History Test 3 Chapter 10

Liberty is power

Adams hold of you are federal power far more expensive than did most of his contemporaries. In his first message to congress in December 1825, he set forth a comprehensive program for an activist national state. The spirit of improvement is a broad in the land, Adams announced and federal government should be its Patrón. He called for legislation promoting agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, and mechanical and elegant arts. His plan include establishment of a national University, an astronomical observatory, and enable Academy. At a time in many Americans felt that the governmental Authority pose the greatest right to freedom Adams astonished many listeners with the bold statement liberty is power. Adams proposal alarmed all believers in strict construction of the constitution. His administration spent more on internal improvements and those are his five predecessor is combined, and enacted a steep increase in tariff rates in 1828. But the rest of adams ambitious ideas received little support in Congress.

Martin Van Buren and the Democratic Party.

Adams program handed his political rivals a powerful weapon. With individual liberty, states rights, and limited government as their rallying cries, Jackson 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. And the clash between Adams and Van Buren demonstrated how democracy was changing the nature of American politics. Adams typified the old politics, he was a son of a president and, like Jefferson and Madison, a man of sterling intellectual accomplishments. Vanburn represented the new political era . The son of the tavern keeper, he was a talented party manager, not a person of great vision or intellect. But Vanburn did have a compelling idea. Rather than being dangerous and divisive, as the founding generation had believed, political parties, he insisted, were necessary and desirable. Party competition provided a check on those in power and offered voters a real choice in elections. And by bringing together political leaders from different regions in support of common candidates and principles, national parties could to counteract the sectionalism that had reared its head during the 1820s. National political parties, Van Buren realized, formed a bond of unity in a divided nation. He set out to reconstruct the jeffersonian political alliance between the planters of the south and the plane Republicans or the farmers and urban workers of the north.

The American system continued

And his annual message known as the State of the Union address to congress in December 1815, President James Madison put forward a blueprint for government promoted economic development that came to be known as the American system, a label coined by Henry Clay. The plan rested on three pillars; a new national bank, a tariffs on imported manufactured goods to protect American industry, and federal financing of improved roads and canals. I am the last was particularly important to those worried about the dangers of disunity. Let us bind the nation together, with a perfect system of roads and canals, John C Calhoun employed Congress in 1815. Let us conquer space. Congress enacted an internal improvements program drafted by Calhoun, Only to be astonished when the president, on the eve of his retirement from office in March 1817, vetoed the bill. Since calling for it enactment, Madison 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. The other two parts of his plan, however became law. The tariff of 1816 offered protection to goods that could be produced in the United States, especially cheap cotton textiles, while admitting tax free those that could not be manufactured at home. Many Southerners supported the Tarrif, Believing that it would enable their region to develop a manufacturing base to rival New England. And in 1816, a new Bank of America was created, with a 20 year charter from Congress.

The age of Jackson

Andrew Jackson was a man of many contradictions . Although he had a little formal education, Jackson was capable of genuine eloquence in his public statements. Self proclaimed champion of the common man, he held a vision of democracy that excluded any role for Indians, whom he believes should be pushed west of the Mississippi river, and African-Americans, who should remain as slaves or be freed and sent abroad. A strong nationalist, Jackson nonetheless believed that the states, not Washington DC, should be the focal point of governmental activity.

South Carolina and nullification

Andrew Jackson, it has been said, left office with many more principles than he came in with. Elected as a military hero back by an efficient party machinery, he was soon forced to define his stance on public issues. Despite his commitment to states rights, Jackson's first term was dominated by A battle to uphold the supremacy of federal over state law. The tariff of 1828, which raise taxes on imported manufactured goods made of wool as well as the raw materials such as iron, had aroused considerable opposition in the south, nowhere more than in South Carolina, where it was called the tariff of abominations. The states leaders no longer believed it possible or desirable to compete with the north and industrial development. Insisting that the tariff on imported manufactured goods raise the price paid by southern consumers to benefit the north, the legislature threaten to notify it, that is, declarant Noll and void within their state. The State with the largest proportion of slaves and its population, 55% in 1830, South Carolina was controlled by a tightly knit Group of large planters. They maintain 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 office holders, are behind their economic complaints or against the tariff lay the conviction that the federal government must be weekend lest it one day take action against slavery.

