Social Studies Quiz 1/17/18
DEMOCRACY AND CITIZENSHIP
During Adams's presidency, most states eased the voting requirements, thereby enlarging the voting population. Fewer states now had property qualifications for voting. In the presidential election of 1824, approximately 350,000 white males voted. In 1828, over three times that number voted, and their votes helped Andrew Jackson. However, certain groups still lacked political power. Free African Americans and women did not enjoy the political freedoms of white males.
JACKSON'S APPEAL TO THE COMMON CITIZEN
During the 1828 campaign, Jackson characterized Adams as an intellectual elitist and, by contrast, portrayed himself as a man of humble origins—though he was actually a wealthy plantation owner. Jackson won the election by a landslide. He was so popular that record numbers of people came to Washington to see "Old Hickory" inaugurated.
Another Revolution Affects America
During the 19th century, new approaches to manufacturing, such as Whitney's interchangeable parts, took industry out of American households and artisans' workshops. Factories became the new centers of industry. The factory system (using power-driven machinery and laborers assigned to different tasks) made mass production—the production of goods in large quantities—possible. These changes in manufacturing brought about an Industrial Revolution—social and economic reorganization that took place as machines replaced hand tools and large-scale factory production developed.
COTTON IS KING IN THE SOUTH
Eli Whitney's invention of a cotton gin (short for "cotton engine") in 1793 had helped to set the South on a different course of development from the North. Short-staple (or short-fiber) cotton was easier to grow but harder to clean than long-staple cotton. Whitney's gin made it possible for Southern farmers to grow short-staple cotton for a profit. Since cotton was in great demand in Britain and, increasingly, in the North, an efficient machine for cleaning the seeds from short-staple cotton proved a major breakthrough. Armed with the cotton gin, poor, nonslaveholding farmers quickly claimed land in the area between the Appalachians and the Mississippi south of the Ohio to begin cultivating this cash-producing crop. Wealthier planters followed, bought up huge areas of land, and then put an enormous slave labor force to work cultivating it. By 1820, this plantation system of farming had transformed Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama into a booming Cotton Kingdom. In this way, the cotton gin accelerated the expansion of slavery
ERIE CANAL AND OTHER INTERNAL IMPROVEMENTS
For people in different regions to do business with one another and for the economy to grow, they had to communicate, travel, and transport goods. The first steam locomotive in the United States was built in 1825. Railroads offered several advantages over existing modes of transport; they were fast, able to cross almost any terrain, and possible to operate in severe weather. Most transportation at this time, however, was still accomplished using roads and canals. Eventually, better roads and canals would lower costs. But in the short run, they would cost money. Many states built turnpikes, which paid for themselves through the collection of tolls paid by users who, literally, turned a pike (or spiked pole) to continue their journey along the road. At the same time the federal government experimented with funding highways, which would connect different regions by land. Construction of the National Road began in 1811. By 1838 the new road extended from Cumberland, Maryland, to Vandalia, Illinois. One of the most impressive projects, the Erie Canal, stretched 363 miles. The "Big Ditch," as it was called, took eight years to dig, and by 1825 had linked the Hudson River to Lake Erie—or, in effect, the Atlantic Ocean to the Great Lakes. Just 12 years after it had opened, canal tolls had completely paid for its construction. New York City had become the dominant port in the country. In their rush to make similar profits, other states built over 3,000 miles of canals by 1837
JACKSON'S SPOILS SYSTEM
If Jackson knew how to inspire loyalty and enthusiasm during a campaign, he also knew how to use the powers of the presidency upon gaining office. He announced that his appointees to federal jobs would serve a maximum of four-year terms. Unless there was a regular turnover of personnel, he declared, officeholders would become inefficient and corrupt. Jackson's administration practiced the spoils system—so called from the saying "To the victor belong the spoils of the enemy"—in which incoming officials throw out former appointees and replace them with their own friends. He fired nearly 10 percent of the federal employees, most of them holdovers from the Adams administration, and gave their jobs to loyal Jacksonians. Jackson's friends also became his primary advisers, dubbed his "kitchen cabinet" because they supposedly slipped into the White House through the kitchen.
