APUSH
PERIOD 4
1800 - 1848
TIMELINE
1800 Election of Thomas Jefferson
1800 Second Great Awakening begins
1803 Louisiana Purchase
1803 Marbury v. Madison
1820 Missouri Compromise
1823 Monroe Doctrine
1825 Opening of the Erie Canal
1828 Election of Andrew Jackson
1831 William Lloyd Garrison publishes The Liberator
1838 Trail of Tears
1844 First telegraphic message
1845 Beginning of Irish immigration
1848 Seneca Falls Convention
CREATING A NEW NATION, 1800 – 1816
1. The election of 1800 is often called “The Revolution of 1800,” because it marked a peaceful transfer of political power from the Federalists, led by John Adams, to the Democratic-Republicans led by Thomas Jefferson. The election signaled the end of the Federalist Era.
2. Jefferson urged Congress to repeal the Alien and Sedition Acts. He successfully argued that freedom of speech is essential to a healthy republic.
3. Napoleon’s unexpected offer to sell the entire Louisiana Territory confronted Jefferson with a dilemma. As a strict constructionist he worried that the Constitution does not give Congress the power to purchase new territory. Despite his reservations, Jefferson recognized he had to act quickly. Congress promptly passed the treaty and Jefferson signed it.
4. The Louisiana Territory doubled the size of the United States. Jefferson optimistically believed the purchase would promote a broad distribution of property ownership that would enable America to become an “Empire of Liberty.”
5. Chief Justice John Marshall believed he could best serve America by rendering j judicial decisions that supported a strong central government and promoted business enterprise.
6. The Marshall Court established the principle of JUDICIAL REVIEW in Marbury v. Madison. Judicial review gave the Supreme Court the power to strike down a Congressional action found to violate a provision of the Constitution.
7. The War of 1812 promoted an increase in domestic manufacturing, intensified a spirit of national unity, caused the final demise of the Federalist Party, and catapulted Andrew Jackson into a national hero.
THE ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS, 1816 – 1824
1. James Monroe easily defeated his federalist opponents in the 1816 presidential election. One Boston newspaper captured the optimistic spirit of the time when it proclaimed that Monroe’s election marked the beginning of a period of national unity it named “The Era of Good Feelings.”
2. Jefferson lived to see that purchasing and exploring the Louisiana Territory proved to be more difficult than organizing and governing it. In 1819, the territory of Missouri applied for statehood as a slave state.
3. At that time the Senate was evenly divided between 11 free states and 11 slave States. House Speaker Henry Clay proposed a compromise designed to preserve the balance in Senate by admitting Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state.
4. In addition, the Compromise restricted slavery above Missouri’s southern border thereby creating slave and non-slave regions. The North viewed this agreement as a “sacred pact” that should never be broken.
5. he Missouri Compromise temporarily defused the political crisis over the expansion of slavery into the western territories. However, the controversy hardened the South’s defense of slavery as a positive good essential to the region’s economy and way of life.
6. Sponsored by Henry Clay, the American system supported a national bank to promote economic stability, a tariff to raise revenue and protect American industries, and the construction of a network of canals and roads to unite the country.
7. Clay’s American System strongly resembled Hamilton’s economic policies. Both programs favored a strong federal government to promote commerce and economic growth. However, the American System sparked debates about the role of the federal government in funding internal improvements. With the exception of the National Road, states and private investors funded major transportation projects during the Era of Good Feelings.
8. Led by Chief Justice John Marshall, the Supreme Court supported a unified national economy. For example, in McCulloch v. Maryland the High Court established the legality of the National Bank thus reinforcing the primacy of federal jurisdiction in constitutional matters.
9. In his final message to Congress on December 2, 1823, President Monroe announced a new American policy that later became known as the Monroe Doctrine. Issued as a unilateral declaration of principles, the Monroe Doctrine declared that republican governments in the Americas were different and separate from the monarchical systems in Europe. As the protector of republican institutions, the United States would not tolerate the creation of new European colonies in the Western Hemisphere.
10. Monroe’s declaration underscored America’s growing self-confidence in the Era of Good Feelings. First called the Monroe Doctrine in 1852, the principles Monroe proclaimed became the cornerstone of American foreign policy in the Western Hemisphere.
THE MARKET REVOLUTION IN COMMERCE AND PRODUCTION
1. During the Era of Good Feelings, most Americans produced goods for local markets. However, between 1820 and 1860 canals, steamboats, and railroads created a market revolution by enlarging markets and fostering regional interdependence.
2. Steamboats carried bulky farm products such as wheat, corn, and flour far more cheaply than covered wagons. By the 1840s, steamboats opened the Ohio and Mississippi river valleys to two-way traffic.
3. The Erie Canal created an all-water route that cut travel time from New York City to Buffalo from 20 days to six and reduced the cost of moving a ton of freight between these two cities from $100.00 to $5.00. The Erie Canal sparked the rapid growth of Buffalo while helping transform New York City into America’s greatest commercial center.
