MULLING MINUTES November 2, 2009 Fall Semester
APUSH: Welcome to the program. We have a variety of objectives for the year including the mastery of a broad body of knowledge and the creation of stellar analytical historical writings.
Grades will be determined as follows for fall term:
Tests/DBQ's/FRQ's 40%
Quizzes/debates 35%
Projects/presentations 25%
Social Studies test days are Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday
A new Social Studies tardy policy is being implemented which states that upon the third tardy to class, a student will be assigned either a morning or afternoon detention. Subsequent tardies to class may result in administrative referral.
We started unit 4 which covers chapters 11-14 in the text. Our topics of study include the Jacksonian impulse, the dynamics of growth, the American Renaissance and Manifest Destiny. The US History standards covered by this unit are 7 and 8. We are reviewing for our unit test on Monday, 11/2 and the summative test is on Wednesday, 11/4. We will have an FRQ on Thursday, 11/5. On Friday, 11/6, we will begin Unit 5 on the impending conflict, the Civil War and Reconstruction. This unit will also have a formal debate on legal issues surrounding secession sometime in December. Readings for this unit are chapters 15, 16, 17 and 18. Chapter 15 will be read by Tuesday, 11/10; chapter 16 by Friday, 11/13; chapter 17 by Tuesday, 11/17 and chapter 18 by Monday, 11/30. The state standards for this unit are 8 D,E; 9 A-F; 10 A-E.
We have undertaken a service learning project to benefit a local homeless shelter. Activities will begin the week of 9/8/09. We are continuing our collections of specific items and each class has determined to make sandwiches for the shelter twice during the term. As of this date, we have delivered 600 sandwiches.
2009-2010
ADVANCED PLACEMENT UNITED STATES HISTORY PEPS (PEOPLE, EVENTS, PLACES, SIGNIFICANCE)
Information is gathered from College Board’s “Acorn Book” suggested outline, and five previously published AP multiple choice examinations. This document has been prepared as a study aid for the AP U.S. History examination to be given on Friday, May 7, 2010. Note: If the PEP is italicized, be sure to know it well. If the PEP is
centered like this,
be sure to know it really, really well.
Colonial History to 1776
Columbian Exchange
Where: New World, Europe and Africa
What: Columbus’s discovery in 1492 began an explosion of trade among Europe, the New World and Africa. That trade is known as the “Columbian Exchange.” Slaves were brought to the new world from Africa; sugar, rice, horses, cows, pigs, and disease (smallpox) were brought to the New World from Europe; and gold, silver, corn, potatoes and disease (syphilis) were carried from the New World back to Europe.
Sig: Disease (smallpox) decimated Indian groups. The horse revolutionized Plains Indian culture. This international commerce is the beginning of what we would now call “globalization.” Note the racial and ethnic diversity that is automatically included in the “exchange.”
Iroquois Confederation- Late 1500’s
Who: Five Native American Nations (Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, Seneca)
Where: In the Mohawk Valley which is now New York
What: The Confederation was a powerful force to oppose European encroachment. Fierce tribes fought other Native Americans, and then began fighting the French, English and Dutch for control of the fur trade. They fought for survival. During the American Revolution, the Confederacy split up with most supporting the British.
Sig: Provided the largest organized resistance to the incoming Europeans in the colonial period, yet was at its peak just before the Europeans arrived.
Jamestown 1607
Who: The Virginia Company, John Smith
Where: Jamestown, Virginia
What: The Virginia Company sent young men, with no future in overpopulated England. They were lured by the Virginia Company with promises of land and wealth--much as people were lured to California during the Gold Rush. But there was no gold in Virginia, and these "prospectors" didn't know how to farm, didn't know how to hunt, and, possibly feeling betrayed by the Virginia Company's promises, and lacking any land of their own, were not known for their spirit of cooperation among themselves or with the local Indians of the Powhatan confederacy. They suffered greatly for several years until tobacco became available as a cash crop. While they did not discover gold, tobacco became an adequate substitute.
Sig: Jamestown was the first permanent English settlement in the new world.
French colonization in Canada 1608
Who: Samuel de Champlain (Father of New France)
Where: Quebec, Canada
What: The French settled in Quebec the year after the founding of Jamestown.
Sig: The French worked better with the Indians than the English or the Spanish, trading and intermarrying with the Indians. Quebec begins the French empire and the 150 years-long contest with the English for control of North America.
Spanish settlement of Santa Fe 1609
What: While St. Augustine, Florida was the first permanent settlement, note that the Spanish founded Santa Fe in about 1609.
Sig: The English, French, and Spanish all started important settlements about the same time (1607-09). Ultimately all three would fight for control of the North American continent.
Source: Class notes
Plymouth Settlement (1620)
Who: Separatist pilgrims fleeing from Holland
Where: Plymouth Bay
What: The Separatists fled Europe for cultural and religious freedom in America. They agreed to the Mayflower Compact before landing, pledging to obey “all just and equal laws.”
Sig: They weren't significant economically or numerically. However, they were very important morally and spiritually. The Mayflower Compact was crude but laid the foundations for democratic government. The Plymouth colony was merged with Massachusetts in 1691 when Massachusetts became a royal colony.
Puritans (1630) vs. Separatists (1620)
Who/where: Puritans-Boston; Separatists-Plymouth
What: Puritans wanted to reform the Church of England. Separatists (extreme Puritans) wanted to separate from the Church of England. Both were Calvinistic, strict, and religiously intolerant.
Sig: Their religious devotion principally shaped the beginning of English settlements and religious influence in New England.
Puritans early settlement and religious intolerance within the colony
Who: Puritans (not Separatists but those who wanted to “purify” the Church of England)
Where: Massachusetts (Boston)
When: 1630
What: They believed in the doctrine of a calling to do Gods work on earth. They had serious commitment to work yet they also enjoyed simple pleasures. They established a bible commonwealth with no tolerance for religious dissent (Williams, Hutchinson were banished for heresy). The colony was economically successful but religiously intolerant.
Sig: Church members had rights (vote) as “freemen.” They were intolerant of others who did not share their beliefs.
Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672)
What: Bradstreet (1612-1672) is an important figure in the history of American literature. Bradstreet's work points to the struggles of a Puritan wife against the hardships of New England colonial life, and in some way is a testament to the plight of the women of the age.
Sig: She is considered by many to be the first American poet, and she is a woman.
Dutch settlement of New Amsterdam (New York) 1624
Who: The Dutch West India Company
Where: New York (New Amsterdam)
What: Company town: developed for economic benefits of fur trade. Later became aristocratic in its habits and attitudes, having no toleration for religious toleration, free speech, or democracy.
Sig: Its bustling seaports brought many immigrants and great trade.
William Penn’s Settlement of Pennsylvania 1681
Who: William Penn
Where: Pennsylvania
What: King Charles II awarded Penn a tract of land in 1681 to repay a debt owed to Penn’s father.
Sig: Penn, representing persecuted Quakers, advertised Pennsylvania as a colony known for freedom and religious toleration. (Even though Penn was a Quaker, he enjoyed the King’s support.)
Mercantilism—theory
Where: British Empire (England to 1707: Britain thereafter)
What: Justified British control over the colonies. This theory proposed that wealth was power and that a country’s economic wealth could be measured by the amount of gold or silver in its treasury. A favorable balance of trade must be created by exporting more expensive goods to colonies and importing less expensive raw materials from colonies. The mother country produced finished goods; colonies supplied markets for finished goods and raw materials. Gold and silver would flow to the mother country as a result (finished goods are more valuable than raw materials.) Trade within the empire should not permit outsiders (Dutch, French, Spanish) to profit, lest gold and silver be shifted to them.
Sig: Mercantilism was the foundation for the economic relationship between the colonies and England up to the Revolution.
Mercantilism in practice
What: Navigation and Trade Acts brought mercantilism to life. The Navigation Acts from 1650 to 1663 required that all goods flowing to and from the colonies could be transported only in British ships. The captain of the ship must be English, and the crew must be ¾ English. Certain commodities must be shipped to England first before going to Europe from the colonies or to the colonies from Europe. Various Trade Acts included the hat and iron acts, which prohibited final colonial manufacture of hats and iron goods. Tariffs were imposed to protect British sugar planters, such as the Molasses Act of 1733 which imposed a duty of 6 pence per gallon on imported foreign molasses (thus favoring British molasses). The 6 pence was not meant to be paid and was, therefore, not really a tax. (When the Act was amended in 1764 to lower the rate to 3 pence per gallon, which was meant to be paid, the issue of taxation without representation arose and led in time to the Revolution.)
Sig: The colonies did not object to Navigation and Trade Acts in part due to “salutary neglect” (weak enforcement of the acts), and the colonies smuggled around the acts anyway.
Salutary neglect
What: Even though England believed in a system of Mercantilism, Sir Robert Walpole espoused a view of "salutary neglect.” This is a system whereby the actual enforcement of external trade relations was lax. He believed that this enhanced freedom for the colonists would stimulate commerce and be, in the end, beneficial to all.
Sig: The colonies were allowed to trade freely in spite of trade acts. When after 1763 the British began serious enforcement of the trade acts, thus abandoning salutary neglect, the colonists were resentful, believing that their freedom was being eroded.
The Half Way Covenant of 1662
Who: Troubled ministers of the Puritan church.
Where: New England
What: An agreement in response to the decline in “conversions.” Baptism in the church was extended to children of parents who were not able to experience the “evangelical experience” as did the first settlers from England did. Since full church membership was required for voting, this was an important issue.
Sig: Ironically, it actually weakened the distinction between the elect and its members, therefore diluting the spiritual ‘purity’ of the first settlers.
Dominion of New England 1686-1689
Who: Edmund Andros, Governor of the Dominion
Where: New England
What: The Dominion of New England was a short-lived administrative union of English colonies that was decreed by King James II. The Dominion of New England was governed by Edmund Andros. The dominion was created in an attempt to bolster the colonial defense in the event of war with the Native American and the French. It was also designed to promote urgently needed efficiency in the administration of the Navigation Acts.
Sig: The Dominion of New England was disliked by the colonists because the dominion was enforcing the Navigation Acts which prohibited the colonist from trading with whom they wanted and forced them to rely on England. This anger eventually leads to the overthrow of Edmond Andros and the end of the Dominion of New England (which was linked to the Glorious Revolution occurring in England—the King was being overthrown in both England and New England).
Indentured Servitude (including increase in slavery after 1675)
When: 17th and 18th centuries
Who: Poor English
Where: Colonies in America
What: A majority of English migrants came to America as ‘Indentures’ and, in exchange for a paid passage, worked as servants for 4-7 years.
Sig: Indentured servants were used as America’s main labor force before 1675. They were used to maintain the growing tobacco industry and to bring profit to their masters. The servants’ growing discontent and threatening behavior, a dramatic decrease in new indentures after prosperity to England returned in the 1670s, and the ever increasing wealth of masters led to a great increase in the African slave trade and the rise in the slave population from the 1680s on.
Agricultural developments in colonies 1612 on
Where: Mainly Southern and Middle Colonies
What: Virginia and the south: tobacco, rice, indigo, sugar
Middle colonies: rye, oats, barley, wheat, beef and pork
Sig: The production of tobacco and food crops by hand methods created an insatiable demand for labor in the colonies forcing servants and slaves to be brought in, raising the population dramatically and making the economy flourish.
Northern Merchants and Southern Planters
What: The Northern colonies excelled in trading with both fellow colonies and overseas countries. Their expertise in both sailing and trading contributed to their long lasting success. Using their advantage of fertile soil, Southern Colonies practiced a completely different economy. Producing crops in demand like tobacco and rice, these colonies were able to establish a profitable agricultural economy.
Sig: Both the Northern and Southern colonies established their economies early on, but with very different qualities, the North with merchant trade and South with plantation work. Because of these differences it was very easy for the two to rely on each other. However, eventually these differences would cause a rift between the two entities.
Virginia and Massachusetts as Royal Colonies
What: Virginia and Massachusetts became royal colonies
Why: Virginia was poorly managed and the Indian war eroded the colony’s credibility in London. Massachusetts got swept up in the governmental reorganization related to the Glorious Revolution that brought William and Mary to the throne.
When: 1624 (Virginia) & 1691 (Massachusetts)
Sig: Demonstrates the power of the King over previously corporate colonies
Colonial society: role of cities
What: Colonial cities functioned as the center for entertainment, education, religion, politics and courts, commerce (retail shops, blacksmiths), and farm support.
Sig: Colonial cities were the center of an essentially agrarian society.
Emergence of Slavery – 1660s on
Who: Africans, Colonists
Where: Southern Colonies
What: Slavery started for economic reasons. Rising wages in England (1670s) reduced the amount of people willing to become indentured servants to work in the new world. As cheap labor was needed for the tobacco and rice plantations, the need for slaves increased.
Sig: Brought Africans to the colonies and sparked the Southern economy.
Colonial Society: Role of Women 1607-1692
Who: Women in Colonial Era
Where: Colonial America
What: Women were encouraged to marry early and have many children. Child rearing became their full time job. As married women, they were essential to the maintenance of the family unit, with the husband tending the fields and the wife performing all household tasks, including the manufacture of candles, soap, and clothing.
Sig: Think of the married colonial women as fully one-half of an integrated economic unit. Thus her role was absolutely vital.
Married Women Property Rights in Colonial America
Who: Married Women in Colonial America
What: Single women in the colonies did have property rights. Married women in the south often lost their husbands early and had the right to own property to support her family as a widow. Women in the north also had rights but most of them gave them up upon getting married out of the government’s fear that they would have conflicting interest with their husbands. Married women in particular were economically and legally subordinate to their husbands.
Sig: Married women in particular suffered discrimination relating to property rights, even though laws were less restrictive in the south.
Resistance to Colonial Authority: Bacon’s Rebellion 1676
Who: Nathaniel Bacon and single young freemen
Where: Chesapeake Region, Virginia
What: One thousand young men were forced into the back country in search of land where they were attacked by Native Americans. Because the governor would not retaliate, Bacon’s rebels went on a rampage of plundering and pilfering. They destroyed Native American settlements and chased Governor William Berkeley out of Jamestown. The rebellion was crushed.
Sig: Bacon had ignited the smoldering resentments of poor, former indentured servants. These tensions between them and the gentry caused the plantation owners to look elsewhere (African slave trade) for workers.
Resistance to Spanish Colonial Authority: The Pueblo Revolt of 1680
Who: Pueblo people and Catholic Missionaries
Where: New Mexico: Santa Fe to Taos
What: Roman Catholic missionaries’ efforts to convert the native Indians and suppress their religious customs provoked the uprising, also call Pope’s Rebellion.
Sig: The Pueblo Indians cut off all ties to the Roman Catholic missionaries, thus pushing them further west. It took the Spanish nearly half a century to fully reclaim New Mexico from Pueblo control.
Resistance to Colonial Authority: The Stono Rebellion 1739
Who: South Carolina slaves
What: The Stono Rebellion was the largest slave uprising in the colonial period. Fifty South Carolina slaves marched towards Spanish Florida hoping for freedom, but got stopped by the militia in the process. (Many whites and slaves were killed.)
Sig: Because of the rebellion, a harsher slave code was put into action. They were no longer able to assemble in groups, earn their own money, and learn how to read.
Leisler’s Rebellion 1689-91
Who: Sir Edmund Andros, Jacob Leisler, New England and Chesapeake colonists
Where: New York
What: After the downfall of the highly unpopular King James II by the Glorious Revolution, Jacob Leisler led a rebellion and seized control of lower New York from Dominion of New England Governor Andros. His rebellion was smashed by the forces of the new King William. He was hanged.
Sig: The rebellion represents the problem the English had in maintaining a far-flung empire.
Scots-Irish in the colonial backcountry-18th century
Who: The Scot-Irish were hardy, independent, anti-authoritarian settlers in the colonial backcountry (western parts) of Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia (along the Appalachians). They detested the Anglican Church and the King of England due to religious and economic persecution. While independent, they generally supported the patriot cause against the King.
Sig: They represented a significant part of the backcountry population in colonial America.
Triangular Trade in the colonial period 17th/18th c.
What: On the initial passage, goods were carried from Europe or the American colonies to Africa: on the infamous “middle passage,” slaves were carried to the new world (Caribbean, for example): on the third passage, sugar and other plantation products were carried back to Europe or to the American colonies.
Sig: The triangular trade stimulated the global economy and greatly promoted slavery. (The international slave trade was abolished by U.S. law in 1808.)
Religious diversity in the colonies (by region: New England, Mid-Atlantic, and South)
What: There was great religious diversity in the colonies: Puritans or Congregationalists dominated in New England; various denominations could be found in the Middle colonies (Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Catholics); and Anglicans (Church of England) dominated in the South.
Sig: More so than other countries, the American colonies were a land of religious diversity and (excepting Jews) religious toleration.
The Great Awakening of the 1730’s-1740’s
Who: Jonathan Edwards (pastor & theologian) and other pastors, George Whitefield
Where: Started in Northampton, Massachusetts, spread to the rest of New England
What: Unlike the preaching styles of older clergy, Edwards’s new unconventional preaching style emphasized a direct, emotive, spirituality that was seriously ignored by older clergy. Powerful evangelical preaching convicted sinners and brought them to conversion and a new understanding of faith.
Sig: It was the first mass movement and religious upheaval within the colonies which reduced the influence of the established church and strengthened the power of ordinary people.
Deism
What: Deism accepts the existence of a God on the evidence of reason and nature only, with rejection of supernatural revelation (distinguished from theism). God created the world but does not immediately intervene in the life of an individual. Jefferson was a Deist.
Sig: While some, including Jefferson, were not “Christian,” most people in colonial America generally accepted the existence of God.
John Peter Zenger (1734-1735)
Who: John Peter Zenger
Where: New York Colony
What: A legal case--a newspaper printer (Zenger) was charged with seditious libel when he criticized the corrupt government. Andrew Hamilton defended him and Zenger was found not guilty.
Sig: Freedom of the press, helped establish the doctrine that true statements about public officials could not be prosecuted as seditious libel.
New York Conspiracy Trials (1741)
What: Slaves and poor whites in New York City set several fires in protest to bad economic conditions. Over 150 were arrested; many were hanged or burned.
Sig: In view of recent slave rebellions in South Carolina and the Caribbean, whites feared a slave rebellion in New York. The conspiracy trials reflected that fear.
French and Indian War/Seven Years’ War (1754-1763)
Who: Britain and France (in America), Britain, France, Spain, Prussia, Russia, and Austria (in Europe and other continents)
Where: Ohio Valley and Canada
What: The French and British wanted the same piece of land—notably the Ohio River Valley. War with France was declared, not only in the America’s, but also on other continents. The British attacked France in the Quebec-Montreal region of Canada. The British took the city of Quebec. Then, in 1760, Montreal also fell to the British.
Sig: With the fall of Quebec and Montreal came France’s permanent removal from the North American continent. The war cost the British too much money, and the British looked to the colonies to support the financial burdens of empire, which in turn led to the issue of “taxation without representation,” and ultimately, to the American Revolution.
Treaty of Paris 1763
What: The Treaty of Paris of 1763 ended the French and Indian War and made Britain the dominant European power in eastern North America. France relinquished its claims to New France and all French territory east of the Mississippi River to Britain. Spain gave Florida to Britain, and as compensation, took over French Louisiana west of the Mississippi, thus solidifying its claim to all of western North America.
Sig: Britain had begun as a relatively insignificant country in 1600, but by 1763 it had become an influential European nation and a major colonial power.
Imperial Reorganization of 1763-64
What: Britain tightened its control on the American colonies, mostly motivated by debt caused by the French and Indian War. Include here the authorization to send 10,000 troops to the colonies, the Proclamation of 1763 (closes trans-Appalachia to settlement), the Currency Act of 1764 (no more paper money), and the Sugar Act of 1764 (changes Molasses Act of ‘33 from trade act to revenue act).
Sig: Britain’s tightening control eventually leads to America’s fight for independence, motivated by the infringement of colonial rights.
Proclamation Line of 1763
Who: King George III
Where: Along the crest of the Appalachian Mountains
What: The King prohibited settlement in the area beyond the Appalachians as a reaction to Pontiac’s Rebellion. The purpose was to work out the “Indian problem” fairly and prevent another bloody eruption such as Pontiac’s.
