Chapter 10: Democracy in America (1815-1840)

Jackson vs. Bank of the United States

- A central political struggle of the Age of Jackson was the president's war on the Bank of the United States. - The Bank symbolized the hopes and fears inspired by the market revolution. The expansion of banking helped to finance the nation's economic development, including First Nations removal. - Many Americans like Jackson, however, distrusted bankers as "nonproducers" who profited from the labor of others. The tendency of banks to overissue paper money, whose deterioration in value reduced the real income of wage earners, reinforced this conviction.

Panic of 1837

- A combination of events and factors following the Bank War, the Jackson administration, pet banks, and the Specie Circular triggered an economic collapse in the US - Beginning of a major economic depression lasting about 6 years; touched off by a British financial crisis and made worse by falling cotton prices, credit and currency problems, and speculation in land, canals, and railroads. - Was followed by a depression that lasted to 1843. Businesses across the country failed, and many farmers, unable to meet mortgage payments because of declining income, lost their land. Tens of thousands of urban workers saw their jobs disappear. The fledging labor movement collapsed as strikes became impossible, given the surplus of unemployed labor.

"Liberty is Power"

- Adams held a view of federal power far more expansive than did other politicians at the time. - In his first message to Congress, in December 1825, he set forth a comprehensive program for an activist national state. - Argued that the "spirit of improvement is abroad in the land" and that the federal government should be its patron. - He called for legislation promoting agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, and "the mechanical and elegant arts." - His plans included the establishment of a national university, an astronomical observatory, and a naval academy. - Ata time when many Americans felt that governmental authority posed the greatest threat to freedom, Adams astonished many listeners with the bold statement "Liberty is power." - Adams' proposals alarmed all believers in a strict construction of the Constitution. His administration spent more on internal improvements than those of his five predecessors combined, and it enacted a steep increase in tariff rates in 182. The rest of Adams' ambitious ideas received little support in Congress.

Martin Van Buren and the Democratic Party

- Adams' ideas handed his political rivals a powerful weapon. - With individual liberty, states' rights, and limited government as their rallying cries, Jackson's supporters began to organize for the election of 1828 almost as soon as Adams assumed office. - Martin Van Buren, a senator from New York, supervised the task. - The clash between Adams and Van Buren demonstrated how democracy was changing the nature of American politics. Adams typified the old politics--he was the son of a president, and, like Jefferson and Madison, he was a man of excellent intellectual accomplishments. Meanwhile, Van Buren represented the new political era. As a son of a tavern keeper, he was a talented party manager--not a person of great vision or intellect. - Van Buren believed that political parties were necessary and desirable, contrary to the founding generation's beliefs that political parties were dangerous and divisive. He thought that party competition provided a check on those in power and offered voters a real choice in elections. - By bringing together political leaders from different regions in support of common candidates and principles, national parties could counteract the sectionalism that dominated the 1820s. - According to Van Buren, national political parties formed a bond of unity in a divided nation, setting out to reconstruct the Jeffersonian political alliance between "the planters of the South and the plain republicans [the farmers and urban workers] of the North."

Jackson vs. Calhoun

- Although Calhoun was Jackson's vice president, Calhoun's influence in the administrated waned almost from the beginning of Jackson's first term. - Instead, Secretary of State Martin Van Buren emerged as the president's closest adviser. - Jackson's anger grew against Calhoun only a few weeks after the inauguration. Calhoun's wife, Floride, led a movement by Washington society women to ostracize Peggy Eaton--the wife of Jackson's secretary of war--because she was the daughter of a Washington tavern keeper and allegedly a woman of "easy virtue." Jackson identified the criticism of Peggy Eaton with the abuse his own wife had suffered during the campaign of 1828. - Debate over nullification further divided Jackson and Calhoun. In January 1830, Daniel Webster gave a speech in the Senate declaring that the people, not the states, created the Constitution, making the federal government sovereign. He called nullification illegal, unconstitutional, and treasonous. His ending was widely hailed throughout the nation: "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." - A few weeks later, at a White House dinner, Jackson delivered a toast while fixing his gaze on Calhoun: "Our Federal Union--it must be preserved." Calhoun's reply came immediately, saying, "The Union--next to our liberty most dear." By 1831, Calhoun had publicly emerged as the leading theorist of states' rights.

Result of the Election of 1824

- Although Jackson received 153,544 votes and carried states in all the regions outside of New England, none of the four candidates in the field received a majority of the electoral votes. - As required by the Constitution, Clay--who finished 4th--was eliminated, and the choice among the other three fell to the House of Representatives. - Clay believed that Adams was the most qualified candidate and the one most likely to promote the American System, while he though that the election of Jackson--a westerner--would impede his own presidential ambitions, Clay gave his support to Adams in an effort to elect him. - Clay's support led to Adams' election, and Clay soon became the secretary of state in Adams' cabinet. - Clay had been accused of making a "corrupt bargain" by exchanging a critical vote in the presidential contest for a position of public office. This would have major implications for Clay for the rest of his career, forever marking him and making it impossible for him to reach the White House.

The Build-Up to the Election of 1840

- Although he had the reputation of being a political magician, Van Buren found that without Jackson's personal popularity, he could not hold the Democratic coalition together. - In 1840, he also discovered that his Whig opponents had mastered the political techniques he had helped to pioneer. Confronting an unprecedented opportunity for victory because of the continuing economic depression, the Whigs abandoned their most prominent leader, Henry Clay, and nominated William Henry Harrison. - Harrison's main claim to fame was military success against the British and First Nations during the War of 1812. The party nominated Harrison without a platform, but in a flood of publications, banners, parades, and mass meetings, they promoted him as the "log cabin" candidate--the champion of the common man. - This was an extremely effective tactic, although it sharply contrasted to the actual life of Harrison, who was wealthy. - His running mate was John Tyler, a states'-rights Democrat from Virginia who had joined the Whigs after the nullification crisis and did not follow Calhoun back to the Democrats. He held views totally opposed to those of other Whigs on almost every issue of political significance, but party leaders hoped he could expand their base in the South.

