Final Review

Final Chapter 8

• George Washington's Inauguration (1789)

  • George Washington was unanimously elected and inaugurated as the first President of the United States on April 30, 1789, in New York City.

    • All 69 electors voted for him, reflecting the unified hope for the new republic.

  • He wore a plain suit of American broadcloth to symbolize American manufacturing and republican values rather than aristocratic finery.

  • Expressed deep conviction that the outcome of the American experiment remained uncertain, underscoring the weight of his responsibilities.

  • Emphasized the critical importance of preserving liberty and the destiny of republican government as central to the American mission, setting a tone of cautious optimism.

• Early Views on Freedom and Government

  • There was a widespread belief that freedom represented the very essence of American institutions.

    • Freedom was seen as uniquely defining the American character and system of governance.

  • The first coins featured an emblem of liberty, rather than an image of the head of state, symbolizing the priority of liberty over individual leadership.

  • National leaders initially hoped to avoid the formation of political parties, viewing them as inherently divisive and detrimental to national unity.

    • The Constitution itself makes no mention of political parties, reflecting this early hope.

  • However, the 1790s evolved into an “age of passion,” marked by intense political rhetoric and divisions.

    • Political disagreements were often expressed in extreme terms, reflecting deep ideological divides.

  • The loyalty of opposing factions was frequently questioned, highlighting the high stakes and perceived existential threats posed by differing political views.

• Key Events (1789-1814)

  • 1789: Inauguration of George Washington marked the commencement of the new federal government; The French Revolution began, significantly influencing American political discourse and ideology.

  • 1791: The First Bank of the United States was established, central to Hamilton's financial plan; Hamilton's Report on Manufactures outlined strategies for economic development; Thomas Paine's The Rights of Man defended the French Revolution, impacting American political thought.

  • 1791-1804: The Haitian Revolution, a slave revolt, led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent nation, influencing debates on slavery and freedom in the U.S.

  • 1792: Mary Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman advocated for women's rights, contributing to discussions on equality and citizenship.

  • 1793: The First federal fugitive slave law was enacted, reinforcing the legal basis for slavery and impacting debates over states' rights.

  • 1794: The Whiskey Rebellion, a protest against the whiskey tax, tested the authority of the new federal government; Jay's Treaty with Britain aimed to resolve post-Revolutionary War issues but sparked controversy.

  • 1797: Inauguration of John Adams as the second President.

  • 1798: The XYZ affair, involving French demands for bribes, fueled anti-French sentiment; The Alien and Sedition Acts restricted immigration and freedom of the press, igniting debates over civil liberties.

  • 1800: Gabriel's Rebellion, a planned slave revolt in Virginia, was suppressed, increasing fears among slaveholders.

  • 1801: Inauguration of Thomas Jefferson, marking a shift in political power; The First Barbary War (1801-1805) addressed piracy in the Mediterranean.

  • 1803: The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States, opening new territories for expansion.

  • 1804-1806: The Lewis and Clark expedition explored the Louisiana Territory, enhancing geographic and scientific knowledge.

  • 1809: Inauguration of James Madison as President.

  • 1812-1814: The War of 1812, fought against Britain, addressed maritime rights and territorial disputes.

  • 1814: The Treaty of Ghent ended the War of 1812; The Hartford Convention reflected Federalist discontent with the war.

• Politics in the Age of Passion

  • George Washington was a potent symbol of national unity, admired for his leadership during the Revolutionary War and his commitment to republican ideals.

  • John Adams served as the first Vice President under Washington, later becoming the second President of the United States.

  • Thomas Jefferson, as Secretary of State, played a crucial role in shaping early foreign policy and advocating for states' rights.

  • Alexander Hamilton, leading the Treasury Department, developed ambitious plans for economic development and financial stability.

  • John Jay served as the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, establishing important precedents for the judiciary.

• Hamilton's Program (1790-1791)

  • Hamilton’s program aimed to stabilize the U.S. financially and foster economic growth through policies modeled on Great Britain.

    • His broader vision was to elevate the U.S. into a major global power through strategic economic and financial measures.

  • The program consisted of five key components:

    1. Establish the nation's creditworthiness by paying off national and state debts at face value to build investor confidence. (\text{Debt} = \text{National Debt} + \text{State Debts})

    2. Create a new national debt by issuing interest-bearing bonds, seen as a tool to solidify support from creditors.

    3. Establish a Bank of the United States, modeled after the Bank of England, to regulate currency and provide financial stability. (\text{Bank Function} = \text{Currency Regulation} + \text{Financial Stability})

    4. Impose a tax on whiskey producers to generate revenue, which led to the Whiskey Rebellion.

    5. Implement tariffs and government subsidies to encourage the growth of domestic factories and reduce reliance on foreign goods. (\text{Economic Growth} = \text{Tariffs} + \text{Subsidies})

  • Hamilton also advocated for the creation of a national army to ensure domestic order and provide for national defense.

• Emergence of Opposition

  • Hamilton's vision found support among American financiers, manufacturers, and merchants who stood to benefit from his policies.

  • James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, however, preferred westward expansion and prioritized the development of an agrarian republic over closer ties with Europe.

    • They envisioned a nation of independent farmers thriving through free trade, with minimal government intervention in the economy.

  • They feared that Hamilton's system would lead to an alliance between the central government and commercial capitalists, potentially threatening individual liberties.

  • Critics argued that Hamilton's policies would enrich speculators at the expense of ordinary citizens, particularly farmers burdened by the whiskey tax.

    • The whiskey tax was seen as unfairly targeting farmers who relied on distilling whiskey as a means of supplementing their income.

• The Jefferson-Hamilton Bargain

  • Opposition to Hamilton's program was significant, particularly from southern states.

  • To gain support, a compromise was reached: Southerners would accept Hamilton's fiscal program, with the exception of manufacturing subsidies that disproportionately benefited the North.

  • In exchange, the permanent national capital would be established on the Potomac River, satisfying southern desires for a capital located closer to their interests.

  • Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant was commissioned to design the “federal city,” incorporating grand avenues and public spaces.

  • Benjamin Banneker, an African-American surveyor and astronomer, played a crucial role in surveying the land and planning the city.

  • Enslaved laborers were extensively used in the construction of public buildings, highlighting the contradiction between the ideals of liberty and the reality of slavery.

• Impact of the French Revolution

  • Initially, most Americans welcomed the French Revolution in 1789, viewing it as an echo of their own struggle for independence.

  • However, the revolution took a radical turn in 1793 with the execution of King Louis XVI, leading to war between France and Britain and dividing American public opinion.

  • Jefferson and his Republican supporters voiced their support for the revolution, emphasizing its democratic ideals.

  • Federalists, on the other hand, opposed the revolution, expressing concerns about its radicalism and potential for anarchy.

  • Washington sought to maintain American neutrality and issued a proclamation in April 1793, but this policy proved difficult to enforce as both Britain and France interfered with American shipping.

  • British actions, including the seizure of American ships and the resumption of impressment (forcing American sailors into the British navy), heightened tensions.

  • Jay's Treaty (1794) with Britain aimed to resolve outstanding issues but failed to address impressment, although it did secure the removal of British outposts from the western frontier.

  • The French Revolution and the ensuing debates sharpened political divisions in the United States and contributed to the formation of an organized opposition party.

• Political Parties (Mid-1790s)

  • Federalists: Supported Washington and Hamilton's program, advocating for close ties with Britain.

    • They held an elitist outlook, fearing anarchy and what they termed “licentiousness,” emphasizing the need for a strong central government to maintain order.

  • Republicans: Led by Madison and Jefferson, they were sympathetic to France and favored democratic self-government.

    • They drew support from southern planters, farmers, and urban artisans who valued social and economic equality and broad democratic participation.

  • Each party viewed the other as an illegitimate faction that threatened the stability of the republic.

  • Washington faced mounting abuse and criticism upon leaving office, signaling the growing polarization of American politics.

• Expanding Public Sphere

  • The political debates of the 1790s led to increased democratic engagement and a broader understanding of American freedom.

  • More citizens participated in political meetings, read pamphlets and newspapers, and engaged in public discussions.

  • The number of newspapers grew significantly, reflecting the increasing importance of the press in shaping public opinion.

  • William Manning, in his writings, highlighted the growing division between the social classes.

Final Chapter 9

The Market Revolution 1800-1840

Focus Questions

• What were the main elements of the market revolution?

• What were the opportunities and costs of westward expansion?

• How did the market revolution spark social change?

• How did the meanings of American freedom change in this period?

• How did the market revolution affect the lives of workers, women, and African Americans?

Overview

• In 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette visited the United States, marking a "Jubilee of Liberty."

• Since Lafayette's previous visit in 1784, the U.S. population had nearly reached 12 million, and the land area had more than doubled.

• The nation expanded from thirteen to twenty-four states.

• Lafayette's tour highlighted the country's transformation, including his travels via steamboat on the Mississippi and Ohio rivers and the Erie Canal in New York which connected the Great Lakes with the Atlantic coast.

American Freedom

• Americans in the 19th century often described liberty as the defining characteristic of their nation.

• Walt Whitman celebrated his countrymen's

Final Chapter 10

Democracy in America (1815-1840)

Focus Questions

• Inclusion and Exclusion:

  • Who was included in the flourishing democracy of the early to mid-19th century?

  • Who was excluded?

• Economic Integration:

  • What efforts were made to strengthen the economic integration of the nation during this period?

  • What major crises hindered these efforts?

• Nationalism vs. Sectionalism:

  • What were the major areas of conflict between nationalism and sectionalism?

• Andrew Jackson's Embodiment:

  • In what ways did Andrew Jackson embody the contradictions of democratic nationalism?

• Indian Removal:

  • Why did Indian Removal happen?

  • How did Native nations respond?

• Bank War:

  • How did the Bank War influence the economy and party competition?

Inauguration of Andrew Jackson (1829)

• Marked a significant shift in American politics.

• Attracted a crowd of 20,000 people to the White House, resulting in damage and chaos.

• Justice Joseph Story of the Supreme Court referred to it as "the reign of King Mob."

Perspectives on Jackson

• Supporters:

  • Viewed his election as the rise of genuine democracy and the "common man."

  • Philip Hone noted Jackson's popularity and democratic beliefs.

• Critics:

  • Considered him a tyrant and called him "King Andrew I."

  • Formed the Whig Party, named after opponents of royal power in 18th-century England.

Age of Jackson/Jacksonian Democracy (1830s-1840s)

• Andrew Jackson's career embodied major developments of the era:

  • Market revolution

  • Westward movement

  • Violent expulsion of Indians

  • Expansion of slavery

  • Growth of democracy

• Symbol of the self-made man, rising from a humble background.

• Born in 1767 on the South Carolina frontier, orphaned during the American Revolution.

• Displayed courage and impetuousness early on, serving as a courier during the War of Independence.

• Captured and imprisoned, nearly killed by a British officer for refusing to polish his boots.

Jackson's Early Career

• Moved to Tennessee.

• Studied law and entered local politics.

• Elected to the House of Representatives and the Senate.

• Became a judge on the state supreme court.

• Military campaigns consolidated American control over the Lower South, enabling the rise of the Cotton Kingdom.

• Acquired a large plantation in Tennessee.

• Symbolized the triumph of political democracy.

American Democracy

• Americans pride themselves on being the world's oldest democracy.

• Competing definitions of the first democracy exist (e.g., New Zealand's constitution of 1893).

• Some Latin American nations extended voting rights to free Blacks and descendants of Indigenous populations before the United States.

• Europe lagged behind, with Britain achieving universal male suffrage in the 1880s and France having an inconsistent history.

• Democracy became a central part of American nationality and freedom.