Sig: Americans charged west despite the proclamation, as they saw the west as their birthright. This signified the American’s defiance, and the early beginnings of separation from Britain.
Stamp Act (1765)
What: The Seven Years’ War had left Britain with a large debt. In order to pay it off, Parliament passed the Stamp Act. Stamps were required on bills of sale for about fifty trade items as well as on certain types of commercial and legal documents, including playing cards, pamphlets, newspapers, diplomas, bills of lading (documents that list goods to be shipped), and marriage licenses. Colonists used 1) violence (Sons of Liberty) to prevent collection, 2) nonimportation agreement, 3) Stamp Act Congress, asserting no taxation without representation and that the colonies could not be represented in Parliament [note revolutionary consequence of Stamp Act Congress resolves].
Sig: The Stamp Act was a direct blow to the colonist’s rights, bringing cries of "no taxation without representation.” The Stamp Act Congress of 1765 was formed because of it. The colonists eventually forced a nullification of the tax. This was an early beginning of a separation from Britain.
Declaratory Act 1766
What: Parliament repealed the Stamp Act but passed the Declaratory Act, stating that it had the right to bind the colonies “in all cases whatsoever” (that is, including taxation).
Sig: Between the Stamp Act resolves and the Declaratory Act, a showdown was bound to occur [remember that this is a question of sovereignty, i.e., who is in control of the land and the people].
Virtual Representation in 1760’s
Who: Prime Minister George Grenville
Where: Britain
What: This theory states that the members of Parliament represent all British people, even those living in America who do not vote for members of Parliament.
Sig: Grenville claimed this theory in response to the colonists’ outrage at being taxed by the Stamp and Quartering Acts of 1765. The Americans said that Parliament should not be allowed to tax them because there were no American representatives. This eventually led to the Americans rejecting Parliament’s influence and power.
Townshend Acts 1767
Who: Charles Townshend, Chancellor of the Exchequer
What: Imposed duties on glass, lead, paper, paints, and tea imported into the colonies. Townshend thought that an indirect tax (tariff) on the colonists would not cause problems. However, the colonies still fought back with no taxation in any form without representation (the colonists did not accept the distinction between direct (Stamp Act) and indirect (tariff) taxation. A tariff for protection, not meant to be paid, was not a tax in the colonial mind. A tariff for revenue, meant to be paid, was a tax. (Thus the Sugar Act of 1764, which lowered the prohibitive tariff of 1733 on foreign molasses from 6 pence per gallon to a revenue producing tariff of three pence per gallon on foreign molasses, signaled a shift in purpose on the part of Parliament and the beginning of the taxation dispute between the colonies and Parliament.)
Sig: While the duties were repealed in 1770 (except on tea), the Townshend Acts stimulated the taxation discussion that in the end would result in the Boston Tea Party, the Coercive Acts, and Revolution.
Boston Tea Party 1773
Who: Sons of Liberty
Where: Boston Harbor
What: Angered by British taxation, most notably on East India Company tea, the Sons of Liberty decided to sneak aboard a British ship bearing tea and dump the cargo overboard.
Sig: This action lead to the British Parliament closing the Harbor and passing the Intolerable Acts, one of the causes of the war.
Committees of Correspondence of 1772-74
Who: Samuel Adams
What: Samuel Adams organized the first committee in Boston in 1772. Committees soon spread to other towns and then to all of the colonies.
Sig: The Committees fueled opposition of British policy, kept up communications among the colonies, and evolved into the First Continental Congress (called to respond to the Intolerable Acts).
Quebec Act 1774
What: Act by Parliament establishing governance of Quebec and extending the boundary of Quebec all the way down to the Ohio River. The act was aimed at insuring the loyalty of the Quebec colonists (respecting the Roman Catholic Church) and providing for the civil administration of Quebec.
Sig: The American colonists saw the Act as an attempt to stop their westward expansion because it incorporated large parts of the Ohio Country into Quebec. Many were alarmed by the spread of the Catholic faith. (Combine the Quebec Act and the Coercive Acts into the “Intolerable Acts.”)
Coercive Acts (1-4 below)
1 Massachusetts Government Act 1774
Where: Massachusetts
What: The Act did away with elections for the Governor’s council (making council appointed by the King) and restricted any meeting of the leadership of the colony to requiring official sanction.
Sig: This act worked to severely restrict the colonists’ governance of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and spread anger against the crown.
2 Administration of Justice Act 1774
Where: Massachusetts
What: A British officer or official accused of a capital (someone is killed) crime can be tried in either a British court or a court in another colony. This angered the citizens of Massachusetts Bay because witnesses of the situations would not appear in trial, and thus the defendant would most likely be declared not guilty. This seemed to the colonists to be a denial of justice and the legalization of what could be called murder.
3 Boston Port Act 1774
What: A response to the Boston Tea Party, it outlawed the use of the Port of Boston until such time as payment was made to the King's treasury (for customs duty lost) and to the East India Company for damages suffered.
Sig: Closure of the port of Boston was an economic disaster for Massachusetts.
4 Quartering Act 1774
Where: 13 American Colonies
What: This act went further than previous acts by requiring the colonies to provide food and housing to British troops in occupied buildings, including private homes. (Previous quartering required that soldiers be housed in public inns, taverns, or unoccupied buildings.)
Sig: The British government made yet another intrusion on American lives. Soldiers could now have a place to stay even where they weren’t invited, and the colonists had to pay for it. This angered the Americans further and was one of the reasons for the American Revolution.
The American Revolution 1776-1783
“Philosophy of the American Revolution” #1: John Locke
Who: John Locke
Where: England (philosophies spread through the colonies)
What: Locke’s theories on natural rights were part of colonial arguments. “Natural rights” is part of a political theory that states when individuals enter into society they have basic rights that no government can take away.
Sig: Locke’s philosophy (see his Treatise on Civil Government, 1690) was the foundation for the American Revolution. That is, when government becomes destructive of certain ends (life, liberty, property), the people have the right to abolish it.
“Philosophy of the American Revolution” #2: Popular Sovereignty
Who: Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau
What: A doctrine (that is closely associated with the social contract) that the state is created by and subject to the will of the People, who are the source of all political power. Contrast this with monarchy, where the people may have no formal voice in governmental affairs
Sig: Once Americans, as a whole, accepted the ideas of Popular Sovereignty, they started molding the foundations for a democratic political system (which was, of course, republican in form—republican meaning that the people vote for representatives who then make political decision). Philosophy of the American Revolution” #3: Small, Limited Government
What: Limited government is a system of government that is bound to specifically defined principles of action by a written constitution.
Sig: The concept of limited government flows naturally from the assumption of popular sovereignty: If the people are sovereign, then any powers held by government are "given on loan” and cannot detract from the people's innate sovereignty. Therefore such powers are inherently limited.
Congresses (First and Second) and Congress under the Articles of Confederation
Who: First Continental Congress: September 5-October 26, 1774 Second Continental Congress 1775 to 1781
Congress under the Articles of Confederation 1781-88
Where: Philadelphia
What: The First Continental Congress met to develop a common colonial response to the Coercive Acts recently passed by Parliament. An advisory council rather than an empowered legislature, the Congress (as it came to be called) included delegates from twelve of the American colonies; Georgia did not participate. Congress advised each colony to form a militia, organized an association to enforce strict economic sanctions against Britain, and recommended that Massachusetts, the focus of the Coercive Acts, form an independent government. After issuing addresses to the king and to the British and American people, the delegates agreed to meet again in May 1775 if their grievances had not been resolved. By the time the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia in May 1775, fighting had taken place at Lexington and Concord. Congress quickly assumed responsibility for coordinating the rebellion, starting with the raising of a Continental army. A year later the Second Continental Congress took the final step toward separation by officially adopting the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The Second Continental Congress fought the War until superseded by the Congress created when the Articles of Confederation were ratified in 1781. The Congress under the Articles (1781-1788) perpetuated the wartime balance of power, keeping the central government politically and financially dependent on the states. Yet Congress under the Articles did manage to prosecute the war successfully and could point to a number of other important achievements, including the Land Ordinance of 1785, the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, and the complicated handling of land disputes among the states.
Sig: The various congresses reflect the hesitant yet practical movement towards a unified nation. While the states retained sovereignty (until ratification of the Constitution in 1788), the congresses did a great deal of important work, including moving the colonies from British colonies to an independent nation called the United States of America. Thus the congresses contributed mightily to the formation of a strictly American identity.
Abigail Adams 1744-1818
Who: Wife of President John Adams. In 1776, right before the Declaration of Independence, she wrote to her husband, “in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies.”
Sig: She saw the implications of revolutionary ideas for changing the status of women. Link to Republican Motherhood and improved educational opportunities for women.
Declaration of Independence--July 4, 1776
What: The Second Continental Congress approved an official document declaring independence from Great Britain, including justification for the rupture.
Sig: Arguably the most significant document in U.S. history, the declaration placed the colonies in open rebellion against the mother country, with the consequence being that armed conflict would determine the final outcome. War would decide the question: Who is sovereign?
Saratoga October 1777
Who: Horatio Gates and Benedict Arnold (U.S.), John Burgoyne (British)
Where: Saratoga, New York
What: General Burgoyne surrendered a large British army at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777. This was one of the most significant battles in U.S. history because it stopped the British invasion from Canada, lifted sagging American morale, and led to the treaties of military alliance and friendship/commerce with France in 1778
Sig: The battle convinced the French that the Americans were capable of winning, which led to the treaties between the French and the U.S. a few months later.
Revolutionary War diplomacy: the Franco-American Alliance of 1778
What: France, thirsting for revenge against the British, provided Americans with supplies, and then officially became allied with the colonies in 1778. Both sides agreed to not end the war without the other’s consent [a pledge broken by the United States and not to France’s dismay (France could not deliver Gibraltar to Spain and the separate peace between the United States and Britain that ended the war also ended a problem for the French)]. The treaty was made possible as a result of the American victory at Saratoga the previous October (1777).
Sig: Without French help the colonies and then the United States may not have been able to win the war. Further, the treaty became a sticking point between France and the U.S. in the 1790s, when France wanted U.S. assistance in the Caribbean in fighting the British. (The treaty was cancelled in 1800 by the Convention of 1800.)
Loyalists during the Revolutionary War
Who: Colonials loyal to the king
What: Loyalists were colonials who were still loyal to the British king. Those who were in America under British rule, such as officers and officials, were also labeled Loyalists. The Loyalists were called “Tories,” opposing the Patriots, or “Whigs.” Tories were defined by patriots as “a thing whose head is in England and its body in America, and its neck ought to be stretched.” When the war was under way, loyalists were persecuted and driven from the U.S. Some Loyalists fought against the colonies.
Sig.: The colonies and then the U.S. mistreated Loyalists, a thorny issue with the British after the war. (The U.S. could not restore Loyalists’ properties and the British would not evacuate posts in the west, as agreed to in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.)
Treaty of Paris 1783
Who: Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, John Jay representing the U.S.
What: This treaty ended the Revolutionary War between the U.S. and Britain. Also, the boundaries were set, from the Mississippi on the west, to the Great Lakes on the north, and to Spanish Florida on the South. (Recall that the Treaty set the southern border at the 31st parallel, while Spain independently claimed that West Florida went up to 32º28″-- an issue finally resolved in U.S. favor with the Pinckney Treaty of 1795.) America agreed to stop persecution of Loyalists, and Congress was to recommend to the state legislatures that the confiscated Loyalist property to be restored. Debts to British creditors should also be paid. Britain pledged to get out of western forts. (U.S. treatment of the loyalists and British withdrawal from the forts became sources of friction.)
Sig: Britain recognized the independence and sovereignty of the United States after almost eight years of being at war. The U.S. entered the world stage as a new nation with the Treaty.
The Articles of Confederation and
Constitution-Making 1776-1788
Constitution making in the states 1776 on
What: After the Declaration of Independence, the Continental Congress asked the states to prepare new constitutions. Eleven of the states did so, and most of these documents included a bill of rights, specifically guaranteeing long-prized liberties against legislative encroachment. As written documents, they were intended to be fundamental law, above or superior to laws that might be subsequently written by a legislature.
Sig: Constitution making in the states prepared the “founding fathers” for the job they eventually did in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 when they drafted the U.S. Constitution. The reason the Constitution is so good is that the people who drafted it were experienced at the state level (and they had immediate knowledge of the weaknesses of the Articles of Confederation).
Articles of Confederation March 1, 1781, to June 21, 1788
What: The Articles was the first written constitution of the United States. Fearing central government at a time of war against what was perceived to be a despotic central government (Britain), the Second Continental Congress proposed a loose confederation of sovereign states that would not have the power to declare war, impose taxes, and regulate commerce. There was no provision for an executive or judicial (WART.COM + no E or J.) In spite of these weaknesses, the congress under the Articles brought the Revolutionary War to a successful conclusion, got the states to relinquish western land claims to the national government, passed the Land Ordinance of 1785, and passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787.
Sig: The Articles provided a frame of government under which sovereign states could operate during a most difficult period in the history of the United States. In providing experience to members of congress and the states in the weaknesses of a loose confederation, the Articles served the added purpose of helping national leaders to understand what a good constitution should include (which helps to explain why the present Constitution is so good).
Land Ordinance of 1785
What: Law passed by Congress that allowed for sales of land in the Northwest
Territory to pay off the national debt. To avoid land disputes, land was to be surveyed
into 36 square mile townships, with the sixteenth section (one square mile) reserved for
public education.
Sig: This law laid the foundation of American land policy and was a great
achievement of the government under the Articles of Confederation.
Northwest Ordinance of 1787
Where: Applied to the Old Northwest
What: The Ordinance prohibited slavery in the Northwest Territory (which became the future states Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and part of Minnesota). When an area had 5,000 people, it could become a territory. When it had 60,000, it could become a state on an equal footing with older states. As many as five states could be carved out of the Territory.
Sig: The principles in the Northwest Ordinance were later used for the rest of the American territories. This law was a great achievement of the government under the Articles.
Shays Rebellion 1786-1787
Who: Daniel Shays and his supporters (poor farmers and veterans)
Where: western Massachusetts
What: Shays and the poor men that rose with him wanted cheap paper money, lighter taxes, and a suspension of property takeovers. To prevent foreclosures, they prevented courts from meeting. A rebellion was developing.
Sig: This rebellion, smashed by Massachusetts militia, made very clear that there were major problems with the Articles of Confederation. Specifically, there was no provision in the Articles for the U.S. to come to the aid of Massachusetts. This problem is solved and reflected in Article IV of the Constitution, written just a few months after the end of the Shays Rebellion. Article IV provides that the U.S. will protect the states against domestic violence.
The Great Compromise: 1787: the U.S. Constitution—writing of
Who: The Philadelphia Convention (mandated to revise the Articles, the convention went on to write the Constitution)
What: The Constitutional Convention decided that states would be represented in two separate bodies in the congress. In the Senate, each state would be given two representatives no matter how big or small; and in the House, the number of representatives would depend on the population of the state. It was agreed that every tax bill or revenue measure must start in the House.
Sig: This compromise settled an argument between large and small states.
The 3/5 compromise 1787: the U.S. Constitution—writing of
What: Southern states wanted slaves to count as people so they could have greater representation in the House, but the Northern states argued that slaves were property, not people. The 3/5 compromise stated that when counting total population in a state, slaves would be counted as 3/5 of a person. This increased the power of Southern slaveholding states in the House of Representatives.
Sig: Solved the problem of representation for the present, but put off the overall problem of slavery to be solved later.
“Electoral College” 1787
What: Each state is given the number of electoral votes for however many senators and representatives the state has in congress. Electors are chosen by the state (and each state chose to have the people vote for electors) and those electors vote for president and vice president. This became known as the “electoral college.” The original intent of having electors and not the people choose the president was to guard against mob excesses. The electors represented an intermediate body that would moderate popular passions and be more deliberative. (Recall that the people chose only members of the House in the original Constitution.)
Sig: The Electoral College is still used today in presidential elections. Also, note that the people do not vote directly for president—states have enacted laws to let the people vote for electors, then the electors vote for pres/vice pres.
Federalists v. Anti-Federalists 1787-88
Who and what: Federalists supported a stronger federal government and argued in favor of ratification of the Constitution. Anti-Federalists believed that the Constitution was drawn up by aristocratic elements and anti-democratic. They believed it was wrong to take away sovereignty from the states and that individual rights were being jeopardized because there was no bill of rights. Anti-Federalists tried to discourage states from ratifying the Constitution, while Federalists promoted the Constitution.
Sig: The Federalists won the argument after agreeing to a Bill of Rights (as amendments to the Constitution). Also, in this Federalist-Anti-Federalist argument of the day (1787-88), one can see the beginnings of what became the split between the Jeffersonians and the Hamiltonians, with the former supporting small, limited government and the later supporting strong and energetic government.
The Federalist Papers 1787-88 (also known as The Federalist)
Who: Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison
Where: New York
What: Deeply upset that New York would not ratify the Constitution, Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote a series of 85 articles in New York newspapers that supported ratification of the Constitution.
Sig: These editorials helped with the ratification of the Constitution in New York and then later in Virginia, two very important states for the very existence of the United States. These papers became the most penetrating and authoritative commentary written on the Constitution.
Bill of Rights 1791
Who: James Madison
What: Written by James Madison, the Bill of Rights is more formally known as the first ten amendments to the Constitution. These amendments protect the freedoms of the American people from encroachment by Congress (and, at present, by the states). Examples of these are: freedom of religion, assembly, press, petition, speech; trial by jury; due process (protects life, liberty, property).
Sig: State constitutions frequently included a bill of rights. Opponents of the Constitution wanted a bill of rights included before they would support ratification. The Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791, is part of the Constitution that created a stronger central government while protecting individual rights.
Early National History 1789-1824
Hamilton’s Three Reports 1790-91
What: Hamilton’s plan submitted to Congress in order to bring about healthy change in a debt-ridden and somewhat disjointed nation. His plan included arguments for public credit (funding and assumption)—this is Report on Public Credit #1; a national bank—this is Report on Public Credit #2; and the encouragement of manufacturing and internal improvements—this is Report on Manufacturing.
Sig: This plan would bind the country together through a nation-wide public scheme, instead of the states wallowing in their own economic ruin, Hamilton suggested the new federal government take control and pass legislation that would favor all relatively wealthy Americans throughout the nation. He did not have a solely right-side vision: His plan for promoting manufacturing and internal improvements, while not approved by Congress, when linked to his public credit and bank reports, which were approved by Congress, would have created an integrated national economy favoring all sections of the nation, including the south and west.
Report on Public Credit #1
Who: Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury
What: This first part of the plan was aimed at public credit. Split into two parts, “funding at par” and assumption, it restored the value of the dollar and relieved state debts, respectively. With “funding at par,” the government was to pay all national debts at face value with accumulated interest by levying taxes on items such as whiskey (see Whiskey Rebellion) and imposing a tariff for revenue purposes. With assumption, the national government would “assume” the debts of the states. Funding favored speculators and the wealthy who held national government notes. Assumption favored states that had not paid off their debts.
Sig: This plan served the purpose of restoring public credit and binding both the wealthy and the states to a financially stable and viable national government.
Report on Public Credit #2
Who: Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury
What: The second part of the plan was Hamilton’s recommendation to establish a national bank to help standardize banking. Congress agreed and created the 1st BUS, with a twenty year charter.
Sig: Tied the states closer together in economic exchange, gave the vital power of money to the federal government, and pulled the U.S. out of a confusing era of debt. Bank and anti-bank forces rallied to form first two political parties (Federalists and Jeffersonian Democrats).
Report on Manufacturing (report #3)
Who: Alexander Hamilton, Secretary of Treasury
What: The third part of the plan is a plea to Congress to encourage manufacturing in America through bounties (payments to encourage manufacturing) and temporary protective tariffs. Based on his observation of Europe, he also called for roads and canals. Hamilton listed the supposed benefits of industry, which, among other things, included the self-reliance of the nation (important for military purposes), the benefit of all the social classes, and cooperation with the already-sprawling agriculture. This was a spectacular vision that Hamilton had for an integrated national economy that would bind all regions of the country together
Sig: This part of Hamilton’s plan was the only part to fail in Congress. Its ideas were to be brought to life, though, by the mid-1800s.