The Supreme Court Boosts National Power
In 1808, Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston received a charter from the New York legislature that gave them the exclusive right to run steamboats on rivers in that state. They profited from this state charter, which granted them a monopoly (exclusive legal control of a commercial activity), by charging steamboat operators for licenses to operate on various stretches of river. One of these operators was Aaron Ogden. Ogden was licensed by Fulton and Livingston under the laws of New York State to run his steamship line between New York and New Jersey. Ogden believed that he was the only operator legally entitled to run a steamboat service on that stretch of the Hudson. Then Thomas Gibbons began to run a similar service in the same area, claiming that he was entitled to do so according to federal law. Ogden took Gibbons to court to stop him. However, in 1824 the Supreme Court ruled that interstate commerce could be regulated only by the federal government. In other words, Ogden's "exclusive" right granted by New York was not legal, since the route crossed state lines. More important, by clarifying that Congress had authority over interstate commerce, the Gibbons v. Ogden decision helped to ensure that the federal government has the power to regulate just about everything that crosses state lines. In modern life, that authority means everything from air traffic to television and radio waves to interstate cellular communications. In addition, this decision led to future rulings favoring competition over monopolies. In this way, nationalism exerted a strong influence on the legal system.
STRENGTHENING GOVERNMENT ECONOMIC CONTROL
In McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), as in Gibbons v. Ogden, Chief Justice John Marshall had also guided the Supreme Court to a ruling that strengthened the federal government's control over the economy. The Court's ruling also supported the national government over the state governments. Maryland had levied a heavy tax on the local branch of the Bank of the United States, hoping to make it fail. Marshall declared that if this were allowed, states would in effect be overturning laws passed by Congress. The Chief Justice denied the right of Maryland to tax the Bank, stating that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." He declared the Bank of the United States constitutional.
TENSION BETWEEN ADAMS AND JACKSON
In the election of 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but lacked the majority of electoral votes. The House of Representatives had to decide the outcome, since no candidate had received a majority of the votes of the electoral college. In the election of 1824, Andrew Jackson won the popular vote but lacked the majority of electoral votes. The House of Representatives had to decide the outcome, since no candidate had received a majority of the votes of the electoral college. Because of his power in the House, Henry Clay could swing the election either way. Clay disliked Jackson personally and mistrusted his lack of political experience. "I cannot believe," Clay commented, "that killing twenty-five hundred Englishmen at New Orleans qualifies [him] for the various difficult and complicated duties of [the presidency]." Adams, on the other hand, agreed with Clay's American System. In the end, Adams was elected president by a majority of the states represented in the House. Jacksonians, or followers of Jackson, accused Adams of stealing the presidency. When Adams appointed Clay secretary of state, the Jacksonians claimed that Adams had struck a corrupt bargain. The Jacksonians left the Republican Party to form the Democratic-Republican Party (forerunner of today's Democratic Party) and did whatever they could to sabotage Adams's policies.
THE MONROE DOCTRINE
After Spain and Portugal defeated Napoleon in 1815, these European powers wanted to reclaim their former colonies in Latin America. Meanwhile, the Russians, who had been in Alaska since 1784, were establishing trading posts in what is now California. With Spain and Portugal trying to move back into their old colonial areas, and with Russia pushing in from the northwest, the United States knew it had to do something. Many Americans were interested in acquiring northern Mexico and the Spanish colony of Cuba. Moreover, the Russian action posed a threat to American trade with China, which brought huge profits. Hence, in his 1823 message to Congress, President Monroe warned all outside powers not to interfere with affairs in the Western Hemisphere. They should not attempt to create new colonies, he said, or try to overthrow the newly independent republics in the hemisphere. The United States would consider such action "dangerous to our peace and safety." At the same time, the United States would not involve itself in European affairs or interfere with existing colonies in the Western Hemisphere. These principles became known as the Monroe Doctrine.
INDIAN REMOVAL ACT OF 1830
Jackson thought that assimilation could not work. Another possibility—allowing Native Americans to live in their original areas—would have required too many troops to keep the areas free of white settlers. Jackson believed that the only solution was to move the Native Americans from their lands to areas farther west. Congress passed the Indian Removal Act in 1830. Under this law, the federal government provided funds to negotiate treaties that would force the Native Americans to move west. About 90 treaties were signed. For Jackson, the removal policy was "not only liberal, but generous," but his arguments were mainly based on the rights of states to govern within their own boundaries. In 1830, Jackson pressured the Choctaw to sign a treaty that required them to move from Mississippi. In 1831, he ordered U.S. troops to forcibly remove the Sauk and Fox from their lands in Illinois and Missouri. In 1832, he forced the Chickasaw to leave their lands in Alabama and Mississippi.
SLAVERY BECOMES ENTRENCHED
Although slave importation had declined during the American Revolution, by the 1820s the demand for slaves had begun to grow. Increases in cotton production and increases in the number of slaves owned paralleled each other. From 1790 to 1810, cotton production surged from 3,000 bales a year to 178,000 bales, while the number of slaves in the South leapt from 700,000 to 1,200,000. By 1808 slave traders had brought 250,000 additional Africans to the United States—as many as had been brought to the mainland American colonies between 1619 and 1776.