Chronology

• 1811: Bank of the United States charter expires

• 1816: Second Bank of the United States established

• 1817: Inauguration of James Monroe

• 1819: Panic of 1819; McCulloch v. Maryland

• 1820: Missouri Compromise

• 1823: Monroe Doctrine

• 1825: Inauguration of John Quincy Adams

• 1827: Cherokee Constitution

• 1828: "Tariff of Abominations"

• 1829: Inauguration of Andrew Jackson

• 1830: Indian Removal Act

• 1830-1860: Forced Indian Removals

• 1832: Nullification Crisis; Worcester v. Georgia

• 1833: Force Act

• 1835: Tocqueville's Democracy in America

• 1835-1842: Second Seminole War

• 1837: Inauguration of Martin Van Buren

• 1837-1843: Panic of 1837 and ensuing depression

• 1838-1839: Trail of Tears

• 1841: Inauguration of William Henry Harrison; Dorr War

The Triumph of Democracy

Property and Democracy

• The market revolution and territorial expansion connected with political democracy.

• Challenges to property qualifications for voting culminated in the early 19th century.

• States entering the Union after the original thirteen did not require property ownership to vote.

• Older states reconsidered democracy's economic basis during constitutional conventions in the 1820s and 1830s.

• Wage earners who could not meet property requirements demanded the rights of citizens.

• A petition by "non-freeholders" in Richmond (1829) argued that property ownership did not guarantee superior moral or intellectual endowments.

• North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Virginia retained property requirements.

• Large slaveholders in Virginia resisted changes until a constitutional convention in 1850 eliminated the requirement.

Rhode Island and the Dorr War

• Rhode Island's legislature resisted lifting property requirements for voting due to fear of factory workers and immigrants.

• The state had a growing population of propertyless wage earners unable to vote.

• In October 1841, proponents of democratic reform organized a People's Convention and drafted a new state constitution.

• The new constitution enfranchised all adult white men while eliminating Blacks entirely (later restored in a referendum).

• Thomas Dorr was inaugurated as governor, but President John Tyler dispatched federal troops to the state.

• The movement collapsed, and Dorr was imprisoned for treason.

• The Dorr War demonstrated the passions surrounding the exclusion of white men from voting.

• The legislature soon eliminated the property qualification for native-born men, Black and white, but retained it for immigrants until 1888.

• By 1860, all states except Rhode Island had ended property requirements for voting.

• Personal independence rested on ownership of oneself, reflecting the era's individualism.

Tocqueville on Democracy

• By 1840, over 90% of adult white men were eligible to vote.

• A flourishing democratic system had been consolidated.

• American politics was boisterous, partisan, and engaging.

• Democratic political institutions defined the nation's identity.

• Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America (1835) analyzed American society during a political transformation.

• Tocqueville believed democracy meant more than just the right to vote; it was a "habit of the heart."

• Democracy encouraged individual initiative, belief in equality, and an active public sphere.

• Tocqueville saw democracy as an essential attribute of American freedom.

• The idea that sovereignty belongs to ordinary citizens was a new departure in Western thought.

• Political philosophers had warned that democracy could degenerate into anarchy and tyranny.

• The founders sought to shield political authority from excessive influence by ordinary people.

• Pressure from those excluded led to the triumph of democracy for white males by the Age of Jackson.

The Emblem of Citizenship

• Democracy reinforced a sense of equality among those who belonged to the political nation.

• It deepened the divide between the included and the excluded.

• Participation in elections and political pageantry defined the "people" of the United States.

• The right to vote increasingly became the emblem of American citizenship.

• Voting was still legally a privilege, subject to state regulation, but it was commonly understood as synonymous with citizenship.

• Suffrage was considered "the first mark of liberty, the only true badge of the freeman."

The Information Revolution

• The market revolution and political democracy expanded the public sphere, leading to an "information revolution."

• Steam power increased newspaper printing output, leading to the rise of the mass-circulation "penny press."

• Newspapers like the New York Sun and New York Herald emphasized sensationalism, crime stories, and exposés of official misconduct.

• By 1840, the total weekly circulation of newspapers in the United States exceeded that of Europe.

• Low postal rates allowed newspapers to circulate widely.

• Organized political parties spurred newspaper publication.

• Government printing contracts were essential to most newspapers' survival.

• The publication of magazines, travel guides, advice manuals, and religious titles also rose dramatically.

Growth of the Reading Public

• The reduction in printing costs led to new newspapers, including Freedom's Journal (the first Black newspaper), Philadelphia Mechanic's Advocate, The Liberator, and the Cherokee Phoenix.

• The growth of the reading public opened doors for women writers like Lydia Maria Child, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, and Catharine Beecher.

• Women established a public presence through religious and reform movements.

• However, no woman in the United States had the right to vote after New Jersey added "male" to its voting requirements in 1807.

Voices of Freedom

From the Second Constitution of New York State (1821)

• Older states rewrote constitutions and changed voting qualifications as political democracy expanded.

• expanded for white men, they became more out of reach for women and people of color.

• The New York State Constitution vested legislative power in a senate and assembly.

• Voting rights were granted to male citizens over 21 who had been inhabitants of the state for one year and paid taxes or performed military duty.

• Men of color required three years of citizenship and possession of a freehold estate of 250 over and above all debts, as well as tax payment, to vote.

From the Constitution of the Cherokee Nation (1827)

• Native Americans participated in 19th-century political changes, but identified with their own Native nations.

• The Cherokee Nation drafted and ratified a constitution reflecting both different and parallel priorities to those of white Americans.

• The Constitution established justice, ensured tranquility, and promoted common welfare.

• The boundaries of the Cherokee Nation were defined by treaties with the United States.

• Sovereignty and jurisdiction extended over the country within the boundaries, with land being common property but improvements being the property of citizens.

• The government was divided into legislative, executive, and judicial departments.

• Eligibility for the General Council required being a free Cherokee male citizen over 25.

• Descendants of Cherokee men by free women (excluding the African race) and posterity of Cherokee women by free men were entitled to rights and privileges.

• Persons of negro or mulatto parentage were ineligible to hold office.

• Many Native nations within the United States operate under written constitutions.

Questions

1. Similarities between the New York State Constitution and the Cherokee Nation Constitution include establishing legislative bodies and defining citizenship.

2. Article I of the Cherokee Constitution exists to define and protect the nation's boundaries and land rights.

3. Beliefs about governance and freedom changed in the century following 1700 due to the Enlightenment and the American Revolution, leading to the adoption of written constitutions.

The Limits of Democracy

• By the 1830s, the principle that "the people" ruled was universally accepted.

• Defining the boundaries of the political nation became necessary.

• The vigorous public life of antebellum America was simultaneously expansive and exclusive.

• Limits were essential to its nature.

• Democracy in America absorbed native-born poor white men and immigrant men but excluded women and non-white men.

• The "principle of universal suffrage" meant white males of age constituted the political nation.

• The intellectual grounds for exclusion shifted from economic dependency to natural incapacity.

• Gender and racial differences were understood as a natural hierarchy of innate endowments.

• Exclusion was seen as part of nature.

• Women were considered too pure for the rough world of politics, while non-whites were limited by fixed character and abilities.

• The debate over who is qualified for American democracy continues into the 21st century.

Exclusion of Women

• The Constitution was not amended to allow women to vote until 1920.

• The Voting Rights Act of 1965 swept away restrictions on Black voting.

• Controversy persists over voting rights of immigrants, persons with prison terms, and the poor.

• The 19th-century political world was defined in contrast to the feminine sphere of the home.

• Even radicals were conservative regarding marriage.

• Beyond decent treatment and property control, women had no public right.

The

Final Chapter 11

Frederick Douglass

• Born into slavery in 1818.

• Became a major figure in the crusade for abolition.

• Played a significant role in the drama of emancipation.

• Contributed to the effort during Reconstruction to give meaning to Black freedom.

• Son of a slave mother and an unidentified white man.

• Learned to read and write in violation of Maryland law.

  • Initially with the assistance of his owner's wife.

  • Later with the help of local white children after her husband forbade her to continue.

• Experienced slavery in various forms.

  • House servant.

  • Skilled craftsman in a Baltimore shipyard.

  • Plantation field hand.

• At fifteen, his owner sent him to a "slave breaker" to curb his independent spirit.

• Defiantly refused to be disciplined after numerous whippings.

  • This was the turning point in his career as a slave.

  • It rekindled his desire for freedom.

• Escaped to the North in 1838 by borrowing the free papers of a Black sailor.

• Became the most influential African American of the nineteenth century.

• Preeminent advocate of racial equality.

• Lectured against slavery throughout the North and the British Isles.

• Edited a succession of antislavery publications.

• Published a widely read autobiography.

  • Offered an eloquent condemnation of slavery and racism.

• Accomplishments testified to the incorrectness of prevailing ideas about Blacks' inborn inferiority.

• Active in other reform movements, including women's rights.

• Advised Abraham Lincoln on the employment of Black soldiers during the Civil War.

• Advocated giving the right to vote to the emancipated slaves.

• Died in 1895 as a new system of white supremacy based on segregation and disenfranchisement was being fastened upon the South.

• Insisted that slavery could only be overthrown by continuous resistance.

Chronology

• 1791-1804: Haitian Revolution

• 1800: Gabriel's Rebellion

• 1811: Slave revolt in Louisiana

• 1822: Denmark Vesey's slave conspiracy

• 1830s: States legislate against teaching slaves to read or write

• 1831: William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator debuts

• 1831: Nat Turner's Rebellion

• 1831-1832: Slave revolt in Jamaica

• 1832: Virginia laws tighten the slave system

• 1833: British Parliament mandates emancipation

• 1838: Great Britain abolishes slavery within its empire

• 1838: Frederick Douglass escapes slavery

• 1839: Slaves take control of the Amistad

• 1841: Slave uprising on the Creole

• 1849: Harriet Tubman escapes slavery

• 1855: Trial of Celia

The Old South

• Slavery was already an old institution in America when Frederick Douglass was born.

• After abolition in the North, slavery had become the "peculiar institution" of the South-that is, an institution unique to southern society.

• The Mason-Dixon Line became the dividing line between slavery and freedom.

• Despite the hope of some of the founders that slavery might die out, in fact the institution survived the crisis of the American Revolution and rapidly expanded westward.

• On the eve of the Civil War, the enslaved population had risen to nearly 4 million.

  • Its high rate of natural increase more than making up for the prohibition in 1808 of further slave imports from Africa.

• In the South as a whole, slaves made up one-third of the total population, and in the cotton-producing states of the Lower South, around half.

• By the 1850s, slavery had crossed the Mississippi River and was expanding rapidly in Arkansas, Louisiana, and eastern Texas. In 1860, one-third of the nation's cotton crop was grown west of the Mississippi.

Cotton Is King

• In the nineteenth century, cotton replaced sugar as the world's major crop produced by slave labor.

• Although slavery survived in Brazil and the Spanish and French Caribbean, its abolition in the British empire in 1833 made the United States indisputably the center of slavery in the Americas.

• The Old South was the largest and most powerful slave society the modern world has known.

  • Its strength rested on a virtual monopoly of cotton, the South's "white gold."

• In the nineteenth century, cotton assumed an unprecedented role in the world economy because the early industrial revolution centered on factories using cotton as the raw material to manufacture cloth.

• Three-fourths of the world's cotton supply came from the southern United States.

• Textile manufacturers in places as far-flung as Massachusetts, Lancashire in Great Britain, Normandy in France, and suburbs of Moscow depended on a regular supply of American cotton.

• Cotton sales earned the money from abroad that allowed the United States for imported manufactured goods.

• On the eve of the Civil War, cotton represented well over half of the total value of American exports.

• In 1860, the economic investment represented by the slave population exceeded the value of the nation's factories, railroads, and banks combined.