Jefferson v. Hamilton and emergence of political parties 1790s
Who: Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton
What: Hamilton’s financial successes created some political liabilities, which lead to a full-blown political rivalry with Jefferson. The parties that developed during this time were the Jeffersonian Republicans and Hamiltonian Federalists.
Significance: The two-party system has existed in the United States ever since. (Place the early Jeffersonians in the strict construction camp and the Federalists in the loose construction camp—this is a major point of departure for the two parties.)
Republican motherhood 1776 on
What: With the American Revolution accomplished and the Republic underway, women were assumed to have the role of instilling civic virtue into their sons by proper education. The idea of civic virtue is to subordinate individual selfish interests to the public good. Women would be the special keepers of the American conscience and as educated wives and mothers they would cultivate in their sons the civic virtues demanded by the new Republic. With government in the hands of the people, the people (especially sons, because only males could vote or hold political office) had to be well educated, and “Republican motherhood” was the answer.
Sig: Elevates the role of the woman in American society after the Revolution. (Note that Republican motherhood does not apply to poor, working class women or to slave mothers. Thus Republican Motherhood can be cast in terms of class, gender, and race.)
Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation 1793
Who: President Washington
What: When war broke out between France and Britain, Washington proclaimed the government’s official neutrality and warned Americans to be impartial towards both armed camps.
Sig: This was America’s first formal declaration of aloofness from Old World quarrels (called “isolationism). The problem was the U.S. was still married to the French in the Franco-American alliance of 1778 which obligated the U.S. to defend French possessions in the Caribbean (the alliance was cancelled in 1800 with the Convention of 1800).
Eli Whitney (1793 Cotton Gin and 1798 Interchangeable parts)
What: In 1793, Whitney invented the Cotton Gin that removed the seeds from cotton. Previously, the seeds were removed by hand, which took much more time. The Gin allowed plantation owners to remove seeds from cotton more efficiently (50 to 1), creating a demand for even more slave labor. In 1798, he also developed the process of interchangeable parts for mechanical items (primarily muskets).
Sig: The invention of the Cotton Gin promoted cotton culture and slavery throughout the south. The invention of interchangeable parts paved the way for mass production. Note how Whitney contributed to both the economic growth and separation of the north and the south.
Whiskey Rebellion 1794
Where: Western Pennsylvania farmers and President Washington
What: A tax of 9 cents per gallon was imposed by Congress (initiated by Hamilton) on whiskey in 1791, in order to pay national debts. Outraged farmers, who would ferment and distill their grain into whiskey to get it to the market, rioted in 1794. The Militia Act of 1792 was invoked, and the militia was called out.
Sig: The smashing of the rebellion demonstrated the power of the new Constitution versus the Articles of Confederation.
Jay’s Treaty 1795 (signed 1794; ratified 1795)
Who: Americans, British, John Jay
What: The United States and Britain were arguing over frontier forts still held by the British in the Northwest, navigation laws, and the seizure of American ships. The American statesman John Jay was sent over to negotiate. He compromised with a treaty. The senate ratified the treaty in 1795.
Sig: It averted war, Britain finally evacuated the posts, and while Britain agreed to compensate for U.S. ship losses, Britain did not agree to stop seizing the ships. The Jay Treaty was criticized in the U.S. but it was an alternative to war and did prompt the Spanish to negotiate the Pinckney Treaty.
Pinckney’s Treaty 1795
Who: Spain, U.S.
What: Spain granted the Americans free navigation of the Mississippi and a large disputed territory north of Florida (from 31º to 32º28'--see the “Area disputed by Spain and U.S.” on map on page 175)
Sig: Free navigation of the Mississippi was essential for the economic life of the west. The U.S. could not afford to have Spain block access to the Gulf of Mexico by denying shipping privileges at the mouth of the Mississippi. Pinckney’s Treaty was serendipity (unanticipated good thing) for the U.S. after the humiliating Jay Treaty. Spain feared an Anglo-American rapprochement (renewal of friendly relations) and dealt kindly with the Americans.
Treaty of Greenville 1795
What: Little Turtle, chief of the Miamis defeated the U.S. Army in 1790 and 1791, but lost in 1794 at the Battle of Fallen Timbers to American General Mad Anthony Wayne. The British refused to shelter the fleeing Indians. The Indians signed the Treaty of Greenville. The U.S. gained tracts of the Old Northwest (basically Indiana and Ohio); the Indians received $20,000 lump sum and $9,000 a year, as well as the right to hunt the lands they had ceded and the recognition of their sovereign status.
Sig: Demonstrates the continuing problem with the Indians and how the Indians generally lost, both militarily and politically.
XYZ Affair 1798
Who: French Foreign Minister Talleyrand; agents X, Y, Z
Where: France
What: The French had been furious over Jay's Treaty, condemning it as the first step toward an alliance with Britain. They further protested that the pact was a flagrant violation of the Franco-American Treaty of 1778. In response, French warships began to seize defenseless American merchant vessels, about 300 by mid-1797. President Adams sent three men to France to settle these disputes. The envoys eventually reached Paris in 1797, hoping to meet Talleyrand. Instead, they were secretly met by three go-betweens, otherwise known as X, Y, and Z. The French spokesmen demanded a bribe of $250,000, for the privilege of merely speaking with Talleyrand.
Sig: As the result of the XYZ Affair, anti-French sentiments rose, and an undeclared naval war between the US and France was ignited with both sides seizing ships.
Undeclared war with France (Quasi-War) 1798-1800
What: Insulted by the XYZ Affair, the three American envoys returned home. Pro-war sentiment gradually descended upon the US. War preparations were made. The Navy Department was created; the 3-ship Navy was expanded; the US Marine Corps was officially formed. War was confined to the sea, notably to the West Indies. In 2 1/2 years of undeclared hostilities, the new navy captured over 80-armed French vessels. Only a slight push might have plunged both nations into a full-fledged war. This uproar moved President John Adams to suspend all trade with the French, and American ship captains were authorized to attack and capture armed French vessels. Congress created the Department of the Navy, and war seemed inevitable. In 1800, the French government, now under Napoleon, signed a new treaty, the Convention of 1800 (which “annulled the marriage” of 1778), and peace was restored.
Sig: The US Navy was expanded. War with France could have resulted in loss of lives to either side. Suspension of French trade could have harmed the economy. It was also good that the war was still undeclared. If America had waged war on France in 1800, Napoleon would have not sold Louisiana to Jefferson on any terms whatsoever in 1803. Therefore, the Louisiana Purchase might not have occurred.
Alien & Sedition Acts 1798
Who: The Federalists and the Adams administration
What: Manipulating the anti-French sentiments, the pro-British Federalists, in 1798, managed to pass laws designed to silence or minimize their Jeffersonian foes. The first of these laws was aimed at the supposedly pro-Jefferson "aliens." Most Europeans immigrants, lacking wealth, were scorned by the aristocratic Federalist Party. But they were welcomed as voters by the less prosperous and more democratic Jeffersonians. The Federalist Congress thus raised the residence requirements for aliens who desired to become citizens from 5 years to 14. The Sedition Act, on the other hand, restricted the freedom of speech and freedom of the press as guaranteed in the Constitution by the Bill of Rights (1st Amendment). This law provided that anyone who impeded the policies of the government or falsely defamed its officials, including the president, would be liable to a heavy fine & imprisonment.
Sig: The Alien Act infringed the traditional American policy of open-door hospitality and speedy assimilation. The Sedition Act, meanwhile, infringed in the rights guaranteed to all American citizens in the 1st Amendment and prompted the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
Virginia & Kentucky Resolutions 1798-1799
Who: James Madison (for Virginia) and Thomas Jefferson (for Kentucky)
What: Republican leaders were convinced that the Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional, but the process of deciding on the constitutionality of federal laws was as yet undefined. Jefferson and Madison decided that the states should have that power, and they drew up a series of resolutions, which were presented to the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures. They proposed that the state bodies should have the power to "nullify" federal laws within those states. These resolutions were adopted, but only in these states, and so the issue died.
Sig: The theoretical argument in these resolutions, that the U.S. was a compact among sovereign states, was used later as part of the nullification controversy of the 1830's and ultimately in the secession crisis of 1860-1861.
Slave revolts in Haiti and the U.S. and fears arising therefrom
What: Beginning in 1792 and continuing to 1804, slaves were rebelling in Haiti (St. Domingue or Santa Domingo). That rebellion, led by Toussaint L’Ouverture, was successful. Not successful but terrifying were slave revolts in the U.S. (Gabriel Prosser, Virginia, 1800; Denmark Vesey, South Carolina, 1822; Nat Turner, Virginia, 1831).
Sig: These revolts caused great anxiety and fear among whites and plantation owners, who responded with increasingly harsh restrictions on the ability of slaves to communicate, learn, and travel. Free blacks were restricted too, and even whites could be held accountable if they challenged the slave system (because that might give slaves encouragement to resist). While the plantation economy provided many benefits for many owners, the scepter of slave rebellion was a continuing and haunting fear among southerners.
Election of 1800 (the "Revolution of 1800")
What: Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr both ran as Jeffersonian Republicans against John Adams and Charles Pinckney for the Federalists in the election of 1800. The candidate winning the second-highest number of electoral votes would become vice-president. Jefferson and Burr received the highest and same number of electoral votes, so the selection went to the House of Representatives. After a long deadlock, Alexander Hamilton threw his support to Jefferson, and Burr had to accept vice-presidency. (The 12th amendment in 1804 required that electors vote once for president and once for vice-president, thus solving this problem.) Jefferson called his election a “revolution” in that he would halt and reverse the growth of government power and the decay of civic virtue that occurred under the Federalists. But this was no popular “revolution” because Jefferson barely won the election.
Sig: The election pitted two parties who were bitterly opposed to each other. The election was peaceful; the transition of power was peaceful. Thus the U.S. established the fact that a democratic nation, even with bitterly divided political loyalties, could effect a peaceful transition of power. This was the only “revolution” that occurred in 1800.
Significance of Jefferson’s presidency
What: Jefferson was president from 1801 to 1809. He called his election a revolution, but he did not dismantle the Bank of the United States or otherwise attack Hamilton’s financial structure. He did lower the debt, but that is hardly a revolution. His purchase of Louisiana was very important, even though he did not think he was constitutionally empowered to buy it. He fought a war with the Navy against Tripoli, even though he did not want to fight a war. (He supported limited government and desired only a small navy.) He represented agrarian interests against the monied and merchant class of the North, and yet he was a Virginia planter “aristocrat.”
Sig: Jefferson’s presidency time and again reflected the realities of the times and not his strict constructionist agrarian ideals.
Louisiana Purchase 1803
Who: Jefferson and France (Napoleon I)
Where: The huge territory of Louisiana, stretching from the Canadian border to
the Gulf of Mexico and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains.
What: In the early years of the United States, Louisiana was of concern chiefly because it bordered the Mississippi River, which was vital to U.S. trade. In 1762 France had ceded Louisiana to Spain, which was too weak to offer a serious threat to American Commerce. In 1800, however, rumors spread that Spain was about to cede Louisiana back to France. Jefferson was alarmed. Relations between the United States and France were still unfriendly, and France had the power to cut off American shipping at Louisiana's capital, New Orleans, at the mouth of the Mississippi. There was, said Jefferson, "one single spot" on the globe, "the possessor of which is our natural and habitual enemy. It is New Orleans through which the produce of three eighths of our territory must pass to market." In 1803, Talleyrand made Livingston a startling offer. Napoleon I was willing to sell the entire territory for $15 million. At the end of June, news of the treaty reached the United States. Jefferson was very eager to acquire the entire territory, but, viewing it from his strict-construction point of view, he did not think the purchase was constitutional. His remedy for the purchase was a constitutional amendment (which was never proposed).
Sig: The Louisiana Purchase has been called Jefferson’s “chief achievement”
during his administration. It allowed for much expansion and exploration into the West. It
also showed that Jefferson was strict in principle but loose in practice. Obviously, the purchase also finally resolved the important issue of control of New Orleans and the mouth of the Mississippi.
Lewis and Clark Expedition 1804-06
Who: Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.
Where: The West, up the Missouri River and over the Rockies to the Oregon coast, and return home
What: Jefferson had dreamed of exploration of the West from the time he was
secretary of state under Washington. As a scientist he wanted to know about the land and
its inhabitants. He realized the importance of such exploration for the future expansion of
the United States. In January 1803, one-half a year before the Louisiana Purchase, he
proposed his idea to Congress. In order to conceal its expansionist aims from England,
France, and Spain, he suggested that the journey be presented as a "literary pursuit."
Congress gave approval. Jefferson instructed them to observe and note down the physical
features, topography, soil, climate, and wildlife of the land and the language and customs
of its inhabitants.
Sig: In 1806 Lewis and Clark returned with their valuable journals. They had
successfully breached the mountain barrier of the West, built a fort on the Pacific Ocean
at the mouth of the Columbia River, and mapped and explored much of the American
Northwest. Moreover, they had secured the friendship of a number of Native American
peoples and given the United States a claim to the Oregon country. They made important
scientific discoveries, maps, and knowledge of the natives in the regions. This expedition,
along with the Louisiana Purchase helped promote nationalism (commitment to the U.S.) and the future idea of “manifest destiny.”
Marbury vs. Madison (1803)
Who: John Adams, William Marbury, and James Madison
What: After a bitter election, in his final days as president, Adams
attempted to fill the courts with members of his party, the Federalist Party. Just before
leaving office, President Adams appointed a Maryland banker and politician, William
Marbury, to one of the new posts. The Senate confirmed Marbury's appointment,
President Adams signed the commission, and Secretary of State John Marshall affixed
the Great Seal on the commission. But in the rush of business during the final days of the
Adams administration, Marshall failed to actually deliver the commission to Marbury
(and at least three other appointees). Jefferson became president on March 4, 1801, an
the new secretary of state was James Madison. When Marbury and three others asked
Madison for their commissions, the secretary of state, acting under orders from Presiden
Jefferson, refused to deliver the commissions. Marbury sued. The case was heard by
Chief Justice John Marshall and the Supreme Court. While the Court did not address th
specifics of the case, the Court struck down as unconstitutional a portion of the Judiciary
Act of 1789 (which gave the Supreme Court jurisdiction the Court declared it did not
have).
Sig: The Supreme Court of the United States established its authority to review and invalidate government actions that conflict with the Constitution of the United States. The case is monumentally significant because it was the first time that the Supreme Court declared an act of Congress to be unconstitutional. The principle involved here is “judicial review.”
Aaron Burr
Who: During John Adams's term as President, national parties became clearly defined. Burr loosely associated himself with the Jeffersonian-Republicans, though he had moderate Federalist allies, such as Sen. Jonathan Dayton of New Jersey. Burr quickly became a key player in New York politics, more powerful in time than Hamilton, largely because of the Tammany Society, later to become the infamous Tammany Hall, which Burr converted from a social club into a political machine. As Jefferson’s vice president, Burr was not trusted by his own party. Burr's refusal to yield the victory in the election of 1800 to Jefferson, as he had promised, cost him the trust of his own party and that of Jefferson: for the rest of the administration, Burr remained an outsider. He killed Hamilton in a duel in 1804. He later organized a conspiracy to separate a part of the western U.S. and establish a country, for which he was tried but not convicted for treason.
Sig: He played a very dominant role in politics, especially in New York.
War with Tripoli 1801-1805
What: Tripoli was attacking U.S. ships and demanding tribute to engage in commerce in the Mediterranean. Jefferson went to war with the Pasha of Tripoli and won the war.
Sig: Jefferson, the noninterventionist, pacifist, small navy, and political foe of Federalist shippers, nevertheless sent the young U.S. Navy into combat in this war. This was the first war that the U.S. fought after the Revolution (not including the undeclared naval war with France).
Neutral Rights 1806 onward
Who: U.S. merchant shippers, Britain, France
Where: primarily the Atlantic Ocean…
What: Britain issued Orders in Council and France reciprocated with Decrees, prohibiting U.S. merchant ships from trading with the other country. Though the U.S. was neutral, American trade was caught in between these two warring countries.
Sig: The actions of Britain and France in defying neutral rights caused the
U.S. to respond with the Embargo of 1807, Non-Intercourse with Britain and France
in 1809, Macon’s Bill # 2 in 1810, and later the War of 1812 against Britain.
Jefferson’s neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars
When: 1807-1810
What: As the war progressed, Napoleon issued the Berlin and Milan decrees which enacted a blockade of Great Britain, and Great Britain issued Orders in Council, which ordered a blockade of Europe. Although the two blockades were not entirely successful, and some blockade-runners were able to sneak through, 1500 American ships were seized, and their sailors were impressed into the British navy. After the Chesapeake affair in 1807, Jefferson secured passage of the Embargo Act, prohibiting the merchants of the United States to trade with foreign nations. The act was intended to prevent an American entrance into the war by keeping the ships and goods in American harbors. However, it was next to impossible to enforce, and merchants looking for the lucrative trade smuggled many tons of goods in and out of the ports and into Canada. The act was repealed in 1809 during Jefferson's lame duck period, and replaced by the Non-Intercourse Act which allowed American ships to trade with any nations except the belligerent nations in Europe. Once again, the act failed to keep American ships out of the European harbors. The Non-Intercourse Act was replaced in 1810 with Macon’s Bill #2 (Madison is now president), opening trade with all with the understanding that if either Britain or France repealed the orders or decrees, the U.S. would impose an embargo on the other.
Sig: The U.S. was trying to stay out of war through economic sanctions, which in the end failed.
U.S.S. Chesapeake and H.M.S. Leopard 1807
Who: American frigate, Chesapeake; British frigate, Leopard
Where: Ten miles off the coast of Virginia
What: The Leopard attempted to force the impressment of four men on the Chesapeake. When the Chesapeake refused, it was fired upon, killing three Americans and wounding eighteen.
Sig: This incident greatly angered the American public. As a result, Jefferson was pressed for war, but he enacted the embargo instead.
Impressment
Who: The United States and Great Britain
Where: Neutral ships on the seas (mostly American ships)
What: The British Navy declared the right to search any neutral vessel on the seas for deserters. What they really did was they conscripted men between the ages of 18-55 years old to serve as sailors in the Royal Navy. The British were kidnapping American men and forcing them to serve in their navy.
Sig: The United States needed to prove to Britain that the U.S. was independent, not subject to the Crown any longer. The U.S. had to protect the safety and freedom of the American people, especially sailors. This led to the War of 1812.
Embargo 1807
Who: Jefferson’s presidency
Where: affected New England the most
What: Congress passed the Embargo Act in 1807, completely forbidding
the export of goods from the United States. Jefferson took this drastic measure in hopes of obtaining respect for neutral trading rights through letting Britain and France suffer from lack of American trade.
Sig: The embargo greatly harmed U.S. commerce, causing much resentment. New England and mid-Atlantic merchants routinely violated the embargo. Also, the failure of the embargo resulted in eventual war with Britain.
Non-Intercourse Act and Macon’s Bill #2 1809-1810
What: The Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 was similar to Jefferson’s embargo, but it solely targeted Britain and France. In 1810, Congress replaced it with Macon’s Bill No. 2, which opened up trade with Britain and France on one condition: if either of the two countries repealed its commercial restrictions, the U.S. would restore the embargo
against the country that failed to do so.
Sig: Napoleon craftily caused Madison to restore the embargo on Britain,
leading to the War of 1812.
War of 1812 Causes
Who: The United States and Great Britain
What: The English instituted maritime blockades of European ports to prevent American shipping from helping the French during the war between England and France. The British also claimed the right to stop any neutral vessel and search the ship for “deserters.” Many American ships were taken, and men were impressed into the British Navy. This can be seen in the Chesapeake-Leopard affair of 1807. Economic sanctions were tried but were unsuccessful (Embargo, Non-Intercourse, Macon’s Bill #2). With the coming of the War Hawks to Congress in 1810, western fears of and British aid to the Indians became an issue that contributed to war fever. Great Britain wanted to control the trade routes to keep the U.S. out of European ports during the war with France. The United States had to defend the right to export American goods without losing men or ships. The U.S. also objected to Great Britain supporting the Indians along the Great Lakes.