The election of 1824 continued

As required By the constitution, Clay who finished forth, was eliminated, and the choice among the other three fell through the house of representatives. Sincerely believe in Adams to be the most qualified candidate and the most likely to promote the American system, and probably calculating that the election of Jackson, a westerner, Would impede his own presidential ambitions, Clay gave his support to Adams, helping to elect him. He soon became secretary of state in Adams cabinet. The charge that he had made a corrupt bargain bartering critical votes in the presidential contest for a public office-clung to play for the rest of his career., Making it all but impossible for him to reach the White House. The election of 1824 laid the groundwork for a new system of political parties. Supporters of Jackson and Crawford would soon reunite in the democratic party. The alliance of Clay and Adams became the basis for the Whig party of the 1830s.

Nation, section, and party The United States and the Latin American wars of independence

Between 1810 and 1822, Spain's Latin American colonies rose in the 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 uprising 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. Parallels existed between Spanish American revolutions and the one that had given birth to the United States. In both cases, the crisis of empire was precipitated by programs launched by the imperial country aimed in large measure at making the colonies contribute more to its finances. As had happened in British North America, local elites demanded status and treatment equal to residents of the imperial power. The Spanish American declaration of independence borrowed directly from that of the United States. The first, issued and 1811, declared that the united provinces of Venezuela now enjoyed among the sovereign nations of the earth the rank which supreme being and nature has assigned us, language strikingly similar to Jeffersons. In someways, the new Latin American constitution adopted by 17 different nations, were more democratic than that of the United States. Most sought to implement the transatlantic ideas of rights and freedom by creating a single national people out of the diverse populations that made up the Spanish empire. To do so, they extended the right to vote to Indians and free blacks. The Latin American wars of independence, in which black soldiers participated on both sides, also set in motion the gradual abolition of slavery. But the Latin American wars of independence last longer, sometimes more than a decade and we're more destructive than the one in the United States had been. As a result, it provided for more difficult for the new Latin American republics to achieve economic development then for the United States.

The panic of 1819

But instead of affectively 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. Coupled with the rapid expansion of settlement into the west, the stimulated demand for loans to purchase land, which local banks and branches of the Bank of the United States were only too happy to meet by printing more money. The land boom was especially acute in the south, where the cotton kingdom was expanding. Early in 1819, as European demand for American foreign 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 businessman who could not repay declared bankruptcy, and unemployment Rose and Eastern cities. The Panic of 1819 lasted a little more than a year, but it severely disrupted the political harmony of the previous years. To the consternation of creditors, many states, especially in the west, suspended the collection of debts. Kentucky went even farther, establishing a state bank that flooded the state with paper money that creditors were required to accept and repayment of loans. This eased the burden on indebted farmers but injured those who had loaned than the money. Overall, the panic deep end many Americans traditional Distrust of thanks. He undermined the reputation of the second bank of the United States, which was widely blamed for causing the panic. Several states retaliated against the national bank by taxing its local branches. These tax laws produced another of John marshals supreme court decisions, in the case of McCulloch versus Maryland in 1819. Reasserting his broad interpretation of governmental powers, marshal declared the bank a legitimate exercise of congressional authority under the constitutions clause that allowed Congress to pass necessary and proper laws. Marshall's interpretation of the constitution directly contradicted the strict construction view that limited Congress to powers specifically granted in the constitution.

The Election of 1828

By 1828, Vanburn had establish the political apparatus 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 committee to limited government, Jackson supporters made few campaign promises, relying on their candidates popularity in the workings of the party machinery to get out the vote. 1320 election campaign was scurrilous, Jackson's supporters praised their candidates frontier manliness and ridiculed Adams intellectual attainment. Vote for Andrew Jackson who can fight, not John Quincy Adams who can write, declared one campaign slogan. Jackson's opponents condemned him as a murder for having executed army deserters and killing men indoors. They question the morality of his wife, Rachel, because she had marry Jackson before her divorce from her first husband had become final. Nearly 57% of the eligible electorate cast ballots, more than double the percentage four years earlier. Jackson won our sounding victory, peering the entire south and west, along with Pennsylvania. His election was the first to demonstrate how the advent of universal white male voting, organized by national political parties, had transformed American politics. For better or worse, the United States had under the age of Jackson.

The limits of democracy

By 1830s, the time of Andrew Jacksons presidency, the axiom that the people ruled had become a universally I excepted part of American politics. Those who oppose the principal, wrote Tocqueville , Hide their heads. But the very centrality of democracy to the definition of both freedom and nationality made it all more necessary to defined the boundaries of the political nation. As older economic exclusions fell away, others survived and new ones were added. The principle of universal suffrage, declare the United States magazine and democratic review in 1851 Meant that white males of age constituted the political nation. How could the word universal be reconciled with Borring of blacks and women from political participation? As democracy triumphed, the intellectual grounds for exclusion shifted from economic dependency to natural incapacity. Gender and racial differences were widely understood as part of a single, natural hierarchy of innate Endowments . White males were considered inherently superior in character and abilities to non-white 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. Not until 1920 was the constitution amended to require states to allow women to vote. The voting rights act of 1965 swept away restrictions on black voting imposed by the many southern states..

