

• Spinoff from less extreme Puritanism of the past

• Humans have free will and the possibility of salvation by good works

  • God not as stern Creator, but loving father

• Contrast with hellfire doctrines of Calvinism

• Rejecting Predestination and human wickedness

Second Great Awakening

Reasons:

• Concern over lack of religious zeal

• Ideas of Deism and Unitarianism

Wave of revivals spread across the country

• Frontier "camp meetings"

• Charles Finney- revival preacher who leads revivals in New York area in 1830s

  • Against slavery and alcohol

• Numerous citizens converted

  • "Born again Christians"

  • Boosted church attendance

• New religious sects formed

Methodists and Baptists huge increase in numbers

• Stressed personal conversion (not predestination)

• Democratic control of church affairs

• Emotionalism in worship

• Increase in evangelicalism inspire reform efforts - Age of Reform

  • Prison Reform

  • Temperance

  • Wonem’s movement

  • Anti-slavery

• Key part of Second Great Awakening was the key role of women in religion

  • Majority of new church members

  • Women role of bringing family back to God

  • Inspired involvement in various other reform efforts

Mormons

• Joseph Smith- Creates Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints

  • Travels to llinois

  • Murdered in 1844

• Brigham Young leads the followers to Utah in 1846-47

  • Develops a separate community ("New Zion")

  • Prosperous cooperative frontier community

  • Settlement increases by birthrate and immigrants from abroad (Missionary)

• Will not be admitted into the union until 1896

  • issue of polygamy (controversial topic)

Dorothy Dix

• Dorothy Dix - worked tirelessly to reform mental health treatment

• Traveled the country to document the problem

  • Leads to professional treatment for the mentally ill ix

Education Reform

• Tax supported schools were rare in early years of the republic

• Benefits of Public Education

  • Instill republican values

  • Instill values: discipline, hard work, etc.

  • Americanize immigrants

• Horace Mann- Secretary of Mass. Board of Education

  • Longer school terms

  • Compulsory attendance

  • Expanded curriculum

  • More schools

• North benefitted far more from education reforms

  • Illegal for black slaves to learn to read and write

Temperance Movement

• Drinking problems

  • Factory system needed efficient labor

  • Family life

  • Seen as immigrant issue (Irish and Germany drinking)

• American Temperance Society created in 1826

  • Urged members to stop drinking

  • Created propaganda to spread their “dry” message

- Move from temperance to legal prohibition

- Maine law of 1851

• Prohibited the manufacturer and sale of liquor

• Nationwide with 18th amendment

Women Resist

• Women were treated like second class citizens

  • Democratization did not apply to women

    • “Age of the Common Man”

• "Cult of domesticity” the home was a woman's special sphere

• Idea of "republican motherhood"

  • Mothers should raise children to be good citizens

• Women Reformers:

  • Inspired by Second Great Awakening

  • Demand rights for women, temperance movement, and the abolition of slavery

• Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton both advocated for suffrage for women

• Women's Rights: Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

  • Stanton read "Declaration of Sentiments"

  • All men and women are created equal"

  • Demand right to vote for women

  • Launched the modern women's rights movement

Women’s rights was overshadowed by abolitionist movement

Transcendentalism

• Truth, "transcends" the senses

  • Not just found by observation alone

• Every person possess an inner light that can illuminate the highest truth

• Ralph Waldo Emerson- stress self reliance, self improvement, and freedom.

  • “The American Scholar" in 1837 at Harvard challenged Americans to make their own art and culture

• Henry David Thoreau- "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience" (1849) & “Walden" (1854)

Utopian Communities

• Various movements to move away from conventional society and create a utopian community.

• Mormons: religious communal effort

• Brook Farm: communal transcendentalist experiment in Mass.

  • Secular, humanistic

• New Harmony: create a socialist type community that would be an answer to the problems presented by industrialization.

Chapter 15

Slavery in America

• Bacon' s Rebellion in Virginia (1676) leads to shift from indentured servants to black slavery.

• 1780s: Slavery issue of debate at the Constitutional Convention

  • 3/5th Compromise

  • Slave Trade ends in 1808

  • Fugitive Slave Act

• Following the American Revolution slavery slowly ends in Northern and middle states.

• Slavery band in northwest territory with northwest ordinance 1787.

• The north and South were able to postpone a major sectional crisis with the Missouri compromise in 1820.

King Cotton

• Southern economy reliant on cash crops such as tobacco, rice, and cotton

  • Eli Whitey cotton gin makes the cash crop economy profitable.

  • Demand for land for cotton production leads to huge increase in demand for slave labor

• Market Revolution: northern industry demand for southern cotton

• Prosperity of North, South, and England built on backs of slaves

Increase in Cotton Production

Expansion of Slavery

• Western expansion and the issue of slavery will cause an increase in sectional conflict.

• Missouri compromise of 1820.

• Compromise of 1850.

• Kansas Nebraska Act 1854.

Antebellum South:

• Primarily agrarian society: "King Cotton"

  • Lack of industrialization

  • $$$ invested in slave labor

• 25% of population owned slaves

  • Majority of southerners were not slave owners

  • Southern whites support and defend institution of slavery

    • Hopeful they will one day own slaves

    • Racism: Felt higher than slaves in southern society

• Southern politics was in many ways a oligarchy

  • Government by the few wealthy

    • Plantation owners

  • Southern large slave holders control southern politics

• Southern plantation owners 2) Small slaveholders 3) Yeoman farmers 4) people of the pine barrens

• Contrast with the north

  • Lack of immigration to the south

African American Communities

• African American population in the North

  • About 250,000

  • Tensions with Irish immigrants

    • Competition over low skilled jobs

• Free black population in the South

  • About 250,000

  • Many restrictions on daily life

    • Especially after Nat Turner's rebellion in 1831

Slavery

• Chattel slavery

  • Slaves were treated as property

  • “Uncle Tom's Cabin": brought the issue of families being broken up to a mass audience

• By the eve of the civil war most slaves were in the deep south

• Slaves were not afforded any social, political, or civil rights

  • Illegal to learn to read or write

• African American culture emerged as a blending of African and American cultural influences

  • African American religion (especially after 2nd GA)

    • Black Christianity [Baptists & Methodists]:

      • African practice of responsorial style of preaching.

      • Drawing on West African traditions

  • Importance of music in black culture. [esp. spirituals].

Resistance to Slavery

• Forms of Resistance

  • Work slowdowns

  • Negligence

    • Break equipment

  • Run away: Underground Railroad

  • Slave Revolt

• Slave revolts were not common

  • Stono Rebellion (1739): South Carolina slaves runaway to Florida

  • Denmark Vesey (1822): massive revolt planned in South Carolina

  • Nat Turner (1831): Revolt in Virginia killed 60 people

• Southerns react

  • Harsher laws: “Black Codes”

  • Slave Patrols

Abolitionist Movement

• Quakers were earliest opponent slavery

• American Colonization Society: transport freed slaves back to Africa (1822 Monrovia, Liberia)

• David Walker- "Appeal to thee Colored Citizens of World" (1829 called for violent uprising

• William LIoyd Garrison (1833) American Anti-Slavery Society called for immediate uncompensated emancipation. - Published "The Liberator"

• Sojourner Truth & Frederick Douglas: former slaves who advocated for abolitionism.

• Liberty Party (1840)

Southern Reaction: Defense of Slavery

• Gag Resolution in Congress (1836-1844)

  • Ban on anti-slavery petitions being discussed in Congress

  • Repealed by John Quincy Adam in 1844

• Bans on teaching slaves to read or write

• Southern states adopt strict slave codes

  • Nat Turner revolt

• Anti-slavery messages banned from Southern mail

• Pro-slavery argument by George Fitzhugh

  • Slaves as family

  • Better than "wage slavery"

  • civilized inferior people

Chapter 16

Election of 1840

• Whigs chose William Henry Harrison

• Vice President John Tyler

  • Former Democrat

• Dies 32 days after taking office

Beef with President Tyler

• Tyler still holds many Democrat beliefs

• Starts to block goals of the Whig party (led by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster)

• Attempts to annex Texas - Defeated by Congress

Election of 1844

• Polk Wins!

Texas Annexed

• Lame duck President John Tyler submitted proposal and Congress annexed Texas

  • Accomplished by a joint resolution (only needs a majority of both houses)

    • Does not need 2/3 approval by Senate

Goals of James K. Polk

• Lower the tariff

• National Expansion: MANIFEST DESTINY

  • Expansion into Oregonn "540° 40, or Fight!" threat to England

  • Annexation of Texas

  • Aquisition of CA

Manifest Destiny

• Belief that it was America's destiny to conquer and civilize the entire continent

  • Built upon belief of white superiority

• Term coined by John O'Sullivan in 1845

  • Western expansion been going on for some time

    • Louisiana Purchase (1803)

    • Missouri Compromise 1820

  • Jackson's Indian Removal policies in 1830s

• Issue of slavery complicates the issue of western expansion

The Oregon Dispute: “54° 40’ or Fight”

• Anglo-American Convention of 1818: U.S. and England agreed to peacefully jointly occupy Oregon territory

• Oregon Trail: Many American settlers flood into the area

• Major issue in the Election of 1844

• Oregon Treaty 1846: 49th parallel, No war needed

Beef with Mexico

• Mexico still viewed Texas as part of Mexico

  • Dispute over river Rio Grande & Nueces river

• Polk attempts to buy California from Mexico

  • Slidell Mission: Mexico refuses offer of $25 million for CA

• Polk sends Zachary Taylor into disputed territory between Mexico and Texas

  • U.S. forces attacked in April 1846

• Mexican American War begins: 1846-1848

Controversial

• Northern Whigs oppose the war

  • See it as an attempt by Southerners to extend slavery

• Lincoln introduces the "Spot Resolution" demanding to know if attack really took place on U.S. soil

• Wilmot Proviso: attempted to ban slavery in any territory acquired from Mexico

  • Passed-by-House rejected by Senate

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (1848)

• Mexico gave the U. S. California, New Mexico, and rest of Southwest.

  • Increases U.S. territory by 1/3

• Mexico gave up claims to Texas

  • Accepts Rio Grande border

• Mexico lost about half of its territory

  • Strains relations between the U.S. and Mexico

New Controversies: (or the return of old)

• New territories were brought into the Union which forced the issue of slavery into the center of national politics!

Chapter 17

Free Soil Movement

• Following the Mexican American War issue of slavery in the territories becomes the key cause of sectional tension

• Free Soil Party formed in 1848: "free soil, free labor, and free men"

  • Wanted no slavery in new land to the west

  • Keep West an opportunity for whites only

  • Not against slavery in the south

• Many southerners saw any attempt to restrict the expansion of slavery as a violation of their constitutional rights

1848 Presidential Candidates

• Whigs took no position or slavery in the election

• Cass supports popular sovereignty:

• People in the territory should decide whether or not to allow slavery

• Free Soil Party opposed extension of slavery in the territories (Wilmot proviso position)

GOLD is discovered in California: Near Sutter’s Mill

California Gold Rush, 1849

• Sectional tension between the north and south.

• California creates a constitution banning slavery and ask Congress for admission as a free state

Crisis over Mexican Cession

• Until California tried to become a free state, equal balance of power in the Senate

  • 15 free states

  • 15 slave states

• Southerners increasing defensive over the institution of slavery

  • Tallmadge Amendment (1819)

  • Wilmot Proviso (1846)

  • Underground Railroad

Threats of Secession and then Compromise

• Radical southerners "Fire- eaters" talk openly of secession

• Could there be another compromise?

  • Missouri Compromise (1820)

  • Nullification crisis (1828-1833) Force Bill and Compromise Tariff of 1833

• Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas favor compromise

Compromise of 1850

• CA admitted as free State

• Mexican Cession land Utah and New Mexico setup as territories Slavery determined by Popular sovereignty

• Ban slave trade in Washington D.C.

• New Fugitive Slave Law for the South

• Settles border dispute between NM and TX in NM favor

President Fillmore called the Compromise of 1850 the “final settlement” of sectional division

Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

• Huge increase in sectional tension in the 1850s as a result of the Fugitive Slave Act

• Fugitive Slave Act turned the north into a hunting ground for fugitive slaves

• Northerners who assisted runaways could be arrested

• Slaves could not testify in court, denied a jury trial

Northern Resistance

• Moderate northerners are suddenly sympathetic to the abolitionist movement

  • Growth in the abolitionist movement

• Underground Railroad: helped escaped slaves reach the north or to Canada

• Personal Liberty laws:

  • Did not allow use of local jails for housing fugitive slave

• Vigilance Committees: goal to protect fugitive slaves from the slave catchers

• Anthony Burns: 1853 escaped from slavery

The 1850's saw the nation becoming more and more polarized.

Whigs divided over slavery issue

National Expansion Challenged

• Debate over slavery slowed any attempts at national expansion (Manifest Destiny)

• Free Soil supporters had suspicion of any expansion attempts under President Pierce

• Ostend Manifesto: plan for the U.s. to buy Cuba from Spain

• Free Soilers denounced this plan

• Northerners increasingly fear that the south was attempting to create a slave empire or "slaveocracy”

Gadsen Purchase

• Although most attempts at expansion fail under President Pierce, the U.S. does agree to purchase a strip of land for $10 million dollars from Mexico in 1853

Kansas-Nebraska Act, 1854

• Stephen Douglas wants too secure a RR route and encourage western settlement

• To win southern approval: Set up two territories 1) Kansas 2) Nebraska

• Slavery would be decided by popular sovereignty

• Repeal's the Missouri Compromise of 1820 Slavery can go north of 36 30

• Huge opposition in the north - Republican party formed

  • Gave south an opportunity to expand slavery

Chapter 18

Northern Resistance to Slavery

-Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852), catered to European audiences

-released the horrors of slavery to the public in the North

-Made many northerners want to resist the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 (passed because of pressure from southern politicians)

-people opposed slavery because of moral issues and not just economic issues now

Kansas-Nebraska Act

-passes in response to California being admitted into the Union

-this upset the balance between free and slave states

-using the idea of popular sovereignty, the federal government and politicians allowed people to go there and vote on whether slavery should be extended into those territories or not

-pro slavery and antislavery forces flood Kansas

-New England Emigrant Aid Company: sent lots of free-soil settlers to Kansas to make sure that more people would vote no to slavery than yes; provided refuge and shelter for the free-soil settlers and northern migrants

-pro-slavery people from Missouri, aka Border Ruffians, start coming in to Kansas

-Two rival governments are set up

-Topeka: free-soil, wanted slavery to not be extended

-Lecompton Constitution: pro-slavery, wanted to ensure that black bondage would still exist in Kansas and Nebraska

-As a result of this act, the Republican Party is formed.

-composed of anti-slavery Whigs (people who wanted internal aid improvements and federal banks and protective tariffs, opponents of Andrew Jackson, also were against slavery), free-soilers, northerners

Bleeding Kansas

-Sack of Lawrence (1856): Pro-slavery forces attack a free-soil town

-Pottawatomie Creek: John Brown and his forces attack the pro-slavery forces and brutally murder and hack 5 people to pieces

-These events are circulated back and forth between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces, by 1856 there is a small civil war going on known as Bleeding Kansas

Caning of Charles Sumner

-Charles Sumner (Senator from Massachusetts): condemns events in Kansas, against Bleeding Kansas, personally insults a southern senator named Andrew Butler and insults South Carolina

-Congressman Preston Brooks from South Carolina comes and beats up Sumner with a cane

-Violence in Kansas has spread to Congress

Election of 1856

-Republican Candidate: John C. Fremont,

-Democratic candidate: James Buchanan, wasn’t involved in the Kansas-Nebraska Act because he was in London so he was nominated

-Know-nothing Candidate: Millard Fillmore, anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic

-The Republicans do well considering they only have support in the North. Ultimately, the Democratic Party triumphs and James Buchanan wins the presidency.

Lecompton Constitution

-First problem for James Buchanan

-This document was drafted by pro-slavery supporters and was pro-slavery itself.

-Free soilers believed the pro-slavery supporters from Missouri were corrupting the process of popular sovereignty, therefore boycotting the election

-This constitution was approved by James Buchanan but rejected by Congress.

-Popular sovereignty in Kansas turns out to be a failure

Dred Scott v Sandford

-Dred Scott: a slave from Missouri taken into Wisconsin by his master

-He sued, and he took his master to court. He argues that since he was in free soil territory, he doesn’t have to do slave work for his master anymore.

-Roger Taney (white Southern Democrat) was the Chief Justice and worked with many white southerners in the court

-They all ruled that African-Americans are not citizens of the US and can therefore not be able to sue in federal courts

-They also argued that since slaves were private property, Congress could not make laws regarding slavery and could therefore not be able to ban slavery in territories, making the compromise reached in the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional

-Northerners are mad because this means Congress can open slavery to new territories

Lincoln-Douglas Debates

-Abraham Lincoln (Republican) debates Senator Stephen A. Douglas (Northern Democrat) for a seat in the Illinois Senate in 1858, 7 debates are held here

-Lincoln presses Douglas on the issue of the Dred Scott v Sandford case and if slavery could be prevented in territories or not (Dred Scott case said no)

-Douglas takes the Freeport Doctrine’s position that territories could limit slavery and popular sovereignty can still happen, therefore rejecting the findings of the Dred Scott case

-Southerners are angry at Douglas, but in the end Douglas still wins the debates and keeps his seat in the Illinois Senate.

-Lincoln becomes a national figure

-Southerners are still angry, Democratic Party becomes divided

John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry

-John Brown hopes to spark a slave revolt in Virginia in 1859

-Attempts to seize the firearms in Harper’s Ferry

-It fails, he is charged with treason and executed

-Impact

-Southerners felt like they were under attack, they are outraged, and they try seceding soon after

-John Brown becomes a martyr to most abolitionists, but most northerners think he went way too far

Election of 1860

-Democrats split

-Northern Democrats favor Stephen A Douglas and his idea of popular sovereignty and the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act

-Southern Democrats favor John C. Breckinridge, since he allows slavery in extended territories and wants to annex slave-populated Cuba and make it a large slave state

-Republican Party forms

-Lincoln is picked

-against the extension of slavery into new territories

-offers protective tariffs for northern manufacturers

-offers a Pacific railroad for better connectivity across the Northwest

-offers free land for the farmers

-Constitutional Union Party

-John Bell

-avoids the subject of slavery, wants to enforce the Constitution

-Southern secessionists threaten to leave the Union if Lincoln wins the election

Election of 1860 results

-Lincoln wins

-He is seen as a “minority” president because he got the minority of the popular votes despite getting the majority of the electoral votes.

-Southerners see him as sectional since he didn’t appear on the ballot for 10 southern states

Secession

-South Carolina secedes from the Union first in December 1860

-7 southern states leave the Union before Lincoln takes office

-They see Lincoln as a sectional president who threatens the old way of slavery

-Confederate States of America formed

-Jefferson Davis nominated as President

-President James Buchanan is still in office but doesn’t do anything to stop secession despite feeling like it is illegal.

Crittenden Compromise

-Last-ditch attempt to avoid secession and other crises

-Hope to calm southern fears

-Return of the Missouri Compromise idea

-Slavery prohibited north of 36 degree 30 minute line

-Slavery allowed south of 36 degree 30 minute line

-Lincoln rejects this idea

-Republican Party’s platform is about not extending slavery into new territories