Tariff of abominations

- Andrew Jackson left office with many more principles than he came in with. Elected a s a military hero backed by an efficient party machinery, he was soon forced to define his stance on public issues. Despite his commitment to state's rights, Jackson's firs term was dominated by a battle to uphold the supremacy of federal over state law. - The tariff of 1828, which raised taxes on imported manufactured goods made of wool as well as on raw materials such iron, had caused considerable opposition in the South, where it was greatest in South Carolina. - Tariff passed in 1828 by Congress that taxed imported goods at a very high rate, caused strong opposition in the South

Indian Removal Act

- As the market revolution demanded roads and canals to connect regions, and cotton cultivation spread into new southern states, white Americans took First Nations' land and excluded them from the nation's prosperity. - Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 to provide funds to states and territories for uprooting First Nations from the East - An 1830 law signed by President Andrew Jackson that permitted the negotiation of treaties to obtain First Nations' lands in exchange for their deportation to what would become Oklahoma. - Marked the rejection of the Jeffersonian idea that the First Nations could be assimilated into the American population. - In his messages to Cngress, Jackson repeatedly referred to First Nations as "savages" and supported States' efforts to seize their land and violate their sovereignty.

The United States and the Latin American Wars of Independence

- Between 1810 and 1822, Spain's Latin American colonies rose in rebellion and established a series of independent nations, including Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru. - By 1825, Spain's once vast American empire had been reduced to the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico. - The uprisings inspired a wave of sympathy in the United States. - In 1822, the Monroe administration became the first government to extend diplomatic recognition to the new Latin American republics. - Similarities existed between the Spanish-American revolutions and the American War of Independence. In both cases, the fall of the colonial empires occurred because imperial countries wanted their colonies to contribute more to their finances. Like in British North America, local elites demanded status and treatment equal to residents of the imperial power. - The Spanish-American declarations of independence borrowed directly from the U.S. Declaration of Independence

The Build-Up to the Election of 1828

- By 1828, Van Buren had established the political organization of the Democratic Party, complete with local and state party units overseen by a national committee and a network of local newspapers devoted to the party and to the election of Andrew Jackson. - Apart from a general commitment to limited government, Jackson's supporters made few campaign promises. They relied on Jackson's popularity and the workings of party machinery to get out the vote. - The 1828 election campaign was full of the spread of rumors and scandalous claims for Jackson and against John Adams. Supporters of Jackson praised the Jackson's frontier manliness and ridiculed Adams's intellectual attainments--famous Jackson campaign slogan: "Vote for Andrew Jackson who can fight, not John Quincy Adams who can write" - Jackson's opponents condemned him as a murderer for having executed army deserters and killing men in duels, and they questioned the morality of his wife Rachel because she had married Jackson before her divorce from her first husband had become final.

Democracy in the 19th century

- By 1840, over 90% of adult white men were eligible to vote. A flourishing democratic system had been consolidated, and American politics became lively, highly partisan, and even violent. Massive numbers of citizens became engaged. - Democratic political institutions came to define the nation's sense of its own identity, in a country that lacked the traditional bases of nationality; there was no powerful and menacing neighboring country or historic ethnic, religious, or cultural unity. - The founders of the republic, who believed that government must rest on the consent of the governed, also sought to shield political authority from excessive influence by ordinary people, thus creating the electoral college, Supreme Court, and other undemocratic features of the Constitution. However, thanks to persistent pressure from those originally excluded from political participation, democracy triumphed by the Age of Jackson--but only for white males.

The Result of the Election of 1840

- By 1840, the mass democratic politics of the Age of Jackson had absorbed the logic of the marketplace. Selling candidates and their images was as important as the positions for which they stood. - With 2 highly organized parties competing throughout the country, voter turnout soared to 80% of those eligible (still only white men). - Harrison won a sweeping victory. A Democratic newspaper lamented, "We have taught them how to conquer us."

The limits of democracy

- By the 1830s (the time of Andrew Jackson's presidency), the idea that "the people" ruled had become a universally accepted part of American politics. - The centrality of democracy to the definition of both freedom and nationality made it necessary to define the boundaries of the political nation. As older economic exclusions/limitations fell away, others survived and new ones were added. - The principle of "universal suffrage" was considered to mean that "white males of age constituted the political nation." However, this "universal suffrage" did not include people of color or women, excluding them from political political participation. - As democracy triumphed, the intellectual grounds for exclusion shifted from economic dependency to natural incapacity. - Gender and racial differences were understood as being part of a single, natural hierarchy of inherent qualities and characteristics (certain attributes are considered as natural to specific genders or races, racist thinking) - White males were considered inherently superior in character and abilities to non-whites and women. - The debate over which people are and are not qualified to take part in American democracy has lasted well into the 21st century, and it took a long time to make substantial progress. In 1920, the Constitution was amended to require states to allow women to vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 swept away restrictions on Black voting imposed by many southern states.

The Party System

- By the time of Jackson's presidency, politics had become more than a series of political contests. It was more o f a spectacle, a form of mass entertainment, and a part of Americans' daily lives. - Every year, there were elections to some office--local, state, or national--and millions took part in the parades and rallies organized by the parties. - Politicians were popular heroes with mass followings and popular nicknames( Jackson = Old Hickory, Clay = Harry of the West, and Van Buren = the Little Magician, critics called him the Sly Fox) - Thousands of Americans willingly attended lengthy political orations and debates. - Party machines, headed by professional politicians, reached into every neighborhood, especially in cities. They provided benefits like jobs to constituents and ensured that voters when to the polls on election day. - Jackson declared that government posts should be open to the people, not reserved for a privileged class of permanent bureaucrats - Large national conventions where state leaders gathered to hammer out a platform now chose national candidates. - Newspapers played a greater and greater role in politics. - Every significant town, it seemed, had its Democratic and Whig papers who job was not so much to report the news as to represent the party's position on the issues of the day. - Jackson's Kitchen Cabinet--an informal group of advisers who helped to write his speeches and supervise communication between the White House and local party officials, mostly consisted of newspaper editors.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819)

- Caused by the Panic of 1819 and its impacts on the Second Bank of the United States - Reasserting his broad interpretation of governmental powers, Marshall declared the Bank a legitimate exercise of congressional authority under the Constitution's clause that allowed Congress to pass "necessary and proper" laws (Elastic clause) - Marshall's interpretation of the Constitution directly contradicted the "strict construction" view that limited Congress to powers specifically granted in the Constitution - 1819 US Supreme Court decision in which Chief Justice John Marshall, holding that Maryland could not tax the Second Bank of the United States, supported the authority of the federal government vs. the states.

