APUSH Period 4 (1800-1848) Vocabulary Review

The Era of Jefferson and the Rise of Political Parties

The Election of 1800 served as a pivotal moment in American history, pitting the Democratic-Republican candidates Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr against the Federalist incumbents John Adams, Charles Pinckney, and John Jay. Prior to the ratification of the 12th Amendment in $1804$, each elector cast two votes, with the majority winner becoming President and the runner-up becoming Vice President. In this instance, Jefferson and Burr tied with $73$ votes each. The decision moved to the lame-duck House of Representatives, where it took $35$ inconclusive votes before the $36th$ vote on February 17th resulted in Jefferson's selection. Jefferson privately characterized this victory as a revolution as real as that of $1776$, representing the first peaceful transfer of power between opposing parties. The Democratic-Republicans subsequently maintained a dominant grip on the federal government; Jefferson was re-elected in $1804$ by a margin of $162$ to $14$, followed by the presidencies of James Madison ($1808$ and $1812$) and James Monroe ($1816$ and $1820$). During this era, the party held between $60\%$ and $85\%$ of the seats in the House of Representatives.

Jeffersonian Republicanism was defined by a vision of a society composed of sturdy, independent farmers, purposefully distanced from the industrial workshops and urban mobs of Europe. This ideology celebrated localism, republican simplicity, and the principle that "That government is best which governs least." Jefferson aimed to reduce federal power by cutting the military and navy to balance the budget, eliminating federal jobs, repealing excise taxes (such as the whiskey tax), and reducing the national debt from $83\,million$ to $57\,million$ during his eight years in office. Despite his preference for limited government, Jefferson oversaw the most significant expansion in U.S. history: the Louisiana Purchase. Understanding that control of the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans was essential for Western survival—terming New Orleans the "one single spot" whose possessor was a "natural and habitual enemy"—Jefferson sent James Monroe to Paris to offer up to $10\,million$ for New Orleans and Florida. Concurrently, Napoleon was facing the Haitian Revolution and the loss of his army to yellow fever, leaving him in need of funds. On April 10th, $1803$, France offered the entire Louisiana Territory for $15\,million$. Although purchasing foreign land was not explicitly permitted by the Constitution, Jefferson submitted the treaty, and the Senate ratified the acquisition of $828,000\,square\,miles$, doubling the nation's size and removing European presence from the borders.

Political tensions escalated following the purchase. New England Federalists, led by Timothy Pickering, feared the loss of regional power to new Western states and organized a failed scheme to form a "northern confederacy" in $1804$. This period also saw the Embargo Act of $1807$, a response to British and French seizures of U.S. ships. Between $1803$ and $1807$, Britain seized $500$ ships and France seized over $200$. The crisis peaked on June 22, $1807$, when the British warship Leopard fired on the U.S.S. Chesapeake off the coast of Norfolk, Virginia, killing three Americans and impressing four into the British navy. Jefferson's Embargo Act prohibited all exports, causing exports to plummet from $108\,million$ to $22\,million$ by $1808$. The act was repealed in $1809$ and replaced by the Non-Intercourse Act, which restricted trade only with Britain and France.

The Marshall Court and Federal Supremacy

While the Democratic-Republicans controlled the executive and legislative branches, Chief Justice John Marshall, a Federalist appointee, led the judiciary for $34$ years. In Marbury v. Madison ($1803$), Marshall addressed the "midnight appointments" made by John Adams via the Judiciary Act of $1801$, which created six new circuit courts and $16$ new judgeships. William Marbury sued for his commission, but Marshall ruled that the clause of the Judiciary Act of $1789$ he relied upon was unconstitutional. This established the power of judicial review, the Supreme Court's authority to invalidate federal laws conflicting with the Constitution. In Fletcher v. Peck ($1810$), the court struck down a state law for the first time, ruling that Georgia could not invalidate a contract despite land fraud. In McCulloch v. Maryland ($1819$), the court ruled that Maryland could not tax the Second Bank of the United States, asserting that federal laws took precedence over state laws. Additionally, the government asserted Western influence through the Lewis and Clark expedition, a $\$2500$ scientific exploration that strengthened claims to the Oregon Territory and involved interactions with American Indians, famously returning with two grizzly bear cubs for the White House.

