4.

1 Contextualizing Period 4
● The US began to develop modern democracy and a national culture, while Americans
sought to define the nation’s democratic ideals and change their society and institutions
to match them.

● Innovations in technology, agriculture, and commerce powerfully accelerated the

American economy, participating in profound changes to US society and to regional and
national interests

● The US interest in foreign trade and expanding its national borders shaped the nation’s
foreign policy and spurred government and private initiatives.

● 1800 to 1848:
○ Territorial expansion
○ War of 1812
○ Technology, transportation, and manufacturing
○ New political parties

● Napoleonic Wars, impressment, trade sailors

● New technology and transportation, market revolution, growth of urban areas and
manufacturing

● Democracy expanded, slavery grew in the North and ended in the South, new political
parties (Whigs and Jacksonian Democrats), heightened debate over slavery

● Growth of political divide between Federalists and Democratic-Republicans

● Alien and Sedition Acts, Kentucky & Virginia Resolutions

4.2 Rise of Political Parties and Era of Jefferson

● National political parties continued to debate issues like the tariff, powers of the federal
government, and relations with European countries.

● John Adams Presidency

○ XYZ Affair
○ Quasi-War
○ Growth of the Democratic-Republican Party

● Alien and Sedition Acts: Federalist Party, John Adams

● Virginia Resolves: Democratic-Republican Party, James Madison

● The Alien and Sedition Acts attempted to restrict the 1st amendment for immigrants
○ Jefferson would oppose this and cite the Social Contract by John Locke
 ● The Alien and Sedition Acts caused conflict between Federalists and Anti-Federalists.

● Supreme Court decisions determined the meaning of the Constitution and asserted
federal law over state law.

● Marbury v. Madison background:

○ Election of 1800
○ John Adams’ midnight judges
○ John Marshall: Supreme Court chief justice
○ Marbury appointed Justice of Peace in DC
● Judiciary Act of 1789 was unconstitutional according to John Marshall.
● John Marshall decided that the job of courts was to determine whether a law is
constitutional.
○ “A law repugnant to the Constitution is void.”

● Marshall Court
○ Loose power of the Constitution
○ Federal power firmly established in ruling
○ Bitter political division over:
■ Constitutional interpretation
■ Federal and state power

● Following the Louisiana Purchase, the US government sought influence and control over
North America through exploration and diplomatic efforts

● Lewis and Clark expedition:

○ Meriwether Lewis and William Clark
○ 1803-1806
○ 8000 miles to the Pacific coast
○ Documented people, land, vegetation

4.3 Politics and Regional Interests

● Regional interests often trumped national concerns as the basis for many political
leaders’ positions on slavery and economic policy
● Congressional attempts at political compromise, such as the Missouri Compromise (of
1820) only temporarily stemmed growing tensions between opponents and defenders of
slavery

● Slavery expanded in southern states and into the newly added western states during the
early 19th century
● Many northern states ended slavery through state laws or state constitutional
amendments

● Cotton gin caused the growth of slavery

 ● Debate intensified in 1820
○ Slave states and free states equal
○ Missouri applied for statehood
○ Henry Clay proposed Missouri Compromise.

● Missouri Compromise Provisions

○ Missouri entered as a slave state
○ Maine entered as a free state
○ 36-30 line of Louisiana territory to determine the statue of future states

● Later…
○ Dred Scott v. Sanford (1856): slave owners entitled to keep their property in any
state
○ Kansas Nebraska Act (1854): territories by popular sovereignty

● Plans to further unify the US economy, such as the American System, generated
debates over whether such policies would benefit agriculture or industry, potentially
favoring differents ections of the country

● Tariff of 1816
○ Protective
○ Made imports more expensive → buy American made goods

● Henry Clay
○ Democratic-Republican
○ House of Representatives (Kentucky)
○ War Hawk – favored War of 1812
○ Missouri Compromise
○ American System

● American System
○ Bank of the US
○ Strong Tariff (to protect manufacturing)
○ Federal government funding of internal improvements (roads, canals, and
railroads)

● The navigation acts protected British manufacturing by forcing the colonies to import
goods only from Great Britain.
● Likewise, increases in the federal tariff in the 1820s protected American manufacturing.