Worcester v. Georgia

- Cherokee leaders went to court to protect their rights against their removal following the Indian Removal Act, and their rights were guaranteed by the US Constitution and treaties with the federal government. - In 1831, the state of Georgia was attempting to extend its jurisdiction over the Cherokee Nation. Georgians arrested and convicted 11 U.S. citizens, including missionary Samuel Worcester, who refused to swear an oath of allegiance to Georgia. - Worcester and the others contended that, as US citizens living in the Cherokee Nation with its permission, they were not subject to Georgia's laws. - The Cherokee Nation appealed in the case called Worcester v. Georgia. - The 1832 Supreme Court case that held that the First Nations were distinct peoples who could not be dealt with by the states--instead, only the federal government could negotiate with them. President Jackson refused to enforce the ruling. - In its 1832 decision, the US Supreme Court ruled for the Cherokees. Although the Court did not rule that the Cherokee Nation was a foreign nation--as the Cherokees' lawyers had argued--it did accept the argument that First Nations were distinct peoples with the right to maintain separate political identities. They must be dealt with by the federal government, not the states, and Georgia's actions violated the Cherokees' treaties wit hWashington. However, despite his strong assertion of national supremacy in the nullification crisis, Jackson refused to recognize the Worcester ruling. In effect, Georgia nullified the US Supreme Court decison.

John C. Calhoun

- Emerged as the leading theorist of nullification. - As the South began to fall behind the rest of the country in population, Calhoun had evolved from a nationalist of 1812 into a powerful defender of southern sectionalism. HE has elected vice president in 1828, but he remained behind the scenes at first, secretly drafting the Exposition and Protest in which the South Carolina legislature justified nullification. It was a document written in 1828 by Vice President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina to protest the so-called tariff of abominations, which seemed to favor northern industry; introduced the concept of state interposition and became the basis for South Carolina's Nullification Doctrine of 1833. - Calhoun insisted that the national government had been created by an agreement, or compact, among the sovereign states, each of which retained the right to prevent the enforcement within its borders of acts of Congress that exceeded the powers specifically spelled out in the Constitution.

The Panic of 1819

- Financial collapse brought on by sharply falling cotton prices, declining demand for American exports, and reckless western land speculation - Lasted little more than a year, but it severely disrupted the political harmony of the previous years. To the distress of creditors, many states--particularly in the West, suspended the collection of debts. - Kentucky established a state bank that flooded the state with paper money that creditors were required to accept in repayment of loans. - These measures eased the burden on indebted farmers but hurt those who had loaned them money.

First Nations in the 1830s

- First Nations in 1830 were diverse. They were Catholics, Methodists, Presbyterians, and followers of First Nation religions. - East of the Mississippi, many lived in house like their white neighbors. The Cherokee Nation had a written constitution and a printing press. Some were anti-enslavement, while others were enslavers. - Some First Nations peoples were tightly woven into the local economy of their white neighbors, while others hunted and farmed far from the US population - Some had fought against the United States in the War of 1812, while others fought on the US side. - Proponents of First Nations removal painted the First nations as one group: primitive, violent, rapidly declining, and doomed to extinction unless removed by the government

Remaining First Nations in the East

- First Nations removal was systematic expulsion designed to eliminate every First Nations person east of the Mississippi, yet tens of thousands of First Nations managed to remain in their homelands. - Some retreated onto parts of their lands less desired by white Americans, including over 1,000 Cherokees (now the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Nation) who remained in the most mountainous part of their territory. - Some First Nations communities used the support of white neighbors with whom they did business or went to church. - Some First Nations people held onto land by gaining individual title to it. The Catawbas employed that strategy, putting land in the name of one of their pormiennt women--Sally New River--but continuing to live and farm on it communally. - The Haudenosaunee held onto some land by using a treaty signed with George Washington in 1794 that guaranteed their land rights. - Some members of the Haudenosaunee, Wabanaki, and Anishinaabe confederacies retained lands on the British Canadian side of the US border.

New newspapers in the late 1820s and early 1830s

- Freedom's Journal (the first Black newspaper) - Philadelphia Mechanic's Advocate and other labor publications - The Liberator (weekly abolitionist newspaper) - The Cherokee Phoenix (first First Nations newspaper)

Nicholas Biddle

- Heading the Bank was Nicholas Biddle of Pennsylvania, who during the 1820s had effectively used the institution's power to curb the over issuing of money by local banks and to create a stable currency throughout the nation. - He was as strong-willed as Jackson and as unwilling to back down in a fight. In 1832, he told a congressional committee that his Bank had the ability to "destroy" any state bank, and he was quick to add that he had never "injured" any of them. - Democrats wondered whether any institution, public or private, should possess such power. The issue of the Bank's future came to a head in 1832. Although the institution's charter would not expire until 1836, Biddle's allies persuaded Congress to approve a bill extending it for another 20 years. Jackson saw this tactic as a form of blackmail. If he did not sign the bill, the Bank would use its considerable resources to oppose his reelection. He eventually vetoed the bill.