Sig: America had to defend its rights, government, commerce and independence. Madison and the War Hawks chose war as the vehicle to do so (Jefferson chose embargo, which did not work; Madison chose war, which defended American rights and honor).
Tecumseh and the Prophet early 1800’s
Who: Two Shawnee brothers, Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa (“the Prophet”)
Where: Indian tribes east of the Mississippi in the Ohio Valley
What: Tecumseh and the Prophet organized a confederacy of Indian tribes to
renew their culture and fight against the advancing American frontier. At the
Battle of Tippecanoe (1811, in present-day Indiana), William Henry Harrison
defeated the Prophet’s people, hurting the movement. Tecumseh died fighting for the
British in the Battle of the Thames in 1813.
Sig: Tecumseh’s death in 1813 marked the end of the dream of an Indian
confederacy and represented continued evidence that opposition to the United States
would result in military and political defeat for Native-Americans.
American Successes Arise from European Distresses 1790’s-1820’s
Who: Indians, Britain, Spain, France, and the United States
What: While the wars of the French Revolution (1792-1801) and the Napoleonic Wars (1802-1815) were raging, the U.S. had an opportunity to achieve successes from European distresses.
There were six main instances when America profited from the distress of Europe.
1. 1795 Greenville Treaty. After the battle of Fallen Timbers and being abandoned by the British, the Indians gave up some of the Old Northwest in exchange for $20,000 and the right to still hunt on those lands.
2. 1794/95 Jay Treaty with Britain. The British promised to evacuate posts on U.S. soil and to pay damages for the seized American ships. The U.S. had to pay the debts owed to merchants on pre-Revolutionary accounts.
3. 1795 Pinckney Treaty with Spain. Spain, fearing friendship between the U.S. and Britain due to the Jay Treaty, granted to the U.S. free navigation of the Mississippi and the right of deposit at New Orleans, while giving up its claim to that part of old British Florida north of the 31° parallel. (Britain once said that West Florida went all the way up to 32º28', so Spain claimed up to 32º28' but gave up that claim in this treaty.)
4. 1800 Convention of 1800 in which the Franco-American Alliance of 1778 was cancelled (in return, the U.S. would pay damage claims of American shippers against the French). [The U.S. would not enter into a permanent entangling military alliance again until 1949 and NATO.]
5. 1803 Louisiana Purchase from France, doubling the size of the U.S. at a small cost of $15 million.
6. 1823 Monroe Doctrine which stated that other nations would no longer be allowed to colonize or interfere in the Western Hemisphere.
Sig: America gained much from the distress going on in Europe. Much land was gained from other countries during this period. (If there is an early national foreign policy essay question on the AP exam, “Europe’s distresses = America’s successes” represents a good thesis/argument.)
Treaty of Ghent Christmas Eve, 1814
Who: U.S. and Britain
What: The U.S. and Britain agreed to stop fighting, ending the War of 1812.
Remarkably, neither side gained any concessions, attesting to a virtual draw between the two countries.
Sig: Though America didn’t get what it wanted at the start of the War of 1812, it didn’t lose anything to Britain either. The war fostered a sense of nationalism.
Indeed, the war is called the second war of American independence, announcing to
the world that the U.S. was not a nation to be taken lightly anymore.
Battle of New Orleans January 8, 1815
Who: Andrew Jackson led Americans against 8,000 British troops
Where: New Orleans, Louisiana
What: The British troops attacked Andrew Jackson’s well-fortified troops, resulting in a tremendous American victory. Two thousand British were killed or wounded compared with around seventy for the Americans.
Sig: Though this battle occurred after the War of 1812 ended,
the victory greatly boosted American nationalism and honor. Further, Jackson became
a national hero. (Americans like to elect presidents who were war heroes/generals.)
Hartford Convention December 15, 1814 to January 5, 1815
Who: Federalists who were discontented with the War of 1812
Where: Hartford, Connecticut
What: Numerous New England states, feeling abused by Madison’s war, sent representatives to Hartford, Connecticut to discuss their grievances. The resulting convention demanded compensation for lost trade and sought preventive measures against future embargoes, state admissions, and wars, among other things. The resolutions of the Hartford Convention were overshadowed by the victory of the Battle of New Orleans, causing the movement to die.
Sig: The Hartford Convention marked the death of the Federalist Party.
It is also an example of New England’s sympathy towards nullification at the time.
While nullification and secession are normally associated with the South, the
Hartford Convention demonstrates that the South did not have a monopoly on
states’ rights and secessionist thinking.
Consequences of the War of 1812
What: Following the War of 1812, a new nationalism emerged in the United States. Henry Clay's "American System" was a neofederalist program of a national bank, a tariff to promote and protect domestic industry, and congressionally financed internal improvements. President Madison, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and John Quincy Adams helped fashion this new political agenda, which promised to meet the needs of all sections (remember Lum’s BART). Also, with the beginnings of the Monroe presidency came the “Era of Good Feelings” (referring to the era of peace and prosperity in the beginning of Monroe’s presidency), which further sparked nationalism.
Sig: A new sense of American nationalism emerged after the War of 1812. The War of 1812 was nicknamed “the Second War of Independence” because this level of nationalism had not been seen since the Revolutionary War and the U.S. fought Britain to a draw. The United States became internally much stronger through Henry Clay’s “American System”.
Nationalism (devotion or loyalty to a nation)
A sense of nationalism arose after the War of 1812. Judicial nationalism of the Marshall Court can be cited. [All of the following very important cases are Marshall court decisions. Marbury v. Madison (1803), McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824) for lifting up national authority at state expense; Fletcher v. Peck (1810) and Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1832) for lifting up the sanctity of contracts that cannot be eroded by state actions. Marshall’s decisions, in addition to strengthening federal authority, protected business interests from encroachment by individual states. Thus the Marshall court can be characterized as pro-business also.]. Economic nationalism associated with the American System can be cited also: banks, roads, canals, protective tariffs, all contributed to the notion of “nation,” as opposed to more regional or sectional interests. Cultural nationalism can be seen in the works of the painters of the Hudson River School (Thomas Cole), and Lum’s BIC writers (Bryant, Irving, Cooper).
The Tariff of 1816
What: Even with the Federalist party gasping its last breath, the nationalist Congress of 1816 passed the first tariff in U.S. history primarily for protection—20 to 25 percent on many imports.
Sig: Hamilton would have been happy—here we see the emergence of the kind of leadership that he envisioned in his three reports of 1790/91. He would have been delighted with the American System, described below.
The “American System”—around 1824 [with comments on the power of BART]
Who: Henry Clay
What: Clay proposed a three-part plan to develop a profitable home market. First a strong banking system was needed that would provide easy and abundant credit. Next Clay wanted a protective tariff that would allow eastern manufacturing to flourish. Revenues from the flourishing economy would support the third component, a network of roads and canals that would help transport foodstuffs and raw materials from the South and West to the North and East.
Sig: Here is an emerging sense of nationalism. Cries for better transportation erupted in the nation, especially in the West. Individual states took control of construction of canals and roads (i.e. the Erie Canal). Clay’s American System is essentially what Hamilton proposed in his three 1790/91 reports and what President Madison articulated in his 7th annual address to Congress in 1815.
“Era of Good Feelings” (1817-1825)
Who: The Administrations of Monroe
What: When James Monroe (slaveowning Virginian) went into Federalist New
England, “the enemy’s country,” he received a heartwarming welcome. A Boston newspaper was so far carried away as to announce that an “Era of Good Feelings” had been ushered in. This happy phrase has been commonly used since then to describe the administrations of Monroe. The Era of Good Feelings, unfortunately, was something of a misnomer. Considerable tranquility and prosperity did in fact smile upon the early years of Monroe, but the period was a troubled one. The acute issues of the tariff, the bank, internal improvements, and the sale of public lands were being hotly contested.
Sig: The “Era of Good Feelings” helped to promote an emerging sense of
nationalism. (With the Panic of 1819, one can argue that the Era was short-lived.)
American Colonization Society 1817
Who: African-Americans
What: The American Colonization Society (ACS), founded in 1817, grew out of efforts by a Presbyterian minister from New Jersey, Robert Finley. It was typical of many benevolent societies of the period. Americans viewed the society as a solution to what was thought to be the dual problem of freeing blacks and the incompatibility of the races. Although William Lloyd Garrison and other activists ultimately rejected the gradual approach of colonizationists, the movement maintained its appeal for moderates, among them Abraham Lincoln.
In 1822 the ACS established Liberia on the west coast of Africa. Over the next forty years the society settled some twelve thousand African-Americans in that country. Although the society existed until 1912, after 1860 it functioned primarily as the "caretaker" of the settlement in Liberia. (Liberia is an independent nation today.)
Sig: Even after the Emancipation Proclamation, extreme hostility, prejudice, and racism can be seen throughout America. No matter what the motives of ACS supporters were, all believed that free blacks could not be assimilated into American society and that the solution was resettlement in Africa.
Convention of 1818
Who: United States and Britain
Where: The Oregon area (and the boundary between the US and Canada from the Lake of the Woods to the Rockies)
What: The dispute originated because uncertainty in the Treaty of Paris of 1783.
The Convention of 1818 set the boundary at the 49th parallel. The agreement extended
the northern boundary westward from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains.
Further, both sides agreed to occupy Oregon jointly for ten years (renewable).
Sig: This settled the disputed area at the 49th parallel and temporarily resolved the Oregon issue. (Final settlement came in 1846, shortly after the U.S. entered into war with Mexico.)
Panic of 1819
What: This was the first national financial panic since President Washington took office. It brought deflation, depression, bankruptcies, bank failures, unemployment, soup kitchens, and overcrowded pesthouses known as debtors’ prisons. Many factors contributed to the catastrophe of 1819, but looming large was over-speculation in frontier lands. The Bank of the United States, through its western branches, had become deeply involved in this popular type of outdoor gambling.
Sig: Not only was this the first national financial panic since President Washington took office, but it was also a rude setback to the nationalistic ardor. The Panic is considered by many to be the end of the “Era of Good Feelings.”
McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)
Who: Maryland and Chief Justice John Marshall
Where: Baltimore, Maryland (branch of the 2nd BUS)
What: The state of Maryland levied a tax on the Bank of the United
States in opposition to the Bank and to protect the competitive position of its own state banks. Marshall’s ruling declared that no state has the right to control an agency of the federal government. Since “the power to tax is the power to destroy,” such state action violated Congress’ “implied powers” to establish and operate a national bank.
Sign: This Supreme Court decision strengthened federal authority and slapped at state infringements on federal authority under the Constitution. The Bank existed under the implied powers clause of the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8, Clause 18). This decision represents judicial nationalism, where the Court is the final arbiter of the Constitution and where state acts contrary to the Constitution are null and void. This decision also reflects what is supported in The Federalist Papers and what is known as judicial review. In Marbury v. Madison (1803), the Court struck down part of an act of Congress. Here, the Court struck down a State act as unconstitutional.
Adams-Onis Treaty 1819 (“Step Treaty Line”, “Transcontinental Treaty”)
Who: Spain and the United States
Where: Florida, western boundary of Louisiana Purchase
What: With the collapse of its empire, Spain knew it could not hold Florida anymore. Spain also wanted to settle the Louisiana Territory border on its north (U.S. southwest/western border). Spain ceded Florida to the U.S., abandoned any claim to the Oregon territory, and agreed to a boundary for the Louisiana Territory and a boundary along the 42º to the Pacific Ocean. [The Spanish negotiated for the easternmost boundary it could get (in an effort to keep the U.S. as far from Mexico as possible), in the end settling on the Sabine River, which is the easternmost boundary of Texas.] (The United States in exchange agreed to assume $5 million in debts owed to American merchants.)
Sig: This gave the U.S. the rest of Florida and settled an uncertain boundary on the U.S. southwestern border. (Note: With the Spanish abandoning claims above 42º and the Russians in 1824 staying above 54º40', the entire Oregon Territory was left to the U.S. and Britain to jointly occupy under the Convention of 1818 and then finally divide in 1846.)
Missouri Compromise 1820
Who: North (US), South (US), and Henry Clay
Where: Missouri, the remainder of the Louisiana Territory, and Maine
What: Congress agreed to admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a separate free state. This kept the balance between the North and the South at twelve states each. (Balance was critical to maintain slave power in the Senate). Although the state of Missouri was permitted to retain slaves, all future bondage was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the line of 36o30’, which was the southern boundary of Missouri.
Sig: The Missouri Compromise deferred final discussion of slavery. In the end, the Civil War finally resolved the issue. Jefferson called it the “death knell” of the Union. (Death knell is a bell tolled slowly at the time of a funeral.)
Monroe Doctrine 1823
What: President Monroe, in his annual address to Congress in 1823, announced what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, which stated that the European powers could no longer look to the new world for colonization. He argued that the old world’s political institutions (monarchy) were so different from the new world’s (republics) that the old world would no longer be welcome in the new. Further, he suggested that European nations not interfere in the new world. Noncolonization and nonintervention were in his message.
Sig: While this proud and nationalistic statement was scorned at the start by the powers of the old world, over time the Doctrine developed and was used by various presidents, including Polk and T. Roosevelt.
Age of Jackson, 1824-48
Texas in the 1820s
Where: Texas, from the Sabine River on the east to the Nueces on the southwest
Who: Spain (1819-21), Mexico (1821 to 1836), and American settlers
What: Spain and then Mexico invited Americans to settle in their northeastern province of Texas. In 1823, Mexico granted to Stephen Austin a tract of land upon which Americans could settle, with the understanding that they would become Catholic Mexicans. The Texans paid little attention to that, and by 1835 there were 30,000 Americans in Texas (ready to fight when Santa Anna established a dictatorship). Also, when Mexico prohibited slavery in 1830, the Texas slaveowners did not comply, further aggravating the situation between Americans in Texas and the Mexican government.
Sig: The settlement in the 1820s set the stage for the Texas War of Independence in 1836
Lowell System—1820s and into the 1830s
What: In pre-industrial America, farm girls made cloth, candles, soap, butter, cheese on the farm. Emerging industries in the nineteenth century replaced this kind of farm/subsistence labor and provided employment for the girls and young women in factories. In 1826 the town of Lowell was founded in Massachusetts. The “Boston Associates” built boardinghouses to accommodate its labor force of twelve-to-twenty-five-year-old females. The twenty-five or so women residing in each house developed a sense of sisterhood, working, eating, and spending leisure time together. Although they enjoyed the cultural and economic advantages available in Lowell, they did not succumb to the popular notion that Lowell was a "finishing school for young ladies." They had come, mostly from New England farms, to work, and they expected to be paid for their labor and treated with respect. When a downturn occurred in the textile industry beginning in 1829 and management sought to cut wages, these women reacted. They went out on strike in 1834 and 1836 and ran petition campaigns in the 1840s. They formed the Factory Girls' Association and joined the widespread ten-hour movement.
Sig: Theirs were among the first forms of collective action taken by industrial workers. In response, mill owners there and elsewhere turned to immigrant labor, hiring French-Canadian and Irish workers to replace the native-born labor force.
Anti-Masonic Party 1832 and later
What: A political party that first appeared in the 1832 presidential campaign, it opposed the “influence and secrecy” of the Masonic order. They were roused up by the mysterious disappearance of a New Yorker threatening to expose the secret rituals of the Masonic order (he was probably murdered by the Masonic order). The party fed upon the public’s suspicion of secret societies and spread its influence throughout the Atlantic and into the New England states. It was also anti-Jackson since Jackson was Masonic.
Sig: This is the first third-party in American politics. [While not significant, third parties can influence elections on occasion. Look at the effect of the Liberty Party votes in New York which cost Clay the election of 1844, or TR’s Bull Moose Party votes which cost Taft the election of 1912—in both cases the Democrats won: Polk in 1844, and Wilson in 1912, with both receiving less than 50% of the “popular vote.”]
Expansion of Suffrage early 18th century
What: As states dropped various property qualifications during the Jacksonian period, more and more adult white males were able to vote.
Sig: This is an element of Jacksonian Democracy; politics and campaigns became rougher and tougher as candidates sought the vote of the “common man.”
Jacksonian Democracy
What: Jacksonian Democracy refers to several elements that characterize the period roughly from 1828 to 1848 (from Jackson through Polk).
1. Expansion of suffrage occurred as states dropped property qualifications (many more “common” men voted).
2. Jackson’s and his followers hated monopoly and special privilege (e.g., the 2nd BUS). 3. Campaigns were directed at the “common man,” featuring political party conventions to select candidates, and campaigns that appealed to common people and not the privileged. (It became best to be born in a log cabin no matter where you might have been born.) Campaigns became more democratic.
4. While Jefferson appealed to farmers and agrarian interests, Jacksonian Democracy appealed to both rural and urban voters [Lum’s LAFS: laborers, artisans (shoemakers, wheelwrights, carpenters), farmers, small shopkeepers.]
5. The Spoils System, where party loyalists would get government jobs.
6. Jackson and many of his followers were anti-Native American (e.g., Indian Removal Act of 1830, leading to the Trail of Tears in ’38-’39)
Sig: The Jacksonian period is a watershed in American life.
Jacksonian Policies: 1) the Bank, 2) the Specie Circular, 3) Indian Removal (1824-1837)
The Bank War
Who: The conflict was between President Andrew Jackson and the Bank’s president Nicholas Biddle
What: Andrew Jackson believed that the Bank was an unconstitutional monopoly. Thus, he started the War on the Bank (1832-1833). Biddle held enormous power over the financial affairs of the nation. Webster and Clay in 1832 presented to Congress a bill to renew the Bank of the United States charter that was to expire in 1836. However, they were pushing for renewal four years early to make it an election issue in 1832. If Jackson signed, it would alienate agrarian voters in the west. If vetoed, he would lose the election by alienating the wealthy in the east. He won, and in 1833, Jackson attacked the Bank by depositing federal revenues in other banks and removing federal deposits from its vaults, while continuing to make demands on the Bank of the United States. Biddle fought hard but lost in the end.
Sig: Jackson vetoed the re-charter bill. He was reelected, and thus used his reelection as a mandate to defeat the bank. Without some central guidance, state banks were free to engage in speculative activities, which created a disorganized financial situation in the nation. This would contribute to the Panic of 1837.
The Specie Circular
Another policy of Jackson involved the Specie Circular, which was a decree th
obligated all public lands to be purchased with “hard,” or metallic, money. There was too much speculation in western lands, and requiring that lands be paid with scarce hard money would slow or stop the speculation.
Sig: The Specie Circular helped contribute to the financial panic/crash in 1837.
Indian Removal
A third policy of Jackson was to remove the remaining eastern tribes--chiefly Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles--beyond the Mississippi. He wanted the lands for white settlers. His policy led to the forced uprooting of more than 100,000 Indians. In 1830, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which relocated Indian tribes east of the Mississippi to Indian Territory in the west. In the fall and winter of 1838-39, during VanBuren’s presidency, the Army forcibly removed 15,000 Cherokees from their homes in the east to Indian Territory in the west (present day Oklahoma). This journey was known as the Trail of Tears. About 4,000 died on the journey.
Sig: By forced removal of the Native Americans, many died. The Indian removal vividly demonstrates continuing abuse of Native Americans by the ever-expanding people of the U.S. and its government. [Note that Chief Blackhawk in Illinois fought back, and Abe Lincoln was with the Illinois militia that helped the U.S. win the Blackhawk War of 1832. In talking so much about the five southeastern tribes, we tend to forget the Blackhawk War of 1832.]
Spoils system 1828 on
What: Jackson’s spoils system granted rewards to political supporters by giving them public office. Basically, governmental jobs went to the winner of an election. Thus party people could be rewarded with jobs. Scandal and corruption ensued as illiterates, incompetents, or thieves could be given high office. Its name came from Senator William Marcy’s classic remark in 1832, “To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy.” Jackson thought that government jobs were fairly simple, not requiring specialized expertise. The spoils system played a major role in the emerging two-party order.
