Political Changes Discussion

Changes to Federal Power

Increased:

  • Transcontinental railroad
  • Acquisition of territories
  • The rise of Andrew Jackson (increases the power of the executive branch)
  • The American System
    • Created banks, tariffs, roads and canals
  • Missouri Compromise: gave federal government the power to determine which states were slave and free
  • SCOTUS cases
    • Marbury vs. Madison
    • Gibbons v. Ogden
    • Dartmouth v. Woodward
  • Force Bill : using federal troops to collect taxes
  • Indian Removal Act
  • War of 1812: increases the size of the military, fends off a challenge of Britain, gets fishing rights on the coast of Labrador, sets up parameters of Oregon territory
  • Mexican American War: leads to acquisitions
  • Era of Good Feelings: Democratic Republican Party is the only in power, rapid expansion

Decreased:

  • Jacksonian Democracy
    • State banks
    • Bank War
  • Jefferson reduced taxes, cut government budget, and limited the army to 3,000 men
  • Nullification Crisis
  • Jacksonian Democracy: spread suffrage

Sectional Tension/Unification

Tensions

  • Missouri Crisis/Compromise
    • South wanted slavery in Missouri
    • North wanted no slavery in Missouri
  • Women’s rights movements
    • North is heart of movement
    • South is traditional
    • West: women attain rights
  • Mexican American War
    • Treaty→Mexican Cession→Compromise of 1830→North wants California free→Slave trade banned→S: strict fug. slave law, popular sov.
  • Texas Annexation/Mexican-American War
    • North didn’t want to Annex Texas
    • South did because it would be another slave state
    • Causes:
    • Texas Revolution→Texas Annexation→ Mexican-American war
  • Nullification Crisis
    • Northerners support and benefit from the tariff
    • Southerners oppose it and puts it at a disadvantage
    • Puts a tariff on imported goods from Europe to increase domestic economy and decrease reliance on Europe
  • Elections of 1824-28

Unification

  • Second Great Awakening
    • provided unifying moral order and sense of spiritual community through camp meetings
  • War of 1812→Era of Good Feelings
    • Unifies America
    • Not a very long war which means it isn’t unpopular
    • We don’t lose
  • The American System
    • North: Manufacture, Trade, Merchants
    • South: raw materials, markets
    • West: raw materials, markets
    • Tariffs, National Bank, Infrastructure
    • Raw materials from the south and west are imported to the north and turned into finished goods
    • then sold back to the south and west for an inflated price
  • Missouri Compromise at first
  • Era of Good Feelings
  • Compromise of 1850