Politics, Regional Interests, and the Missouri Compromise

Regional differences increasingly defined federal policy debates. The Tariff of $1816$ was the first designed explicitly to protect American infant industries, like textiles, from British competition. While the North supported it, the South eventually rejected it, fearing high tariffs on imports limited the foreign markets for their cotton and tobacco exports. Land policy also saw division; the West wanted cheap land, which Northern manufacturers feared would drain labor and drive up wages, while Southern planters feared increased competition in cotton production. Slavery remained the most divisive issue. By $1819$, the Union was balanced with $11$ slave and $11$ free states. The tipping point arrived when Missouri petitioned for statehood. Congressman James Tallmadge proposed an amendment to prohibit new slavery and free enslaved children at age $25$, which passed the House but failed in the Senate. Henry Clay facilitated the Missouri Compromise of $1820$, which admitted Missouri as a slave state, Maine as a free state, and prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of the $\text{latitude } 36^\circ 30'$ line. Clay also promoted the "American System," which called for federally subsidized transportation (roads and canals), protective tariffs, and a second national bank to unify the economy.

America on the World Stage

President James Madison declared war on Great Britain on June 1st, $1812$, passing with the narrowest margin in history: $79-49$ in the House and $19-13$ in the Senate. Led by "war hawks" Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, the war was driven by the impressment of $3,000$ to $6,000$ Americans and frontier pressures. In $1811$, General William Henry Harrison destroyed the Shawnee headquarters at the Battle of Tippecanoe, ending Tecumseh's attempt to form an Indian Confederacy. The War of $1812$ was characterized by the burning of Washington D.C., the writing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" by Francis Scott Key at Baltimore, and Andrew Jackson's victory at the Battle of New Orleans, fought two weeks after the Treaty of Ghent ($1814$) ended the war in a stalemate. The war's end led to the collapse of the Federalist Party after the Hartford Convention and a surge in nationalism. Later, the Adams-Onís Treaty of $1819$ secured Florida from Spain for $5\,million$ and gave the U.S. claims to the Oregon Territory. In $1823$, the Monroe Doctrine was issued, warning European powers that the American continents were not subjects for future colonization, establishing a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy.

The Market Revolution and Industrialization

The U.S. transitioned from household manufacturing to a factory-based economy, catalyzed by Samuel Slater, who built the first successful American factory in Rhode Island in $1790$ using smuggled British plans. Francis Cabot Lowell later introduced the power loom and the Lowell Mills system, which employed young farm women housed in company dormitories. Key innovations included Eli Whitney's interchangeable parts ($1801$), which revolutionized mass production and the assembly line, and the sewing machine ($1846$) by Elias Howe and Isaac Singer. Whitney's cotton gin ($1793$) transformed Southern agriculture by allowing one worker to clean $50\,pounds$ of cotton per day, causing production to rise from $3000\,bales$ in $1790$ to $400,000$ by the $1820s$. By $1840$, cotton accounted for $52\%$ of all U.S. exports. Communications were revolutionized by Samuel Morse's telegraph and Morse Code, with $50,000\,miles$ of wire by $1860$.

Transportation improvements were equally transformative. Robert Fulton's steamship, the Clermont, traveled from NYC to Albany at $5\,miles\,per\,hour$ in $1807$. By $1840$, $542,000\,tons$ of freight reached New Orleans annually via steamer. The Erie Canal, completed in $1825$, stretched $363\,miles$ and connected the Hudson River to the Great Lakes, paying back its $7\,million$ cost in a few years. Railroads eventually overtook canals, growing from under $3,000\,miles$ in $1840$ to over $27,000\,miles$ by $1860$. The federal government supported these "internal improvements," such as the $620\text{-mile}$ Old National Road built between $1811$ and $1837$.