Sig: The spoils system overwhelmed newly elected politicians. [Later, Politicians would see how shameful the spoils system was when President Garfield was assassinated by a disaffected office-seeker in 1881. The Civil Service Reform Act (Pendleton Act) of 1883 followed.]
The Second Party System
Who: Democrats and Whigs
What: A permanent two party system was spawned from the 1840 election. Democrats gloried in the liberty of an individual, and the Whigs gloried in the harmony of society and value of community. Democrats favored states’ rights and federal restraint in social and economic affairs, while the Whigs favored a renewed national bank, internal improvements, protective tariffs (BART), public school and moral reforms, including prohibition and the abolition of slavery.
Sig: Both parties were “mass-based,” i.e., they tried to appeal to as many voters as possible. The two-party system, which is not in the constitution but is simply a matter of tradition in the U.S., became a permanent part of the American political landscape.
Maysville Road veto 1830
What: The Maysville Road Bill authorized the use of federal funds to build a road between Maysville and Lexington. Jackson vetoed this, claiming it unconstitutional because it applied only to the state of Kentucky. Jackson had previously pledged to reduce the national debt and this was a perfect opportunity.
Sig: The veto dealt a blow to Henry Clay’s American System since it dealt with internal improvements. The Maysville Road veto does reflect Jackson’s left-side thinking.
Supporters and opponents of federal supremacy: The Webster-Hayne debate 1830
Who: Senators Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Robert Hayne of South Carolina
What: Hayne argued that the federal Constitution was a compact among the sovereign states and raised the specter of nullification as an option for states harmed by federal action. Webster argued that the Constitution was not just an agreement among the states but the supreme law of the land. He attacked the radical states’ rights position as being destructive of the United States, asserting that civil war could be a consequence.
Sig: The Webster-Hayne debate highlights the growing philosophical argument between federal supremacy and state sovereignty. Coming 30 years before the Civil War, the rhetoric is prophetic. Webster’s second reply to Hayne is a classic that ends with "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
Nullification Crisis—1828-33
What:
a. Tariff issue, including Tariff of Abominations/1828
Tariffs protected American industry against competition from European manufactured goods, but they also drove up prices for all Americans and invited retaliatory tariffs on American agricultural exports abroad. Southerners reacted angrily against the tariff because they believed the “Yankee tariff” discriminated against them. Calhoun wrote the “Exposition and Protest” which lifted up nullification.
b. Ordinance of Nullification (South Carolina)/November 24, 1832
Although the 1832 tariff was lower than 1828, the people of South Carolina met “in convention assembled” and declared the tariff to be null and void within South Carolina, in clear violation of the Constitution’s supremacy clause.
c. Force Bill/1833
Also know as the “Bloody Bill” it authorized the president to use the army and navy if necessary, to collect federal tariff duties. A compromise tariff was brokered by Clay. South Carolina repealed the ordinance of nullification, but then nullified the force bill. [This is the “s” word here: Who is sovereign, the U.S. with its supremacy clause or the people of the State of South Carolina ‘in convention assembled”?]
Sig: Stepping-stone to Civil War. Nullification provides the legal justification for violation of the supremacy clause of the Constitution. Nullification is a strong states’ rights concept, not consistent with Article VI (supremacy clause) of the Constitution.
Cherokee Indians and the Supreme Court
What: Supreme Court decision, Worcester v. Georgia 31 U.S. 515 (1832), in which the Supreme Court held that Cherokee Native Americans were entitled to federal protection from the actions of state governments.
Sig: This is a case of federal supremacy again, where the Court ruled that the U.S. government is the only agency to regulate Indian affairs (not the states). Jackson did nothing to enforce the decision, and Georgia was allowed to continue its abuse of the Cherokees.
Democracy in America by DeTocqueville (published in 1835)
What: The French traveler and observer wrote an analysis of America based on his journey in 1831-32. He observed that African-Americans and Indians are relegated to the lowest ends of the scale, that whites push out the Indians, that women fare better in the U.S. than in Europe, that there is no aristocracy in the U.S., and that fortunes are made on the basis of merit and opportunity in the U.S.
Sig: Democracy in America is one of the most credible and widely read books on American society in the early nineteenth century. Even with its elitist, Eurocentric biases, it is a very good analysis of the U.S. in the 1830s.
Panic of 1837
What: The cause of the Panic was the mania of get-rich-quick which caused large amounts of speculation. Gamblers in western lands were doing business off borrowed capital which eventually spread to canals, roads, railroads, and slaves. Failed wheat crop, high grain prices, failed banks, factories closing, and unemployed people were part of the Panic.
Sig: One of the many recurring panics or recessions in U.S. History, the panic cause failed banks, factory closure, and unemployment. The panic helped create the Jacksonian Democrats’ demand for an Independent Treasury.
Van Buren Independent Treasury System 1840
Who: President Van Buren
What: People thought that the financial fever and Panic of 1837 was caused by having federal funds in private banks (private banks could then speculate with U.S. funds). Van Buren wanted to separate the government from banking. With the establishment of the independent treasury the government locked its money in independent vaults in various cities, free from the control of state banks. The Whigs got rid of the independent treasury in the early 40s.
Sig: Reenacted by the Democrats under Polk in 1846, the independent treasury system continued until merged with the Federal Reserve system in 1913.
Whigs (about 1832 to 1852) and the American System
What: The Whigs favored a national bank, protective tariffs, internal improvements such as canals and roads, public schools, and moral reforms such as prohibition of liquor and abolition of slavery. [BART + reforms] They had many powerful leaders such as Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Quincy Adams. They elected presidents in 1840 and 1848 (Harrison and Taylor).
Sig: The Whigs supported the BART system but eventually broke up in 1852 over slavery, most notably the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. [The northern Whigs joined the Republican Party when it was formed in 1854.]
Jacksonian Democracy: successes and limitations 1828-1848
Who: President Andrew Jackson and the Jacksonian Democrats (including Polk)
Successes: supported laborers, artisans, farmers, and shop keepers. Citizens no longer needed property to vote. Handled the tariff controversy
well. During Polk’s administration, secured the northern half of Mexico for the U.S., adding immensely to the nation’s wealth, and settled the Oregon boundary.
Limitations: treated the Indians badly, destroyed the second bank of
the United States, which contributed to the Panic of 1837, and created the spoils system; under Polk, engaged in an imperialistic war of conquest against a friendly nation (Mexico).
Transportation Developments in the Early Nineteenth Century
National Road and Cumberland Road
Who: The federal government and the individual states.
Where: Cumberland, in western Maryland, to Vandalia, in Illinois
What: Westerners scored a notable triumph in 1811 when the federal government began to construct the elongated National Road, or Cumberland Road. The War of 1812 interrupted construction, and a states’ rights shackle on internal improvements hampered federal grants. But the thoroughfare was belatedly brought to its destination in 1852 by a combination of aid from the states and the federal government.
Sig: The construction of these roads helped to stimulate the western expansion movement. Further, building national roads that link various regions of the nation together contributed to nationalism. The transportation system also contributed to the market revolution.
Erie Canal 1825
Who: State of New York
Where: The Hudson River at Albany, to Lake Erie
What: The Erie Canal, linking the Hudson River at Albany, New York, with Lake Erie was completed in 1825 and became the first and most successful example of an artificial waterway in the U.S. A rash of construction followed it until canals linked every major waterway system east of the Mississippi River.
Sig: This canal that ran east and west tied the new West to the old East and contributed to the development of a national economy, one in which farmers could move from simple subsistence farming to cash-crop farming. The transportation system that emerged allowed farm produce to move east and finished products to move west, thus connecting farmers with merchants and creating a national economy. Regional issues remained important, but increasingly those issues could be linked to national concerns (in this case, the production, distribution, and sale of goods and produce). Link all of this to the market revolution, where advances in transportation and manufacturing permitted inter-regional exchanges of goods and produce, thus making the farmer in the west dependent on the manufacturer in the east, and vice versa.
Railroads
What: The first railroad appeared in the U.S. in 1828, and by 1860 there were 30,000 miles of track, 3/4ths in the industrializing North. Railroads were less expensive than canals, could be built anywhere, and did not freeze over in winter. Railroads took over from canals by the 1850s. (Internal improvements in 1815 = canals; by 1860 = railroads)
Sig: Railroads became a major industry in the later part of the nineteenth century. Railroads contributed greatly to the growth of a national market economy that linked all regions of the country together (but mostly east and west).
Immigration and Nativism 1840-1850s
Irish Immigration 1830-1900
What: The Irish potato crop was destroyed in the 1840s, uprooting many Irish who emigrated to the U.S. With little money to move west they settled in eastern seaboard cities and became the cheap labor supply in competition with free African-American laborers. (Resentments rose over this.) They kept their own Catholic religion, which fomented resentment among Protestants. They started their own school systems and began to take over local political machines and police forces. While they were at the bottom of the socio-economic scale, they became a power to be reckoned with in eastern cities.
Sig: From 1830 to 1860, some two million Irish came to the U.S. Another two million came between 1860 and 1900. They were a political and economic force that fueled American urban politics and industry.
German Immigration
What: In the 1840s and 1850s, almost two million Germans emigrated to the U.S. due to crop failures and the failure of the liberal revolution of 1848. They brought money with them and had the ability to spread out to the farmlands of the Midwest. Better-educated than many, they supported public schools (the Kindergarten) and they became outspoken defenders of freedom and relentless enemies of slavery. They were culturally different from most Americans and resentment directed at them was common.
Sig: The Germans brought cultural diversity and many contributions to the U.S. They were hard-working, reform oriented, and freedom-loving.
American (Know-Nothing) Party and Nativism in the 1840s and 1850s
What: A political party organized in 1849 around one issue, hatred of foreigners. It also spread some ugly anti-Irish, anti-German, and anti-Catholic propaganda. The party wanted restrictions on immigration and naturalization and the deportation of alien paupers.
Sig: The Know-Nothing (American) Party reflected anti-immigrant nativist attitudes. (Nativism would reappear in U.S. history as a reaction to the flood of immigrants who came to the U.S. between the Civil War and
World War I. Nativists had a great victory with the Immigration Act of 1924, which effectively reduced immigration to a trickle.)
Religion, Reform, and Renaissance in Antebellum American
Cult of Domesticity and Women’s Rights
What: As the market economy created separate roles for men and women (with the men at work and the women at home), the idea of the “cult of domesticity” arose, whereby women at home were meant to teach the young how to be good and productive citizens within her special sphere. It was in the home that the woman was expected to display her morally and artistically superior sensitivities (according to the “cult of domesticity,” she was too emotionally and physically weak to handle the demands of the workplace).
Sig: The “cult of domesticity” asserted the physical and emotional weaknesses of women while lifting up their moral and artistic strengths. This kind of discrimination was the foundation for keeping women politically and economically subordinate to men. The reaction to the “cult” can be seen in the Seneca Falls convention of 1848 (including the “Declaration of Sentiments”), Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a woman?” speech, and Margaret Fuller’s feminist book, Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845).
Women’s rights and the role of women in the nineteenth century 1790-1860
Who: Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Blackwell, Sojourner Truth, Margaret Fuller
Where: The women’s rights movement was primarily in the northeast, but strong in other areas also.
What: Women fought to break down the “cult of domesticity” that bound women to their homes. They were also involved in other reform movements of the 19th century such as temperance and abolition of slavery. Most importantly, Mott and Stanton were at the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848, which produced the “Declaration of Sentiments” (modeled after the Declaration of Independence). [The fight over abolition eclipsed the women’s rights movement up to the Civil War, and when African-American males got the vote in 1870, many women were genuinely disappointed and disillusioned that they did not get the vote also. While some states, notably western, granted the vote to women as early as 1869 (in Wyoming), women did not get the vote at the national level until the 19th amendment in 1920.]
Sig: Starting with Seneca Falls, 1848, the women’s rights movement remains one of the most enduring civil rights movements in U.S. history.
Education Reform, 1820-1860
Who: Horace Mann, Noah Webster, William H. McGuffey, Emma Willard
Where: Massachusetts and then the rest of the U.S. (through Horace Mann and his brilliant reforms on the Massachusetts Board of Education)
What: Horace Mann’s reforms called for more 1) public schools, 2) higher pay for teachers, 3) longer teaching terms, and an 4) expanded curriculum. Schools were of poor quality and open only a few months of the year. Mann changed that as superintendent of schools in Massachusetts. Noah Webster wrote reading lessons for children and the dictionary, McGuffey published school reading books (the “Readers”.) Mary Lyon and Emma Willard each established a women’s seminary, and higher education was gaining throughout the country.
Sig: Stimulated the modern public school system and focus on education. All of the goals of the education reformers were achieved: better training for and higher paid teachers, expanded curriculum, a longer school year, and better facilities.
Second Great Awakening
What: Evangelical Christian revivals swept across America, notably in the 1830s and most notably in western New York, which became known as the “burned-over district.” Known as the Second Great Awakening, it was a growing reaction to liberalism and deism. As new converts swelled the ranks of Methodists and Baptists churches, those converts were also encouraged to crusade against the wrongs in society, notably alcohol, slavery and women’s rights.
Sig: The Second Great Awakening spawned many reform movements and was one of the most momentous episodes in U.S. religious history.
Second Great Awakening: Charles G. Finney and his PAW agenda (1830’s)
Who: Charles G. Finney was the greatest of the revival preachers during the Second Great Awakening.
Sig: In addition to his preaching, he supported the PAW agenda. P: prohibition of alcohol. A: abolition of slavery. W: women’s rights and women involved with religion. He had a great influence on many people.
Mormons (1830’s-40’s)
Who: Joseph Smith and Mormons
Where: New York, Ohio, Missouri, Illinois
What: Joseph Smith received golden plates from an angel, which became the Book of Mormon. People opposed Mormons because they voted as a unit and they practiced polygamy. In 1844, Joseph Smith and his brother were murdered in Illinois. Mormons then moved to Utah while being led by Brigham Young.
Sig: This is the most significant religion that arose out of the Burned-Over district of New York during the Second Great Awakening. It is the dominant religion in Utah today.
New Harmony
What: In 1825, Robert Owen purchased the community of New Harmony on the Wasbash River in Indiana, hoping to establish a model (utopian) community where education and social equality would flourish. His “Community of Equality” dissolved by 1827, ravaged by personal conflicts and the inadequacies of the community in the areas of labor and agriculture.
Sig: This is one of the many failed utopian experiments in the early 19th century.
Oneida Community 1848-1880
Where: New York
What: Founded by John Humphrey Noyes, who repudiated the old Puritan doctrines that God was vengeful and that sinful mankind was doomed to dwell in a vale of tears. He believed in free love (“complex marriage”) and “Bible Communism." (Complex marriage meant that each man was married to every woman in the society.) ) In 1880, Oneida left communism and became a joint-stock company specializing in the manufacture of silver tableware. Society marginalized the Oneida Community because of free love (“complex marriage”) and selective breeding.
Sig: Was once one of the biggest utopian communities that arose out of the Second Great Awakening.
Brook Farm 1841-46
Where: Massachusetts
What: Transcendentalists settled on a 200 acre farm and practiced a communitarian lifestyle. A fire in 1846 destroyed their building and the experiment in “plain living and high thinking” collapsed in debt.
Sig: Brook Farm demonstrates the utopian fervor that captured the imagination of idealists at mid-nineteenth century.
Transcendentalists 1830s-1850s
Where: Largely in Massachusetts
What: Transcendentalists denied that all knowledge comes to the mind from the senses (or the Bible) but instead every person has an inner light that illuminates the highest truths and puts one in touch with God, or the “Oversoul.” Exaltation of the dignity of the individual was paramount in transcendentalism, and from this came an array of humanitarian reforms. Best known: 1) Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson promoted self-reliance, self-confidence, and freedom, all of which were well in tune with the ideals being developed by the American people. His most notable speech was his 1837 “American Scholar.”
(2) Henry David Thoreau, whose On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, influenced Gandhi and Martin Luther King. 3) Margaret Fuller, editor of the transcendentalist pamphlet Dial, and author of the feminist book Women in the Nineteenth Century (1845).
Sig: Transcendentalism is strictly American and liberates the people from the grasp of European influences. The movement represents the independence, self-reliance, and idealism of many Americans.
Hudson River School 1825-on
Who: A group of romantic landscape artists. Thomas Doughty, Albert Bierstadt, and Thomas Cole were some of the famous artists. .
What: The group focused on romantic styles of landscape painting.
Sig: For the first time, a number of American artists began to devote themselves to landscape painting instead of portraiture. The works of these artists reflected a new concept of wilderness, one in which humans were an insignificant intrusion in a landscape more beautiful than fearsome.
Knickerbocker School 1820s
Who: William Cullen Bryant (Thanatopsis), Washington Irving (“Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” “Rip Van Winkle,” both in the Sketch Book), and James Fenimore Cooper (Leatherstocking Tales, including The Last of the Mohicans) [BIC illuminates the national literary landscape.]
Sig: These three writers represent the emergence of a national literature, independent from Europe and can be seen as “cultural nationalism” following the War of 1812.
Abolition 1830s-1860s
Who: Frederick Douglass (spoke against slavery, looked towards politics and government to support the cause. Theodore Dwight Weld (spoke against slavery and wrote the pamphlet, American Slavery As It Is), William Lloyd Garrison (The Liberator and the American Anti-Slavery Society), Sojourner Truth (abolitionist and women’s rights)
Where: Primarily in the northeast area, but did spread westward
What: Through written messages, boycotts, and speeches, they fought for the abolition of slavery.
Sig: Fought for abolition of slavery; began to question the true meaning of equality; and caused divided opinions which propelled the nation towards the Civil war.
Temperance and Prohibition--1850s
Who: Neal S. Dow (sponsored Maine prohibition law) and many women
Where: Primarily the northeast
What: Two avenues of attack: 1) prohibition (no alcohol sale permitted) by law. Example: Maine Law of 1851 prohibited the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor. 2) temperance, meaning be moderate in drinking alcohol. Example: American Temperance Society 1826: fought to reduce temptation and urge to drink.
Sig: Alcohol negatively affected many lives, and with the temperance movement, it showed the growing concern for the overall quality of life. Women, locked into a society that valued the “cult of domesticity,” had to rely on men for economic well-being. Thus women led the temperance movement.
Criminals and the insane--1830’s and 40’s
Who: Dorothea Dix
Where: Massachusetts and then elsewhere as the movement spread
What: Criminal punishments were reduced and prisons began to reform and correct criminals. Dix wrote and spoke against the inhumane conditions of insane asylums until their conditions were improved. Her 1843 petition to the Massachusetts legislature was the turning point in the treatment of the mentally ill.
Sig: Treatment of criminals and mentally ill improved. Criminals were to be reformed instead of just punished; and mentally ill people would no longer be chained in jails or poor houses.
Territorial Expansion and Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny 1840’s-1850s
What: The idea of “manifest destiny” is that God ordained the American people to rule from the Atlantic to the Pacific (and later, in the 1850s, the idea was expanded to look to the south into Central America, Cuba, Mexico).
Sig: Manifest Destiny was a latently (hidden or unknown) racist and manifestly (visible or known) imperialistic notion that engendered a sense of national pride and led the American people to believe that developing the American empire at the expense of others was not only good but ordained by God.
Texas 1836-45
What: Texas fought a war of independence (1836) with the Mexicans but was refused entry into the U.S. in part because of the slavery issue. In 1845, during the last days of the Tyler administration, Texas was admitted as a slave state (annexed by joint resolution of Congress and signed by President Tyler).
Sig: Demonstrates the difficulties associated with the issue of slavery in the territories or in any new state. Clay’s straddling of the fence on the issue of Texas may have cost him the presidency in 1844 (Polk won, 1,338,464 to 1,300,097).
Oregon 1846
What: This was a compromise agreement with Britain, whereby the border was set at the 49th parallel. The U.S. and Britain under the Compromise of 1818 jointly occupied the Oregon country. By the 1840s, Americans settlers perfected their title by moving to Oregon, while the British lost interest in the southern part of the country. Neither side wanted a confrontation over Oregon. Polk did not get a fight—he got a good compromise instead. Compromise was necessitated in part because the U.S. just started a war with Mexico.
Sig: Resolved a longstanding point of contention between the U.S. and Britain. Provided the U.S. with territory that would ultimately become the states of Oregon, Idaho, Washington and some of Montana.