The Second Middle Passage

• To replace the slave trade from Africa, which had been prohibited by Congress in 1808, a massive trade in slaves developed within the United States.

• More than 2 million slaves were sold between 1820 and 1860.

  • A majority to local buyers but hundreds of thousands from older states to "importing" states of the Lower South, resulting in what came to be known as the Second Middle Passage.

• Slave trading was a visible, established business.

  • The main commercial districts of southern cities contained the offices of slave traders, complete with signs reading "Negro Sales" or "Negroes Bought Here."

• Auctions of slaves took place at public slave markets, as in New Orleans, or at courthouses.

• Southern newspapers carried advertisements for slave sales, southern banks financed slave trading, southern ships and railroads carried enslaved men, women, and children from buyers to sellers, and southern states and municipalities earned revenue by taxing the sale of slaves.

• The Cotton Kingdom could not have arisen without the internal slave trade, and the economies of older states like Virginia came increasingly to rely on the sale of slaves.

Slavery and the Nation

• Slavery, Henry Clay proclaimed in 1816, "forms an exception… to the general liberty prevailing in the United States."

• The "free states" had ended slavery, but they were hardly unaffected by it.

  • The Constitution enhanced the power of the South in the House of Representatives and electoral college and required all states to return fugitives from bondage.

• Slavery shaped the lives of all Americans, white as well as Black.

  • It helped to determine where they lived, how they worked, and under what conditions they could exercise their freedoms of speech, assembly, and the press.

• Northern merchants and manufacturers participated in the slave economy and shared in its profits.

  • Money earned in the cotton trade helped to finance industrial development and internal improvements in the North.

  • Northern ships carried cotton to New York and Europe, northern bankers financed cotton plantations, northern companies insured slave property, and northern factories turned cotton into cloth.

• New York City's rise to commercial prominence depended as much on the establishment of shipping lines that gathered the South's cotton and transported it to Europe as on the Erie Canal.

• The Lords of the Loom (New England's early factory owners) relied on cotton supplied by the Lords of the Lash (southern slaveowners).

• Northern manufacturers like Brooks Brothers supplied cheap fabrics (called "Negro cloth") to clothe the South's slaves.

The Southern Economy

• There was no single South before the Civil War.

  • In the eight slave states of the Upper South, slaves and slaveowners made up a smaller percentage of the total population than in the seven Lower South states that stretched from South Carolina west to Texas.

  • The Upper South had major centers of industry in Baltimore, Richmond, and St. Louis, and its economy was more diversified than that of the Lower South, which was heavily dependent on cotton.

  • During the secession crisis of 1860-1861, the Lower South states were the first to leave the Union.

• Slavery led the South down a very different path of economic development than the North's, limiting the growth of industry, discouraging immigrants from entering the region, and inhibiting technological progress.

• The South did not share in the urban growth experienced by the rest of the country.

  • Most southern cities were located on the region's periphery and served mainly as centers for gathering and shipping cotton.

  • Southern banks existed primarily to help finance the plantations.

    • They loaned money for the purchase of land and slaves, not manufacturing development.

  • Southern railroads mostly consisted of short lines that brought cotton from the interior to coastal ports.

• In the Cotton Kingdom, the only city of significant size was New Orleans.

  • With a population of 168,000 in 1860, New Orleans ranked as the nation's sixth-largest city.

  • As the gathering point for cotton grown along the Mississippi River and sugar from the plantations of southeastern Louisiana, it was the world's leading exporter of slave-grown crops.

  • New Orleans also attracted large numbers of European immigrants.

    • In 1860, 40 percent of its population was foreign-born.

  • New Orleans's rich French heritage and close connections with the Caribbean produced a local culture quite different from that of the rest of the United States, reflected in the city's distinctive music, dance, religion, and cuisine.

• In 1860, the South produced less than 10 percent of the nation's manufactured goods. Many northerners viewed slavery as an obstacle to American economic progress.

• The southern economy was hardly stagnant, and slavery proved compatible with economic growth.

• Some defenders of slavery insisted that American foreign policy promote the interests of slavery throughout the hemisphere.

• Other defenders of slavery insisted that the institution guaranteed equality for whites by preventing the growth of a class doomed to a life of unskilled labor.

  • Slavery for Blacks was the surest guarantee of "perfect equality" among whites, liberating them from the "low, menial" jobs like factory labor and domestic service performed by wage laborers in the North.

  • Slavery made possible the considerable degree of economic autonomy enjoyed not only by planters but also by non-slaveholding whites.

  • Because independence was necessary for citizenship, slavery was the "cornerstone of our republican edifice."

Size of Slaveholdings, 1860

• Most southern slaveholders owned fewer than five slaves.

• The largest plantations were concentrated in coastal South Carolina and along the Mississippi River.

Abolition in the Americas

• American slaveowners were well aware of developments in slave systems elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.

• White southerners observed carefully the results of the wave of emancipations that swept the hemisphere in the first four decades of the century.

  • In these years, slavery was abolished in of Spanish America and in the British empire.

• In most Latin American nations, the end of slavery followed the pattern established earlier in the northern United States-gradual emancipation accompanied by some kind of recognition of the owners' legal right to property in slaves.

• Abolition was far swifter in the British empire, where Parliament in 1833 mandated almost immediate emancipation, with a transitional period of "apprenticeship."

  • The law appropriated 20 million pounds to compensate the owners.

• The experience of emancipation in other parts of the hemisphere strongly affected debates over slavery in the United States.

  • Southern slaveowners judged the vitality of the Caribbean economy by how much sugar and other crops it produced for the world market.

  • Since many former slaves preferred to grow food for their own families, defenders of slavery in the United States charged that British emancipation had been a failure, as sugar production declined.

  • Abolitionists disagreed, pointing to the rising standard of living of freed slaves, the spread of education among them, and other improvements in their lives.

• By 1840, slavery had been outlawed in Mexico, Central America, and Chile, and only small numbers of aging slaves remained in Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru.

• During the European revolutions of 1848, France and Denmark emancipated their colonial slaves.

• At mid-century, significant New World slave systems remained only in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Brazil-and the United States.

• Because of the rapid growth of the slave population in the Old South, there were more slaves in the hemisphere in 1860 than at any earlier point.

Slavery and Liberty

• Many white southerners declared themselves the true heirs of the American Revolution.

  • They claimed to be inspired by "the same spirit of freedom and independence" that motivated the founding generation.

  • Their political language was filled with contrasts between liberty and slavery and complaints that outsiders proposed to reduce them to "slaves" by interfering with their local institutions.

• Southern state constitutions enshrined the idea of equal rights for free men, and the South participated fully in the movement toward political democracy for whites.

• Beginning in the 1830s, however, proslavery writers began to question the ideals of liberty, equality, and democracy so widely shared elsewhere in the nation.

• South Carolina became the home of an aggressive defense of slavery that repudiated the idea that freedom and equality were universal entitlements.

• The insistence of the Declaration of Independence that all men were created equal and entitled to liberty was "the most false and dangerous of all political errors," insisted John C. Calhoun.

• As the sectional controversy intensified after 1830, a number of southern writers and politicians came to defend slavery less as the basis of equality for whites than as the foundation of an organic, hierarchical society.

• Inequality and hence the submission of inferior to superior-Black to white, female to male, lower classes to upper classes-was a "fundamental law" of human existence.

• A hierarchy of "ranks and orders in human society," insisted John B. Alger, a Presbyterian minister in South Carolina, formed part of the "divine arrangement" of the world.

Slavery and Civilization

• George Fitzhugh took the argument to its most radical conclusion.

  • Far from being the natural condition of mankind, "universal liberty" was the exception, an experiment carried on "for a little while" in "a corner of Europe" and the northern United States.

  • Taking the world and its history as a whole, slavery, "without regard to race and color," was "the general,… normal, natural" basis of "civilized society."

  • Slaveowners and slaves shared a "community of interest" unknown in "free society."

  • Since they lacked economic cares, "the Negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some degree, the freest people in the world."

  • White workers in both the North and South would fare better having individual owners, rather than living as "slaves" of the economic marketplace.

• Abraham Lincoln observed that the essential function of the proslavery argument was to serve the interests of those who benefited from a system of extreme inequality.

• After 1830, southern writers, newspaper editors, politicians, and clergymen increasingly devoted themselves to spreading the defense of slavery.

• The majority of white southerners came to believe that freedom for whites rested on the power to command the labor of Blacks.

• In the words of the Richmond Enquirer, "freedom is not possible without slavery."

Glossary

• "Peculiar institution": A phrase used by whites in the antebellum South to refer to slavery without using the word "slavery."

• Second Middle Passage: The massive trade of slaves from the upper South (Virginia and the Chesapeake) to the lower South (the Gulf states) that took place between 1820 and 1860.

• "Cotton is king": Phrase from Senator James Henry Hammond's speech extolling the virtues of cotton and, implicitly, the slave system of production that led to its bounty for the South. "King Cotton" became a shorthand phrase for southern political and economic power.

• Paternalism: A moral position developed during the first half of the nineteenth century, which claimed that slaves were deprived of liberty for their own "good." Such a rationalization was adopted by some slaveowners to justify slavery.

• Proslavery argument: The series of arguments defending the institution of slavery in the South as a positive good, not a necessary evil. The arguments included the racist belief that Black people were inherently inferior to white people, as well as the belief that slavery, in creating a permanent underclass of laborers, made freedom possible for whites. Other elements of the argument included biblical citations.

Life Under Slavery

Slaves and the Law

• For slaves, the "peculiar institution" meant a life of incessant toil, brutal punishment, and the constant fear that their families would be destroyed by sale.

• Under the law, slaves were property.

• Slaves had a few legal rights, but these were haphazardly enforced.

  • All states made it illegal to kill a slave except in self-defense.

  • Slaves accused of serious crimes were entitled to their day in court, before all-white judges and juries.

• Slaves could be sold or leased by their owners at will and lacked any voice in the governments that ruled over them.

• They could not testify in court against a white person, sign contracts or acquire property, own firearms, hold meetings unless a white person was present, or leave the farm or plantation without the permission of their owner.

• By the 1830s, it was against the law to teach a slave to read or write.

• The slave, declared a Louisiana law, "owes to his master… a respect without bounds, and an absolute obedience."

• The entire system of southern justice, from the state militia and courts down to armed patrols in each locality, was designed to enforce the master's control over the person and labor of his slaves.

• In one famous case, a Missouri court considered the case of Celia, a slave who had killed her owner in 1855 while resisting a sexual assault.

  • She was sentenced to death, but her execution was postponed until after she gave birth. This way the owner's heirs would not be deprived of their property rights.

Conditions of Slave Life

• As the nineteenth century progressed, some southern states enacted laws to prevent the mistreatment of slaves, and their material living conditions improved.

• Compared with their counterparts in the West Indies and Brazil, American slaves enjoyed better diets, lower rates of infant mortality, and longer life expectancies.

• Even as the material lives of the majority of slaves improved, the South drew tighter and tighter the chains of bondage.

• Few slave societies in history have so systematically closed all avenues to freedom as the Old South.

Free Blacks in the Old South

• The existence of slavery helped to define the status of those Blacks who did enjoy freedom.

• On the eve of the Civil War, nearly half a million free Blacks lived in the United States, a majority in the South.

• Among Blacks, "the distinction between the slave and the free is not great."

• Free Blacks in the South could legally own property and marry and, of course, could not be bought and sold.

• Many regulations restricting the lives of slaves also applied to free blacks.

• Free Blacks had no voice in selecting public officials.

• Like slaves, they were prohibited from owning dogs, firearms, or liquor, and they could not strike a white person, even in self-defense.

• They were not allowed to testify in court against whites or serve on juries, and they had to carry at all times a certificate of freedom.