The Era of Good Feelings

- In 1816, James Monroe easily defeated the Federalist candidate Rufus King, becoming the last of the Virginia presidents. - By 1820, the Federalists won electoral tickets in only two states, and Monroe carried the entire country. Monroe's 2 terms in office were years of one-party government, known as the Era of Good Feelings. - The name contradicted Monroe's actual presidency, however, as many "bad feelings" arose during his rule. In the absence of two-party competition, politics was organized along liens of competing sectional interests - Contemporary characterization of the administration of popular Republican president James Monroe, 1817-1825

Second Bank of the United States

- In 1816, a new Bank of the United States was created, with a 21-year charter from Congress. - Soon became the focus of public resentment - Like its predecessor, it was a private, profit-making corporation that acted as the government's financial agent, issuing paper money, collecting taxes, and paying the government's debts. - It was also charged with ensuring that paper money issued by local banks had real value. - In 19th century, paper money consisted of notes promising to pay the bearer on demand a specified amount of "specie" (gold or silver) - Since banks often printed far more money than the specie in their vaults, the value of paper currency fluctuated wildly. - The Bank of the United States was supposed to correct this problem by preventing the overissuance of money.

The Missouri Controversy

- In 1819, Congress considered a request from Missouri, an area carved out of the Louisiana Purchase, to draft a constitution in preparation for admission to the Union as a state. - Missouri's enslaved population already exceeded 10,000, and James Tallmadge, a Republic congressman from New York, sought to prohibit the introduction of further enslaved people and that children of the enslaved people in Missouri be freed at age 25. - Years of controversy followed during which Republic unity shattered along sectional lines. Tallmadge's restriction passed the House, where most northern congressmen supported it over the objections of southern representatives. However, it died in the Senate. - Congress reconvened in 1820, when Senator Jesse Thomas of Illinois proposed a compromise: Missouri would be authorized to draft a constitution without Tallmadge's restriction, while Maine--which prohibited enslavement--who be admitted to the Union to maintain the sectional balance between free and slave states. Enslavement would be prohibited in all remaining territory within the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36 degrees 30', which was Missouri's southern boundary. Congress adopted this plan.

A Son of the Forest

- In 1829, William Apess, a descendant of Metacom (also known as King Philip, who had battled New England colonists in the 1670s), published his autobiography, A Son of the Forest. - As a Pequot and an American, Apess had served with US forces during the War of 1812. He later converted to Methodism and became a revivalist preacher. His book appealed for harmony between white Americans and First Nations people. - He assisted nonviolent resistance by the Mashpees of Cape Cod against property theft and justified their actions in an 1825 book, Indian Nullification of the Unconstitutional Laws of Massachusetts

American System

- In his annual message to Congress in December 1815 (known as the State of the Union address), President James Madison put forward a blueprint for government-promoted economic development - Program of internal improvements and protective tariffs promoted by the Speaker off the House Henry Clay (coined the label) in his presidential campaign of 1824; his proposals formed the core of Whig ideology in the 1830s and 1840s. - A plan that rested on three pillars: a new national bank, a tariff on imported manufactured goods to protect American industry, and federal financing of improved roads and canals. Improving transportation systems like roads was particularly important to those worried about the dangers of disunity, as it would connect the nation. - Madison vetoed the internal improvements program enacted by Congress on the eve of his retirement form office in March 1817, as he had become convinced that allowing the national government to exercise powers not mentioned in the Constitution would prove dangerous to individual liberty and southern interests, despite initially calling for the bill's enactment. - The other two parts of Madison's plan became law

Force Act

- In response to the nullification crisis in 1832, Jackson persuaded Congress to pass the Force Act, authorizing him to use the army and navy to collect customs duties. - To avert a confrontation, Henry Clay, with Calhoun's assistance, engineered the passage of a new tariff, in 1833, further reducing duties. - South Carolina then rescinded the ordinance of nullification, but it then proceeded to "nullify" the Force Act. - Calhoun abandoned the Democratic Party for the Whigs, where he became part of a formidable trio for political leaders with Clay and Webster, although they agreed on virtually nothing except hostility toward Jackson. - 1833 legislation, sparked by the nullification crisis in South Carolina, authorizing the president's use of the army to compel states to comply with federal law.

Hard money/specie

- In the 1830s, "hard money"/ "specie" referred to gold and silver currency

Soft money

- In the 1830s, "soft money" referred to paper currency issued by banks.

Andrew Jackson

- Inaugurated as president of the US on March 4, 1829, drawing tens of thousands of people to Washington, D.C., and the White House - His career embodied the major developments of his era, including the market revolution, westward movement, violent expulsion of First Nations, expansion of enslavement, and growth of democracy. - A symbol of the self-made man, rising to prominence from a humble background--unlike previous presidents--showing the era's new democratic opportunities for Americans - Born in 1767 on the South Carolina frontier, orphaned as a little child during the American Revolution. - He served as a courier when he was still a youth for patriotic forces during the War of Independence - Led military campaigns against the British, Spanish, and First Nations during the War of 1812, allowing the US to control the Lower South. - Owned a plantation - His presidency symbolized to his generation of Americans the triumph of political democracy. Democracy became a central part of the definition of American nationality and the American idea of freedom.

What caused the Panic of 1819?

- Instead of effectively regulating the currency and loans issued by local banks, the Bank of the United States participated in a speculative fever that swept the country after the end of the War of 1812. - The resumption of trade with Europe created a huge overseas market for American cotton and grain - Rapid expansion of settlement into the West created a demand for loans to purchase land, which local banks and branches of the Bank of the United States met by printing more money. - The land boom was extreme in the South, where the Cotton Kingdom was expanding - As European demand for American farm products declined to normal levels, the economic bubble burst. The Bank of the United States, followed by state banks, began asking for payments from those to whom it had loaned money. Farmers and businessmen who could not repay declared bankruptcy, and unemployment rose in eastern cities.

The Spoil System

- Jackson introduced the principle of rotation in office into national government, making loyalty to the party the main qualification for jobs like postmaster and customs official. - The custom of filling federal government jobs with people loyal to the party of the president; originated in Andrew Jackson's first term.