Polk and the Mexican War 1846-1848
Who: James Polk, Mexico
What: A war started over Polk’s desire for Mexican lands west of Texas, notably California. When U.S. troops advanced to the Rio Grande, in an area claimed by Mexico (between the Nueces and the Rio Grande), the Mexicans confronted the U.S. and the war began.
Sig: The U.S. gained the northern half of Mexico, including much of the American southwest. (See Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo/February 1848)
The Wilmot Proviso 1846
Who: David Wilmot, Democratic representative from Pennsylvania
What: At the start of the Mexican War, Wilmot proposed, as part of a war appropriations bill, that slavery be excluded from any territory acquired from Mexico. The Wilmot Proviso passed the House twice and failed in the Senate twice.
Sig: Although the Proviso failed, the discussion brought into sharp focus the differences then existing on the slavery question. (Emerson was right when he said: “Mexico will poison us.”)
Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo February 2, 1848
Who: James Polk, Nicholas P. Trist, Mexican “government”
What: To conclude the Mexican War, Polk dispatched Nicholas Trist to Mexico City. The Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo was signed by Trist and forwarded to Washington. The treaty confirmed the American title to Texas and yielded the enormous area stretching westward to the Pacific Ocean, including California. The United States agreed to pay $15 million for the land and to assume the claims of its citizens against Mexico in the amount of $3,250,000.
Sig: Added the American southwest to the United States. Also contributed to the “burning” discussion of slavery in the territories, all of which resulted in the Compromise of 1850 (California = free state; Utah and New Mexico territories organized on basis of popular sovereignty; strong fugitive slave law; Texas boundary adjusted; D.C. slave trade outlawed),
The Crisis of the Union
Missouri Compromise 1820 (this is a PEP repeat because it is so important)
Who: North (US), South (US), and Henry Clay
Where: Missouri, the remainder of the Louisiana Territory, and Maine
What: Congress agreed to admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a separate free state. This kept the balance between the North and the South at twelve states each. (Balance was critical to maintain slave power in the Senate). Although the state of Missouri was permitted to retain slaves, all future bondage was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the line of 36o30’, which was the latitude of the southern boundary of the state of Missouri.
Sig: The Missouri Compromise deferred final discussion of slavery. In the end, the Civil War finally resolved the issue. Jefferson called it the “death knell” of the Union. (Death knell is a bell tolled slowly at the time of a funeral.)
Webster’s Second Reply to Hayne
What: Senator Daniel Webster responded to Senator Robert Hayne's claims of South Carolina's right of nullification in a speech mainly directed at Vice-President John C. Calhoun. Webster offered a brilliant summary of federalism and established forever the link between "Liberty and Union..."
Sig: The growing argument between nullification/states’ rights and federal supremacy came with great force in this exchange in the Senate in January 1830. This is one of the greatest speeches in U.S. history.
William Lloyd Garrison
Who: A journalist, abolitionist, and social activist, he turned his energies to fighting slavery. He gave many public speeches against slavery, and started The Liberator, an anti-slavery newspaper. He favored ‘immediate and complete emancipation’ of slaves.
Sig: He was the source of inspiration for those opposed to slavery. He fueled Southern hostility because he wanted to free the slaves immediately and without compensation to the owners.
The Liberator
Who: Published by William Lloyd Garrison
What: An anti-slavery, pro-immediate emaciation newspaper
When: January 1, 1831 begins publishing
Sig: A significant part of the abolitionist movement. The weekly magazine went from the 1830s to the end of the Civil War, in all producing 1,820 issues after 35 years. The main topic of the liberator was peaceful and immediate emancipation of slaves through passive resistance.
American Anti-Slavery Society 1833
Who: Founded by dedicated abolitionists
What: The American Anti-Slavery Society was a promoter, with its state and local auxiliaries, of the cause of immediate abolition of slavery in the United States. It fractured in 1840 over the role of women in the organization and the organization’s promotion of women’s rights in addition to abolition. The politicized elements supported the Liberty Party in 1840, the Free-Soil Party in 1848, and the Republican Party from 1854 on.
Sig: The Society demonstrates how abolition rose to become one of the most important antebellum reform movements.
Slavery in general from 1800 to 1860
What: After the gin (1793), upland cotton could be raised profitably. The cotton raised could feed the cotton textiles industry in the North and Europe (Britain, notably). The existing labor supply in the South was slaves, and the demand for slaves increased as the cotton culture spread throughout the U.S. south and southwest in the early nineteenth century. Slaves were property with no civil or political rights. After the international slave trade was prohibited in 1808, natural reproduction accounted for the increase in slave numbers. A prime field hand sold for about $500 in 1830 and $1,800 in 1860. Britain and the North depended on Southern cotton to feed the mills, and hundreds of thousands of workers would go unemployed if the supply were to be cut off. David Christy wrote Cotton is King in 1855, and Senator Hammond (S.C.) said, in 1858, “No one dare make war on cotton.” The Southern planters were powerful and successful in the 1850s, and they relied upon and defended slavery as the labor supply that was at the root of their wealth.
Some slaves lived in towns, perhaps rented out by their owners. Some were skilled at some craft (carpentry). Many more slaves lived in slave quarters on plantations. Many were married and had their families with them on plantations, and yet, as property, any slave was subject to being sold “down the river.” [Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) had a powerful impact on this issue.] While plantation owners had an economic self-interest in caring for their slave property, abuses were widely reported in the Northern press and among abolitionists. Rape, murder, and mutilation of slaves were not unknown on plantations. Publication of these atrocities enflamed both North and South (for opposite reasons, with the Southern position being that such reports were gross exaggerations).
Slaves were generally submissive, and yet there were exceptions. The Stono rebellion of 1739, Gabriel Prosser rebellion of 1800, Denmark Vesey rebellion in 1822, and Nat Turner rebellion in 1831 speak to the desire of slaves to be free. While all of those rebellions were suppressed, slaves had other ways to fight back: 1) petty theft; 2) negligence and breakage of equipment; and 3) work slow-downs. Whites had a great fear of slave rebellion, accounting for repressive laws limiting communications and travel among the slaves.
Religion played an important role in the life of slaves. Combining African religious rites with basic Christian doctrines, slaves spoke and sang quietly among themselves of Israel in Egypt and liberation from the yoke of slavery. More militant Christians among the slaves spoke of the flight to and then into Canaan, where militaristic confrontation with the Canaanites (slaveowners) was to be expected. (Slaveowners, not unaware of these developments, increasingly limited communication among slaves as the nineteenth century progressed.)
Sig: Slavery was inextricably intertwined with the social, technological, political, legal, economic, and religious life of the United States from the 1660s to the 1860s. To understand U.S. history, one must understand slavery.
Calhoun’s Defense of Slavery as a Positive Good (1837)
Who: Sen. John C. Calhoun of S. Carolina
What: Speech given in the Senate. Calhoun believed that the relationship between enslaved African people and free whites “forms the most solid and durable foundation on which to rear free and stable political constitutions.” He believed that there should be a subservient level of people (Africans) that should work under the more mentally capable individuals (whites), and that Africans are equally benefited by this relationship as their white counterparts, since they were “rescued” from the barbarism of the jungle and “clothed with the blessings of Christian civilization.” Further, he argued that Northern workers fared worse than slaves.
Sig: Calhoun’s argument demonstrates the early reaction to abolitionism as southerners felt obligated to take up the defense of their “peculiar institution.” As the Civil War neared, attitudes hardened on both sides.
Frederick Douglass 1817?-95
Who: Brilliant orator and writer; most prominent of the black abolitionists. He wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an autobiographical account of his life, including his escape to the North. He looked to politics to end slavery: he supported the Liberty party in 1840, the Free Soil party in 1848, and the Republicans in the 1850s.
Sig: He was the most significant African-American abolitionist of the period whose courage and eloquence promoted the abolitionist cause.
Popular Sovereignty 1840s-1850s
What: This involved the right of the people in territories to vote to have slavery or no slavery. Stephen Douglas (Dem., Illinois) championed popular sovereignty.
Sig: Popular Sovereignty was meant to turn the national issue of slavery into smaller, more local issues, but failed to extinguish the fires lit by the abolitionists and free-soilers (Wilmot Proviso, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, Bleeding Kansas of 1856, Dred Scott of 1857).
Compromise of 1850
What: A set of five laws collectively called the Compromise of 1850
Concessions to the North:
1) California was admitted as a free state.
2) Territory disputed by Texas and New Mexico was surrendered to New Mexico (Texas received $10 million from the federal government as compensation.).
3) Slave trade was abolished in Washington D.C.
Concessions to the South:
1) The remainder of the Mexican Cession area was to be formed into the territories of New Mexico and Utah, without restriction on slavery (open to popular sovereignty).
2) A more stringent fugitive slave law was implemented, going beyond that of 1793.
Sig: The Compromise of 1850 was an effort to defuse the slavery issue, but the Fugitive Slave Act exploded in the faces of both North and South and further divided the nation.
Fugitive Slave Act (1850)
What: “The Bloodhound Bill” stirred up a storm of opposition in the North. Fleeing slaves could not testify on their own behalf and were denied a jury trial. The federal commissioner who handled the fugitive’s case would be given five dollars if the runaways were freed and ten dollars if not, which looked like a bribe in favor of slavecatchers/slaveowners.
Sig: It prompted the Northerners’ “personal liberty laws,” which denied local jails to federal officials and otherwise hindered enforcement of the Fugitive Slave. The South, on the other hand, gave up equality in the Senate (CA = free state) in return for a strong fugitive slave law, only to see its power diminished by Northern opposition. Both North and South were alienated by the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Whigs broke up over it in 1852.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin 1852
Who: Harriett Beecher Stowe wrote the novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
What: The novel sold over 7 million copies worldwide. It spoke of the
cruel treatment of slaves in America as well as stories from the Underground Railroad.
Many Northerners hated slavery after reading this novel. Abraham Lincoln
later said this novel started the Civil War (a comment made to Stowe during the
War: "So this is the little lady that started the big war.") Foreign countries now
were hesitant to trade with the South now that they were aware of the treatment of slaves
in America.
Sig: The novel enflamed the South and many proslavery books were published to counter the influence of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book is one of the most influential in U.S. history. (Don’t neglect the obvious fact that the book is written by a woman.)
Gadsden Purchase 1853
What: The United States wanted a piece of land for a southern railroad. The land ran through Mexico. James Gadsden, a South Carolina railroad man, was appointed minister to Mexico. Gadsden negotiated a treaty (1853) by which the United States purchased the land for 10 million dollars. That land is southern Arizona and New Mexico today. A southern route would be easier to build, cost less, and would satisfy Southern demands for a western railroad
Sig: The Gadsden Purchase facilitated the building of a southern railroad to the west coast and was the last territorial acquisition of the U.S. in the “lower 48.”
Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854
Who: Law sponsored by Stephen A. Douglas
What: The Act said that instead of using the terms of the Missouri Compromise,
which provided that all territories north of 36º30' in the remainder of the
Louisiana Purchase territory should be free, the area will be split into Kansas
and Nebraska territories, and popular sovereignty shall determine slavery or no slavery in
the territory (and by inference in future states).
Sig: The Act angered free-soilers because it opened territory previously
closed to slavery (under the Missouri Compromise) to the potential of slavery.
The Republican Party emerged as a result of this Act. Further, the Act led to
“bleeding Kansas” in 1856 as free-soilers and slavers competed to establish
different governments. Bleeding Kansas foreshadowed the coming of the Civil War.
Republican Party (origins, goals, and position on slavery) 1854 to present
Who: Many Whigs, Liberty party members, Know-Nothings, and Free Soil members became Republicans as their respective parties disbanded.
What: After the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854, the Whig party was ended, and
meetings in the upper Midwestern states started the formation of a new party opposed to
the spread of slavery into the western territories. One meeting, at Ripon, Wisconsin, on
March 20, 1854, is widely known as the beginning of the Republican party. At the start,
it was a northern (free state) based party that was dedicated to the prevention of the
spread of slavery into the territories (in reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854). The Party did not mean to interfere with slavery in Southern states but insisted that slavery not be allowed to expand in the territories (the implication being that slavery would become less and less significant as more and more free states were added to the Union, a point that was not lost among Southern defenders).
The domestic agenda at the start of the party was BART (banks, internal improvements railroads, and higher tariffs), opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories, higher education, and homesteads for small farmers.
Sig: The Republican Party became a major player in United States politics,
electing many presidents, beginning with Lincoln in 1860. In addition to being the party
of Lincoln and winning the Civil War, the Republican Party’s agenda dominated U.S.
politics for several decades (essential pro-business).
Dred Scott decision 1857
What: In March of 1857, the United States Supreme Court, led by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, declared that blacks -- slaves as well as free -- were not and could never become citizens of the United States. The court also declared the 1820 Missouri Compromise unconstitutional, thus permitting slavery in all of the country's territories.
The case before the court was that of Dred Scott v. Sandford. Dred Scott, a slave who had lived in the free state of Illinois and the free territory of Wisconsin before moving back to the slave state of Missouri, had appealed to the Supreme Court in hopes of being granted his freedom.
Taney -- a staunch supporter of slavery and intent on protecting Southerners from Northern aggression -- wrote in the Court's majority opinion that, because Scott was black, he was not a citizen and therefore had no right to sue. The framers of the Constitution, he wrote, believed that blacks "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect; and that the Negro might justly and lawfully be reduced to slavery for his benefit. He was bought and sold and treated as an ordinary article of merchandise and traffic, whenever profit could be made by it."
Referring to the language in the Declaration of Independence that includes the phrase, "all men are created equal," Taney reasoned that "it is too clear for dispute, that the enslaved African race were not intended to be included, and formed no part of the people who framed and adopted this declaration. . . ."
Sig: This decision lifted the spirits of the proslavery forces and further enflamed the passions of the abolitionists. The decision itself, coming just a few years before the Civil War, contributed to the heated rhetoric that caused both sides to refuse to compromise and settle the slavery issue short of war. [The 14th amendment (1868), conferring citizenship on former slaves and blacks, was a response to Dred Scott. The 14th amendment says: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”]
Lecompton Crisis 1857
Who: Proslavery Forces
Where: Kansas
What: Proslavery Forces in Kansas devised a tricky document known as the Lecompton Constitution. The people were not allowed to vote for or against the constitution as a whole, but for the constitution either “with slavery” or “with no slavery.” If they voted against slavery, one of the remaining provisions of the constitution would protect the owners of slaves already in Kansas so there would still be black bondage in Kansas no matter what.
Sig: In a congressional debate that at one point broke into a fistfight, enough Northern Democrats finally defected from their party to reject the Lecompton Constitution. Democratic Senator Douglas opposed the Lecompton Constitution, which cost him Southern democratic support, thus further dividing the Democratic Party and lifting up the prospects for the more unified Republicans.
Lincoln-Douglas debates, 1858
Who: Lincoln (Republican) and Douglas (Democrat)
What: This was a series of seven debates between August and October of 1858, where Lincoln and Douglas opposed one another in a race for a Senate seat. These debates helped Douglas win the Senate seat but ruined his chance of winning the presidency. This contributed to the split of his party after the debate at Freeport. Essentially, Lincoln got Douglas to admit that if the people of a territory decided against slavery, the slavery would not be permitted—a seeming contradiction of the Constitution as interpreted in the Dred Scott decision.
Sig: The Freeport Doctrine alienated Southerners who found it increasingly difficult to support Douglas and led to the fracture of the Democratic Part in 1860. The Lincoln-Douglas debate platform thus proved to be one of the preliminary battlefields of the Civil War.
King Cotton 1793-1860
Where: The southern states of the Union.
What: When Eli Whitney introduced his cotton gin in 1793, the southern cotton industry rode a wave to power. To supply the growing textile industry cotton farmers needed slaves to raise the cotton. One half of all American exports could be represented by the cotton industry alone after 1840. The South exported cotton to the North, providing for their textile industry, and European textile industries as well. About seventy-five percent of the British cotton in its textile manufacturing came from the South.
Sig: The southern states felt that Europe as well as the North could not survive without southern cotton, causing them to believe “cotton is king.” The South believed if they were forced into a war against the North, Europe would have to take their side and
assist them in the fight against the North because they believed Europe would not survive
without southern cotton.
John Brown's Raid October 1859
Who: John Brown and a group of northern abolitionists.
Where: Harpers Ferry, western Virginia.
What: John Brown devised a scheme to invade the South and call black slaves to rise, hoping to deliver them from bondage and create a free black state. Yet, as few blacks were aware of this attempted liberation, his plan failed and when Brown led several anti-slavery followers to capture the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, several innocent bystanders were killed or wounded. Captured by the U.S. Marines, Brown was swiftly executed. Many revered Brown as a martyr for the abolitionist cause while others denounced his violent and seemingly irrational means to liberate the slaves.
Sig.: The raid fueled the conflict between the North and the South and rallied the anti-slavery movement while raising questions about the correct way to deliver the oppressed slaves (using violent tactics to liberate was questioned).
The election of 1860: Lincoln and the Republican Party Platform
What: Elected as candidate for the Republican Party and eventually President, Lincoln's Republican platform seduced many of its Northern followers. Non-extension of slavery, a protective tariff, a Pacific railroad, internal improvement paid for by federal means, and free homesteads from the public domain, were only some of the ideas that existed on the platform and had obvious to appeal to Northerners and none for Southerners. (Good BART here in platform.) Note the platform was not abolitionist but simply anti-extension of slavery in the territories.
Sig.: The election determined the fate of the United States as it delicately balanced the issue of peace or civil war. The North was given the upper hand as it had a union-minded president to back it up. South Carolina called for a convention to declare for secession just after Lincoln’s election. (The convention met and South Carolina seceded in December, more than two months before Lincoln’s inauguration on March 4, 1861.)
Civil War 1861-1865
Fort Sumter April 1861
Who: Union fort and Confederate artillery
Where: Charleston Harbor
What: Fort Sumter was one of two important federal forts based in the South. Low on provisions, Sumter would have to surrender in time if it was not re-supplied. The South Carolinians would not tolerate a Union fort standing between them and one of their most valuable Atlantic seaports. When Lincoln decided to send provisions to the fort, the South opened fire on the fort and the attack resulted in Union surrender. Lincoln used the defeat to unite the North. Lincoln, using the same words Washington used to call up the militia in 1794 (Whiskey Rebellion), called up 75,000 militiamen and declared his intention to enforce the laws. He ordered the rebels to disperse. They did not do so, of course, and the Civil War began.
Sig.: The firing on Fort Sumter and Lincoln’s call for the militia represent the start of America’s Civil War in April, 1861. Four years and one million casualties later, the Union prevailed.
North vs. South - economy, military, population 1861 – 1865
Who: The Union [all free states and four (five after 1863) slave states] and eleven Southern Slave States
What: The free-labor and slavery-based labor systems of North and South both reflected and heightened an economic differentiation between the sections. The states of the Middle Atlantic and New England regions developed a commercial market economy in the first half of the nineteenth century, and gave birth to the nation's first factories. The Old Northwest, the free states west of the Appalachians, had an agricultural economy that exported its surplus production to the other U.S. regions and to Europe. The South depended upon large-scale production of export crops, primarily cotton and (to a lesser extent) tobacco, raised by slaves. (Slaves were a key component in Southern wealth, comprising the second most valuable form of property in the region, after real estate.) Some of its cotton was sold to New England textile mills, though much more of it was shipped to Britain. The dominance of this crop led to the expression "King Cotton." But shipping, brokerage, insurance, and other financial mediation for the trade were centered in the North, particularly in New York City.
Militarily, the North was much stronger than the South. The North could command a larger army and had a navy (the South could field smaller armies and had no navy). However, the South had the upper hand in leadership as it had better generals at the start of the war.
The North also had the upper hand with 20 million people while the South only had 9 million people. The North had over 100,000 factories while the South had about 20,000.
Sig: These key differences between the North and the South were extremely important because they ultimately decided the victors of the war and determined the history of our country. With advantages in population, firepower, and industry, the North won the war. (Had it been a quick war, these advantages would not have been important).