Tocqueville on democracy

By 1840, more than 90% of adults white men were eligible to vote. A flourishing democratic system had been consolidated. American politics were boisterous, highly partisan, and sometimes violent, And engaged the energies of massive numbers of citizens. In a country that lacked more traditional basis of nationality A powerful and monacing neighbor, historic ethnic, religious, or cultural unity, democratic political institutions came to defined the nation sense of its own identity. Alexis de tocquiville , The French writer who visited the United States in the early 1830s, returned home to produce democracy in America, a classic account of a society in the mitts of a political transformation. Tocqueville had come to the United States to study prisons. But he soon realized that to understand America, he must understand democracy which as a person of aristocratic background he rather disliked. His key insight was that 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 encourage individual initiative, belief in equality, and an active public sphere populated by numerous voluntary organizations that sought to improve society. Democracy, Tocqueville saw, had become and essential attribute of American freedom. As Tocqueville recognize, the idea that sovereignty belongs to the mass of ordinary citizens was a profound shift and political thought. 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 hence the electoral college, Supreme Court, and other undemocratic features of the constitution. Nonetheless, thanks to persistent pressure from those originally excluded from political participation, amok receipt for white males triumphed by the age of Jackson.

The election of 1840 continued

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 said. With two highly organized parties competing throughout the country, voter turnout soared to 80% of those eligible. Harrison won a sweeping victory . We have taught them how to conquer us, laminated a democratic newspaper. Whig success proved short-lived. Immediately on assuming office. Harrison contracted pneumonia. He died a month later, 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 tariffs . Most of the cabinet resigned, and his party repudiated him. Tylers four years in office were nearly devoid of accomplishment. It's a campaign that resulted in the election of 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. But a storm was now gathering that would test the stability of American democracy and the statesmanship of its political leaders and of the party system itself.

The party system

By the time of Jackson's presidency, politics had become more than a series of political contests, it was a spectacle, a form of mass entertainment, a part of Americans daily lives. Every year witness elections to some office, local, state, or national in millions took part in the parades and rallies organized by the parties. Politicians were popular heroes with mass followings and popular nicknames. Jackson was old Hickory, clay hairy of the west, and Van Buren the little magician or to his critics the sly fox. Thousands of Americans willingly attended lengthy political orations and debates. Party Machines, held by professional politicians, reached into every neighborhood, especially in the cities. They provided benefits like jobs to constituents and insured that batteries went to the polls on election day. Government posts, Jackson declared should be open to the public not reserved for a privileged class of permanent bureaucrats. He introduced the principle of rotation an office called the spoils system by opponents international government, making loyalty to the party the main qualification for jobs like postmaster and customs official. 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 wake papers he was job was not so much to report the news as she present the parties position on issues of the day. Jackson's kitchen cabinet, an informal group of advisers who Helped to write his speeches and supervise communications between the White House and local party officials, mostly consisted of newspaper editors.

The election of 1840

Despite his reputation as a political magician, Vanburn found that without Jackson's personal popularity he could not hold the Democratic coalition together. In 1840, he also discovered that his wig opponents had mastered the political techniques he had helped a pioneer. Confronting an unprecedented opportunity for victory because of the continuing economic depression, the Whigs abandon their most prominent leader, Henry Clay, and nominated William Henry Harrison. Harrison's main claim to fame was military success against the British and Indians during the war of 1812. The party nominated Harrison without a platform. 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 tactic proved enormously effective, even though it bore a little relationship to the actual life of the wealthy Harrison. 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. Almost every issue a political significance, Tyler Howard views totally opposed to those of other wigs. But party leaders hoped he could expand their base in the south.