The Age of Jackson

- Jackson was a man of many contradictions. Despite having little formal education, Jackson was capable of genuine eloquence in his public statements. - As a self-proclaimed champion of the common man, he held a vision of democracy that excluded any role for First Nations people and African Americans. - Believed that First Nations people should be pushed west of the Mississippi River - Believed that African Americanas should remain enslaved or be freed and sent abroad. - A strong nationalist, Jackson believed that the states--not Washington, D.C.--should be the focal point of governmental activity.

The Bank War

- Jackson's veto message is perhaps the central document of his presidency. He insisted that in a democratic government, it was unacceptable for Congress to create a source of concentrated power and economic privilege unaccountable to the people. - Exclusive privileges like the Bank's charter widened the gap between the wealthy and the "humble members of society--the farmers, mechanics, and laborers." Jackson presented himself as the defender of these "humble" Americans. - Political struggle in the early 1830s between President Jackson and financier Nicholas Biddle over the renewing of the Second Bank's charter. - Reflected how Jackson enhanced the power of the presidency during his 8 years in office, proclaiming himself the symbolic representative of all the people. - Jackson became the first president to use the veto power as a major weapon and to appeal directly to the public for political support, over the head of Congress. The Whigs denounced him for usurping the power of the legislature, but Jackson's effective appeal to democratic popular sentiments helped him win a sweeping reelection victory in 1832 over the Whig candidate Henry Clay. His victory ensured the death of the Bank of the United States.

Nationalism of John Quincy Adams

- John Quincy Adams enjoyed one of the most distinguished pre-presidential careers of any American president. - The son of John Adams, he had witnessed the Battle of Bunker Hill during his early childhood, and when he was. a teenager, he had worked as a privates secretary and French interpreter of an American envoy in Europe. - He had served as the ambassador to Prussia, the Netherlands, Britain, and Russia, and and as a senator from Massachusetts. - He was not an engaging figure and was rather perceived as cold, but he had a clear vision of national greatness. - Supported the American System of government-sponsored economic development. Abroad, he hoped to encourage American commerce across the world and enhance American influence the Western Hemisphere, as demonstrated by the Monroe Doctrine that he authored. - As a passionate expansionist, Adams was certain that the US would eventually absorb Canada, Cuba, and at least part of Mexico in a peaceful manner.

Monroe Doctrine

- John Quincy Adams, who was serving as James Monroe's secretary of state, was devoted to consolidating the power of the national government at home and abroad. - Adams feared that Spain would try tp regain its Latin American colonies. - In 1823, he drafted a section of the president's annual message to Congress that became known as the Monroe Doctrine. - Sometimes called "America's diplomatic declaration of independence." For many decades, it remained a cornerstone of America foreign policy. Based on the assumption Europe and the Americas formed separate political and diplomatic systems, it claimed for the United States the role of dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. - President James Monroe's declaration to Congress on December 2nd, 1823, that the American continents would be thenceforth closed to European colonization, and that the United States would not interfere in European affairs. It expressed three principles: - First, the US would oppose any further efforts at colonization by European powers in the Americas. - Second, the US would abstain from involvement in the wars of Europe. - Finally, Monroe warned European powers not to interfere with the newly independent states of Latin America.

Impact of the Election of 1824

- Laid the groundwork for a new system of political parties. - Supporters of Jackson and Crawford would soon unite in the Democratic Party. The alliance of Clay and Adams became the basis for the Whig Party of the 1830s.

Impact of the Indian Removal Act

- Led to the significant deportation of around 88,000 men, women, and children from over 30 different First Nations communities between 1830 and 1860. - Over 10,000 people died as a result - From just west of the Appalachian Mountains to the Mississippi Valley, poor white farmers--many of them veterans who had been promised land for their service--squatted on First Nations land. - At the same time, speculators secured government approval to sell the land in small plots and build roads and canals.

Pet Banks

- Local banks that received deposits while the charter of the Bank of the United States was about to expire in 1836. - The choice of these banks was influenced by political and personal connections - Without government deposits, the Bank of the United States lost its ability to regulate the activities of state banks. The value of bank notes in circulation rose from $10 million in 1833 to $149 million in 1837. - As prices rose dramatically, "real wages"--the actual value of workers' pay--declined. Numerous labor unions emerged, which attempted to protect the earnings of urban workers. Meanwhile, speculators were quick to cash in on rising land prices. Using paper money, they bought up huge blocks of public land, which they resold to farmers or to eastern purchasers of lots in entirely nonexistent western towns.

The Election of 1836

- Martin Van Buren won the presidential election in 1836, becoming the president forced to deal with the depression originating from Jackson's presidency. He had been elected over three regional candidates put forward by the Whigs. - Under Van Buren, the hard-money, anti-bank wing of the Democratic Party came to power. - In 1837, the administration announced its intention to remove federal funds from the pet banks and hold them in the Treasury Department in Washington under the control of government officials. - In 1840, Congress approved the new policy, known as the Independent Treasury, which completely separated. the federal government from the nation's banking system.

First Nations Removal in the South

- Most of the deportations resulting from the Indian Removal Act were in the South. - White southerners wanted the rich lands of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole nations for cotton plantations, worked by enslaved people of African descent. - By the time the Cherokees were forcibly transported through the Trail of Tears, the Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Muscogees had also been deported. - Under threats of invasion by the US Army, Choctaw leaders signed a removal treaty in 1830, against the protests of women who attended the council. At least 2,000 Choctaws died on their disastrous journey west. - Chickasaw leaders agreed in 1830 to send a delegation to see the offered lands in the West but declared that if the delegation could not find "a country suitable to their wants and conditions," then the treaty would be "null and void." Although the delegation returned and reported that the western lands were unsuitable, the Chickasaws still had to move west in 1838. Many Chickasaws were vaccinated against smallpox, several hundred died from the disease and the conditions of removla.