Lincoln and the Border States Issue 1861-1865
Who: Border States (Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri)
What: The Lincoln administration regarded Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri (slave states loyal to the Union) as critical because of their geographical position. The Border States represented a serious dilemma for President Lincoln. He was convinced they were essential to victory (Lincoln: “I hope I have God on my side, but I have to have Kentucky”). He could not afford to alienate them with his emancipation policies, which could have driven them into the Confederacy. He had to maintain that the war was to maintain the Union and not free the slaves. He thus incurred the scorn of abolitionists. (The Emancipation Proclamation, effective 1-1-63, did not free any slaves in Union-held land, only Confederate-held land. The 13th Amendment in 1865 freed all slaves.) Though the Border States remained in the Union, there were bitter divisions within those states.
Sig: These states played a large role in the victory of the North and pointed to one of Lincoln’s wartime dilemmas.
Union war goals
What: The goal of the Union at the start of the Civil War was preservation of the Union. By the end of the war emancipation had been added as a war goal.
Sig: Expansion of war goals over time demonstrates how war effects rapid change in society. (Had it not been for the war, slavery would have continued indefinitely into the future.)
African-American Soldiers of the Civil War 1861-1865
Who: African-American Soldiers
Where: United States
What: Approximately 180,000 African Americans comprising 163 units served in the Union Army during the Civil War, and many more African Americans served in the Union Navy. Both free African-Americans and runaway slaves joined the fight. On July 17, 1862, Congress passed two acts allowing the enlistment of African Americans, but official enrollment occurred only after the September 1862 issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation. In actual numbers, African American soldiers comprised 10% of the entire Union Army. In over 500 engagements, black soldiers won 22 Congressional Medals of Honor and more than 38,000 were killed.
Discrimination in pay and other areas remained widespread. Soldiers of African descent were to receive $10.00 a month, plus a clothing allowance of $3.50, but the Army held back the full amount. Many regiments struggled for equal pay, some refusing any money until June 15, 1864, when Congress granted equal pay for all black soldiers.
Sig: This marked the first time African Americans were allowed to fight as an organized and segregated unit in a war (starting with the 54th Massachusetts Infantry). Blacks were also granted the same pay as white soldiers even though it came near the end of the war
C.S.S. Alabama (Confederate raider 1862-64)
What: The Alabama was the most significant Confederate commerce-raider built by Britain. Although flying the Confederate flag it never entered a Confederate port. Britain was the chief naval base of the Confederacy. The Alabama captured over sixty vessels until a Union cruiser destroyed it off the coast of France in 1864.
Sig: This shows how powerful the Confederacy was with the help of Britain. The Alabama and Britain’s role in the Civil War was a source of contention between the Union and Britain. (After the Emancipation Proclamation and intervention by Union diplomats, Britain began to withdraw overt support for the South.)
Homestead Act 1862
What: An act passed by Congress in 1862 which provided for the distribution of 160 acres of public land for a fee of $30. About half a million families took advantage of the Homestead Act. This act was not as beneficial as it seemed to be at first because the 160 acres was inadequate on the rain-scarce Great Plains. Settlers would rather buy cheap land from a railroad than settle on free public land far from a railroad or other settlements.
Sig: The Homestead Act was part of the Republican Party’s agenda during the Civil War. The act can be seen as part of westward expansion of the American people (excluding Native-Americans).
Antietam September 17, 1862
Who: George McClellan (USA) and Robert E. Lee (CSA)
What: Lee invaded Maryland and was confronted by McClellan in one of the bloodiest battles of the Civil War. While a draw, Lee withdrew back into Virginia and the North called it a “victory.” Lincoln used the “victory” as the occasion to issue the preliminary emancipation proclamation.
Sig: France and Britain, upon seeing the Union’s unexpected power at Antietam, and further prompted by the Emancipation Proclamation, backed off from any further overt (formal) support for the Confederacy.
Emancipation Proclamation January 1, 1863
Who: Lincoln
What: This was Lincoln’s Proclamation to free the slaves in all Confederate areas still in rebellion. The Civil War was turned into a moral crusade as Union armies advanced into slave territory. As the armies advanced, slaves were freed. No slaves were to be freed in the Border States or Confederate lands then held by the Union. Lincoln would not free all slaves, because that would lose him the support of the Border States that were slave and loyal to the Union.
Sig: The Civil War became a moral crusade to abolish slavery, thus demonstrating to the world that more was at stake than simple preservation of the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation changed the nature of the war because it effectively removed any chance of a negotiated settlement.
Higher Education: The Morrill Act of 1862
What: This was a farsighted and statesmanlike law that provided a generous grant of the public lands to the states for support of education. These “land-grant colleges,” many of them becoming state universities, in turn bound themselves to provide certain services, such as military training (e.g., Texas A&M). An increasing number of women were participating in higher education.
Sig: After the Civil War, a college education seemed to be indispensable. This Act furthered the sudden spurt of colleges and universities that occurred after the Civil War. [Republican agenda during Civil War: BART + Homestead + Education + preserve Union]
Reconstruction 1865 to 1877
Freedmen’s Bureau March 3, 1865
Who: Congress; Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandonment Lands
Where: South and former plantation areas
What: An agency established by Congress at the end of the Civil War to provide food, clothing, shelter, education, and employment for the newly freed slaves. During its brief existence, the bureau spent over $17 million and started over four thousand schools for black children.
Sig: The Freedmen’s Bureau was the national government’s legitimate but in the end inadequate effort to care for the welfare of millions of “freedmen.” The Bureau did have some success in education for former slaves.
Thirteenth Amendment 1865
What: Freed all slaves without compensation. [This was one of the three “Civil War” amendments; 13th = abolish slavery (1865); 14th = provided citizenship to African-Americans (1868); 15th = give African-American adult males the vote (1870).)
Sig: Completely abolished slavery.
Sharecropping and tenant farming:
Abuses by landowners and merchants
(after the Civil War): The reconfiguration of Southern Agriculture
Where: South
What: White and black sharecroppers now tilled the soil for a share of the crop (e.g., profits from the crop are split 50/50) or they became tenants in bondage to their landlords (tenants tilled the soil in return for land, housing, and money for supplies). Former slaves used sharecropping and tenant farming as a system of production. Sharecropping was the “predominant capital labor arrangement.” Sharecropping became a trap forced upon the blacks that often had freedmen stuck in its unfair systems for years. Unfortunately, these systems brought about “intense explicit or implicit desire of white Southerners to keep blacks subservient to them.” In addition to being held to the land by the landlord, farmers would buy on credit from merchants, using future crops as a “lien.” Merchants manipulated the system to keep sharecroppers and tenants in perpetual debt. The systems often were manipulated by whites and cheated the blacks out of the little success and profit they had.
Sig: Landowners and merchants kept poor white and black tenant and sharecropper farmers in perpetual debt, at the bottom of the social, economic, and political ladder. Further, the shift from plantation agriculture to smaller farms further divided former masters from former slaves as slaves moved from the slave quarters to outlying fields. This represents the reconfiguration of Southern agriculture after the Civil War.
Black Codes late 1865 and shortly after the Civil War
Who: Newly freed slaves
Where: Southern states
What: Laws passed by the legislatures of the southern states after the Civil War during Reconstruction in an attempt to regulate the activities of and place restrictions on the former slaves and to stabilize the labor force. The codes sought to restore as nearly as possible the pre-emancipation system of race relations. For example, through labor contracts, if freedmen quit contract jobs they could be arrested for vagrancy. This labor force was overseen by whites who had a desire to maintain a very tight control over the blacks, even though they were technically free. Also, blacks could not or serve on juries or vote.
Sig: The Black Code period immediately after the War became a source of great irritation for northern congressmen who wanted to do more for the freedmen (see Radical Reconstruction below).
Presidential Reconstruction: Lincoln (1863) and Johnson (1865)
Where: The states in the Confederacy
What: Lincoln’s “10 percent” plan was proclaimed in 1863, during the Civil War, when Lincoln wanted to restore seceded states to their rightful place in the Union without being punished for what they did. A rebelling state could be admitted if 10 percent of the state voters in the 1860 election swore an oath of allegiance to the United States. The States would then reestablish a government, and Lincoln would recognize the State as part of the Union. After Lincoln was assassinated in April 1865, President Johnson kept Lincoln’s plan but added some restrictions that reflected his dislike for the planter aristocrats who had been Confederate leaders. Johnson’s plan added disenfranchisement of confederate leaders unless they were personally pardoned by him and new state conventions to repeal ordinances of secession, repudiate confederate war debts, and ratify the 13th amendment.
Sig: Lincoln’s plan to readmit the South was simple in nature and allowed for a quick healing of the severed nation. Lincoln wanted to resolve the issue as quickly as possible and thought the “10 percent” plan was the best way. Johnson was not quite as moderate as Lincoln but did not go far enough for the radicals who were taking control of Congress.
Congressional (radical) reconstruction: Military Reconstruction 1867-77
Who: Congress and the U.S. Military
Where: Reconstructed South
What: Congress divided the South into five military districts commanded by a U.S. general. Southern states had to adopt constitutions that gave African-Americans the vote and ratify the 14th amendment (citizenship for African-Americans). In effect, Martial Law was placed on the former Confederate states. Tens of thousands of U.S. troops were sent into all seceded states (except Tennessee, admitted earlier before Radical Reconstruction occurred.) Johnson vetoed the acts but Congress overrode his vetoes. The most notable achievement of the Reconstruction state governments came in the area of public education.
Sig: The Radical Reconstruction of the South created bitterness on both sides. The North was quick to judge the South and make them pay for their rebellious behavior, whereas the South grew embittered by the North’s refusal to accept re-admittance. U.S. troops remained in the South until the Compromise of 1877.
Civil War Amendments: 13th (1865), 14th (1868), and 15th (1870)
What: The Thirteenth Amendment gave freedom to the slaves in America and prohibited any slavery within the United States. The Fourteenth Amendment gave African-Americans citizenship. The Fifteenth Amendment gave African-American males the right to vote.
Sig: The Civil War Amendments represent a huge step forward in equal treatment of African-Americans.
Impeachment of Johnson 1868
Who: President Andrew Johnson and the U.S. Congress
What: The House of Representatives accused the President of “high crimes and misdemeanors.” The Senate conducted the trial, and Johnson fell one vote short of being removed from office. (The issue involved Johnson’s refusal to go along with the Tenure of Office Act. He believed that the Act was an unconstitutional encroachment on the President’s authority to remove cabinet officers. The Act provided that he needed Senate approval to remove a cabinet officer when the Constitution only said that he needed Senate approval to appoint.)
Sig: The first instance of a president ever being impeached in American history. Public interest in politics was intense, and the impeachment process proved to be “the biggest show of 1868.”
Seward and the purchase of Alaska 1867
What: Johnson did have one victory--in foreign policy. Russia wanted to sell Alaska for various reasons, and Johnson’s Secretary of State William Seward negotiated the treaty whereby the U.S. purchased Alaska for $7.2 million. While assailed by many as “Seward’s Folly,” the Senate approved the treaty on the basis that some other nation might get it instead and there was the long-term possibility of furs, fish, and gold. (Nobody at the time could have anticipated the much later oil and natural gas fields.)
Sig: Alaska proved to be a great strategic addition to the U.S. (In a global environment, Alaska is strategically placed on air routes. Further, vast deposits of natural resources were found and exploited—notably oil at present.)
The Compromise of 1877 and the end of Reconstruction
Who: Democrats and Republicans, namely presidential candidates Rutherford B. Hayes (R) and Samuel J. Tilden. (D).
Where: Congress
What: The election of 1876 was so close that it was impossible to choose a President. The electoral returns from Louisiana, South Carolina and Florida were disputed, with both parties claiming victory. Congress created a commission of 15 members and along party lines the commission awarded all disputed electoral votes to Hayes, the Republican. The Democrats agreed to go along if Hayes would pledge to sponsor internal improvements in the South and withdraw the last remaining federal troops from the South. This was the compromise, and Hayes took office. While he reneged on internal improvements, he did withdraw the troops
Sig: There was no one to protect African-Americans in the South after the Compromise of 1877. The removal of troops from the South led to Jim Crow and many other injustices toward African-Americans. With the Compromise of 1877, African-Americans were no longer on the national agenda and their welfare was left up to the states. Jim Crow was the result (see Jim Crow below).
Redeemers after the Compromise of 1877
Who: White Democrats who took control of the South after the Compromise of 1877
What: The Compromise of 1877 removed the last federal troops from the South, and white Democrats (“redeemers”) ruthlessly took over again. Blacks who attempted to assert their rights were threatened with unemployment, eviction, and physical harm.
Sig: The Redeemers gained control of the southern states and administered a society characterized by sharecropping, the crop lien system (borrow money using a future crop as collateral), and Jim Crow, doing great harm to blacks and poor whites.
Jim Crow after the Compromise of 1877
Who: Southern whites taking control of the “rights” of African-Americans by enacting legislation that segregated blacks and whites.
What: After the Compromise of 1877 led to the removal of federal troops from the South, southern whites implemented Jim Crow, which severely restricted the actions and rights of African-Americans: examples include segregated schools and segregated public facilities (upheld by Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896).
Sig: Jim Crow legislation set the stage for unfair treatment and segregation of blacks for many decades until 1954, when Jim Crow in education was declared illegal by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.
“New South” (1877 on)
Who: Henry Grady, editor of the Atlanta Constitution, coined the phrase, “New South.”
What: Grady called for Southerners to industrialize the South.
Sig: While the South saw some industrialization (James Duke and his American Tobacco Company, textile mills, and Birmingham steel are three to remember), the South remained well behind the North in industrial development.
Plains Indian Wars 1866-1890
Plains Indian Wars
What: From 1866 to 1890 (and most notably 1876), the U.S. Army and the Plains Indians fought for control of the Plains (largely in Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana). While the Army sustained various defeats, the superior firepower of the Army overwhelmed the Indians (who were forced to live on reservations). By 1890 the wars were over.
Sig: The conquest of the Plains meant the conquest of the Indians and the virtual destruction of their nomadic, Buffalo-hunting way of life. White people, with their barbed wire fences, deep-water wells, farms, cattle, railroads, and towns would displace the Indians for an entirely different kind of life.
Source: AP594-604
Washita River Battle of 1868
Who: U.S.A., Cheyenne Tribe
Where: Oklahoma
What: The Seventh Calvary, lead by Custer, attacks a Cheyenne village near an Oklahoma river (Washita) which resulted in an American victory. This event originated primarily from a miscommunication between the Cheyenne and their U.S. agent.
Sig: Although it predated the official Indian Wars, this battle caused much friction and anger between both sides that foreshadowed the impending war.
Source: Wikipedia
Treaty of Fort Laramie 1868
Who: US federal government and the Plains Indians
Where: Fort Laramie
What: After Sioux Chief Red Cloud successfully beat back the army, the U.S. abandoned the Bozeman Trail (from the North Platte to the gold fields in Montana). Under the terms of the Treaty, the sacred ground of the Powder River country would be respected. The “Great Sioux reservation” was promised to the Sioux tribes.
Sig: This is one of the few Indian victories; give Red Cloud credit here. The Treaty broke down in 1874 when gold was discovered in the Black Hills. This led to war in 1876-77.
Source: AP597
Little Bighorn 1876
Who: Indians and Seventh Cavalry
Where: Little Bighorn River, present day Montana
What: Colonial Custer’s Seventh Cavalry went to suppress Indians and take them back to the reservation, but the Cavalry were killed by the Indians.
Sig: This spectacular U.S. military defeat enflamed Americans and energized the Army to fight the Indians for the last time. This led to a series of battles to return the hostile Indians to the reservation. By the end of 1877, the Plains Indian wars were over (except for Wounded Knee in 1890--but that was a battle, not a war).
Source: AP598
Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse
Who: Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull were great Sioux leaders.
Sig: They led an Indian allied force and won the Battle of Little Bighorn against the U.S. 7th Cavalry under Colonel Custer. Both were killed later by the U.S. Army (Crazy Horse 1877, Sitting Bull 1890).
Source: AP597-98, http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/people/s_z/sittingbull.htm
U.S. Seventh Cavalry
What: The U.S. Seventh Cavalry, almost half immigrants, wanted to suppress the Indians and place them back in the reservation. Several companies of the 7th were killed at the Little Big Horn. (The 7th Cavalry appeared earlier at the Washita River and appears later at Wounded Knee.)
Sig: The 7th Cavalry was an important unit in the Plains Indian wars of the ‘60s and ‘70s (and at Wounded Knee in ’90).
Source: AP598
Chief Joseph of the Nez Percé 1877
Who: Chief Joseph and the surrender of the Nez Percé Indians
Where: Not the Plains but the northwest (WA, OR, ID MT)
What: Forced off their land, the Nez Percé fled. They led the army on a great chase across the American Northwest in a running battle that lasted several months. Some victories, such as at the Big Hole in Montana, kept them going on their flight to Canada. Just short of the border, they were finally captured by U.S. forces.
Sig: Along with the Trail of Tears (’38-’39), this is one of the saddest stories in U.S.-Native American relations. The Nez Perce were a good and decent people, forced off their land by greedy whites who were protected by the U.S. Army. Chief Joseph, surrendering, uttered the famous: “From where the sun now stands, I shall fight no more forever.” His death certificate reported that he died of a “broken heart.”
Source: AP598-99
Ghost dance (1890)
What: Sioux Indians believed that if they danced the Ghost Dance the buffalo and Indians killed would come back and that they would be invulnerable to soldiers’ bullets. Fearing a renewed outbreak of violence under the leadership of Sitting Bull (on the reservation now), Sitting Bull was killed. Army fear of the Ghost Dance was a contributing factor in the massacre at Wounded Knee.
Sig: The Ghost Dance represents an amalgam of Indian and Christian religious beliefs. Also, the Ghost Dance/Sitting Bull incident speaks to the fear and paranoia of the U.S. Army.
Source: Class notes and AP603
Wounded Knee (December 1890)
Who: United States 7th Cavalry and Sioux Indians under Chief Big Foot
Where: Wounded Knee Creek in Southwest South Dakota
What: After the death of Sitting Bull, a band of Sioux led by Big Foot was being escorted to the reservation by the reconstituted 7th Calvary. The Sioux were ordered disarmed, but a warrior pulled a gun and wounded an officer. The U.S. troops opened fire, and within minutes almost two hundred men, women, and children were shot. The soldiers later claimed that it was difficult to distinguish the Sioux women from the men. The United States 7th Cavalry lost twenty-nine soldiers.
Sig.: This battle ended the Indian Wars of the 19th Century
Source: AP603
National Politics, 1877-96: The Gilded Age
Corruption during the Gilded Age
What: Corruption within and outside government was common during this period and damaged the reputation of presidents, most notably Grant (’69-’77). In New York City, Boss Tweed and the Tammany Ring bilked the city out of up to $200 million. During Grant’s time, there was the Credit Mobilier scandal, where Union Pacific Railroad officials formed the Credit Mobilier construction company and then over-billed the railroad, pocketing profits and bribing governmental officials to keep quiet. The Whiskey Ring within the government stole excise taxes on whiskey. Finally, there was the Secretary of War William Belnap who accepted bribes from Indian agents.
Sig: Grant’s administration was plagued by corruption and he did little about it. He will always be remembered for this and is labeled one of our worst presidents.
Source: AP505-06
Nativism 1880s
Who: Immigrants and Nativists
What: Nativism, or “anti-foreignism,” gained support during the 1880s. Nativists were against immigrants coming to America. One nativist agency was the American Protective Association, created in 1887. This agency had at least a million members, and the members were encouraged to vote against Roman Catholic candidates or other foreign candidates for office. One effect of nativism was that Congress gradually began to pass laws against immigration, including the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. (An earlier nativist reaction was in the 1840s and 1850s, directed against Germans and Irish. A later nativist reaction was in the 1920s, when the Immigration Act of 1924 essentially closed the door to eastern and southern European immigration.)
Sig: Various nativist reactions can be seen in U.S. history, as older Anglo residents perceived immigrants as threats, either economically, taking away jobs, or culturally and politically, eroding the “American way of life” as they saw it.