4. Railroads connected cities, encouraged settlement, and reduced the cost of transporting goods. The number of miles of railroad track soared from just 13 when the Baltimore and Ohio opened in 1829 to 30,626 in 1860.
5. Innovations including textile machinery, steam engines, the telegraph, and agricultural innovating such as the steel plow and mechanical reaper increased the efficiency of production methods. The creation of profitable regional and interregional markets led to an American system of manufacturing that utilized machines with interchangeable parts to mass produce standardized low-cost goods.
6. The Market Revolution had a significant impact on economic life in the Northeast. It created close commercial ties with the Old Northwest, hastened the shift from hand-made to machine-made goods, and accelerated a transition to a wage-based economy.
7. The Market Revolution also had a significant impact on economic life in the Midwest. It accelerated the migration of settlers into the region, transformed Chicago into an important transportation hub, and closely linked the economies of the Midwest and the Northeast.
8. The South failed to keep up with the pace of industrialization and urbanization in the Northeast and Midwest. A Cotton Kingdom based upon slave labor extended across the Deep South. Led by a wealthy group of planters, the South adopted a distinctive regional identity.
THE CULT OF DOMESTICITY
1. Prior to the Market Revolution, men and women worked together as an economic team on small family farms. However, as the market revolution gained momentum, it encouraged a division of labor between two separate spheres – work and home.
2. “True Men” were expected to earn success in the ruthlessly competitive world of business and politics. In contrast, “True Women” were expected to devote their energies to creating a stable and peaceful home.
3. The earlier ideal of republican motherhood gradually evolved into a new cultural model known as the CULT OF DOMESTICITY. This set of beliefs idealized women in their roles as wives and mothers. As a nurturing mother and a faithful spouse, the wife created a home that was a “haven in a heartless world.” The home thus became a refuge, and the wife became what one popular women’s magazine called “the light of the house.”
4. The cult of domesticity embodied a cultural ideal that best applied to upper- and middle-class families who could afford to maintain separate spheres for their work and home lives. However, a wide gap separated these privileged groups from the mill women working in factories, the frontier women working on isolated farms, and the enslaved African women working on cotton plantations.
5. Some women in New England supplemented their household income by working in textile mills. The Lowell mill girls comprised America’s first female labor force. The cult of domesticity had little impact on their lives. They worked long hours and lived in tightly regulated dormitories.
THE RISE OF MASS DEMOCRACY
1. The Framers of the United States Constitution believed voting rights should be restricted to a natural aristocracy of propertied gentlemen. They limited the franchise to prosperous merchants and planters who had a stake in the government. The First Party System provided stability by allowing peaceful transfers of power one set of elite leaders to another.
2. During the 1820s, state legislatures eliminated most property qualifications enabling a growing number of white males to vote. The expanded electorate had a dramatic effect upon the rise of new political parties and the emergence of new styles of political campaigning.
3. Led by Martin Van Buren, Jackson’s supporters shrewdly launched a new style of campaigning that included parades, mass rallies, leaflets, banners, barbecues, and, of course, generous quantities of hard cider.
4. The expanded democracy still excluded enslaved Africans, free Black people, women, and American Indians.
THE AGE OF JACKSON
1. Andrew Jackson’s supporters praised him as a common man who represented the interests of the people. A wave of enthusiastic popular support swept “Old Hickory” into the White House.
2. The Jacksonians enthusiastically supported the expansion of white male suffrage. During the Jackson administration, nominating conventions replaced legislative caucuses.
3. As champions of the common man, the Jacksonians despised the privileges of the Eastern elite. Jackson vetoed a bill that would have recharted the Second Bank of the United States. He denounced the bank as a vehicle used by the rich and powerful to bend the acts of government to their selfish interests.
4. Jackson’s war against the bank played a key role in the creation of the new two-party system. Now known as Democrats, Jackson’s party opposed the bank and supported states’ rights. Led by Henry Clay, the Whigs supported the bank and Clay’s American System of internal improvements.
5. Led by South Carolina, Southern states strongly opposed high protective tariffs. John C. Calhoun insisted that the Union was a compact of sovereign states. In his “South Carolina Exposition and Protest,” Calhoun argued that when a federal law exceeded the delegated powers of Congress, a state or states could declare the law “null and void” within their own borers. Jackson angrily denounced nullification as an “impractical absurdity” and warned South Carolina that “disunion by armed force is treason.”
6. Jackson supported the Indian Removal Act providing for the forced removal of eastern tribes to the newly established Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. In 1838, federal troops began a forced evacuation of about 17,000 Cherokees from their tribal lands. About one-fourth died from disease and exhaustion on the 800-mile route that became known as the Trail of Tears.
A NEW NATIONAL CULTURE
1. TRANSCENDENTALISM was a philosophical and literary movement that stressed the importance of intuition, nonconformity, and the belief that truth could be found in nature. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller were the leading transcendentalists.