Clay Proposes the American System
As the North and South developed different economies, the creation of a plan to unify the nation became increasingly important. In 1815, President Madison presented such a plan to Congress. He hoped his agenda would both unite the different regions of the country and create a strong, stable economy that would make the nation self-sufficient. His plan included three major points: • developing transportation systems and other internal improvements • establishing a protective tariff • resurrecting the national bank (established during Washington's administration under Hamilton's guidance, and then much reduced in influence under Jefferson) The plan held promise. Recognizing this, even former critics of the president— Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun—rallied behind it. House Speaker Henry Clay began to promote it as the American System. As Clay explained it, the American System would unite the nation's economic interests. An increasingly industrial North would produce the manufactured goods that farmers in the South and West would buy. Meanwhile, a predominantly agricultural South and West would produce most of the grain, meat, and cotton needed in the North. A nationally accepted currency and improved transportation network would facilitate the exchange of goods. With each part of the country sustaining the other, Americans would finally be economically independent of Britain and other European nations.
THE TRAIL OF TEARS
Beginning in October and November of 1838, the Cherokee were sent off in groups of about 1,000 each on the long journey. The 800-mile trip was made partly by steamboat and railroad but mostly on foot. As the winter came on, more and more of the Cherokee died en route. Along the way, government officials stole the Cherokee's money, while outlaws made off with their livestock. The Cherokee buried more than a quarter of their people along what came to be known as the Trail of Tears. When they reached their final destination, they ended up on land far inferior to that which they had been forced to leave.
Nationalism Shapes Foreign Policy
Chief Justice Marshall guided the Supreme Court to decisions that increased the power of the federal government over the state government. At the same time, Secretary of State John Quincy Adams established foreign policy guided by nationalism—the belief that national interests should be placed ahead of regional concerns or the interests of other countries.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN THE UNITED STATES
The primary source of income in America after the War of Independence was international trade, not manufacturing. Farms and plantations produced agricultural products such as grain and tobacco, which were shipped to Great Britain, southern Europe, and the West Indies. However, two events—the passage of President Thomas Jefferson's Embargo Act of 1807 and the War of 1812—turned the attention of Americans toward the development of domestic industries. Jefferson's embargo, which prohibited Americans from shipping goods to Europe, brought to a standstill the once-thriving foreign trade. In fact, by the time Congress repealed the act in 1809, many shipping centers—especially those in New England—had shut down. Then, just as these seaports recovered, the War of 1812 broke out, and the British navy blockaded much of the coastline. With ships unable to get into or out of U.S. harbors, Americans had to invest their capital in ventures other than overseas shipping.
LIMITING STATE POWERS
Under Chief Justice Marshall, the Supreme Court made several rulings that blocked state interference in business and commerce—even when this meant overturning state law. In Fletcher v. Peck (1810), for example, the Court nullified a Georgia law that had violated individuals' constitutional right to enter into contracts. In the Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) decision, the Court declared that the state of New Hampshire could not revise the original charter it had granted to the college's trustees in colonial times. A charter was a contract, the Court said, and the Constitution did not permit states to interfere with contracts.
Expanding Democracy Changes Politics
When John Adams died, his son John Quincy Adams was in the second year of his single term as president. He had succeeded James Monroe as president but was not effective as the nation's chief executive. The principal reason was Andrew Jackson, his chief political opponent.
THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE
When a territory's population reached about 60,000, the people of the territory could petition the Union for admission, draft a state constitution, elect representatives, and become part of the United States, once Congress approved. In 1819, however, when settlers in Missouri requested admission into the Union, conflict arose. In Missouri, the new spirit of nationalism was challenged by an issue that had previously confronted the framers of the Constitution. That issue was the question of slavery. Until 1818, the United States had consisted of ten free and ten slave states. The government admitted Illinois as the eleventh free state in 1818. Southerners then expected that Missouri would become the eleventh slave state, thereby maintaining the balance between free states and slave states in Congress. However, New York Congressman James Tallmadge amended the Missouri statehood bill to require Missouri to gradually free its slaves, a bill that passed the House. Southerners, perceiving a threat to their power, blocked the bill's passage in the Senate. As arguments raged, Alabama was then admitted to the Union as a slave state. With 11 free to 11 slave states, Missouri's status became crucial to the delicate balance. The slaveholding states claimed that Northerners were trying to end slavery. Northerners accused Southerners of plotting to extend the institution into new territories. Hostilities became so intense that at times people on both sides even mentioned civil war and the end of the Union. Indeed, the issues that came to light during these debates foreshadowed the war to come. "We have the wolf by the ears," wrote the aging Thomas Jefferson of this crisis, "and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go." Under the leadership of Henry Clay, however, Congress managed to temporarily resolve the crisis with a series of agreements collectively called the Missouri Compromise. Maine was admitted as a free state and Missouri as a slave state, thus preserving the sectional balance in the Senate. The rest of the Louisiana Territory was split into two spheres of interest, one for slaveholders and one for free settlers. The dividing line was set at 36° 30´ north latitude. South of the line, slavery was legal. North of the line—except in Missouri—slavery was banned. Thomas Jefferson was among those who feared for the Union's future after the Missouri Compromise. His words would prove prophetic. President Monroe signed the Missouri Compromise in 1820. For a generation, the problem of slavery in federal territories seemed settled.