Market Revolution: Society and Culture

Immigration surged between $1840$ and $1850$ as more than $1.5\,million$ Europeans arrived, followed by $2.5\,million$ in the $1850s$. Most came from Ireland and Germany. The Irish were often Catholic, single women working in domestic service or factories in Eastern cities. Germans frequently moved to the Northwest to farm. This influx led to nativism and the rise of the "Know-Nothing" Party. Alexis de Tocqueville's "Democracy in America" ($1831$) observed an "equality of conditions" and an emerging middle class, who lived in houses with cast-iron stoves ($1840s$) and iceboxes. However, the gap between the rich and the laboring poor widened. The cult of domesticity emerged, defining separate spheres for men and women. The Lowell System initially offered women wages of $2.50$ to $3.25\,per\,week$ and a social community, but by the $1840s$, they were largely replaced by Irish immigrants as conditions declined.

Expanding Democracy and Jacksonian Power

By $1856$, most states dropped property requirements for voting, leading to universal white male suffrage. By $1860$, $8$ out of $10$ white adult males could vote. This shift created the Second Party System ($1828-1854$), consisting of the Democrats (supporting Jackson) and the Whigs (supporting Clay). Andrew Jackson's inauguration in $1829$ was attended by $15,000$ people, dubbed "the reign of King Mob." Jacksonian Democracy emphasized the common man, patronage, and the elimination of the national bank. In $1832$, Jackson vetoed the recharter of the Second National Bank and had Treasury Secretary Roger B. Taney move federal funds into $80$ state "pet banks." Jackson also faced the Nullification Crisis when South Carolina passed an ordinance of nullification against the Tariffs of $1828$ and $1832$. Jackson responded with the Force Bill, threatening military action before a compromise tariff was reached. On the frontier, Jackson ignored the Supreme Court's ruling in Worcester v. Georgia and enforced the Indian Removal Act of $1830$, leading to the Trail of Tears under Martin Van Buren, where one-quarter of the $18,000$ relocated Cherokees died.

American Culture and the Age of Reform

A distinct American culture developed through Romanticism, emphasized by the Hudson River School's landscape paintings and writers like James Fenimore Cooper and Walt Whitman. Transcendentalists like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau advocated for individualism and civil disobedience. The Second Great Awakening ($1801-1830s$) served as a religious revival led by figures like Charles Grandison Finney in the "burned-over-district" of New York. This fervor fueled reform movements including utopian communities like the Shakers and the Oneida, and the Temperance Movement, which saw hard liquor consumption reach $5\,gallons\,per\,capita$ in the $1820s$ and led to Maine's prohibition law in $1851$.

The Abolitionist Movement was led by William Lloyd Garrison (The Liberator), David Walker (Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World), and Frederick Douglass. Opposition was fierce, leading to the murder of Elijah Lovejoy and the "gag rule" in the House ($1836$). Concurrently, women's rights advocates like the Grimké sisters, Lucretia Mott, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention in $1848$. There, $100$ signers (including Frederick Douglass) endorsed the Declaration of Sentiments, calling for equal treatment and the right to vote. Sojourner Truth also emerged as a powerful voice with her "Ain’t I a Woman?" speech.

African Americans and Southern Society

Cotton became "King," with exports reaching $1.6\,million\,pounds$ by $1795$ and accounting for $75\%$ of the world’s supply by $1860$. The internal slave trade, or "Second Middle Passage," relocated over $2\,million$ enslaved people to the Deep South between $1820$ and $1860$, causing the separation of nearly half of all enslaved children from at least one parent. Conditions were brutal, governed by repressive slave codes. Resistance included daily acts of defiance and rebellions such as Denmark Vesey's planned $1822$ revolt and Nat Turner's Rebellion in $1831$, which resulted in the deaths of $75$ whites. Southern society remained stratified; while $3$ out of $4$ white families owned no slaves, the planting class (the $2,000$ families owning $100+$ slaves) dominated politics and culture. Pro-slavery arguments shifted from seeing the institution as a "necessary evil" to a "positive good," often utilizing paternalism and biblical justifications to mask the reality of the system.