4.4 America on the World Stage

● Struggling to create an independent global presence, the US sought to claim territory
throughout the Northern American continent and to promote foreign trade
● Causes of the War of 1812
○ Interference in US shipping
○ Impressment of US sailors
○ British support of American Indians
○ Failed diplomatic negotiation and economic embargo

● Federalists opposed the War of 1812

○ New England merchants
○ Feared disruption of trade with Great Britain
○ Hartford Convention
■ Proposed changes to the Constitution
■ Secession

● Conclusion
○ Treaty of Ghent
○ Jackson victory at Battle of New Orleans
○ News of victory → News of treaty
● Caused Jackson to win the election of 1828, as he was perceived as the hero of the war

● The Treaty of Ghent has provisions

○ All territory taken by either party shall be restored
○ All prisoners of war shall be restored
○ US should give rights and possessions to tribes, tribes agree to desist from all
hostilities in the US

● The US government sought influence and control over the Western hemisphere through
a variety of means, including military actions, American Indian removal, and the Monroe
Doctrine

● American nationalism after the War of 1812

● Newly independent Latin American countries were vulnerable
● Other European powers saw potential for expansion

● Monroe Doctrine Key Points

○ US expects independent nations in the western hemisphere will remain
independent and not become targets for European colonization
○ US will not interfere in the internal affairs of European countries
■ Neutrality proclamation and Farewell Address
○ The strength of the US military in 1823
○ The US was in a position to enforce the Monroe Doctrine regarding the Western
hemisphere

● US Foreign Policy
○ Tradition of isolation from European affairs
 ○ Monroe Doctrine further established the US policy
○ Future presidents continued the same approach

4.5 Market Revolution: Industrialization

● Entrepreneurs helped to create a market revolution in production and commerce, in
which market relationships between producers and consumers came to prevail as the
manufacture of goods became more organized

● West: breadbasket (grain and livestock)

● North: manufactured goods
● South: plantation agriculture
● This level of regional interdependence relies on transportation.

● New technology promoted regional specialization and created more efficient production.
○ Cotton gin
○ Canals
○ Railroads
○ Power loom
○ Mechanical reaper
○ Steel plow

● Lowell Factory (1823):

○ Massachusetts
○ Lowell System of production
○ Labor force – young, single women
● Market revolution
○ Cotton from the South
○ Food from the West
○ Finished product distributed to all regions

● The Lowell Girls

○ Young women, 15-30
○ Recruited from rural areas
○ Lived in company-owned houses
○ 12 hour work days
○ Organized and protested work conditions

● Causes of the Market Revolution:

○ New technology
○ New transportation
○ Regional specialization
● Effects of the Market Revolution:
○ Production increases
○ Economic gain
 ○ Labor conflicts

● Transportation developments
○ Better roads
○ Canals
○ Railroads

● Steamboat

● Railroads developed.
○ Cheaper
○ Easier to build
○ Location didn’t matter
○ Faster

● Railroad transformation
○ Numerous canals and railroads in the North and West
○ Very limited in the South

● Canals began the transportation boom, but railroads became the focus.
● Railroads were critical for the movement of raw materials, goods, and food between
regions
● The North had more internal improvements
○ American System popular in Whig North
○ Federal funding developed agriculture

● Similarities between how the market revolution affected the North, West, and South
○ New technology and transportation
● Differences in:
○ Economic specialization
○ Labor (South: slavery, North: females and immigrants)

4.6 Market Revolution: Society and Culture

● Immigrants
○ Irish due to potato famine; Catholic
○ German due to failed revolutions; political refugees and farmers
○ Nativist Party (Know-Nothings) wanted to restrict immigration

● Migrated due to European push factors and economic opportunities in the US

● Led to Nativist opposition, new cultural influences, and concentrations in cities

● Market Revolution Social Changes

○ Cities
○ Middle class
 ○ Changing role of women in society and in the home

● Early 1800s women

○ Cult of domesticity (separate spheres)
○ Republican motherhood
● Women started to work outside the home – Lowell.
● Women remained restricted legally through Seneca Falls, Decl. of Sentiments

4.7 Expanding Democracy

● The nation’s transition to a more participatory democracy was achieved by expanding
suffrage from a system based on property ownership to one based on voting by all adult
white men, and it was accompanied by the growth of political parties

● Most states extended voting rights to all white males – regardless of property ownership
– from 1820 to 1850.