• In the United States, a society that equated "Black" and "slave" and left little room for a mixed-race group between them, free Blacks were increasingly considered undesirable, a potential danger to the slave system.

• By the 1850s, most southern states prohibited free Blacks from entering their territory, and a few states even moved to expel them altogether, offering the choice of enslavement or departure.

• A few free Blacks managed to prosper within slave society.

The Upper and Lower South

• Very few free Blacks lived in the Lower South in 1860.

• Like William Johnson, a majority of them resided in cities.

• In New Orleans and Charleston, relatively prosperous free Black communities developed, mostly composed of descendants of unions between white men and slave women.

• In the Upper South, where the large majority of southern free Blacks lived, they generally worked for wages as farm laborers.

• Free Blacks in Virginia and Maryland were closely tied to the slave community and often had relatives in bondage.

• Overall, in the words of Willis A. Hodges, a member of a free Virginia family that helped runaways to reach the North, free Blacks and slaves were "one man of sorrow."

Voices of Freedom

• Joseph Taper's letter from Canada expresses contentment with liberty and condemns Southern laws equating humans with brutes.

• He highlights the benefits of education in Canada and contrasts it with the oppression of slavery.

• De Bow's Review argues that the Bible sanctions slavery and that it has existed throughout history without condemnation from sacred writers.

• They emphasize the importance of showing that the Bible supports slavery.

• Taper and De Bow have contrasting views on the relationship between slavery and Christianity. Taper sees slavery as incompatible with Christian principles, while De Bow argues for its biblical justification.

Slave Labor

• Slavery was primarily a system of labor.

• Large plantations were diversified communities where slaves performed various jobs.

Major Crops of the South, 1860

• Slaves engaged in various activities to include cutting wood, working in mines, manning docks, laying railroad tracks and constructing and repairing bridges, roads, and other facilities.

• By 1860 some 200,000 worked in industry, especially in the ironworks and tobacco factories of the Upper South.

Gang Labor and Task Labor

• The precise organization of labor varied according to the crop and size of the holding.

• The largest concentration of slaves lived and worked on plantations in the Cotton Belt, where men, women, and children labored in gangs, often under the direction of an overseer and perhaps a slave "driver" who assisted him.

• On the rice plantations of South Carolina and Georgia, the system of task labor, which had originated in the colonial era, prevailed.

Slavery in the Cities

• Skilled urban craftsmen also enjoyed considerable autonomy.

• Most city slaves were servants, cooks, and other domestic laborers.

Maintaining Order

• Slaveowners employed a variety of means in their attempts to maintain order and discipline among their human property and persuade them to labor productively.

Glossary

• Land of liberty: The Taper family fled to Canada to avoid being sent back to enslavement in the South.

• Molest [us]: Here Mr. Taper is using the word to describe being physically harmed or forced into bondage.

• Most obt: "Most obt" is an abbreviated form of "most obedient [servant]," which was a common salutation at the time and does not refer to the Taper family's previous enslavement.

• Party: Here the author means group, rather than a political party. Both the Whigs and Democrats had northern and southern wings at this time.

• No deduction from general principles can make it wrong: Here the writer is exalting the Bible over any moral appeals and even over the Constitution and laws of the United States.

• It existed in every country known: This is an exaggeration, and in city-states and other countries, enslavement was not racialized, but rather, it was a consequence of a loss in a battle or war. Enslavement in history was part of warfare, and in many places, the generation that was captured was the only generation that was enslaved-unlike in the United States where the children of enslaved mothers were enslaved in perpetuity.

Slave Culture

• Slaves never abandoned their desire for freedom or their determination to resist total white control over their lives.

• They succeeded in forging a semi-independent culture, centered on the family and church.

• Slave culture drew on the African heritage.

• Unlike the plantation regions of the Caribbean and Brazil, where the African slave trade continued into the nineteenth century and the Black population far outnumbered the white, most slaves in the United States were American-born and lived amid a white majority.

• Slave culture was a new creation, shaped by African traditions and American values and experiences.

The Slave Family

• At the center of the slave community stood the family.

• The United States had an even male-female ratio, making the creation of families far more possible.

• The law did not recognize the legality of slave marriages.

• Most adult slaves married, and their unions, when not disrupted by sale, typically lasted for a lifetime.

• To solidify a sense of family continuity, slaves frequently named children after cousins, uncles, grandparents, and other relatives.

• The slave community had a significantly higher number of female-headed households than among whites, as well as families in which grandparents, other relatives, or even non-kin assumed responsibility for raising children.

The Threat of Sale

• The threat of sale, which disrupted family ties, was perhaps the most powerful disciplinary weapon slaveholders possessed.

• Fear of sale permeated slave life, especially in the Upper South.

Gender Roles among Slaves

• Slave men and women experienced, in a sense, the equality of powerlessness.

• The nineteenth century's "cult of domesticity," which defined the home as a woman's proper sphere, did not apply to slave women, who regularly worked in the fields.

• Enslaved men could not act as the economic providers for their families.

• When slaves worked "on their own time," however, more conventional gender roles prevailed.

Slave Religion

• A distinctive version of Christianity also offered solace to slaves in the face of hardship and hope for liberation from bondage.

• Even though the law prohibited slaves from gathering without a white person present, every plantation, it seemed, had its own Black preacher.

• Owners required slaves to attend services conducted by white ministers, who preached that theft was immoral and that the Bible required servants to obey their masters.

• The slaves transformed the Christianity they had embraced, turning it to their own purposes.

  • A blend of African traditions and Christian belief, slave religion was practiced in secret nighttime gatherings on plantations and in "praise meetings" replete with shouts, dances, and frequent emotional interchanges between the preacher and the congregation.

The Gospel of Freedom

• The biblical story of Exodus played a central role in Black Christianity.

The Desire for Liberty

• Slave culture rested on a conviction of the unjustness of bondage and the desire for freedom.

• Slaves' folklore glorified the weak hare who outwitted stronger foes like the bear and fox, rather than challenging them directly.

• Even the most ignorant slave could not "fail to observe the difference between their own condition and the meanest white man's, and to realize the injustice of laws which place it within [the owner's] power not only to appropriate the profits of their industry, but to subject them to unmediated and unprovoked punishment without remedy."

Resistance To Slavery

• Slaves could only rarely express their desire for freedom by outright rebellion.

• Resistance to slavery took many forms in the Old South, from individual acts of defiance to occasional uprisings.

Forms of Resistance

• The most widespread expression of hostility to slave was "day-to-day resistance" or "silent sabotage"-doing poor work, breaking tools, abusing animals, and in other ways disrupting the plantation routine.

Fugitive Slaves

• Even more threatening to the stability of the slave system were slaves who ran away.

• Slaves had little or no knowledge of geography, apart from understanding that following the North Star led to freedom.

The Underground Railroad

• The Underground Railroad, a loose organization of sympathetic abolitionists who hid fugitives in their homes and sent them on to the next "station," assisted some runaway slaves.

• Rather than a single, centralized system with tunnels, codes, and clearly defined routes/stations, the Underground Railroad was a series of interlocking local networks involving Black and white abolitionists.

The Amistad

• Large groups of slaves collectively seized their freedom. The most celebrated instance involved fifty-three slaves who in 1839 took control of the Amistad, a ship transporting them from one port in Cuba to another, and tried to force the navigator to steer it to Africa.

Slave Revolts

• The four largest conspiracies in American history occurred within the space of thirty-one years in the early nineteenth century.

• In 1811, an uprising on sugar plantations upriver from New Orleans occurred.

The South's Great Reaction

Garrison's abolitionist journal, The Liberator, suggested that American slavery faced enemies both within and outside the South.

Glossary

• Fugitive Slave Act: 1850 law that gave the federal government authority in cases involving runaway slaves; aroused considerable opposition in the North.

• Underground Railroad: Operating in the decades before the Civil War, a clandestine system of routes and safehouses through which slaves were led to freedom in the North.

• Tubman, Harriet: Abolitionist who was born a slave, escaped to the North, and then returned to the South nineteen times and guided 300 slaves to freedom.

• Amistad: Ship that transported slaves from one port in Cuba to another, seized by the slaves in 1839. They made their way northward to the United States, where the status of the slaves became the subject of a celebrated court case; eventually most were able to return to Africa.

• Denmark Vesey's conspiracy: An 1822 failed slave uprising in Charleston, South Carolina, purported to have been led by Denmark Vesey, a free Black man.

• Nat Turner's Rebellion: An 1831 insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia, led by an enslaved preacher, resulting in the death of about sixty white persons.

Chapter Review

Key Terms

• the "peculiar institution" (p. 406)

• Second Middle Passage (p. 408)

• "Cotton is king" (p. 411)

• paternalism (p. 414)

• proslavery argument (p. 415)

• fugitive slaves (p. 435)

• Underground Railroad (p. 436)

• Harriet Tubman (p. 436)

• the Amistad (p. 437)

• Denmark Vesey's conspiracy. (p. 438)

• Nat Turner's Rebellion (p. 439)

Final Chapter 12

An Age of Reform 1820-1840

Focus Questions

• What were the major movements and goals of antebellum reform?

• What were the different varieties of abolitionism?

• How did abolitionism challenge barriers to racial equality and free speech?

• What were the diverse sources of the antebellum women's rights movement and its significance?

Abby Kelley

• Born in Massachusetts in 1811, educated at a Quaker boarding school.

• Joined the Female Anti-Slavery Society in Lynn, Massachusetts.

• Began public speeches about slavery in 1838.

• Spoke almost daily in churches, public halls, and antislavery homes on "the holy cause of human rights."

• Active in pacifist organizations.

• Pioneer in the early struggle for women's rights.

• Challenged the assumption that a woman's "place" was in the home.

• Married Stephen S. Foster, an abolitionist.

Chronology

• 1787: First Shaker community established in upstate New York.

• 1816: American Colonization Society founded.

• 1817: Black convention opposes colonization.

• 1825: Owenite community established at New Harmony, Indiana.

• 1826: American Temperance Society founded.

• 1827: First U.S. Black newspaper, Freedom's Journal, established.

• 1829: David Walker's An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World.

• 1833: American Anti-Slavery Society founded.

• 1834: Female Moral Reform Society organized.

• 1836: Congress adopts the "gag rule."

• 1837: Elijah Lovejoy killed.

• 1845: Margaret Fuller's Woman in the Nineteenth Century.

• 1848: John Humphrey Noyes founds Oneida, New York; Seneca Falls Convention held.

• 1852: Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin; Frederick Douglass's speech, "What, to the Slave, Is the Fourth of July?"

• 1860: Tax-supported school systems established in all northern states.

The Reform Impulse

• Ralph Waldo Emerson in 1841 noted the hope in reform.

• Alexis de Tocqueville observed Americans organizing through voluntary associations.

• Reformers worked to:

  • Prevent liquor manufacture and sale.

  • End public entertainments and mail delivery on Sundays.

  • Improve prisons.

  • Expand public education.

  • Uplift wage laborers.

  • Reorganize society based on cooperation.

• Reformers used speakers, petitions, and pamphlets to convert public opinion.

• Some reform movements were weak or nonexistent in the South due to association with antislavery sentiment.

• Reform was an international movement.

• Tactics varied: moral suasion, government power, and cooperative settlements.

• Reformers never amounted to a majority but had a profound impact.

Utopian Communities

• About 100 reform communities before the Civil War.

• Called "utopian" after Thomas More's novel.

• Differed in structure and motivation (religious, secular).

• Aimed to reorganize society on a cooperative basis.

• "Socialism" and "communism" entered the language.

• Experimented with gender relations and marriage patterns.

• Insisted on ending men's "property" in women.

The Shakers

• Sought retreat from sin.

• Most successful religious community.