Nationalism Pushes America West
While Presidents Adams and Monroe established policies that expanded U.S. territory, American settlers pushed into the Northwest Territory (present-day Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan), felling forests, turning lush prairies into farms and waterfronts into city centers
EXPANSION TO THE WEST
While some settlers went west to escape debts or even the law, most pushed westward in search of economic gain—for land was not only plentiful and fertile but cheap. There were also social gains to be made. For example, one could change occupations more easily on the frontier. Jim Beckwourth (1798-1867), the son of a white man and an African-American woman, ventured westward with a fur-trading expedition in 1823. He lived among the Crow, who gave him the name "Bloody Arm" because of his skill as a fighter. Later he served as an Army scout. In California in 1850, he decided to settle down and become a rancher, yet this was not the last of his occupations.
TARIFFS AND THE NATIONAL BANK
Why were the tariffs on imports proposed by Madison and promoted by Clay necessary? Ever since the end of the War of 1812, British goods such as iron and textiles—stockpiled during the war—were sold far below the cost of American-made merchandise. Consequently, few bought the more expensive American products. Placing a tariff on imports would increase the cost of foreign goods and thereby eliminate their price advantage. Moreover, tariff revenues would help pay for internal improvements, such as roads, canals, and lighthouses. For these reasons, President James Madison proposed the Tariff of 1816. Most Northeasterners welcomed protective tariffs with relief. However, people in the South and West, whose livelihoods did not depend on manufacturing, were not as eager to tax European imports. They resented any government intervention that would make goods more expensive. Nevertheless, Clay, who was from the West (Kentucky), and Calhoun, a Southerner from South Carolina, managed to sway congressmen from their regions to approve the Tariff of 1816 in the national interest. Attitudes toward the proposed Second Bank of the United States (BUS) were less divided. Most leaders agreed that a national bank would benefit all. The Second Bank would make available a currency guaranteed to be accepted nationwide, thus making it easier for people in different regions to do business with one another. In 1816, Congress chartered the Second Bank of the United States for a 20-year period. People were pleased with the way the country was developing. In 1816, they elected James Monroe of Virginia as president. Soon after his inauguration in 1817, Monroe took a goodwill tour of New England, receiving a warm welcome in Boston. The idea of a Republican from Virginia being welcomed in this northern Federalist stronghold impressed the nation. The Boston Columbian Centinel declared that Americans had entered an "Era of Good Feelings."
TERRITORY AND BOUNDARIES
Working under President James Monroe, Adams prioritized the security of the nation and expansion of its territory. To further these interests, Adams worked out a treaty with Great Britain to reduce the Great Lakes fleets of both countries to only a few military vessels. The Rush-Bagot Treaty (1817) eventually led the United States and Canada to completely demilitarize their common border. Adams also arranged the Convention of 1818, which fixed the U.S. border at the 49th parallel up to the Rocky Mountains. Finally, he reached a compromise with Britain to jointly occupy the Oregon Territory, the territory west of the Rockies, for ten years. There remained one outstanding piece of business. Most Americans assumed that Spanish Florida would eventually become part of the United States. In 1819, too weak to police its New World territories, Spain ceded Florida to the United States in the Adams-Onís Treaty and gave up its claims to the Oregon Territory.