● Election of 1824 – Popular Vote

○ All candidates were Democratic-Republicans; era of Good Feelings
○ John Quincy Adams won through the House of Representatives and the Corrupt
Bargain
○ Andrew Jackson won popular and electoral vote, but failed to win majority

● Henry Clay’s American System was really more federalist than democratic-republican
● Jackson won in the election of 1828 following hard campaigning

● Political identity of Democratic-Republicans was challenged

● 1st Party system: Federalists v. Democratic-Republicans

● War of 1812 → Era of Good Feelings dominated by Dem-Reps
● Election of 1824 → Corrupt bargain → Factions → Jackson established
Democrat Party
○ Jeffersonian ideas

● Promotion of national unity

○ War of 1812
○ Era of Good Feelings
● Things that did not promote national unity
○ Hamilton’s financial plan
○ Bank of the US
○ 1st and 2nd party systems
○ Corrupt bargain
○ Alien and Sedition Acts/Virginia Resolves

4.8 Jackson and Federal Power

 ● New political parties
○ Democrats – Jackson
○ Whigs – Clay
● Debates over federal power, the national bank, tariffs, and internal improvements

● Jackson elected in 1828 as a man of the people; expansion of voting rights to all white
males
● Jackson’s beliefs:
○ Strict constructionist
○ Supreme power of federal government (debatable)
○ Nationalism

● Internal improvements:
○ US expanded West
○ Roads and canals built
○ Federal money from tariffs would be used to fund projects, said Clay
○ Jackson opposed

● Jackson felt the Bank of the US favored the wealthy and hurt the advancement of
common farmers
● Felt Bank of US was unconstitutional
● Killed it by using the power of the presidential veto of the renewal of the charter
● Ordering to remove federal funds
● A financial panic ensued in 1837 following removal → financial depression

● Jackson’s VP, Calhoun, authored the south Carolina exposition and protest to state the
ideals of the doctrine of nullification
● When South Carolina legislature nullified the tariff of abominations, Jackson threatened
to use military forces
● Tariff of 1833 was a compromise

● Whig Party
○ Rose from a coalition of a variety of factions opposing Jackson
○ National Bank
○ Protective tariffs
○ Internal improvements
○ Whigs believed Jackson had increased his power beyond the Constitution

4.9 American Culture Development

● A new national culture emerged that combined American elements, European
influences, and regional cultures
● Liberal social ideas from abroad and Romantic belief in perfectibility influenced American
literature, art, and philosophy.
 ● Language through Noah Webster – new spelling and distinctly American words
● African American music and instruments
● Regional literature expressing American spirit
○ American colonial frontier
○ Rip Van Winkle and the Legend of the Sleepy Hollow

● Ralph Waldo Emerson – founder of Transcendentalism

○ Influenced by German Romanticism
○ Each person possessed an inner light that could illuminate the highest truth and
put them in touch with God
○ Each person has a speak of divinity and perfection that could be reached with the
proper course of action
○ Self-reliance
○ One’s emotions and senses were more important than reason or intellect
● Henry David Theoreau:
○ Follower of transcendentalism
○ Wrote a book following a year in isolation to find spiritual meaning in nature
○ Civil Disobedience – expressed the right of individuals not to comply to unjust or
immoral laws

● Newspapers and magazines

4.10 The Second Great Awakening

● Rise of democratic and individualistic beliefs, a response to rationalism and changes to
society caused by the market revolution, along with greater social and geographical
mobility contributed to the national revival, the 2nd Great Awakening, for Protestants

● Causes of the Movements

○ Underpinning ideals of self-improvement, self-reliance, and self-determination
were given a spiritual application
○ Reaction to rationalism and declining church attendance
○ Societal change brought by market revolution and expanding western frontier

● Charles Finney: major preacher who focused on emotional sermons with emphasis on
individual conversion
○ Theology of perfection
○ Burned over district in NY

● Camp meetings: large outdoor revival meetings, where families in wagons would attend
● Circuit riders: preachers who rode on horseback and travelled to homes on the frontier to
preach to individual families

● New theology in Methodist and Baptist denominations

● Doctrine of free will – individualism and self-determination
 ● Individual conversion for all people, including African and Native Americans
● The growth of spiritual egalitarianism
○ Different classes and background attended in religious meetings
○ Spiritually equal under God
● Greater religious diversification and missionaries

● A call to preach became more important than formal training for ministers.
● Women
○ Greater role in church hierarchy
○ Featured as speakers in church meetings
○ All female seminaries were founded to further educate women
○ Revival catapulted some to begin the work of social reform

● African American preachers increased.