• Founded in the late eighteenth century by Mother Ann Lee.

• First community in upstate New York in 1787.

• Believed in God's "dual" personality (male and female).

• Practiced "virgin purity" and abandoned traditional family life.

• Grew by attracting converts and adopting children.

• Known for frenzied dancing.

• Successful economically, marketed seeds, medicines, and furniture.

Oneida

• Founded in 1848 in upstate New York by John Humphrey Noyes.

• Noyes preached achieving a state of complete "purity of heart."

• Did away with private property and traditional marriage.

• Practiced "complex marriage," where any man could propose sexual relations to any woman.

• The community was dictatorial, with members observing and criticizing each other.

• Practiced eugenics to improve the human race by regulating reproduction.

Worldly Communities

• Spiritually oriented communities had longevity due to selfless devotion.

• Worldly communities were prone to internal divisions.

Brook Farm

• Established in 1841 by New England transcendentalists.

• Modeled on Charles Fourier's ideas.

• Attracted writers, teachers, and ministers.

• Disbanded after a few years.

• Nathaniel Hawthorne offered a skeptical view in The Blithedale Romance.

The Owenites

• Robert Owen, a British factory owner, created a model factory village at New Lanark, Scotland.

• Combined strict rules with comfortable housing and free education.

• Promoted equality among people.

The Temperance Movement

• Sought to reduce the consumption of alcohol.

The Crusade Against Slavery

• Before the 1830s, challenge to slavery mainly from Quakers, slaves, and free Blacks.

• Slavery question faded after the Revolution, with occasional controversies like the Missouri controversy of 1819-1821.

Colonization

• Coupled calls for abolition with deporting freed slaves to Africa, the Caribbean, or Central America.

• American Colonization Society founded in 1816.

• Established Liberia on the coast of West Africa.

• Many observers found colonization impractical.

• Supported by prominent political leaders like Henry Clay, John Marshall, and Jackson.

• Colonization rested on the premise that America is fundamentally a white society.

Blacks and Colonization

• Several thousand Black Americans emigrated to Liberia.

• Most African Americans opposed colonization.

• Formation of the American Colonization Society galvanized free Blacks to claim their rights as Americans.

• Black convention in Philadelphia in 1817 insisted Blacks were Americans.

Militant Abolitionism

• Arose in the 1830s, demanding immediate abolition.

• Rejected gradual emancipation.

• Insisted Blacks should be incorporated as equal members.

• Abolitionists insisted on economic, civil, and political rights regardless of race.

An Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World

• Written in 1829 by David Walker, a free African American.

• Warned of divine punishment if the nation did not mend its ways.

• Called on Blacks to take pride and claim their rights.

The Emergence of Garrison

• William Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator in 1831.

• Called for immediate abolition.

• His pamphlet Thoughts on African Colonization persuaded many that Blacks must be recognized as part of American society.

Spreading the Abolitionist Message

• Leaders took advantage of print technology and literacy.

• Between 1833 and the end of the decade, some 100,000 northerners joined local groups.

Activists

• Farmers, shopkeepers, craftsmen, laborers, and a few prominent businessmen.

Theodore Weld

• Helped to create its mass constituency.

• Trained a band of speakers.

• Message: Slavery is a sin.

• Also supervised the publication of abolitionist pamphlets, including his own Slavery As It Is (1839), a compilation of accounts of the maltreatment of slaves.

Abolitionist Fundraising

• Pioneered modern ways of raising funds especially: charity fairs or "bazaars,"

• Offered a foretaste of later consumer activism with Slogan: "Buy for the Sake of the Slave,"

Slavery and Moral Suasion

• Many southerners feared that abolitionists intended to spark a slave insurrection

• Many abolitionists rejected violence as a means of ending slavery.

• Strategy was moral suasion.

• Abolitionists adopted the role of radical social critics.

Abolitionists and the Idea of Freedom

• Abolitionist crusade both reinforced and challenged common understandings of freedom in Jacksonian America.

Birthright Citizenship

• The crusade against slavery gave birth to a new understanding of citizenship and the rights it entailed.

A New Vision of America

• In a society in which the rights of citizenship had become more and more closely associated with whiteness, the antislavery
  movement sought to reinvigorate the idea of freedom as a truly universal entitlement.

• Abolitionists also pioneered the modern idea that human rights took precedence over national sovereignty.

Black and White Abolitionism

Black Abolitionists

• Blacks played a leading role in the antislavery movement.

• Frederick Douglass was only one among many former slaves who published accounts of their lives in bondage.

Racism

• The first racially integrated social movement in American history and the first to give equal rights for Blacks a central place
  in its political agenda, abolitionism was nonetheless a product of its time and place.

• By the 1840s. Black abolitionists sought an independent role within the movement, regularly holding their own conventions.

• The Black abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet, who as a child had escaped from slavery in Maryland with his father, proclaimed at one such gathering in 1843 that slaves should rise in
  rebellion to throw off their shackles.

Slavery and American Freedom

• At every opportunity, Black abolitionists rejected the nation's pretensions as a land of liberty.

• Black abolitionists also identified the widespread poverty of the free Black population as a product of slavery and
  insisted that freedom possessed an economic dimension.

• The greatest oration on American slavery and American freedom was delivered in Rochester in 1852 by Frederick Douglass.

Gentlemen of Property and Standing

• At first, abolitionism aroused violent hostility from northerners who feared that the movement threatened to disrupt the Union

• Led by "gentlemen of property and standing" (often merchants with close commercial ties to the South), mobs disrupted abolitionist meetings in northern cities.

• Antislavery editor Elijah P. Lovejoy became the movement's first martyr in 1837 when he was killed by a mob in Alton, Illinois, while defending his press.

Slavery and Civil Liberties

• Far from stemming the movement's growth, however, mob attacks and attempts to limit abolitionists' freedom of speech
  convinced many northerners that slavery was incompatible with the democratic liberties of white Americans.

• For many years, the American public sphere excluded discussion of slavery.

• The fight for the right to debate slavery openly and without reprisal led abolitionists to elevate "free opinion"-freedom of speech and of the press and the right of petition-to a central place in what Garrison
  called the "gospel of freedom."

The Origins of Feminism

The Rise of the Public Woman

• Frederick Douglass later recalled "women will occupy a
  large space in its pages."

• One such activist was Lucy Colman, She became an abolitionist lecturer, a teacher at a school for Blacks in upstate
  New York, an advocate of women's rights, and an opponent of capital punishment

• The public sphere was open to women in ways government and party politics were not.

Social and Political Activism

• Women organized a petition campaign against the policy of Indian removal.

• Dorothea Dix, a Massachusetts schoolteacher, was the leading advocate of more
  humane treatment of the insane

• In 1834, middle-class women in
  New York City organized the Female Moral Reform Society

Equality and Understanding

• All these activities enabled women
  to carve out a place in the public sphere

• The daughters of a prominent South Carolina slaveholder, Angelina and Sarah
  were converted first to Quakerism and then to abolitionism while visiting Philadelphia

The Grimké sisters

• First women to apply the abolitionist doctrine of universal freedom and equality to the status of women.

• Chapter 13: A House Divided (1840-1861)

Focus Questions

• What were the major factors contributing to U.S. territorial expansion in the 1840s?

• Why did the expansion of slavery become the most divisive political issue in the 1840s and 1850s?

• What combination of issues and events fueled the creation of the Republican Party in the 1850s?

• What enabled Lincoln to emerge as president from the divisive party politics of the 1850s?

• What were the final steps on the road to secession?

Chronology

• 1820: Moses Austin receives Mexican land grant.

• 1836: Texas independence from Mexico.

• 1845: Inauguration of James Polk; United States annexes Texas.

• 1846: Wilmot Proviso.

• 1846-1848: Mexican War.

• 1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; Gold discovered in California; Free Soil Party organized.

• 1849: Inauguration of Zachary Taylor.

• 1850: Compromise of 1850; Fugitive Slave Act.

• 1853: Inauguration of Franklin Pierce.

• 1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act; Know-Nothing Party established; Ostend Manifesto; Republican Party organized.

• 1856: Bleeding Kansas.

• 1857: Inauguration of James Buchanan; Dred Scott decision.

• 1858: Lincoln-Douglas debates.

• 1859: John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry.

• 1860: South Carolina secedes.

• 1861: Inauguration of Abraham Lincoln; Fort Sumter fired upon.

Fruits of Manifest Destiny

Continental Expansion

• By 1840, with Indian removal complete, most land east of the Mississippi River was in white hands leading to territorial expansion.

• The depression of 1837 spurred westward migration to Oregon for its fertile Willamette Valley.

• Between 1840 and 1845, approximately 5,000 emigrants traveled to Oregon from Missouri River banks.

• By 1860, nearly 300,000 people had journeyed to Oregon and California, facing disease, starvation, and Indian attacks.

• During the 1840s, the U.S. and Great Britain jointly administered Oregon, and Utah was part of Mexico.

• The 1840s saw an intensification of "manifest destiny," the belief that the U.S. should reach the Pacific Ocean.

The Mexican Frontier: New Mexico and California

• Oregon settlement didn't directly raise the slavery issue, but acquiring part of Mexico did.

• In 1821, Mexico gained independence from Spain, possessing a large territory with a population two-thirds the size of the U.S.

• Mexico's northern provinces (California, New Mexico, and Texas) were isolated and sparsely settled.

• New Mexico in 1821 had around 30,000 Spanish origin persons, 10,000 Pueblo Indians, and nomadic Indian tribes.

• The 1821 opening of the Santa Fe Trail linked New Mexico to Independence, Missouri, incorporating it into the U.S. sphere of influence.

• California in 1821 had about 3,200 missionaries, soldiers, and settlers vastly outnumbered by 20,000 Native Americans working on mission lands and 150,000 unsubdued Native Americans inland.

• In 1834, the Mexican government dissolved mission landholdings and emancipated Indians, with most land ending up with Californios (Mexican cattle ranchers).

• Californios saw themselves as gente de razón (people capable of reason) compared to Indians, whom they viewed as gente sin razón (people without reason).

• Indians were required to keep working for the new landholders for the "common good."

• By 1840, California had commercial links with the U.S., with New England ships trading in the region.

• In 1846, Alfred Robinson wondered why California shouldn't be annexed to extend the "area of freedom."

The Texas Revolt

• Texas was the first part of Mexico settled by significant numbers of Americans.

• The Spanish government accepted Moses Austin's offer to colonize Texas with Americans; in 1820, he received a land grant.

• Stephen Austin continued the plan in independent Mexico, selling land to American settlers at twelve cents per acre; settlers had to become Mexican citizens.

• By 1830, there were around 7,000 Americans in Texas, exceeding the number of Tejanos (Spanish-origin Texans).

• The Mexican government, alarmed, annulled land contracts and barred U.S. emigration in 1830.

• American settlers, led by Stephen Austin, demanded greater autonomy within Mexico, joined by some Tejano elites.

• Slavery became an issue, as Mexico had abolished it, but American settlers brought slaves.

• In 1835, General Antonio López de Santa Anna sent an army to impose central authority, leading to a local committee protesting that he sought to free slaves and enslave the settlers.

• Santa Anna's army sparked the Texas revolt.

• The rebels formed a provisional government that called for Texan independence.

• On March 6, 1836, Santa Anna's army stormed the Alamo in San Antonio, killing 187 American and Tejano defenders; "Remember the Alamo" became the rallying cry.

• In April, forces under Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna's army at the Battle of San Jacinto, forcing him to recognize Texan independence.

• Houston became the first president of the Republic of Texas.

• In 1837, the Texas Congress called for union with the U.S., but President Martin Van Buren shelved the question over concerns about adding another slave state.

• Settlers, including slaveowners, poured into Texas, taking up fertile cotton land.