2. A group of artists known as the Hudson River School applied the transcendentalist reverence to nature to art. Hudson River School artists painted landscapes that idealized the beauty of the American countryside.
3. Romantic poets also looked to nature for insights about truth and beauty. For example, Walt Whitman’s famous volume of poems, Leaves of Grass, rejected reason while emphasizing feeling and emotion. In his poem, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” Whitman argued that a Romantic perspective can yield deeper insights about truth and beauty than a scientific perspective.
4. Idealists founded over 100 utopian communities, where they tried new ways of organizing work and daily life. Utopian communities rejected competitive business practices, favored communal living arrangements, opposed strict moral rules, and believed in sharing their wealth.
THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING
1. The Second Great Awakening was a wave of religious fervor that swept across America between 1800 and 1830. Thousands of people attended emotionally charged camp meetings featuring appeals to faith and conversion by charismatic preachers.
2. Intense religious revivals were especially widespread in central and western New York. This region became known as the “Burned-Over District” because of the particularly enthusiastic revivals that crisscrossed the area.
3. The Burned-Over District was the birthplace of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints or Mormons. Founded in the 1820s by Joseph Smith, Mormonism attracted a number of loyal followers. In 1847, Brigham Young led more than 2,000 Mormons on an arduous journey to the shores of the Great Salt Lake in Utah.
4. Puritan ministers taught that God controlled each individual’s destiny. In contrast, Charles Grandison Finney delivered inspiring sermons stressing that Christians are not doomed by original sin. Instead, he emphasized humanity’s inherent goodness and each individual’s potential for self-improvement.
5. Charles Grandison Finney and other Second Great Awakening preachers stressed that each individual was a “moral free agent” who could improve his or her life.
AN AGE OF REFORM
1. It was a short step from the Second Great Awakening’s emphasis upon spiritual progress to a belief in the possibility of social progress. The Second Great Awakening inspired a commitment to PERFECTIONISM – faith in the human ability to build a just society
2. The close link between religion and reform awakened America to the evils of slavery. For example, the call for moral reform influenced William Lloyd Garrison’s demand for the immediate emancipation of all enslaved people.
3. Middle-class women played an especially important role in the Second Great Awakening. They boosted church membership and also spearheaded a number of reform movements. For example, Dorothea Dix urged more human treatment for the mentally ill. A compelling moral purpose led many women to join Garrison’s American Anti-Slavery Society.
4. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott concluded that women and slaves both shared a history of injustice. In 1848, they issued a public call for a convention in Seneca Falls, New York to discuss women’s rights.
5. The Seneca Falls Convention issued a “Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions” calling for greater access to education, a change in divorce and child custody rights, and the extension of suffrage to women.
6.. The ideas advanced by the Seneca Falls Convention differed from the ideas of republican motherhood. Under republican motherhood, women exercised an indirect political role through their roles as mothers and educators of male citizens. In contrast, women at the Seneca Falls Convention claimed a direct role in American political life.
7. The Seneca Falls Convention marked the beginning of the women’s rights movement in the United States. The resolutions passed at Seneca Falls formed the agenda for what historians now call first-wave feminism.
SLAVERY AND THE OLD SOUTH
1. In 1790, the once vibrant Southern economy began to stagnate as tobacco lost its value as a cash crop. However, the invention of the cotton gin in 1793 revolutionized the Southern economy and the lives of enslaved Africans.
2. The cotton gin transformed cotton into America’s most valuable cash crop. By 1860, a vast cotton belt stretched from South Carolina to the Mississippi River Valley. Known as the Deep South, this region produced three-fourths of the world’s supply of cotton. Proud Southern planters confidently boasted, “Cotton is King.”
3. Cotton irrevocably changed the South’s attitude toward slavery. Prior to the invention of the cotton gin, many thoughtful Southerners referred to slavery as a “necessary evil” inherited from their colonial past. However, during the 1820s and 1830s slaveholders worked out a systematic pro-slavery argument to justify their “peculiar institution” as a “positive good.” As the South became committed to a cotton economy, the region also became committed to slavery.
4. The presence of unpaid slave labor discouraged European immigrants from settling in the South. As the South devoted more and more resources to slave labor and cotton, the region failed to fully participate in the transportation revolution transforming the rest of America’s economy.
5. A small but powerful group of planters owned more than half of the South’s slaves. The majority of white families in the antebellum South were independent yeoman farmers who owned few, if any, slaves.
6. Congress ended the slave trade in 1808. As a result, planters could no longer import slaves from Africa or the West Indies. Instead they bought slaves form planters in Virginia and Maryland. Between 1810 and 1860, over two million slaves endured a forced migration from the Chesapeake area to the slaveholding states in the Deep South.
7. The spread of cotton plantations to the Deep South uprooted countless enslaved Africans. Despite this disruption, slaves maintained strong kinship networks while creating a separate African American culture. Religion played a particularly important role. For example, spiritual songs enabled slaves to express their sorrows, joys, and hopes for a better life.