○ North: AME Church
○ South: some preached sermons directed by owners; others held secret meetings

4.11 An Age of Reform

● The rise of democratic and individualistic beliefs, a response to rationalism, and changes
to society caused by the market revolution, along with greater social and geographical
mobility, contributed to moral and social reforms and inspired utopian societies

● Americans formed new voluntary organizations aiming to change behaviors and to

improve society

● New religious movements

○ LDS/Mormons
■ Joseph Smith
■ Ostracized for beliefs
■ Migrated to Utah
○ Unitarianism
■ Oneness of God
■ Dignity
■ Conscience
■ Democracy in congregation

● Temperance Movement
○ Improve the body and fight against the prevalence and effects of alcohol in
American society
○ Limit alcohol intake, total abstinence
○ Maine Law of 1851: first state to ban manufacture and sale of alcoholic
beverages
○ Continued in the 20th century → 18th amendment, Prohibition
 ● Dorothea Dix: mentally ill patients in prisons
○ Punishment to rehab
○ Job skills, religious services
○ Goal was to reduce return to prison

● Horace Mann: public schools

○ Universal public education through taxes
○ Training for teachers

● Following the Second Great Awakening, the abolitionist and antislavery movement grew
in the North. The African American also grew along with restrictions against their rights.

● Early abolitionism began with opposition of Quakers who questioned the morality of
slavery
● Following the American Revolution, ideals of liberty began to take hold and some
enslaved persons filed petitions in their state legislatures

● Emancipation in the North

○ Immediate emancipation: Vermont – 1777 state constitution based on the
principles of the Revolution outlawed – slavery
○ Gradual emancipation
■ Pennsylvania: children born emancipated after 21 following a date
■ NJ: elderly enslaved people

● Abolitionists
○ After the Second Great Awakening, some found slavery to be incompatible with
Christianity
○ Antislavery societies using moral suasion
○ Women, both white and black, became active in the movement as participants
and speakers
○ Transatlantic movement to outlaw slavery as it ended in British empire

4.12 African Americans in the Early Republic

● Enslaved and free African Americans in the South created communities and strategies to
protect their families and their self-respect.
● Antislavery efforts in the South were limited to largely unsuccessful slave rebellions

● Families
○ Enslaved people could not legally marry
○ Created distinct ceremonies
○ Free persons and enslaved persons could marry, but child followed mother’s
status
○ Family ties, love, and support
 ● African American culture
○ Oral tradition
○ Storytelling: folk tales
○ Language, art, basket-weaving

● Threats to African American families

○ Violence
○ Separation of slaves
○ Fictive kin
○ Marries abroad

● Religion:
○ African Americans converted to Christianity
○ Preachers
○ Spirituals

● Free African communities in most urban areas and some farms

● Formed own churches, local organizations, social societies
● Limited civil rights

● Gabriel, Denmark Vessey, and Nat Turner (most violent) slave rebellions all failed.
○ Stricter laws
○ Patrols
○ African Americans’ homes searched

● African Americans gaining freedom in the North

○ Immediate: Following American Revolution, Massachusetts
○ Gradual: once reaching adulthood, NY, Penn
○ Birth: born to free parents

● Racial segregation; still, family meant a lot to African Americans

4.13 The Society of the South in the Early Republic

● While the majority of people in the South did not own slaves, most of its leaders argued
that it was part of the Southern way of life in an economy that relied almost exclusively
on agriculture with little industrialization, contributing to a distinctive Southern identity

● Development of Southern agriculture

○ Southern climate and soil made it ideal for planting profitable crops for
exportation, with early crops of rice, indigo, and tobacco
○ 1793: Eli Whitney, cotton gin
○ Southern economy was based on export, where cotton was king, feeding the
textile factories of the North and Great Britain in the Industrial Revolution
● Geography of the South
○ The land - the southeast and west provided ideal soil for planting cotton and
other crops
○ Rivers provided highways for planters to transport goods between New England
and the South
○ The steam engine
■ Used for steamboats that moved up and down rivers
■ MI River was used to connect the South to the port of New Orleans in
Louisiana