• By 1845, the population of Texas reached almost 150,000.

The Election of 1844

• Texas annexation was revived by President John Tyler in 1844 to rescue his administration and gain southern support.

• A leaked letter by John C. Calhoun linked Texas annexation to strengthening slavery.

• Some southern leaders wanted to divide Texas into multiple states.

• Henry Clay and Martin Van Buren opposed immediate annexation to avoid war with Mexico.

• They tried to keep the slavery issue out of national politics.

Liberty and Expansion

• Expansion raised questions about freedom, race, and citizenship in new territories.

• Texas constitution excluded Indians and Africans from citizenship.

• A Texas law in 1840 prohibited free African-Americans from entering the state.

• "Spanish" Mexicans in Texas were considered white, but New Mexicans were deemed "too Mexican" for self-government; New Mexico wasn't allowed to become a state until 1912 due to lagging white migration.

Gold-Rush California

• California had fewer than 15,000 non-Indian residents when the Mexican War ended.

• In January 1848, gold was discovered at Johann A. Sutter's sawmill in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, sparking the gold rush.

• The non-Indian population rose to 200,000 by 1852 and over 360,000 by 1860.

• California's gold-rush population was diverse, including miners from Mexico and South America, Americans from the East, and immigrants from Ireland, Germany, Italy, and Australia.

• Nearly 25,000 Chinese immigrants arrived between 1849 and 1852 as laborers.

• San Francisco grew from 1,000 residents in 1848 to 30,000 by 1850, becoming racially and ethnically diverse.

• Most gold-rush migrants were young men, but women ran restaurants, boardinghouses, and worked as laundresses, cooks, and prostitutes.

• In 1860, California's male population outnumbered females by nearly three to one.

California and the Boundaries of Freedom

• Early surface mines quickly exhausted, giving way to underground mining requiring large capital investments.

• Economic development worsened racial and ethnic conflicts.

• Gold-rush California's law was fragile; "committees of vigilance" took control in San Francisco in 1851 and 1856, bypassing courts to try and execute those accused of crimes.

• White miners expelled "foreign miners" (Mexicans, Chileans, Chinese, French, American Indians) from gold areas.

• The state legislature imposed a $20 per month tax on foreign miners, driving many out.

• California retained an image as a place for newcomers to start anew, but its freedom was limited.

• The 1850 state constitution restricted voting and court testimony to whites, excluding Indians, Asians, and most Blacks.

• Landowners of Spanish descent or those intermarried with American settlers were deemed white, but land titles from Mexican days were easily challenged.

• Chinese people faced prejudice; Governor John Bigler called them "coolies" who undercut free white labor.

• Chinese women were described as prostitutes.

• California's Indian population was decimated by the gold rush; miners, ranchers, and vigilantes murdered thousands.

• State officials paid bounties to militias that attacked Indians; thousands of Indian children were sold as slaves.

• By 1860, California's Indigenous population decreased from nearly 150,000 to around 30,000.

Opening Japan

• The Mexican War gave the U.S. possession of harbors like San Diego and San Francisco for trade with the Far East.

• Between 1848 and 1860, American trade with China tripled.

• In the 1850s, the U.S. led in opening Japan, which had been closed to foreign contact for over two centuries.

• In 1853 and 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Tokyo Harbor and demanded a trade treaty.

• Japanese leaders, alarmed by European intrusions into China and impressed by Perry's armaments, opened two ports to American shipping in 1854.

• In 1856, Townsend Harris became the first American consul and persuaded the Japanese to allow American ships into additional ports and establish full diplomatic relations.

• Japan soon launched a process of modernization.

A Dose of Arsenic

• Victory over Mexico added a vast territory, raising the issue of slavery's expansion.

• Ralph Waldo Emerson predicted, "Mexico will poison us", which meant the issue of slavery would divide the nation.

• The Methodists and Baptists split into northern and southern branches in 1844 and 1845.

• The slavery issue dissolved the two-party system, a strong force for national unity.

The Wilmot Proviso

• Before 1846, the status of slavery had been settled by state law or the Missouri Compromise.

• Acquiring new land reopened the question of slavery's expansion; in 1846, Congressman David Wilmot proposed the Wilmot Proviso, prohibiting slavery in territory acquired from Mexico.

• Party lines crumbled, with northerners supporting the Proviso and southerners opposing it.

• The measure passed the House but failed in the Senate.

• In 1848, opponents of slavery's expansion formed the Free Soil Party, nominating Martin Van Buren for president.

• Democrats nominated Lewis Cass, who proposed popular sovereignty (settlers decide on slavery).

• Van Buren's campaign appealed to northerners against slavery's expansion, polling 300,000 votes.

• The Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor, won in 1848.

• Senator William H. Seward commented, "Antislavery is at length a respectable element in politics."

The Free Soil Appeal

• The Free Soil position appealed to northerners beyond abolitionists.

• Congress had precedents for keeping territories free from slavery (Northwest Ordinance, Missouri Compromise).

• Many northerners resented southern domination of the federal government.

• Preventing new slave states appealed to those favoring protective tariffs and government aid to internal improvements.

• The labor movement promoted access to western land to combat unemployment in the East.

• George Henry Evans declared "Freedom of the soil" as an alternative to economic dependence.

• The term "free soil" had a double meaning calling for barring slavery from western territories and for the federal government to provide free homesteads to settlers in the new territories.

• The "free soil" idea also appealed to northern racism; Wilmot aimed to advance "the cause and rights of the free white man," by preventing competition with "Black labor."

• To white southerners, barring slavery from new territory violated their rights.

• Southerners fought and died to win these territories and should share the victory.

• Southern leaders believed slavery must expand or die.

• Southern interests would not be secure in a Union dominated by non-slaveholding states.

Crisis and Compromise

• The year 1848 was remembered as a time of democratic uprisings in Europe.

• Established party leaders moved to resolve sectional differences.

• In 1850, California requested admission to the Union as a free state, alarming southerners.

• Senator Henry Clay proposed the Compromise of 1850 with four main provisions:

  • California would enter as a free state.

  • The slave trade (but not slavery) would be abolished in the nation's capital.

  • A stringent new law would help southerners reclaim runaway slaves.

  • The status of slavery in remaining territories from Mexico would be decided by local white inhabitants.

  • The United States would agree to pay off Texas's debt.

The Great Debate

• In the Senate debate on the Compromise, leaders spoke for and against it.

• Daniel Webster was willing to accept a new fugitive slave law for sectional peace.

• John C. Calhoun rejected the very idea of compromise and said slavery must be protected and extended, and the North must yield.

• William H. Seward opposed compromise, stating that a "higher law" than the Constitution condemned slavery.

• President Zachary Taylor opposed compromise and insisted to admit California to the Union.

• Millard Fillmore supported and helped to secure the Compromise of 1850 after President Taylor's death.

The Fugitive Slave Issue

• The new Fugitive Slave Act made further controversy inevitable allowed special federal commissioners to determine the fate of alleged fugitives without benefit of a jury trial.

• The Act prohibited local authorities from interfering with the capture of fugitives and required individual citizens to assist in such capture when called upon by federal agents.

• Southern leaders supported a measure that brought federal agents into communities throughout the North.

• The law widened sectional divisions and reinvigorated the Underground Railroad.

• Fugitives and abolitionist allies violently resisted recapture; a large crowd rescued the escaped slave Jerry from jail in Syracuse, New York, and spirited him off to Canada.

• Margaret Garner killed her daughter rather than see her returned to slavery.

• The Underground Railroad redoubled its efforts to assist fugitives, placed on trains to Canada.

• Hundreds of fugitives and freeborn Blacks fled to Canada for safety.

• The sight of refugees seeking liberty in a foreign land challenged the image of the U.S. as an asylum for freedom.

Douglas and Popular Sovereignty

• The Compromise of 1850 temporarily restored sectional peace.

• In the 1852 presidential election, Franklin Pierce won due to he recognized the Compromise as a final settlement of the slavery controversy.

• In 1854, Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas introduced a bill to provide territorial governments for Kansas and Nebraska, located within the Louisiana Purchase.

• Douglas hoped that a transcontinental railroad could be constructed through Kansas or Nebraska.

• Douglas hoped to satisfy the Southerners by applying the principle of popular sovereignty.

• Douglas believed that popular sovereignty embodied the idea of local self-government and offered a middle ground between the extremes of North and South and enable capturing the presidential nomination in 1856.

The Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Kansas and Nebraska in the nation's heartland.

• Slavery was prohibited there under the terms of the Missouri Compromise, which Douglas's bill would repeal.

• A group of antislavery congressmen issued the Appeal of the Independent Democrats.

• The Appeal proved to be one of the most effective pieces of political persuasion calling Douglas's bill a "gross violation of a sacred pledge" and aiming at nothing less than extending their peculiar institution throughout the West.

• The Kansas-Nebraska Act became law and shattered the Democratic Party's unity.

• The Whig Party unable to develop a unified response to the political crisis, collapsed.

• The South became solidly Democratic.

• Most northern Whigs joined a new organization, the Republican Party, dedicated to preventing the further expansion of slavery.

The Rise of the Republican Party

The Northern Economy

• The rise of the Republican Party reflected economic and social changes, notably the completion of the market revolution and mass immigration from Europe.

• From 1843 to 1857, there was explosive economic growth (especially in the North).

• Railroad network completion boosted the economy greatly.

• From 5,000 miles in 1848, railroad track mileage grew to 30,000 by 1860 mainly in Ohio, Illinois, and the Old Northwest.

• Four great trunk railroads now linked eastern cities with western farming and commercial centers.

• Railroads completed the reorientation of the Northwest's trade from the South to the East.

• The economic integration of the Northwest and Northeast created the groundwork for their political unification in the Republican Party.

• By 1860, the North had an integrated economy, with eastern industrialists marketing goods to western farmers, and city residents consuming western food.

• Northern society was in transition; most people lived in small towns, and economic independence was within reach, but most of the northern workforce no longer labored in agriculture.

• Two industrial production areas arose: one along the Atlantic coast (Boston to Philadelphia), and one near the Great Lakes (Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago).

• Coal mining and iron manufacturing grew rapidly, driven by railroad expansion.

• Chicago became a major rail center and manufacturing center with reapers, barbed wire, windmills, and prefabricated houses.

• New York City became the nation's financial, commercial, and manufacturing center.

• The South did not share in these broad economic changes, although cotton production did bring more wealth to slaveholders.

The Rise and Fall of the Know-Nothings

• In 1854, nativism emerged with the American, or Know-Nothing, Party, which focused on anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic sentiment.

• The Know-Nothing Party emerged dedication to reserving political office for native-born Americans and resisting the "aggressions" of the Catholic Church.

• The Know-Nothings won state elections in Massachusetts in 1854 electing the governor, all of the state's congressmen, and nearly every member of the state legislature and captured the mayor's office in cities.

• In the North, the Know-Nothings' appeal combined anti-Catholic and antislavery sentiment and opposition to the sale of liquor.

Important Note: All European immigrants benefited from being white.
During the 1850s, free Blacks found immigrants pushing them out of jobs.
Immigrants after white male suffrage had become the norm and automatically received the right to vote.

The Free Labor Ideology

• By 1856, the Republican Party, including former Democrats, Whigs, Free-Soilers, and Know-Nothings, was the major alternative to the Democratic Party in the North.

• Republicans convinced northerners that the Slave Power posed a greater threat to their liberties.

• The party's appeal rested on the idea of "free labor".

• Republicans idealized the North, saying northern society offered each laborer the opportunity to become a landowning farmer or independent craftsman.

• Slavery produced degraded slaves, poor whites, and idle aristocrats and that if slavery spread to the West, it would diminish chances for social advancement.

• Republicans insisted that slavery must be kept out of the territories so that free labor could flourish.