The Supreme Court and the Indians continued

During the 1830s most of the other southern tribes bowed to the inevitable and departed peacefully. But with the assistance of escaped slaves, the Seminoles of sparsely settled Florida resisted. In the second Seminole war, which lasted from 1835 to 1842 the first had preceded American accusation of Florida in 1819, Some 1500 American soldiers and the same number of Seminoles were killed, and perhaps 3000 Indians and 500 blocks were forced to move to the west. A small number of Seminoles managed to remain in Florida, a tiny remanent of the one sizable Indian population east of the Mississippi river. The removal of the Indians powerfully reinforce the racial definition of American nationhood and freedom. At the time of independence, Indians had been in a familiar presence in many parts of the United States. But by 1840 in the eyes of most whites east of the Mississippi River, they were simply a curiosity, a relic of an earlier period of American history. Although Indians still dominated the trans Mississippi west, as American settlement pushed relentlessly westward it was clear that their days of Freedom there also were numbered

The racial democracy

If the exclusion of women from political freedom continued a long-standing practice, the increasing identification of democracy and whiteness marked something of a departure. Blacks were increasingly considered a group apart. Racist imagery became the stock in trade a popular theatrical presentation like ministral shows, and which white actors in black face entertained the audience by portraying African-Americans are stupid, dishonest, and altogether ridiculous. With the exception of Herman Melville, who portrayed complex, sometimes heroic black characters in works like Moby Dick and bonito Cereno , The latter fictionalized account of a shipboard slave rebellion, American authors either ignored blacks entirely or presented them as stereotypes, happy slaves prone to superstition or a long suffering but devout Christians. Meanwhile the somewhat tentative thinking of the revolutionary era About the status of non-whites flowered into an elaborate ideology of race superiority and inferiority, complete with scientific underpinnings. These developments affected the boundaries of the political nation. In the revolutionary era, only Virginia, South Carolina, and Georgia explicitly confined the votes to whites, although elsewhere, custom often made it difficult for free blacks to exercise the franchise. As late as 1800, no northern state barred blacks from voting. But every state that entered the union after that, with the single exception of main, Limited the right to vote to white males. And beginning with Kentucky in 1799 and Maryland two years later, several states that had allowed blacks to vote rescinded the privilege. By 1860 blacks can vote on the same basis as whites and only five New England states, which contained only 4% of the nations free black population. In effect, race had replaced class as a boundary between those American men who were entitled to enjoy political freedom and those who are not. Even at this focus on race limited America's political community as a whole, it helped to solidify a sense of national identity among the diverse groups of European Origine. In a country where the right to vote had become central to the meaning of freedom, it is difficult to overstay the importance of the fact that white male immigrants can vote in some states almost from the moment he landed in America, where he is nearly all free blacks and of course slaves, Whose ancestors had lived in the country for centuries cannot vote at all.

The Missouri controversy

In 1816, James Monroe Handley defeated the federalist candidate Rufus King, becoming the last of the Virginia presidents. By 1820, the federalists fielded elect Torel tickets and only two states, and Monroe carried the entire country. Monroe's two terms in office were years of one party government, sometimes called the era of good feelings. Plenty of bad feelings, however, surface during his presidency. In the absence of two party competition, politics was organized along lines of competing sectional interests. And 1819, Congress considered a request for Missouri, and area carved out of the Louisiana purchase are Kama to draft a constitution in preparation for admission to the union as a state. Missouri a slave population already exceeded 10,000. James Talmage, a republican congressman from New York, moved that the introduction of further slaves be prohibited and that children of those already in Missouri be freed at age 25. Tallmadges proposal sparked two years of controversy, during which republican unity shattered along sectional lines. His restriction passed The house, where most northern congressman supported over the objections of southern representatives. It died in the Senate however. When Congress reconvened in 1820, senator Jesse Thomas of Illinois proposed a compromise. Missouri would be authorized to draft a constitution without Tallmadge is restriction. Maine, which prohibited slavery, would be admitted to the union to maintain the sectional balance between free and slave states. In slavery would be prohibited in all remaining territory within the Louisiana purchase north of latitude 3630, Missouri southern boundary. Congress adopted Thomases plan as a Missouri compromise. The Missouri controversy raised for the first time what would prove to be a fatal issue, the westward expansion of slavery. The sexual division it revealed aroused widespread feelings of dismay. This momentous question, wrote Jefferson, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the union . For the moment, however, the slavery issue faded once again from national debate.