Latin American Revolutions vs. American Revolution

- Most of the new Latin American constitutions adopted by 17 different nations were more democratic than that of the United States. Most sought to implement the transatlantic ideals of rights and freedom by creating a single national "people" out of the diverse populations that made up the Spanish empire. - The right to vote was extended to First Nations peoples and free Blacks. - Black soldiers participated on both sides during the Latin American wars of independence, setting up the the gradual abolition of enslavement. - The Latin American wars of independence lasted longer (sometimes over a decade) and were far more destructive than the American war of independence. - As a result, it proved far more difficult for the new Latin American republics to achieve economic development than for the United States.

The Nullification Crisis

- Nullification was not a purely sectional issue. South Carolina stood alone during the nullification crisis, and several southern states passed resolutions condemning the state's action. - The 1832 attempt by the State of South Carolina to nullify, or invalidate within its borders, the 1832 federal tariff law. President Jackson responded with the Force Act of 1833. - Nonetheless, the elaboration of the compact theory of the Constitution (states formed federal government via an agreement so states have the right to say when federal government has overstepped its power) gave the South a political philosophy to which it would turn to when sectional conflict became more intense. - To Jackson, nullification amounted to nothing less than disunion. He dismissed Calhoun's constitutional arguments as being out of hand. - The issue came to a head in 1u832, when a new tariff was enacted. Despite a reduction in rates, South Carolina declared the tax on imported goods null and void in the state after the following February.

The impact of race on the American political community

- Race had replaced class as the boundary between those American men who were entitled to enjoy political freedom and those who were not. - Thought this debate about race limited America's political community as a whole, it helped to solidify a sense of national identity among the diverse groups of European origin. In a country where the right to vote had become central to the meaning of freedom, it is important to note that while all white male immigrants could vote in some states almost from the moment they landed in America, all free Blacks (and enslaved men and women) could not vote at all all.

Impact of First Nations Removal

- Removal was white Americans' alternative to the coexistence championed by Apess. It powerful reinforced the racial definition of American nationhood and freedom. Although First Nations still dominated the trans-Mississippi West, as American settlement pushed relentlessly westward, First Nations sovereignty and freedom would also be threatened there.

First Nations Responses to First Nations Removal

- The First Nations responded in various ways. - Sauk and Fox nations reluctantly moved west of the Mississippi River in 1828, but 4 years later, Sauk war leader Black Hawk led over 1,000 followers back to their homelands in Illinois, causing the 1832 Black Hawk War in which they fought several battles before surrendering. - In 1829 and 1831, Shawnees and Delawares moved across the Mississippi River, following kinspeople who had already given up on the East. - Senecas, Ottawas, and Wyandots who had lived with them in the multiethnic region of the Ohio Valley joined them in the West. - Between 1830 and 1860, Ho-Chunks in the western Great Lakes were repeatedly forced to move, each time promised a "permanent home." - The US used violence and starvation tactics against Kickapoos and Potawatomis to force them west of the Mississippi

Impact of Missouri Compromise

- The Missouri controversy raised for the first time what would prove to be a fatal issue--the westward expansion of enslavement. - The sectional division it revealed caused widespread feelings of dismay. - The issue of enslavement would fade once again from the national debate.

Muscogee and Seminole Resistance

- The Muscogees resisted removal for years. In 1832, Muscogee leaders sent a memorial to Congress, which dwelled on the meaning of freedom, claiming that "We never have been slaves, we have been born free. As freemen we have assisted in fighting the battles of our white brethren." - Claimed a place in the US's life, but identification with their own nation came before identity as Americans - Freedom meant maintaining their cultural, political, and economic independence--which, in turn, required keeping possession of ancestral lands. - Most Muscogees resisted removal, some taking refuge in the Cherokee Nation and others fighting. In response, federal troops captured Muscogee warriors and deported 12,000 more Muscogees, with several thousand dying. - The Seminoles of Florida resisted military, Osceola, one of their leaders, was a Red Stick who had survived Andrew Jackson's assault during the War of 1812. The Seminole force included formerly enslaved people, as in colonial times, Florida had been a refuge for enslaved fugitives from South Carolina and Georgia. Spanish officials offered enslaved people in SC and Georgia freedom. - Georgia sent the militia into Florida to recapture them., but it was driven out by Seminole and African American fighters. - In the Second Seminole War, which lasted from 1835 to 1842 (the first had preceded American acquisition of Florida in 1819), 1,500 American soldiers and 1,500 Seminoles were killed, and perhaps 3,000 Seminoles and 500 Blacks were forced to move to the West.

Rhode Island and property requirements for voting

- The Rhode Island legislature did not lift the property requirements for voting because it feared that it would allow factory workers and immigrants to vote. - Rhode Island was a center of factory production, so an increasing population of propertyless wage earners were unable to vote. - In October 1841, proponents of democratic reform organized a People's Convention, which drafted a new state constitution that granted all white men the right to vote (enfranchisement), while it eliminated the right for Blacks to vote. A subsequent referendum restored Blacks' right to vote. - Reformers then ratified their constitution in an extralegal/illegal referendum, and they inaugurated Thomas Dorr--an important Rhode Island lawyer as governor - President John Tyler dispatched federal troops to the state, and Dorr's movement collapsed. He was sent to prison for treason - Known as the Dorr War, demonstrated the passions caused by prohibiting any group of white men from voting

South Carolina and Nullification

- The South Carolina legislature threatened to "nullify" the tariff of 1828--that is, declare it null and void within their state--because they insisted that the tariff on imported manufactured goods raised the prices paid by the southern consumers to benefit the North. - South Carolina was the state with the largest proportion of enslaved people in its population. The state was controlled by a tightly knit group of large planters. They maintained their grip on power by a state constitution that gave plantation counties far greater representation in the legislature than their population warranted, as well as through high property qualifications for officeholders. - Behind South Carolina's economic complaints against the tariff lay the belief that the federal government must be weakened to prevent it from one day taking action against enslavement.