• They called for "freedom national" (ending federal government support of slavery), which meant not abolition, but ending the federal government's support of slavery.

• Republicans were not abolitionists and they attacking slavery where it existed.

• Senator William H. Seward said that the nation's division into free and slave societies was an "irrepressible conflict" that eventually would have to be resolved.

• Seward said that market revolution heightened the tension between freedom and slavery.

• The United States, he predicted, "must and will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slaveholding nation, or entirely a free-labor nation."

Bleeding Kansas and the Election of 1856

• In 1854 and 1855, hundreds of proslavery Missourians crossed the border to cast fraudulent ballots when Kansas held elections.

• President Franklin Pierce recognized the legitimacy of the resulting proslavery legislature.

• Settlers from free states established a rival government while the civil war broke out in Kansas.

• In May 1856, a proslavery mob attacked the free-soil stronghold of Lawrence, burning public buildings and pillaging private homes.

• South Carolina representative Preston Brooks beat antislavery senator Charles Sumner unconscious in Congress.

• In the election of 1856, the Republican Party chose John C. Frémont as its candidate, opposing slavery's further expansion.

• Democratic nominated James Buchanan.

• The Democratic platform endorsed popular sovereignty.

• The Know-Nothings presented Millard Fillmore as their candidate.

• Buchanan won the entire South and the key northern states, with Fillmore carrying only Maryland.

• The 1856 election made clear that parties had reoriented themselves along sectional lines.

The Emergence of Lincoln

The Dred Scott Decision

• James Buchanan wanted to diminish inflamed sectional emotions.

• Buchanan knew of an impending Supreme Court decision that might settle the slavery controversy.

• This was the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford, regarding Dred Scott who accompanied his owner to Illinois (where slavery was prohibited) and Wisconsin Territory (barred by the Missouri Compromise).

• After returning to Missouri, Scott sued for his freedom, claiming residence on free soil had made him free.

• The Court addressed three questions:

  • Could a Black person be a citizen and sue in federal court?

  • Did residence in a free state make Scott free?

  • Did Congress possess the power to prohibit slavery in a territory?

• The Court divided 6-3 decision; Chief Justice Roger B. Taney made clear his conviction that only white persons were eligible to be part of the American body politic.
  Taney declared that only white persons could be citizens of the United States
  *Taney insisted that the nation's founders believed that Blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

• Taney said citizenship meant freedom from legal discrimination.

• Scott remained a slave; Illinois law had no effect after returning to Missouri.

• Congress had no power under the Constitution to bar slavery from a territory.

• The Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, and so was any measure interfering with southerners' right to bring slaves into territories.
  The decision declared unconstitutional the Republican platform opposing slavery's expansion

The Decision's Aftermath

• A new owner emancipated Scott and his family; Scott died in 1858.

• The Dred Scott decision caused a furor in the North and put the question of Black citizenship on the national political agenda.

• James McCune Smith demonstrated that all free persons born in the United States, Black as well as white, "must be citizens."

• Justice John McLean insisted that regardless of race, "birth on the soil of a country both creates the duties and confers the rights of citizenship."

• President Buchanan announced slavery existed in all territories by virtue of the Constitution.

• In 1858, administration tried to admit Kansas as a slave state under the Lecompton Constitution.

• Douglas allied with congressional Republicans blocked the attempt.

• Southern Democrats no support Douglas.

Lincoln and Slavery

• The depth of division over slavery was evident in the 1858 election campaign.

• Douglas faced strong challenge from Abraham Lincoln.

• Born in Kentucky in 1809, Lincoln had moved to frontier Indiana and then Illinois.

• He served four terms in the state legislature and one in Congress.

• Lincoln reentered politics in 1854 due to the Kansas-Nebraska Act.

• Lincoln wanted to stop the expansion of slavery.

• Lincoln's speeches combined moral fervor of abolitionists with respect for order and the Constitution.

• His own life was an example that he wanted every man to have the chance and that Blacks might not be the equal of whites, but in their "natural right" to the fruits of their labor, they were "my equal and the equal of all others."

The Lincoln-Douglas Campaign

• The campaign against Douglas created Lincoln's reputation accepting is parties nomination in June 1858.

• "A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently half slave and half free."

• Lincoln insisted that Americans must choose between favoring and opposing slavery.

The Impending Crisis

The Secession Movement

In the eyes of white southerners, Lincoln's victory threatened their values and interests.

• Those advocating secession didn't believe Lincoln would immediately act against slavery in the states.

• At stake was an entire way of life
  In the months after Lincoln's election, seven states (South Carolina to Texas) seceded.

South Carolina's Declaration of the Immediate Causes of Secession focused on the issue of slavery

The Secession Crisis

• President Buchanan denied states could secede, but believed the federal government had no right to use force against it.

• Senator John J. Crittenden offered the most widely supported compromise, which would have guaranteed slavery and extended the Missouri Compromise line to the Pacific Ocean.

• Seceding states rejected the compromise; it foundered on Lincoln's opposition.

• Lincoln stood against slavery expansion and feared that Crittenden's reference to land "hereafter acquired" offered the South to demand the acquisition of Cuba, Mexico, and other territory suited to slavery.

• The seceding states formed the Confederate States of America with Jefferson Davis as president who adopted a constitution.

• The Confederate constitution: guaranteeing slave property.

And the War Came

• When Lincoln became president, eight slave states of the Upper South remained in the Union.

• In his inaugural address, Lincoln rejected the right of secession, but did promise to "hold" remaining federal property in the seceding states.

• Lincoln avoided any action that might drive more states from the Union.

• On April 12, 1861, Confederate batteries fired on Fort Sumter, leading to the surrender of the fort.

• Lincoln proclaimed an insurrection in the South and called for 75,000 troops to suppress it.

• Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Arkansas joined the Confederacy.
  *
  In 1861, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's warning came to pass with the struggle to rebuild bring a new birth of American freedom.

Review Questions

1. Explain the justifications for the doctrine of manifest destiny, including material and idealistic motivations.

2. Why did many Americans criticize the Mexican War? How did they see expansion as a threat to American liberties?

3. How did the concept of "race" develop by the mid-nineteenth century, and how did it enter into the manifest destiny debate?

4. How did western expansion affect the sectional tensions between the North and South?

5. How did the market revolution contribute to the rise of the Republican Party? How did those economic and political factors serve to unite groups in the Northeast and in the Northwest, and why was that unity significant?

6. What was the "Slave Power," and why did many northerners feel threatened by it?

7. How did the Dred Scott decision spark new debates over citizenship for African Americans?

8. Based on the Lincoln-Douglas debates, how did the two differ on the expansion of slavery, equal rights, and the role of the national government? Use examples of their words to illustrate your points.

9. Why did Stephen Douglas, among others, believe that "popular sovereignty" could resolve sectional divisions of the 1850s? Why did the idea not work out?

10. Explain how sectional voting patterns in the 1860 presidential election allowed southern "fire-eaters" to justify secession.

11. What do the California gold rush and the opening of Japan reveal about the United States' involvement in a global economic system?

Key Terms

• Tejanos (p. 480)

• Antonio López de Santa Anna (p. 481)

• Texas revolt (p. 482)

• Mexican War (p. 484)

• Gadsden Purchase (p. 485)

• Gold rush (p. 488)

• Commodore Matthew Perry (p. 490)

• Wilmot Proviso (p. 491)

• Free Soil Party (p. 491)

• Compromise of 1850 (p. 494)

• Fugitive Slave Act (p. 494)

• Popular sovereignty (p. 497)

• Kansas-Nebraska Act (p. 497)

• Know-Nothing Party (p. 499)

• The Slave Power (p. 501)

• "Bleeding Kansas" (p. 502)

• Dred Scott v. Sandford (p. 503)

• Lincoln-Douglas debates (p. 508)

• Harpers Ferry, Virginia (p. 508)

• Fort Sumter (p. 517)

Chapter 14

Focus Questions

• Why is the Civil War considered the first modern war?

• How did a war to preserve the Union become a war to end slavery?

• How did the Civil War transform the national economy and create a stronger nation-state?

• How was the society and economy of the Confederacy affected by the war effort?

• What were the military and political turning points of the war?

• What were the most important wartime "rehearsals for Reconstruction"?

Marcus M. Spiegel

• A German-Jewish immigrant who volunteered to fight in the Civil War in 1861.

• Rose to the rank of colonel in the 120th Ohio Infantry.

• Initially held racist views and considered the Emancipation Proclamation a mistake.

• His views changed as he witnessed the horrors of slavery in the South, leading him to oppose it.

• Died in Louisiana in May 1864.

Union Soldiers' Perspective

• Many Union soldiers viewed the war as a fight for freedom and to preserve the American nation as a beacon of liberty.

• The understanding of liberty evolved during the war, with many northerners becoming convinced that preserving the Union required the destruction of slavery.

Chronology of Key Events

• 1861:

  • Civil War begins at Fort Sumter

  • First Battle of Bull Run

• 1862:

  • Forts Henry and Donelson captured

  • Monitor vs. Merrimac sea battle

  • Battle of Shiloh

  • Confederacy institutes the draft

  • Homestead Act

  • Seven Days' Campaign

  • Second Battle of Bull Run

  • Union Pacific and Central Pacific chartered

  • Morrill Act of 1862

  • Battle at Antietam

  • Battle at Fredericksburg

• 1863:

  • Emancipation Proclamation

  • Siege of Vicksburg

  • Battle at Gettysburg

  • New York draft riots

  • Lincoln introduces his Ten-Percent Plan

• 1864:

  • General Grant begins a war of attrition

  • Wade-Davis Bill

  • General Sherman marches to the sea

• 1865:

  • Thirteenth Amendment

  • Union capture of Richmond

  • General Lee surrenders to General Grant at Appomattox Courthouse

  • Lincoln assassinated

• 1866: Ex parte Milligan ruling

The First Modern War

• The Civil War is considered the first modern war due to:

  • Mass armies confronting each other with deadly weapons created by the industrial revolution.

  • Resulting casualties dwarfing previous American experiences.

  • The war evolving into a conflict of society against society, blurring the lines between military and civilian targets.

  • The importance of political leadership, economic mobilization, and societal willingness to fight.

The Two Combatants

• Comparison between the Union and Confederacy:

  • Union advantages: population of 22 million (including loyal border states), more manufacturing, railroad mileage, and financial resources.

  • Confederate advantages: the need to only defend territory and the potential for the Union to tire of the struggle.

  • Confederate General P.G.T. Beauregard claimed the Confederacy had more relative advantages than any people warred for independence with.

• Both sides experienced powerful feelings of patriotism, leading to enthusiastic enlistment.

• The Confederacy passed the first draft law in American history in the spring of 1862, followed by the North.

• The Union army consisted largely of farm boys, shopkeepers, artisans, and urban workers.

• Southern armies consisted mostly of non-slaveholding small farmers, with slaveowners dominating the officer corps.

Technology of War

• The Civil War was the first major conflict to utilize:

  • Railroads for transporting troops and supplies.

  • Ironclads over wooden ships (e.g., Monitor vs. Merrimac).

  • The telegraph for military communication.

  • Observation balloons.

  • Primitive hand grenades and submarines.

• Revolution in arms manufacturing:

  • Replacement of traditional muskets with modern rifles, deadly at 600 yards or more.

  • Emphasis on heavy fortifications and trenches.

  • Defensive advantage for southern armies.

• Casualties:

  • Approximately 750,000 men perished (equivalent to over 7 million today).

  • Thousands of civilians died due to battles, disease-ridden camps, and conflicts.

  • The death toll exceeds that of all other American wars combined.

Medical Care and Conditions

• Primitive medical care led to more deaths from disease than combat.