● Cotton kingdom and slavery intertwined as slavery was a part of the culture and the
South
○ Economy was based on slave labor – crop diversification was undesirable
○ Southern way of life, based on the slave system called the peculiar institution,
was defended and romanticized

● Planters went into massive debt to expand lands and purchase more enslaved people
due to high rewards
● Being black = enslaved; social hierarchy in the South
○ Wealthy whites
○ Merchants and small farmers that owned enslaved people
○ Whites who owned no enslaved people ~75%
○ Free African Americans
○ Enslaved people

● Cotton production and violence created psychological dependence.

● Southern cities:
○ Local ports grew with the cotton markets
○ Coastal cities became ports of deposit
○ New technology with steam power enabled cities to grow
● Enslaved people were personal servants and performed skilled labor.

● Slaveholding Whites:
○ Similar to European aristocracy
○ Viewed themselves as caretakers of their family and slaves
○ Slavery was beneficial to African Americans as their natural order
● Non-slaveholding Whites:
○ Psychological satisfaction of not being Black
○ Defended institution of slavery

● As overcultivation depleted arable land in the Southeast, slaveholders began relocating

their plantations to more fertile lands West of the Appalachian mountains, where the
institution of slavery continued to grow.
 ● Causes for Western expansion of slavery
○ Lands in the east were depleted of overfarming
○ IRA in 1830: fertile land available for expansion
○ Plantation owners looked to move West to increase profits as demand grew,
including in lands from the Louisiana Purchase

● Banks extended lines of credit for land purchase

● Large plantations were established in the fertile MI Delta area where planters rivaled the
European elite
● New slave states in the West

● Cotton Belt
● Millionaires near the Mississippi River, which became centers for cotton exchange and
markets for slave trade

● Growth of the internal slave trade

○ Price of enslaved people increased with demand for labor in the West with the
boom of cotton prices in national and international markets
○ Increase in BR in the South
○ Internal slave trade that sold enslaved people from the upper south to the deep
south and west

● Conflict over expansion of slavery

○ Missouri Compromise of 1820
○ Gag rule in House of Representatives
○ Wilmot Proviso was passed in the House but defeated in the Senate following
tremendous discussion
○ Growing fear of increasing slave power by Northerners

● Slave population increased due to natural birth rate!?

4.14 Causation in Period 4

● The US began to develop a modern democracy and celebrated a new national culture,
while Americans sought to define the nation’s democratic ideals and change their society
and institutions to match them
● The nation’s transition to a more participatory democracy was achieved by suffrage and
accompanied by the growth of new political parties
● Those inspired by religious and intellectual movements worked outside government
institutions to progress their ideals

● Enthusiasm caused by increase in participatory democracy; political rallies, barbeques,

drinks, events
● Reform movements of the early 1800s involved Americans who had been inspired by
revival and intellectual movements to improve society where a greater number of
Americans could participate
○ Improving society through prison reform (Dorothea Dix)
○ Effect of alcoholism on families by middle-class women
○ Horace Mann expanded public education

● Innovations in technology, agriculture, and commerce powerfully accelerated the

American economy, precipitating profound changes in US society and to national and
regional identities
● Transportation system caused by market revolution and gender roles
● Economic development unified the nation, while encouraging the growth of different
regions

● How did the market revolution/economic development impact gender roles?

○ Mill girls (Lowell)
○ Cult of domesticity
○ Republican motherhood
○ More education opportunities
○ Seneca Falls Convention (1848)

● US interest in increasing foreign trade and expanding its national borders shaped the
nation’s foreign policy and spurred government and private initiatives.

● Struggling to create an independent global presence, the US sought to claim territory

throughout the North American continent and promote foreign trade

● Acquisition of lands in the West → debates over slavery in new territories

● How acquisition of territories impacted national unity:

○ Manifest Destiny
○ Sectionalism/slavery
○ Debates over internal improvements
○ Free Soil Party
○ Missouri Compromise
○ Compromise of 1850
○ Wilmot Proviso