The impact of the War of 1812

- The War of 1812, which the US and Great Britain (the world's foremost military power) fought to a draw, inspired an outburst of nationalist pride. - The war also revealed how far the US still was from being a truly integrated nation - The Bank of the United States went out of existence when its charter expired in 1811, causing the country to lack a uniform currency. It was almost impossible to raise funds for the war effort. - The primitive state of transportation made it very difficult to move men and goods around the country. Transporting supplies across the nation through shipping took months. - The manufacturing enterprise that sprang up while trade with Britain had been suspended faced intense competition from low-cost imported goods when peace was reached. - A younger generation of Republicans, including Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun--who had led the call for war in 1812, believed these "infant industries" deserved national protection.

The Whig Party during the Age of Jackson

- The Whigs united behind the American System, believing that via a protective tariff, a national bank, and aid to internal improvements, the federal government could guide economic development. - They were the strongest in the Northeast, the most rapidly modernizing region of the country. - Most established businessmen and bankers supported their program of government-promoted economic growth, as did farmers in regions near rivers, canals, and the Great Lakes, who benefited from economic changes or hoped to do so. - The counties of upstate New York along the Erie Canal, for example, became a Whig stronghold. - The largest southern planters, like well-to-do merchants and industrialists in the North, generally voted Whig.

The tariff of 1816

- The first true protective tariff, intended to protest certain American goods against foreign competition - Offered protection to goods that could be produced in the US, especially cheap cotton textiles, while admitting tax-free those that could not be manufactured at home. - Many southerners supported the tariff, believing that it would enable their region to develop a manufacturing base to rival new England's.

The Information Revolution

- The market revolution and political democracy produced a large expansion of the public sphere and an explosion in printing known as the "information revolution" - The application of steam power to newspaper printing led to a great increase in output and the rise of the mass-circulation "penny press," priced at 1 cent per issue instead of the usual 6. - Newspapers, like the New York Sun, introduced a new style of journalism, appealing to a mass audience by emphasizing sensationalism, crime stories, and exposés of official misconduct - By 1840, the total weekly circulation of newspapers in the United States exceeded that of Europe, despite a significantly lower population - The reduction in the cost of printing made possible the appearance of many new newspapers in the late 1820s and early 1830s.

Property and democracy

- The market revolution and territorial expansion were both connected to a third central element of American freedom: political democracy. - In the early 19th century, challenges to property qualifications for voting reached their culmination. No states that entered the Union after the original 13 required ownership of property to vote - With the exception of Rhode Island, by 1860, all states had ended property requirements for voting. - The personal independence necessary in the citizen did not rest anymore on the ownership of property, but rather on ownership of one's self--a reflection of the era's individualism.

Impacts of the Panic of 1819

- The panic deepened many Americans' traditional distrust of banks - The Second Bank of the United States was widely blamed for causing the panic. - Several states retaliated against the national bank by taxing its local branches. - Led to another of John Marshall's landmark Supreme Court decisions

Private Freedom

- The party battles of the Jacksonian era reflected the clash between "public" and "private" definitions of American freedom and their relationship to governmental power, a persistent tension in the nation's history. - For Democrats, liberty was a set of private rights best secured by local governments and endangered by powerful national authority ("The limitation of power, in every branch of our government, is the only safeguard of liberty.") - During Jackson's presidency, Democrats reduced expenditures, lowered the tariff, killed the national bank, and refused pleas for federal aid to internal improvements. By 1835, Jackson even managed to pay off the national debt. - States replaced the federal government as the country's main economic actors, planning systems of canals and roads, and chartering banks and other corporations. - Democrats, moreover, considered individual morality a private matter, not a public concern. They opposed attempts to impose a unified moral vision of society, such as "temperance" legislation, which restricted or outlawed the production and sale of liquor, and laws prohibiting various kinds of entertainment on Sundays. - New York Journal of Commerce in 1848: "In this country, liberty is understood to be the absence of government from private affairs."

Franchise

- The right to vote - In the revolutionary era, only Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia explicitly restricted the right to vote to whites. Elsewhere, traditions made it difficult for free Blacks to exercise their right to vote. - As late as 1800, no northern state barred Blacks from voting, but every state that entered the Union after that year--except Maine--limited the right to vote to white males. - Several states, such as Kentucky in 1799 and Maryland 2 years later, that had allowed Blacks to vote eliminated this privilege. Only 5 New England states (contained 4% of the nation's free Black population) allowed Blacks vote on the same basis as whites

Specie Circular

- The speculative boom surrounding land collapsed soon after. The government sold 20 million acres of federal land in 1836, 10x the amount sold in 1830, nearly all of it paid for in paper money--often of questionable value. - In July 1836, the Jackson administration issued the Specie Circular, declaring that henceforth it would only accept gold and silver as payment for public land. - At the same time, the Bank of England, increasingly suspicious about the value of American bank notes, demanded that American merchants pay their creditors in London in gold or silver. - An economic downturn in Britain dampened demand for American cotton, the US's major export.

The Democratic Party during the Age of Jackson

- There was more to party politics, however, than spectacle and organization. Jacksonian politics revolved around issues spawned by the market revolution and the continuing tension between national and sectional loyalties. - Democrats tended to be alarmed b by the widening gap between social classes, warning that "nonproducers"--bankers, merchants, and speculators--were seeking to use connections with government to enhance their wealth to the disadvantage of the "producing classes" of farmers, artisans, and laborers. - They believed that the government should adopt a hands-off attitude toward the economy and not award special favors to entrenched economic interests. This would enable ordinary Americans to test their abilities in the fair competition of the self-regulating market. - The Democratic Patty attracted aspiring entrepreneurs who resented government aid to established businessmen, as well as large numbers of armers and city working men suspicious new new corporate enterprises. Poor farming regions isolated from markets, like the lower Northwest and the southern backcountry, tended to vote Democratic. - More isolated rural communiteis tended to vote Democratic. Many enslavers suported theDemocratic Party as well, beleiving states' rights to be enslavmeent's first line of defense.

The Build-Up to the Election of 1824

- Though the Monroe Doctrine reflected a rising sense of American nationalism, sectionalism was still ruling domestic politics. - As the election of 1824 approached, only Andrew Jackson could claim truly national support. - His popularity depended not on his specific viewpoints on public policy--few voters understood his views--but on military victories over the British at the Battle of New Orleans and over the Muscogee (Creek) and Seminole First Nations. - Other candidates included John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford of Georgia, and Henry Clay of Kentucky. - Adams' support was concentrated in New England and in the North, where Republican leaders called for the South to relinquish the presidency and allow a northerner to be elected. - Crawford represented the South's Old Republicans, who wanted the party to reaffirm the principles of states' rights and limited government. - Clay was one of the era's most popular politicians, but his support in 1823 lay primarily in the West.

What replaced the Second Bank of the United States?

- Two very different groups applauded Jackson's veto of the Second Bank of the United States: state bankers who wished to free themselves from Biddle's regulations and issue more paper currency (soft money), and hard money/specie advocates who opposed all banks and believed that gold and silver formed the only reliable currency - Not content to wait for the charter of the Bank of the United States to expire in 1836, Jackson authorized the removal of federal funds from its vaults and the federal funds' deposit in select local banks. - Not surprisingly, political and personal connections often determined the choice of these "pet banks." When two secretaries of the Treasury refused to transfer federal money to the pet banks, since the law creating the Bank had specified that government funds could not be removed except for a good cause as communicated to Congress, Jackson appointed Attorney General Roger B. Taney--a loyal Maryland Democrat--to the treasury post to carry out the order. John Marshall died in 1835, allowing Jackson to reward Taney by appointing him chief justice of the Supreme Court.

Democracy in America

- Two works, published in 1835 and 1840, by the French thinker Alexis de Tocqueville on the subject of American democracy. Tocqueville stressed the cultural nature of American democracy and the importance and prevalence of equality in American life. - Alexis de Tocqueville, the French writer who visited the US in the early 1830s, returned to France to produce a classic account of a society in the midst of a political transformation. - Key insight: democracy by this time meant far more than either the right to vote or a particular set of political institutions. It was a "habit of the heart," a culture that encouraged individual initiative, belief in equality, and an active public sphere populated by numerous voluntary organizations that sought to improve society. - Tocqueville saw that democracy had become an essential attribute of American freedom. The idea that sovereignty belongs to the mass of ordinary citizens was a profound shift in political thought.

John Tyler's Presidency

- Whig success proved short-lived - Immediately after assuming office, Hrrison contracted pneumonia. He died a month alter, and John Tyler succeeded him. - When the Whig majority in Congress tried to enact the American System into law, Tyler vetoed nearly every measure, including a new national bank and higher tariff. - Most of the cabinet resigned, and his party abandoned him. - Tyler's 4 years in office were nearly devoid of accomplishment. If the campaign that resulted in the election in Harrison demonstrated how a flourishing system of democratic politics had come into existence, Tyler's lack of success showed that political parties had become central to American government. - Without a party behind him, a president could not govern. A storm was now gathering, however, that would test the stability of American democracy and the statesman-ship of its political leaders and of the party system itself.

Public Liberty

- Whigs insisted that liberty. and power reinforced each other. An activist national government could enhance the realm of freedom. - Whigs believed that the government should create the conditions for balanced and regulated economic development, thereby promoting a prosperity in which all classes and regions would share. - Whigs rejected the premise that the government must not interfere in private life. The government could help instill the moral character traits that individuals needed to have to function as free, moral agents that were self-directed and self-disciplined. - Many evangelical Protestants supported Whigs, convinced that via public education, the building of schools and asylums, temperance legislation, and other reforms, democratic governments could teach and ingrain the "principles of morality" to society. - During the Jacksonian ear, popularly elected local authorities enacted numerous laws, ordinances, and regulations that tried to shape public morals by banning prostitution and the consumption of alcohol, regulating other kinds of personal behavior as well.

A racial democracy

- While the exclusion of women from political freedom had continued tradition, the increasing identification of democracy and whiteness had reached levels not seen before. - Blacks were increasingly considered a group apart from whites. Racist imagery became commonplace in popular theatrical presentations such as minstrel shows, in which white actors in blackface entertained the audience by portraying African Americans as stupid, dishonest, and ridiculous. - American authors either ignored Blacks entirely or presented them as stereotypes, including happy enslaved people prone to superstition or long-suffering but devout Christians, with the exception of Herman Melville who played complex, sometimes heroic Black characters in works like Moby-Dick and Benito Cereno - The uncertain thinking of the revolutionary era concerning the status of non-whites developed into an elaborate ideology of racial superiority and inferiority, complete with "scientific" underpinnings. These developments affected the boundaries of the political nation.

The Trail of Tears

- With legal appeals exhausted, one faction of the Cherokee Nation agreed to cede their lands, but the majority, led by John Ross--who had been elected principal chief under the Cherokee Constitution--adopted a policy of resistance. - Federal soldiers forced 18,000 men, women, and children into stockades and then made them move west. - At least 1/4 perished during the winter of 1838-1839 on the Trail of Tears, as the removal route from Georgia to present-day Oklahoma came to be called. - Cherokee's own term for their forced removal from 1838-1839, from the Southeast to Indian Territory (later Oklahoma). Of 18,000 at the start of the journey, at least 4,500 died. - Among the Cherokees removed were people of African descent who were enslaved by Cherokee plantation owners.

Result of the Election of 1828

Nearly 57% of the eligible electorate (white men) cast ballots more than double the percentage 4 years earlier. - Jackson won a resounding victory, carrying the entire South and West, along with Pennsylvania. - His election was the first to demonstrate how the emergence of universal white male voting, organized by national political parties, had transformed American politics. - For better or worse, the US had entered the Age of Jackson.