• Diseases like measles, dysentery, malaria, and typhus were rampant in army camps.

• The Civil War was the first war with large numbers of Americans captured and held in dire conditions in military prisons.

• Approximately 50,000 men died in these prisons, including 13,000 Union soldiers at Andersonville, Georgia.

The Public and the War

• Propaganda efforts:

  • Both sides used lithographs, souvenirs, sheet music, and pamphlets to mobilize public opinion.

  • The Union reaffirmed northern values, accused the South of treason and crimes, and targeted the Democratic Party.

• War's brutal realities:

  • War correspondents reported battle results and casualty lists quickly.

  • Photography brought images of war into American homes.

  • Mathew Brady organized photographers to cover the war.

Mobilizing Resources

• Both sides were unprepared at the war's outbreak.

  • Lack of national railroad gauge, national banking system, tax system, and accurate maps.

• Lincoln proclaimed a naval blockade of the South, which was initially ineffective due to a small navy.

• Supplying soldiers:

  • The Union army became the best-fed and best-supplied military force.

  • Southern armies suffered from shortages of food, uniforms, and shoes by the third year.

  • Josiah Gorgas, chief of the Confederacy's Ordnance Bureau, imported weapons and established arsenals.

The Coming of Emancipation

• Destruction of slavery as the most dramatic change in American life during the Civil War.

• Scale of American emancipation dwarfed that of any other country, with nearly 4 million slaves freed.

• Lincoln's initial concerns:

  • Keeping border slave states in the Union.

  • Building broad support in the North.

  • Insisted slavery was irrelevant to the conflict.

The Unraveling of Slavery

• Early war policies:

  • Congress affirmed no intention of interfering with slavery.

  • Northern commanders returned fugitive slaves to owners.

• Policy changes:

  • Confederacy used slaves as military laborers.

  • Blacks began escaping to Union lines.

  • General Benjamin F. Butler treated escaped Blacks as "contraband of war."

  • Escaping slaves became known as "the contrabands."

  • Contraband camps and schools were established.

Steps toward Emancipation

• Abolitionists and Radical Republicans push for emancipation to weaken the South's ability to sustain the war.

• Frederick Douglass advocates for linking the freedom of slaves with the victory of the government.

• Congressional Actions (1862):

  • Prohibited the army from returning fugitive slaves.

  • Abolished slavery in the District of Columbia (with compensation to owners).

  • Abolished slavery in the territories.

  • Second Confiscation Act: liberated slaves of disloyal owners in Union-occupied territory and slaves who escaped to Union lines.

The Emancipation Proclamation

• Lincoln's decision:

  • Political and military necessity due to lack of military success.

  • Growing manpower needs.

  • Changing northern public opinion.

  • Counteracting British sentiment for recognizing the Confederacy.

• Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation (September 22, 1862):

  • Warned the South to lay down arms by the end of 1862 or face abolition.

• Northern reaction:

  • Democrats warned the North would be "Africanized."

  • Republicans suffered reverses in elections.

  • Lincoln revived ideas of gradual emancipation and colonization.

The Emancipation Proclamation (cont.)

• Issued January 1, 1863

• Did not liberate all slaves:

  • Exempted areas firmly under Union control (border states, Tennessee, parts of Virginia and Louisiana).

• Declared over 3 million slaves in Confederate territory "henceforward shall be free."

• Jubilation among free Blacks, abolitionists, "contrabands," and slaves.

• Altered the nature of the Civil War, wedding the goals of Union and abolition.

• Turning point in Lincoln's thinking with no reference to compensation or colonization.

• Committed the government to enlisting Black soldiers in the Union army.

• Lincoln became the "Great Emancipator."

Enlisting Black Troops

• Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles allowed African Americans to serve on Union warships.

  • General Benjamin F. Butler (early in the war) initially resisted enlisting Black soldiers.

• Recruitment began in earnest after the Emancipation Proclamation.

• By the end of the war:

  • More than 180,000 Black men served in the Union army, and 24,000 in the navy.

• Notable Black units:

  • 54th Massachusetts Volunteers: bravery in the July 1863 attack on Fort Wagner, South Carolina.

  • Commanded by Robert Gould Shaw.

  • Their exploits were popularized in the 1989 film "Glory."

Enlisting Black Troops (cont.)

• Most Black soldiers:

  • Were emancipated slaves who joined the army in the South.

  • Union General Lorenzo Thomas raised 50 regiments of Black soldiers in the Mississippi Valley (approximately 76,000 men).

  • Hailed from border states (where enlistment was the only route to freedom).

  • Congress expanded the Emancipation Proclamation to liberate the families of Black soldiers.

The Black Soldier

• Liberating experience for Black soldiers:

  • Established men as community leaders.

  • Opened doors to political advancement.

  • Many became leaders of the Reconstruction era.

• Treatment:

  • Union navy treated Black sailors pretty much the same as white sailors.

  • Racial segregation was impossible on ship, pay and promotion opportunities were equal.

  • Army Black soldiers organized into segregated units under white officers.

  • Initially received lower pay ($10 per month vs. $16 for white soldiers, but later corrected).

  • Disproportionately assigned to labor, could not rise to commissioned officer rank until the war's end.

• Captured Black soldiers faced sale into slavery or immediate execution.

• 1864 Fort Pillow incident: 200 of 262 Black soldiers died, some after surrendering.

Equality and Recognition

• Frederick Douglass urged Blacks to enlist, asserting their right to citizenship.

• Black military service prompted many Republicans to believe emancipation should bring equal protection under the law.

• Retroactive equal pay was granted to Black soldiers early in 1865.

• Affected Lincoln's outlook:

  • Insisted Black soldiers be treated the same as whites when captured.

  • Suspended prisoner-of-war exchanges when the Confederacy refused to include Black troops.

  • 1864: Urged the governor of Union-occupied Louisiana to work for partial Black enfranchisement, singling out soldiers as deserving.

The Second American Revolution

• Changing status of Black Americans as one example of the "Second American Revolution."

• Liberty and Union:

  • Lincoln's observations (1864): freedom had contested meanings.

  • To the North: freedom meant each man enjoying the product of his labor.

  • To southern whites: freedom conveyed mastership over others.

  • The Union's triumph consolidated the northern understanding of freedom as the national norm.

• Cause of the slaves and cause of the country merged.

• Religious and secular understandings of freedom joined.

Lincoln's Vision

• Lincoln's nation differed from those being constructed in Europe as it was based on set of universal ideas

• Based on political democracy and human liberty.

• Gettysburg Address (November 1863):

  • Identified the nation's mission with the principle that "all men are created equal."

  • Spoke of the war as bringing about a "new birth of freedom."

  • Defined the essence of democratic government.

  • Union soldiers' sacrifices would ensure "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

• The United States remained a federal republic, but the war forged a new national self-consciousness.

The War and American Religion

• Northern Protestant clergy provided religious justification for the war.

• Civic religion saw the war as God's mechanism for ridding the United States of slavery.

• Lincoln marshaled religious symbolism and encouraged clergymen to support Republican candidates.

• Southern clergy were convinced the Confederate cause represented God's will.

• Religious beliefs enabled Americans to cope with mass death.

• Spiritualism-belief in the ability to communicate with the dead-grew in popularity.

• Mary Todd Lincoln held seances in the White House.

Liberty in Wartime

• Intense nationalism equated criticism of the war with treason.

• Arbitrary arrests:

  • Opposition newspaper editors, Democratic politicians, individuals discouraging enlistment, and ordinary civilians.

• Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus for those accused of "disloyal activities."

• In 1861, Chief Justice Roger B. Taney ordered the president to release John Merryman, a civilian who had been arrested by military authorities in Maryland, but the president ignored him.

• 1866 Ex parte Milligan: Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional to bring accused persons before military tribunals where courts were operating.

• Democratic press continued to flourish, contested elections held.

The North's Transformation

• Lincoln presided over far-reaching changes in northern life.

• Enhanced power of the federal government and rising capitalist entrepreneurs.

• Wartime inflation and government contracts boosted industry profits.

• Mechanization proceeded in industries supplying the army.

• Agriculture flourished as the frontier of cultivation pushed westward.

Government and the Economy

• Policies adopted:

  • Homestead Act: offered 160 acres of free public land to settlers in the West.

  • Morrill Land Grant College Act: assisted states in establishing "agricultural and mechanic colleges."

• Internal improvements:

  • Huge grants of money and land for internal improvements, including up to 100 million acres to Union Pacific and Central Pacific.

The West and the War

• The conflict engulfed Missouri, Kansas, and Indian Territory.

• Residents flocked to both armies.

• Confederate units from Texas launched an invasion of New Mexico in 1861, but they were defeated at Glorieta Pass in March 1862.

• The war divided western communities as residents flocked to both armies

• One of Lincoln's first acts as president was to withdraw federal troops from the West.

• Indian nations were divided.

• Native soldiers participated on both sides of the conflict.

• Lincoln authorized the recruitment of Native American soldiers into the Union army, Lincoln authorized the recruitment of Native American soldiers into the Union army.

• By the summer of 1863, Union forces, including Indigenous soldiers, had established control of Indian Territory.

The Dakota War

• 1851 Treaties had confined the Dakotas to a small reservation in exchange for annual supplies of needed goods and monetary payments.

• Dakota soldiers launched attacks on settlers and army posts in the summer of 1862.

• The army defeated the Dakota Indians, took 1,500 prisoners-Established a military tribunal, and sentenced more than 300 to death.

• Lincoln stayed the executions until he could personally review the trial proceedings and commute sentences

• Approved 38 death sentences, leading to the nation's largest official execution. 3 million acres in 1862 and 1863 alone was ceded to the government.

The Sand Creek Massacre

• In November 1864, Colorado militiamen attacked a group of around 700 Cheyennes and Arapahos camped along Sand Creek in Colorado

• Led by Colonel John Chivington, an abolitionist and a former Methodist minister, the soldiers were bent on punishing Indians responsible for raids on nearby settlements.

• There were over 150 men, women, and children killed.

Women and the War

• Women took unprecedented burderns in both the North and South.

• Despite Lincoln's political skills, the war and his administration's policies divided northern society.

• Women suffrage movements increased more than ever.

The Divided North

• Republicans labeled those opposed to the war Copperheads.

• Mounting casualties and rapid societal changes divided the North.

• Disaffection was strongest among the southern-born population and working-class Catholic immigrants.

• Dissent grew to outright violence.

• In July 1863, the introduction of the draft provoked four days of rioting in New York City.

• The mob assaulted draft offices, mansions of wealthy Republicans, industrial establishments, and the city's Black population.

The Confederate Nation

• Jefferson Davis:

  • Lacked Lincoln's common touch and political flexibility.

  • Confederate nation became more centralized. The governement raised armies from scratch, took control of southern railroads, and built manufacturing plants.

• Failed to find an effective way of utilizing the South's major economic resource in cotton.

  • Government tried to supress cotton production and Banned cotton exports, promoted economic self-sufficency and force Great Britain, to intervene on the side of the Confederacy.

• Could not deal effectively with obstructionist governors

• Southern ideas about slavery since the nation's founding

• 1864, sanitary fair to care for Union soldiers

Alexander H. Stephens, The Cornerstone Speech, Savannah (1861)

• President of the Confederacy

• Ideas of equal rights and freedom for everyone

• The new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner-stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical,

Abraham Lincoln, Address At Sanitary Fair, Baltimore (1864)

• Meaning of freedom and liberty

• Freedom for all to do what they please

• Thousands are daily passing from bondage

• In what they have done, the wolf's dictionary, has been repudiated.

The Inner Civil War

• As the war progressed, social change and internal turmoil engulfed much of the Confederacy.

• No less fervently than northern troops, southern soldiers spoke of their cause in the language of freedom.