Source: AP570-72
Pendleton Act of 1883
What: The Act created the Civil Service Commission, which made appointments to government jobs based on examinations instead of the old “spoils” system. This was prompted due to widespread disgust with “spoils” and because a deranged office seeker, Charles Guiteau, assassinated President Garfield. (This act also made political campaign contributions from government employees illegal.)
Sig: Now government employees had to be qualified for their positions, instead of just getting their jobs based on who they knew or how much money they gave to politicians. Politicians now had to look elsewhere for money, and corporations took up the slack. Over time, more and more jobs were added to the civil service, and the spoils system, started by Andrew Jackson, was eventually destroyed.
Source: AP515
Helen Hunt Jackson’s A Century of Dishonor (1881)
Who: Helen Hunt Jackson and Native Americans (Indians)
What: Helen Hunt Jackson, a Massachusetts writer of children’s literature, pricked the moral sense of Americans in 1881, when she published A Century of Dishonor. The book chronicled the sorry record of government ruthlessness and chicanery in dealing with the Indians. The book was sent to every member of Congress.
Sig.: By the 1880s the national conscience began to stir uneasily over the plight of the Indians. A Century of Dishonor gave a historical account of the government’s injustice to Native Americans. Debate seesawed. Humanitarians wanted to treat the Indians kindly and persuade them thereby to “walk the white man’s road,” yet hard-liners insisted on the current policy of forced containment and brutal punishment. Neither side showed much respect for Native American culture. The book inspired a reform movement aimed at helping Indians become full members of American society by “assimilating” Indians. This led to the Dawes Act in 1887. Source: AP602-03
Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad 118 U.S. 394 (1886)
What: Santa Clara County taxed the Southern Pacific Railroad. The court held that that the county could not do so and went on to suggest that corporations enjoyed the same rights under the 14th Amendment that natural persons enjoyed.
Sig: This case demonstrates the pro-business decisions of the Supreme Court in the late nineteenth century.
Source: FindLaw @ http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=118&page=394
Wabash v. Illinois (1886) Case
What: U.S. Supreme Court in 1886 reversed Munn v Illinois (1876) that permitted state regulation of railroads. The court declared invalid an Illinois law prohibiting long- and short-haul clauses in transportation contracts as an infringement on the exclusive powers of Congress granted by the commerce clause of the Constitution. Sig: The result of the case was denial of state power to regulate interstate rates for railroads, and the decision led to creation of the Interstate Commerce Commission.
Source: Infoplease @ http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0851226.html
Dawes Plan (Dawes Severalty Act) 1887
Who: Native Americans
What: Tribal land ownership was eliminated in favor of giving 160 acres of land to each Indian over 21. The idea was to “civilize” the Indians and educate their children in the “white man’s ways.” Assimilation of Indians was the goal and it did not work. (This plan was dropped in favor of respect for Indian culture and tribal identity with Indian Reorganization Act of 1934—called the Indians’ “New Deal.”)
Sig: This “liberal” and “reform” effort to civilize Indians resulted in continued destruction of the Indian way of life and the Indians’ loss of over 100 million acres of land.
Source: AP603
Women’s Suffrage in Western States (and compared with Southeastern states)
What: Starting in 1869 in Wyoming, western states began giving women the vote in state elections.
Sig: Western states were more liberal in their treatment of women. Western states led the way. (Southeastern states lagged behind.) The suffrage movement continued at the state level, finally ending with the 19th Amendment in 1920, which granted women the vote (thus serving to end the battle for women’s right to vote).
Source: AP588 (and see map on 587 which shows the west ahead of the east.)
Environmental impacts of western settlement
What: The Plains Indians’ way of life (nomadic buffalo hunting) ended by the 1880s. In their place could be found miners, loggers, ranchers, farmers, railroads, and towns. These varied interests adversely impacted the plains environment. Mining contaminated water sources. Logging and farming stripped the natural vegetation (prairie or “buffalo” grass and trees) that upheld the integrity of the soil.
Sig: The intergenerational impact of rapacious (greedy) exploitation of the seemingly limitless resources of the West can be seen in:
1. The “dust bowl” of the 1930s. That is, buffalo grass was removed to plant crops. Farm crops did not anchor the soil as did buffalo grass. Drought occurred, which meant that the crops did not grow, leaving unplanted topsoil. When the high winds came in the 1930s, great clouds of topsoil were blown away, literally, leaving the farmers with a farm that could not be sustained. The farmers left, becoming migrant farm laborers (the “Okies”). This sad tale of the migrants is told by John Steinbeck in his blockbuster novel, The Grapes of Wrath (Viking Press, 1939).
2. Contaminated water sources. Throughout the west, one can find contaminated water due to mining or other toxic waste disposal. (Mercury poisoning is a problem for fish populations.)
3. The huge Ogallala aquifer under eight Plains states is losing water due to excessive extraction of water. The long-term consequences to life on the Plains will be a concern well into the 21st century. To prevent dust storms, soil erosion, and what today would be referred to as desertification processes in general, more vulnerable areas should be taken out of cultivation and put into rangeland use for livestock. Rapacious exploitation of the Plains land continues to hold back conservation practices.
Source: Class notes and Michael Glantz, “The Ogallala Aquifer Depletion,” 1989,
http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/issues/society/ogallala/ogallala.html
Turner thesis 1893—“The Significance of the Frontier in American History”
Who: Historian Frederick Jackson Turner
What: In 1893, he argued that the frontier had a lasting impact on the democratic character of the American people. His idea organized the study of U.S. History for a generation. His thesis: The settlement of the West by white people - "the existence of an area of free land, its continuous recession, and the advance of American settlement westward" - was the central story of American history. Here is what he said about the frontier shaping the American character: “The result is that to the frontier the American intellect owes its striking characteristics. That coarseness and strength combined with acuteness and inquisitiveness; that practical, inventive turn of mind, quick to find expedients; that masterful grasp of material things, lacking in the artistic but powerful to effect great ends; that restless, nervous energy; that dominant individualism, working for good and for evil, and withal that buoyancy and exuberance which comes with freedom--these are traits of the frontier, or traits called out elsewhere because of the existence of the frontier.” [Bold added.]
Sig: His thesis was influential until the Depression and remains a source of discussion to this day. There is an Anglocentric, imperialistic point of view loaded into his argument. Further, he was unable to incorporate the role of government into the discussion of the development of the West.
Source: AP611, 625, http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/west/turner.html
Trusts
What: In the late nineteenth century, stockholders in a number of companies in the same business would assign their stock to trustees in another company and those trustees would manage the affairs of many businesses. This created a monopoly within an industry and stifled competition. The Standard Oil Trust is the most famous, but there were many others, including, for examples, the beef, sugar, cotton, and linseed oil trusts.
Sig: Trusts were monopolistic and ruthless in suppressing competition. Congress reacted with various kinds of antitrust legislation, beginning with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Source: AP540, 542, 544-45
Panics and recessions during the Gilded Age
What: 1873: Collapse of railroad financing ventures triggered widespread unemployment and business closures
1884: Another financial crisis causes thousands of businesses to fail
1893: Another financial crisis leads to worst depression in U.S. History to date, with unemployment rising to 18%.
Sig: Note that there were panics or depressions in every decade of the Gilded Age. Several years would elapse before the nation would pull itself out of a “panic” or depression. In many cases, workers would strike, protesting cuts in pay or other benefits. The 1873 panic led to the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. The 1893 panic led to the Pullman Strike of 1894. In addition to the distress caused by business closures and unemployment, this was a period of great labor agitation and labor-management strife.
Source: Class notes and AP508, 514, 556, 617
Farmers’ problems in 1880s and 1890s,
including rise in agricultural production and impact of that rise
What: As productivity rose during the Gilded Age, prices for goods and farm products declined. Farmers borrowed for seed and equipment and then had to pay back loans with dollars that were worth less (they were getting less for their crops). Farmers felt cheated.
Sig: Farmers organized and supported various kinds of laws to promote their interests, notably: 1) railroad regulations, and 2) inflationary measures, including the increase in the money supply by printing paper money or coining silver.
Source: AP612-16,
“Crime of ’73”
What: Congress passed a law in 1873 that stopped the coinage of silver. This would have a deflationary effect and prices for goods would go down.
Sig: Farmers were angry because this would cause deflation, not inflation. (Farmers wanted inflation.)
Source: AP508
Sherman Antitrust Act 1890
What: The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890 flatly forbade combinations in restraint of trade, without any distinction between “good” trusts and “bad” trusts. Bigness, not badness, was the sin.
Why: The law was made to curb railroads and big business from creating monopolies through their control of trusts.
Sig.: This was Congress’s first attempt to limit the trusts. The law proved ineffective, largely because it had only baby teeth or no teeth at all, and because it contained legal loopholes through which clever corporation lawyers would wriggle. It was unexpectedly effective in one respect. Contrary to its original intent, it was used to curb labor unions or labor combinations that were deemed to be restraining trade. [The Clayton Act of 1914 exempted labor unions from the Sherman Act. Gompers called the Clayton Act the “Magna Carta” of the American labor movement.]
Source: AP544-45 [684 for Clayton Act]
Populism (populist/peoples party) (notably the election of 1892)
Who: Middle Westerners and Southerners (mostly farmers)
What: They demanded an increase in the circulating money (free and unlimited coinage of silver), a graduated income tax, government ownership of the railroads, a tariff for revenue only, the direct election of U.S. senators, the initiative and referendum, immigration restriction, and appropriation of alien-held lands.
Sig: Populists garnered over 1 million votes in the 1892 presidential election. Progressive politicians subsequently adopted many of their reforms.
Source: AP523-25, 613-617
Free Silver
Who: Supported by Democrats and Populists, opposed by conservatives and businessmen.
What: “Free silver” meant the unlimited coinage of silver. Free-silverites wanted to inflate currency. The supporters of this policy were mainly the farmers in the Populist Party who needed inflation to help them get more for their crops and pay off their debts.
Sig: Free silver was the main plank in the Populist platform of 1892. When the Democrats adopted it in 1896, the Populists merged with the Democrats and ceased to exist as a viable political party. (Eastern workers did not like inflation as wages would not keep up with it, the result being that the farmers were not powerful enough to swing an election without eastern worker support.)
Source: AP 619-621
Plessy v. Ferguson 1896
What: Homer Plessy refused to ride in a Jim Crow car on a Louisiana train. He was tried in a criminal court by Judge Ferguson, and the case was appealed to the Supreme Court. The court ruled that Jim Crow did not violate the 14th Amendment equal protection clause because it did not “foster any inferiority of African Americans” as long as accommodations were “separate but equal.” Justice John Marshall Harlan was the only dissenting vote on the Court and harshly criticized the decision, claiming our Constitution to be “colorblind.”
Sig: Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) legalized Jim Crow laws and discrimination based on race. Segregation grew, enforced by law and violence, not to be overturned until the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954.
Source: AP513 [Brown v. Board of Education is on 894]
Election of 1896
Who: William McKinley (Republican) v. William Jennings Bryan (Democrat)
What: Bryan gained the Democratic nomination with his famous “Cross of Gold” speech, in which he attacked business and banking interests by endorsing free silver and ending his speech with “You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” The Populists joined with the Democrats. McKinley and the conservative, business-oriented Republicans behind him won the election. Their platform included the gold standard (“the existing gold standard must be maintained”) and the protective tariff (“The . . . uncompromising principle is the protection and development of American labor and industries.”).
Sig: America stayed on the gold standard, and this was the last time a candidate tried to gain office by mostly the votes of farmers. The depression of ’93 was ending, however, and the economic problems began to give way to international issues.
Source: AP619-623 [Platform quotes from http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/showplatforms.php?platindex=R1896]
1890 -- A Good Year to Inaugurate the “New America” -- This is Dr. Burns’s phrase
Empire
1. a. Sioux chief Sitting Bull is killed on December 15, 1890.
b. The "Battle" of Wounded Knee December 29, 1890 ends the last major Indian resistance to white settlement in America.
2. The 1890 census announced that the frontier region of the United States no longer existed and therefore the tracking of westward migration would no longer be tabulated in the census. (Equate this to Frederick Jackson Turner’s “frontier thesis” and then start looking outward to overseas empire.)
3. The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 by former Naval War College president Alfred T. Mahan demonstrates the decisive role of naval strength and will have enormous influence in encouraging the world powers to develop powerful navies.
Industry and Labor
1. Mesabi Iron Ore range in Minnesota is discovered. The mines provide plentiful iron deposits to fuel the rapidly expanding steel industry.
2. The United Mine Workers of America organized January 25 is an affiliate of the 4-year-old American Federation of Labor (AFL).
3. The Sherman Anti-Trust Act passed by Congress July 2 curtails the powers of U.S. business monopolies: "Every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy in restraint of trade or commerce among the several States, or with foreign nations, is hereby declared to be illegal."
4. The McKinley Tariff Act passed by Congress October 1 increases the average U.S. import duty to its highest level.
5. American Tobacco Company is founded by James Duke, who creates a colossal trust.
Gender: Women
1. The "Gibson Girl" created by New York illustrator Charles Dana Gibson, 22, makes her first appearance in the humor weekly Life. Millions will share his conception of the ideal American girl.
Race: African-American
1. Mississippi institutes a poll tax, literacy tests, and other measures designed to restrict voting by blacks—other states follow.
2. George Washington Cable publishes The Negro Question. In this essay collection, Cable challenges prevailing views by advocating equal access to education for blacks and rejecting the myth of black mental inferiority.
Class: Poor people
1. How the Other Half Lives by Danish-born New York Evening Sun police reporter Jacob (August) Riis, 41, portrays slum life and the conditions that make for crime, vice, and disease.
The City
1. The Wainwright building completed at St. Louis to designs by Chicago architect Louis H. Sullivan is the first true skyscraper.
Culture
1. The first Army-Navy football game begins a long rivalry between West Point and Annapolis; Navy wins 24 to 0.
Agriculture
1. It now takes 37 hours to plant, cultivate, and harvest an acre of wheat in America, down from 148 hours in 1837.
2. Kansas farmers should "raise less corn and more hell," Populist Party leader Mary Elizabeth Lease, 36, tells them. From 75 to 90 percent of all Kansas farms are mortgaged at interest rates averaging 9 percent; banks have foreclosed on roughly one third of all farm mortgages in the state in the past decade. Source: answers.com
Industrialization and Corporate Consolidation
Bessemer process 1850’s
Who: William Kelly (American) and Bessemer (British)
What: A process that made cheap steel. By blowing cold air on hot iron it eliminated impurities. After a few years while the process became popular and useful.
Sig: This method combined with the abundant materials and labor of the United States greatly encouraged the high levels of production in the second half of the 1800’s. By 1900 America was producing as much as Britain and Germany combined. The U.S. was becoming the world’s industrial giant by World War I. (Recall the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, which, in addition to settling the Maine boundary, settled the boundary from the Lake of the Woods to Lake Superior. The British did not know that the Mesabi iron ore range was in that part of the land ceded to the U.S.)
Source: AP540
Horizontal integration
What: A method of monopolizing a market by buying out competitors.
Sig: Giants like Rockefeller used revolutionary and ruthless methods like horizontal integration to create trusts, stifling competition and leading in time to governmental regulation, starting with the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
Source: AP540
Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919) and “Vertical Integration”
Who: Andrew Carnegie
What: Andrew Carnegie was a kingpin among steelmakers, at one point producing 1/4th of the nations Bessemer steel. His company controlled every aspect of the steel-making process, through “vertical integration,” which was a means of combining into one organization all phases of production, from mining the ore to production of finished steel. He sold out to J.P. Morgan for 400 million dollars. Influenced by the gospel of wealth, he dedicated his remaining years to giving away his money for libraries, pensions for professors, and other philanthropic purposes.
Sig: He was one of the nation’s great industrialists who preached and practiced the “gospel of wealth.” He gave away about $350 million of his money.
Source: AP539-41
John D. Rockefeller (1893-1937) and Horizontal Integration
What: The owner of the Standard Oil Company, he used the tactic of “horizontal integration,” whereby he would buyout or squeeze out competitors to achieve a monopoly. At one point he owned 95 percent of all oil refineries in the country. He used secret rebates from railroads as well as spies to achieve his ends. He was one of the first so called “robber barons.”
Sig.: He was part of the reason for the backlash against the “trusts” and the emergence of presidential trust busters Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson.
Source: AP539, 542
The American Federation of Labor: Samuel Gompers/1886-1900s
What: The AF of L was the brainchild of Samuel Gompers, president from 1886 to 1924. Strong craft unions within the AF of L were able to pool monies to fund boycotts and walkouts, all toward the end of establishing closed shops in which all workers had to be unionized. Crafts included cigar makers, electricians, carpenters, teamsters, for examples (no unskilled laborers). The AF of L was more conservative, pursuing practical and immediate goals relating to wages, hours, and conditions of employment. (Contrast this with the International Workingmen of the World (IWW), a union that wanted to attack capitalism.)
Sig: Under Gompers’s leadership, the AF of L became the premier labor union in American history. Source: AP554-5
Knights of Labor 1869-1890s
What: The Knights of Labor was the leading labor organization in the 1880s. Starting off as a secret society, in 1881 it soon rolled out a welcome mat for all laborers, black, white, man, women, skilled, and unskilled. Refusing to become entangled in politics, they campaigned for economic and social reform. Blamed for the Chicago Haymarket riot of 1886, they went into decline.
Sig.: The Knights were an important early national labor union. The public attitude toward labor was changing. They began to see the laborers right to bargain collectively and strike. Labor Day was even made a national holiday in 1894. In strikes, however, Presidents were willing to support management and call out troops if needed. Further, the Sherman Antitrust Act was sometimes used against striking workers.
Source: AP552-556
Haymarket (Chicago, 1886), Homestead (Pittsburgh, 1892), Pullman (Chicago, 1894)
What: The Haymarket Riot (1886) was a rally organized by a small anarchist group to protest the killings during the McCormack Harvesting Machine Company strike. The police showed up and demanded they disperse; a dynamite bomb went off amongst the police killing one and wounding several, seven of whom would die later. The police responded with gunfire and killed seven to eight people. While the Knights of Labor were not responsible, they were blamed and their influence declined thereafter.
The Homestead strike (1892) pitted Carnegie Steel Company against the Amalgamated Association of Iron and Steel Workers. Carnegie wanted to break the union and so when the workers struck against the increased work hours, the manager called for 300 Pinkerton guards to break the strike. They were met on the docks by 10,000 strikers, many armed, and an all-day battle ensued. The Pinkertons surrendered, but the manager appealed to the governor who sent 8,000 troops to end the strike.
The Pullman strike (1894) resulted when George Pullman cut his workers wages by 30 percent but his company town did not reduce rents. Eugene Debs of the American Railway Union got involved. President Cleveland sent in troops to break up the strike, arguing that the disruption of railroad service adversely affected U.S. mail service. (Debs was defiant and spent six months in jail for not complying with a court order to abandon the strike.)
Sig.: These separate instances demonstrated the late nineteenth century’s viewpoint of business and government on labor. The nativist fear of immigrants and the arrival of radicals at the Haymarket affair led to further red scares in the future. At this time, the government generally supported management at the expense of labor.
Source: AP523, 552-53, 617-18, 620
Technological improvements in business and industry that changed the nature of the workplace (1830’s to 1900’s)
What: The sewing machine, electric light bulb, typewriter, telephone, transoceanic cable, and elevator revolutionized business practices. The assembly line was created to help businesses and factories produce more products at a faster pace.
Sig: Technological improvements supplied people with more products at lower cost, thus improving the standard of living in general.
Source: AP733
Urban Society
Gospel of Wealth 1889
Who: Andrew Carnegie
What: “The Gospel of Wealth” was the philosophy preached by the wealthy entrepreneurs (most notably Andrew Carnegie) which held that “the wealthy, entrusted with society’s riches, had to prove themselves morally responsible.” As the “Steel Preacher” said, “the main consideration should be to help those who help themselves; to provide part of the means by which those who desire to improve may do so; to give those who desire to rise the aids by which they may rise. . . .” [Note: the Gospel of Wealth is not directed at aiding the individual but in aiding society with parks, museums, etc. The Social Gospel of protestant social workers was directed at helping needy individuals. Do not confuse the Social Gospel with the Gospel of Wealth.]
Sig:
