Became the basis for the American System of Manufacturing.
Enabled repeatable tasks performed by unskilled laborers.
Made mass production possible.
Steam Engine:
Allowed steamboats to travel upstream in rivers.
Market Revolution:
Conditions were created by technological advancements and government actions.
Government Support:
Legislation aided the development of quicker transportation paths.
Example: Erie Canal in New York State.
Regional Interdependence:
Trade fostered due to improved transportation.
The nation was slowly being connected economically.
Immigration Wave (1820-1840):
Approximately two million immigrants arrived.
Settled on the eastern seaboard in urban manufacturing areas.
Some moved west to establish homesteads.
Created a large labor pool for early industrialization.
Cultural Changes:
Immigrants introduced their culture to cities.
Lived in crowded tenements and established ethnic enclaves.
Maintained cultural traditions, languages, and cuisine.
Influenced the wider culture of the receiving society.
Rise of the Middle Class:
Growing prosperity due to the Market Revolution.
Middle class emerged in the North.
Composed of businessmen, doctors, lawyers, and white-collar workers.
Cult of Domesticity:
Separate spheres for men and women in society.
Women's identity tied to childbearing and homemaking.
Men's sphere was work.
Created a defining line between genders.
Expanding Democracy and Political Parties
Expanding Suffrage:
Demand for expanding democracy manifested in universal white male suffrage and growing influence of political parties.
Panic of 1819:
An economic depression resulting from irresponsible banking practices.
Laboring men were hit hardest but could not vote to hold politicians accountable.
Frontier states had already established universal white male suffrage.
By 1825, most eastern states followed suit.
Political Party Realignment:
Election of 1824 marked a split in the Democratic-Republican Party.
National Republicans (later Whigs): Loose constructionists, seen as Federalist 2.0.
Democrats: Strict constructionists, followed the Jeffersonian line of thought.
Andrew Jackson and Federal Power
New Political Parties:
Whigs led by Henry Clay.
Democrats led by Andrew Jackson.
Tariff of Abominations:
Increased tariffs by 50%.
Northerners favored it as a protective tariff for northern industry.
Southerners opposed it because their economy relied on imported goods.
Nullification Crisis:
John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson's vice president, encouraged South Carolina to nullify the tariff.
Based on the reasoning of the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions.
Andrew Jackson persuaded Congress to pass the Force Bill, authorizing the use of US troops in South Carolina to enforce federal law.
Bank War:
Andrew Jackson believed the Bank of the United States favored the wealthy at the expense of the poor.
Jackson vetoed the recharter of the Second National Bank.
Indian Removal Act:
The Supreme Court tried to check Jackson's power, declaring the law unconstitutional.
Jackson proceeded with the removal anyway, expanding federal, especially executive, power.
American Identity and Cultural Movements
Transcendentalism:
Influenced by European Romanticism and belief in human perfectibility.
Rooted in the transcendent power and beauty of nature.
Emphasized mystery and human passion.
Key figures: Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau.
Hudson River School:
Romanticized landscapes in New York and the Western territories, illustrating national identity.
Second Great Awakening:
Emphasized the moral reformation of society (unlike the First Great Awakening, which emphasized personal reformation).
Charles Finney: a key preacher who spread the revival in urban areas.
Helped nationalize an identity for Americans.
Social Reform Movements
Temperance Movement:
American Temperance Society argued for complete abstinence from alcohol.
Abolitionism:
Abolitionism spread rapidly, advocating for the end of slavery.
William Lloyd Garrison: editor of "The Liberator."
American Anti-Slavery Society.
Messages spread across the North, convincing many people.
Emancipation in the North:
Achieved, but some states still restricted the rights of African Americans.
Black Southerners' Role in Abolition:
Took up the cause of abolition themselves.
Nat Turner's Rebellion: a slave revolt that killed over 50 white people, leading to stricter conditions for enslaved people.
Enslaved People's Resistance:
Maintained their culture and dignity by protecting their family structures and joining political efforts to change their status.
Women's Movement:
Seneca Falls Convention (1848): drafted the Declaration of Sentiments, outlining demands for women's equality, education, legal rights, and voting.
Southern Culture and Slavery
Southern White People and Slavery:
Most farmers were yeoman farmers (independent landowners) who did not own enslaved laborers.
They still believed in the institution of slavery and racial codes.
Southern Economics:
Defined by agriculture, especially cotton.
Cotton depleted the soil, leading farmers to move west in search of more arable land.
Manifest Destiny and Westward Expansion
Manifest Destiny:
Belief that Americans had a God-given right to possess all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean.
Motivations: access to natural and mineral resources, economic opportunities for settlers, and belief in the superiority of American institutions.
Facilitating Factors:
Legislation like the Preemption Acts made land cheap.
Gold discovered in California (California Gold Rush of 1848) led to migrations westward.
Southerners needed more arable land for agriculture.
The Mexican-American War
Causes:
The annexation of Texas.
Texas was formerly part of Mexico, settled by Americans.
Mexican law had made slavery illegal and required conversion to Catholicism, but the Americans moving in did not comply.
Conflict:
Mexico warned the United States against annexing Texas.
Texas was annexed during John Tyler's presidency.
Disagreement over the southern border led to the Mexican-American War.
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848):
Ended the war.
Resulted in the Mexican Cession: a huge territorial gain for the United States, including present day New Mexico, Arizona, and California.
Wilmot Proviso:
Proposed banning slavery in all territory gained from the Mexican-American War.
Led to a firestorm in Congress.
Symbolic of the growing tension over westward expansion and the question of slavery.
Compromise of 1850
Positions on Slavery in New Territories:
Southern: Slavery is a constitutional right, and the Missouri Compromise line should extend to the Pacific.
Free Soil: All Mexican Cession territory should be free.
Popular Sovereignty (Stephen Douglas): Let the territorial populations decide for themselves.
Provisions of the Compromise:
The Mexican Cession would be divided into territories that could decide on slavery by popular sovereignty.
California would be admitted as a free state.
The slave trade would be outlawed in Washington, D.C.
A stricter fugitive slave law would be passed.
Immigration and Nativism
Immigration Wave:
Large numbers of Irish and German immigrants arrived.
Irish mostly stayed in eastern urban centers, while Germans mostly moved west to farm.
Opposition to Immigrants:
Anti-Catholic nativist movement.
Nativism: the policy of preferring and protecting the interests of native-born people over immigrants.
Know-Nothing Party: a political party formed around anti-immigrant sentiment to limit immigrant influence.
Regional Labor Ideologies
Regional Differences:
North: mainly defined by manufacturing and relied on paid labor.
South: mainly defined by agriculture and relied mostly on unpaid, coerced labor.
Northern Views on Slavery:
Many northerners did not object to slavery as immoral.
They argued that the expansion of slavery would undermine their ability to work for wages.
Free Soil Movement:
Argued that the expansion of slavery was incompatible with free labor.
Abolitionist Movement:
The Underground Railroad: a series of trails and safe houses designed to help enslaved southerners escape to the North.
Publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin: made slavery appear more brutal and immoral and convinced more people to oppose it.
Southern Arguments on Slavery:
The Constitution protected slavery.
The 10th Amendment reserved powers not explicitly given to the federal government to the states, and the Constitution gave no explicit power to regulate slavery (except for banning the slave trade).
Failure of Compromises and Sectionalism
Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854):
The Nebraska territory was divided into Kansas and Nebraska, and they would decide the slavery question by popular sovereignty.
This overturned the Missouri Compromise, as it was north of the 36°30′ line.
Bleeding Kansas:
Fighting broke out between pro- and anti-slavery factions in Kansas, fueling further division.
Dred Scott Decision (1857):
The Supreme Court effectively made slavery legal in any state in the Union.
John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry:
John Brown's goal was to incite a slave rebellion, alarming southerners.
Political Divisions:
Southern Democrats: championed the protection and expansion of slavery.
Northern Republicans (Whigs and Free Soilers): championed the containment of slavery (not abolition).
Secession and the Civil War
Election of 1860:
Abraham Lincoln was elected without a single electoral vote from the South, leading to secession.
Lincoln stated he would not abolish slavery where it existed.
Secession Crisis:
South Carolina was the first state to secede, followed by 10 others, forming the Confederate States of America.
Reasons for Secession:
Preservation of the institution of slavery.
Protection of states' rights against perceived unconstitutional federal overreach.
Civil War:
Caused by secession.
Union Victory:
North (the Union) ultimately won due to several strategic advantages:
Greater population.
Possession of much of the nation's industry and banks.
70% of the nation's railroads.
Abraham Lincoln's leadership.
The Emancipation Proclamation shifted the war's focus to slavery and prevented the South from getting aid from Britain.
The Gettysburg Address sought to reunify the country and portray the war as a fulfillment of American founding ideals.
The South struggled due to the destruction of their infrastructure (e.g., Sherman's March to the Sea).
Reconstruction
Constitutional Amendments:
13th Amendment: abolished slavery.
14th Amendment: applied the Bill of Rights to state governments.
15th Amendment: granted voting rights to formerly enslaved black men.
Federal Occupation:
The South remained under federal occupation to ensure reconstruction laws were followed.
Debate Among Republicans:
Should the returning southerners be treated as conquered foes or long-lost family members?
Lincoln favored leniency, but his assassination led to Radical Republicans gaining control and punishing the South.
Failure of Reconstruction
Reasons for Failure:
Northern weariness of forcing southerners into submission.
Southern insistence on maintaining their pre-Civil War society.
Southern Efforts to Maintain Old Ways:
Sharecropping replaced slavery but still bound laborers to the plantation.
Persistence of white supremacy.
Secret societies like the Ku Klux Klan terrorized black southerners.
Enactment of Black Codes prevented black people from owning land, borrowing money, and entering into equal citizenship.
Plessy v. Ferguson: a Supreme Court case that allowed segregation, arguing that separate facilities were constitutional if they were equal (but they were not).
Compromise of 1877:
In the contested election of 1876, Democrats agreed to let Republican Rutherford B. Hayes become president in exchange for the removal of federal troops from the South.
Without federal enforcement, southerners reverted to their old ways.