THE CHEROKEE FIGHT BACK
Meanwhile, the Cherokee Nation tried to win just treatment through the U.S. legal system. Chief Justice John Marshall refused to rule on the first case the Cherokee brought against Georgia, though, because in his view the Cherokee Nation had no federal standing; it was neither a foreign nation nor a state, but rather a "domestic dependent nation." Undaunted, the Cherokee teamed up with Samuel Austin Worcester, a missionary who had been jailed for teaching Indians without a state license. The Cherokee knew the Court would have to recognize a citizen's right to be heard. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), the Cherokee Nation finally won recognition as a distinct political community. The Court ruled that Georgia was not entitled to regulate the Cherokee nor to invade their lands. Jackson refused to abide by the Supreme Court decision, saying: "John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it." Cherokee leader John Ross still tried to fight the state in the courts, but other Cherokee began to promote relocation. In 1835, federal agents declared the minority who favored relocation the true representatives of the Cherokee Nation and promptly had them sign the Treaty of New Echota. This treaty gave the last eight million acres of Cherokee land to the federal government in exchange for approximately $5 million and land "west of the Mississippi." The signing of this treaty marked the beginning of the Cherokee exodus. However, when by 1838 nearly 20,000 Cherokee still remained in the East, President Martin Van Buren (Jackson's successor) ordered their forced removal. U.S. Army troops under the command of General Winfield Scott rounded up the Cherokee and drove them into camps to await the journey
Two Economic Systems Develop
Northeasterners, prompted by changing economic conditions, invested their capital in factories and manufacturing operations. Cash crops did not grow well in the Northern soil and climate. Southerners, on the other hand, had begun to reap huge profits from cotton by the mid-1790s. The South had little incentive to industrialize. As a result, the North and the South continued to develop two distinct economies, including very different agricultural systems.
NEW ENGLAND INDUSTRIALIZES
Probably nowhere else in the nation was the push to invest in industry as great as in New England. There, citizens had depended heavily upon shipping and foreign trade for income. Agriculture in the region was not highly profitable. In 1793, a British immigrant named Samuel Slater had established in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, the first successful mechanized textile factory in America. However, Slater's factory and those modeled after it still only mass-produced one part of the textile, or finished cloth: thread. Then, in 1813, three Bostonians revolutionized the American textile industry by mechanizing all the stages in the manufacture of cloth. Using plans from an English mill, Francis Cabot Lowell, Nathan Appleton, and Patrick Tracy Jackson built a weaving factory in Waltham, Massachusetts, and outfitted it with power machinery. By 1822 Appleton and Jackson had made enough money to build a larger operation. The changes that their factory triggered in the town of Lowell—named for their deceased partner, Francis Cabot Lowell—exemplify the changes wrought by the Industrial Revolution. By the late 1820s, quiet little Lowell had become a booming manufacturing center. Thousands of people—mostly young women who came to Lowell because their families' farms were in decline—journeyed there in search of work.
Removal of Native Americans
Since the 1600s, white settlers had held one of two attitudes toward Native Americans. Some whites favored the displacement and dispossession of all Native Americans. Others wished to convert Native Americans to Christianity, turn them into farmers, and absorb them into the white culture. Since the end of the War of 1812, some Southeastern tribes—the Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole, Creek, and Chickasaw—had begun to adopt the European culture of their white neighbors. These "five civilized tribes," as they were called by whites, occupied large areas in Georgia, North and South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. Many white planters and miners wanted that land.
GREAT BRITAIN STARTS A REVOLUTION
The Industrial Revolution actually first began in Great Britain. It was in Britain, during the 18th century, that inventors came up with ways to generate power using swiftly flowing streams and bountiful supplies of coal. Inventors then developed power-driven machinery and ways to use this machinery to quickly mass-produce goods such as textiles. British merchants built the first factories. When these factories prospered, their owners had the money to build more factories, invent more labor-saving machines, and industrialize the nation.
AGRICULTURE IN THE NORTH
The North had not eliminated agriculture. However, the type of land and the growth of cities in the North encouraged farmers to cultivate smaller farms than Southerners did, and to grow crops that did not require much labor to flourish. Farmers in the North usually started out growing only what their families needed. Then farming practices in the Old Northwest—the area north of the Ohio River, encompassing what is now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan—diverged from farming practices in the Northeast. As cities grew, farmers in the Old Northwest discovered that they could raise one or two types of crops or livestock (corn and cattle, for example), and sell what they produced at city markets. They could then purchase from stores whatever else they needed. Such grain crops as corn did not require much labor to grow, nor were they hugely profitable, so there was little demand for slaves. In the Northeast, farms were even smaller than those in the Northwest, so here too there was little demand for slavery. By the late 1700s, slavery in the North was dying out. Farmers had little economic motivation to use slaves, and an increasing number of Northerners began to voice their religious and political opposition to slavery. Consequently, by 1804 almost all of the Northern states had voluntarily abolished slavery.
Jackson's New Presidential Style
The expansion of voting rights meant that candidates had to be able to speak to the concerns of ordinary people. Andrew Jackson had this common touch.