Pet banks, the economy, and panic of 1837 continued

Inevitably, the speculative boom collapsed. The government sold 20,000,000 acres of the federal land in 1836 , 10 times 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 except gold and silver as payment for public land. At the same time, the Bank of England, increasingly suspicious about the value of American banknotes, demanded that American merchants pay their creditors in London in gold or silver. Then, an economic downturn in Britain dampened demand for American Cotton, the countries major export. Taken together, these events triggered an economic collapse in the United States, the panic of 1837, followed by a depression that lasted to 1843. Business throughout 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 job disappear. The fledging labor movement collapsed Asterix became impossible, given the surplus of unemployed labor.

biddles bank continued

Jackson's veto message is perhaps the central document of his presidency. In a democratic government, Jackson insisted, it was unacceptable for Congress to create a source of concentrated power and economic privilege Unaccountable to people. It is to be regretted, he declared, that the rich and powerful too often been the act of government to their selfish purposes. Exclusive privileges like the banks charter widen the gap between the wealthy and the humble members of society like farmers, mechanics, and labors. Jackson presented himself as a defender of these humble Americans. The bank war reflected how Jackson enhance the power of his presidency during his eight years in office, proclaiming himself the symbolic representative of all the people. He was 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. Wigs 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 insure the death of the bank of the United States.

Calhoun's political theory

John C Calhoun soon emerged as a leading theorist of notification. As a South began to fall behind the rest of the country in population, Calhoun had involved with the nationalist of 1812 into a powerful defender of southern sectionalism. Haven't been elected vice president in 1828, Calhoun at first remain behind the scene, secretly drafting the exposition and protest in which the South Carolina legislature justify notification. The national government, Calhoun insisted, had been created by an agreement, or compact, among sovereign states, each of which retain the right to prevent the enforcement within its borders of acts of Congress that exceed the power specifically spelled out in the constitution. Almost from the beginning of Jackson's first term, Calhoun's influence in the administration waned, while Secretary of State Martin Van Buren emerged as a presidents closest advisor. One incident that helps to Jackson against Calhoun occurred a few weeks after the inauguration. Led by Calhoun's wife, fluride, Washington society women or ocracized peggy eden, the wife of Jackson's secretary of war, because she was a daughter of Washington tavern keeper and, allegedly a woman of easy virtue. Jackson identify the criticism of Peggy Eaton with abuse his own wife had suffered during the campaign of 1828. Far weightier matters seven divided Jackson and Calhoun. Debate over notification ration Washington. In a memorable exchange in the Senate in January 18 30 that came to be known as the Webster Hayne debate. Daniel Webster, a senator from Massachusetts, responded to South Carolina senator Robert y hayne, Disciple of Calhoun. The people, not the states, declared Webster, created the constitution, making the federal government sovereign. He called nullification illegal, unconstitutional, and treasonous. Webster's ending was widely held throughout the country, liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable. A few weeks later, I had a White House dinner, Jackson delivered a toast while fixing his gaze on Calhoun; our federal union it must be preserved. Calhouns reply came immediately; the union next to our liberty most dear. By 1831 Calhoun had publicly emerged as a leading theorist of states rights.

The nationalism of John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams enjoyed one of the most distinguished pre-presidential careers of any American president. He the son of John Adams, he had witnessed the battle of bunker hill at age 8 and at 14 had worked as a private secretary and French interpreter for an American envoy in Europe. He had gone on to serve as ambassador to prussia , The Netherlands, Britain, and Russia, and as a senator for Massachusetts. Adams was not an engaging figure. He described himself as a man of cold, austere, and foreboding manners. But he had a clear vision of national greatness. At home he strongly supported the American system of government sponsored economic development. Abroad he hoped to encourage American commerce throughout The world and, as illustrated by his authorship of the Monroe doctrine, enhance American influence in the western hemisphere. An ardent expansionist , Adams was certain that the United States was eventually, and peacefully, absorb Canada, Cuba and at least part of Mexico.

The Monroe doctrine

John Quincy Adams, who was serving as James Monroe secretary of state, I was devoted to consolidating the power of the national government at home and abroad. Adams feared that Spain would try to regain its Latin American colonies. In 1823 he drafted a section of the presidents annual message to congress that became known as the Monroe doctrine. It expressed three principles. First the United States would oppose any further efforts at colonization by European powers in the Americas. Second, the United States 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. The Monroe doctrine is sometimes called Americas diplomatic declaration of independence. For many decades, it remained a corner stone of American foreign policy. Based on the assumption that all the new worlds formed separate political and diplomatic systems, he claimed for the United States the role of dominant power in the western hemisphere.

The nullification crisis

Nullification was not a purely sexual issue. South Carolina set alone during the nullification crisis, and several southern states passed resolutions condemning its action. Nonetheless, the elaboration of the compact theory of the constitution gave the south well developed political philosophy to which it would turn when sectional conflict became more intense. To Jackson, nullification amounted to nothing less than this union. He dismissed Calhouns constitutional arguments out of hand; can anyone of common sense believe this absurdity, that a faction of any state, or a state, has a right to secede and destroy this union, and the liberty of the country with it? The issue came to head in 1832, 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. In response, Jackson persuaded Congress to pass a force act authorizing him to use the army and navy to collect customs duties. To avert a confrontation, Henry Clay, with Calhoun's assistance, engineer the passage of a new tariff, in 1833, further reducing duties. South Carolina then rescinded the ordinance of nullification, although it proceeded to notify the force act. Calhoun abandoned the Democratic Party for the Whigs, where , With clay and Webster, he became part of the formidable trio of political leaders even though the three agreed on virtually nothing except hostility toward Jackson.

The election of 1824

The Monroe doctrine reflecting a rising sense of the American nationalism. But sectionalism seem to rule domestic politics. As election of 1824 approach, only Andrew Jackson could claim truly national support. Jackson's popularity rest to not on any specific public policy, few voters knew his views, but on military victories over the British at the battle of New Orleans, and over the creek and Simonole Indians. Other candidates include John Quincy Adams, secretary of the treasury William H Crawford of Georgia, and Henry Clay of Kentucky. Atoms support was concentrated in New England and, more generally, in the north, where republican leaders insisted The time and come for the south to relinquish the presidency. Crawford represented the South sold 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 1824 laid primarily in the west. Jackson received 153,544 votes and carried states in all the regions outside of New England. But with four candidates in the field, none received a majority of the electoral votes.

The bank war and after Biddle's bank

The central political struggle of the age of Jackson was the presidents war on the bank of the United States. The bank symbolize the hopes and fears inspired by the market revolution. The expansion of banking helped to finance and nations economic development. For many Americans, including Jackson, distrusted bankers as non-producers who contributed nothing to the nations wealth but profited from the labors of others. The tendency of banks to over issue paper money, who's deterioration in value reduce the real income of wage earners, reinforced this conviction. Heading The bank was Nicolas biddle of Pennsylvania, Who during the 1820s, had affectively use the institutions power to curb the over issuing of money by local banks and to create a stable currency throughout the nation. A snobbish, Aristocratic Philadelphian, Beidel was a 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. He hastened to Ad that he had never injured any of them. But Democrats wondered whether any institution, public or private, or to possess such power. Many called a monster bank , And illegitimate union of political authority and entrenched economic privilege. That she of the banks future came to head in 1832. Although institutions charter would not expire until 1836, biddles allies persuaded Congress to approve a bill extending it for another 20 years. Jackson saw the tactic as a form of blackmail if he did not sign the bill, the bank would use its considerable resources to oppose his reelection.

Banks and money

The second bank of the United States soon became the focus of public resentment. Like its predecessor, it was a private, profit making corporation that acted as the governments financial agent, issuing paper money, collecting taxes, and paying the governments debts. It was also charged with ensuring that paper money issued by local thanks had a real value. In the 19th century, paper money consisted of notes promising to pay the bearer on demand a specified amount of specie like gold or silver. Since banks often printed far more money than the species 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 over issuance of money.

Introduction paragraphs

The inauguration of Andrew Jackson on March 4, 1829 made it clear that something had changed in American politics. The swearing in of the president had previously been a small, dignified event. Jackson's inauguration attracted a crowd of some 20,000 people who poured into the White House after the ceremony call ruining furniture and breaking China and glassware in the crush. It was the reign of king mob, lamented justice Joseph story of the Supreme Court. Jackson's career embodied the major developments of his era, The market revolution, the westward movement, the expansion of slavery, and the growth of democracy. He was a symbol of self-made man. Unlike previous presidents, Jackson rose to prominence from a humble background, reflecting is eras Democratic opportunities. Born in 1767 on the South Carolina frontier, He had been orphaned during the American revolution. While still used, he served as a courier for patriotic forces during the war of independence. His military campaigns against the British and Indians during the war of 1812 helped to consolidate American control over the lower south, making possible rise of the cotton kingdom. He himself acquired a large plantation in Tennessee. But more than anything else, to this generation of Americans Andrew Jackson symbolized one of the most crucial features of national life the triumph of political democracy. Americans Pride themselves on being the worlds oldest democracy. New Zealand, whose constitution of 1893 gave women and Maoris, The native population the right to vote, may have a better claim. Europe, however, lagged far behind. Brenda not achieve universal male suffrage until the 1880s. France instituted it in 1793 and abandoned it in 1799, And re-introduced it in 1848, and abandoned it again in a few years later . More to the point, perhaps, democracy became a central part of the definition of American nationality in the American idea freedom..

The dorr war

The lone exception to the trend toward democratization was Rhode Island, which required voters to own real estate valued at $134 or rent property for at least seven dollars per year. I center a factory production, Rhode Island had a steadily growing population apart property less wage earners unable to vote. In October 1841, proponents of democratic reform organized a People's convention, which drafted a new state constitution. It enfranchised all adult white male while eliminating entirely blacks, although in subsequent referendum, blacks right to vote was restored. When the reformers ratified the constitution in the extralegal referendum and proceeded to inaugurate Thomas Dorr, A prominent Rhode Island lawyer, as governor, president John Tyler dispatched federal troops to the state. The movement collapsed, and dorr subsequently served nearly 2 years in prison for treason. The Dorr war demonstrated through the passion aroused by the continuing exclusion of any group of white men from voting.

The information revolution

The market revolution and political democracy produced a large expansion of the public sphere and an explosion in printing sometimes called the information revolution. The application of steam power two newspaper printing led to a great increase in output and the rise of the mass circulation penny press, priced at one cent per issue instead of the traditional six. Newspapers such as a New York Sun and New York Herald introducing you style of journalism, appealing to mass audience by emphasizing sectionalism, crime stories, and exposes of official misconduct. By 1840, according to one estimate, the total weekly circulation of newspapers in the United States with a population of 17 million, exceeded that of Europe with 233 million people. The reduction in the cost of printing also made possible the appearance of alternative newspapers in the late 1820s and early 1830s, including freedom journal which was the first black newspaper, Philadelphia mechanics advocate and other labor publications, That aboltionist weekly The liberator, and Cherokee Phoenix, the first Native American newspapers.

The triumph of Democracy Property And democracy

The market revolution and territorial expansion are intimately connected with a third central element of American freedom, political democracy. The challenge to property qualifications for voting, began during the American revolution, reached its culmination in the early 19 century. Not a single state to enter the union after the original 13 required ownership of property to vote. In the older states, by 1860 all but one had ended property requirements for voting, though I will continue to bar persons excepting poor relief, on the ground that they lacked genuine independence. Dependence necessary in the citizen Nara said not on the ownership of property but an ownership of one's self A reflection of the arrows individualism.

Indian removal

The nullification crisis_Jackson's commitment to the sovereignty of the nation. His exclusion of Indians from the errors assertive democratic nationalism lead to the final act in the centuries long conflict between white Americans and Indians east of the Mississippi River. In the slave states, downward march of cotton cultivation placed in Normas pressure on the remaining Indian holdings. One of the early laws of Jackson's administration, the Indian removal act of 1830, provided funds for operating the so-called five civilized tribes, the Cherokee, the Chickasaw, Choctaw, creek, and Seminole with a population of around 60,000 living in North America, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, and Mississippi. The lol marked repudiation of the Jeffersonian idea that civilized Indians could be assimilated into the American population. These tribes made great efforts to become everything Republican citizens should be. The Cherokee had taken the lead, establishing schools, adopting written laws and a constitution modeled on the of the United States, and becoming successful farmers, many of whom owned slaves. But in his message to congress, Jackson repeatedly referred to them as savages and supported Georgia's effort to seize Cherokee land and nullify the tribes laws. In 1832 headman and Warriors of the Creek nation sent a memorial to Congress that dwelled on the meaning of freedom and what they consider compression by Alabama's lawmakers. We never have been slaves, they proclaim, we have been born free. As Freeman we have assisted in fighting the battles of our white brothers. Yeah now their people were being subjected to the penalties of forfeiture of their land. The creeks were claiming a place in the nations life, but unlike their white contemporaries, identification with their own nation came before identity as Americans. And freedom meant maintaining their cultural independence, in which, intern, required keeping possession of ancestry lands. In good American fashion, charity leaders went to court to protect their Rights, guaranteed in treaties with the federal government. Their appeals force the supreme court to clarify the unique status of American Indians.

Public and 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, and persistent tension in the nations history. For Democrats, liberty was a set of private rights but secured by local governments and endangered by powerful national authority . The limitation of power, in every branch of our government, wrote a democrat newspaper in 1842, is the only safeguard of liberty. During Jacksons presidency, Democrats reduced expeditures , Lower the tariff, killed the national bank, and refused please for federal aid to internal improvements. By 235 Jackson even managed to pay off the national debt. As a result, states replace the federal government as the countries 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. Their post attempts to impose a unified moral Vision on society, such as temperance legislation, which restricted or outlawed the production and sale of liquor, and laws prohibiting various kinds of entertainment on Sundays. In this country, declared the New York journal of commerce in 1848, liberty is understood to be the absence of government from private affairs.

Van Buren in office

The president forced to deal with the depression was Martin Van Buren, who had been elected in 1836/3 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 announce its attention to remove Federal funds from the pet banks and hold them in the treasury department in Washington, under the control of the government officials. Not until 1840 did congress approve the new policy, known as the independent treasury, which completely separated the federal government from the nations banking system. It would be repealed in 1841 when the Whigs returned to power, but it was reinstated under President James K Polk in 1846.

Nationalism and its discontent The American system

The war of 1812 which the United States and Great Britain, The worlds foremost military power fought to A draw, inspired and out burst of nationalist pride. But the war also revealed how far the United States still was from being a truly integrated nation. With the bank of the United States having gone out of existence when its charter expired in 1811, the country lacked a uniform currency and found it almost impossible to raise funds for the war effort. Given the primitive state of transportation, it proved very difficult to move men and go to round the country. One shipment of supplies from New England had taken 75 days to reach New Orleans. With the coming of peace, the manufacturing enterprises that sprang up while trade with Britain had been suspended faced intense competition from low cost imported goods. Younger generation of Republicans, including Henry Clay and John C Calhoun, who had led to call for a war in 1812, believed these infant industries deserved national protection.

Democrats and Whigs

There was more to party politics, however, then practical and organization. Jacksonian politics revolved around issue spun by the market revolution and the continuing tension between national and sexual loyalties. Democrats tended to be alarmed by the whining out between social classes. They warned the non-producers, bankers, merchants, and speculators, were seeking to use connections with government to enhance their wealth to the disadvantage of the producing class of farmers, artisans, and laborers. They believe 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 her abilities in their fair competitions of the self-regulating market. The Democratic Party attracted aspiring entrepreneurs who resented government aid to establish businessman, as well as a large number of farmers and city workingmen suspicious of new corporate enterprises. Poorer Farming regions isolated for markets, like the lower Northwest and the southern back country tended to vote Democratic. 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 strongest in the northeast, the most rapidly modernizing region of the country. This established businessman and bankers supported their program of government promoting economic growth, as it farmers in the regions near rivers, canals, and the great lakes, benefited from economic changes or hope to do so. The countries of upstate New York along with the Erie canal, for example, became a Whig strong hold, where is more isolated rule communities tended to vote Democratic. Many slaveholders support is the Democrats, leaving states rights to be slavery's first line of defense. But like well to do merchants and industrialist in the North, the largest southern planters generally voted Whig.

Pet banks, economy, and the panic of 1837

What, however, would take the banks place? Two very different groups apply to Jackson's veto, state bankers who wish to free themselves from biddles regulations And issue more paper currency called soft money, and hard money advocates who opposed all banks and believe 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 authorize the removal of federal funds from its vaults and their deposit in select local banks. Not surprisingly, political and personal connection often determine the choice of these pet banks. 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 finally appointed attorney general Roger B Taney, a loyal Maryland democrat, to the treasury post, and he carried out the order. When John Marshall died in 1835, Jackson rewarded Taney by appointing him chief justice. Without Government deposits, the Bank of the United States lost its ability to regulate the activities of state banks. Value of banknotes in circulation rose from 10,000,000 in 1833 to 149,000,000 in 1837 . As prices rise dramatically, real wages, the actual value of workers pay declined. Numerous labor unions emerge, which attempted to protect the earnings of urban workers. Meanwhile, speculators hastened to cash in on rising land prices. Using paper money, they bought up large blocks of public land, which they resold to farmers or two eastern purchasers of lots in entirely nonexistent western towns.

Public and private freedom continued

Whigs, for their part, insisted that liberty and power reinforced each other. An activist national government couldn't Hanst the realm of freedom. The government, Whigs believed, should create the conditions for a balanced and regulated economic development, Thereby permitting a prosperity in which all classes and regions would share. Whigs, Moreover, rejected the premise that the government must not interfere in private life. To function as free that is, self-directed and self disciplined, moral agents, individuals required certain character Traits, which government could help to instill. Many evangel local protestants supported the Whigs, convinced that via public education, the building of schools and asylums, temperance Legislation , and the lake, democratic governments could inculcate are the principles of morality. And during the Jacksonian era, popularly elected local authorities enacted numerous laws, ordinances, and regulations that try to shape public morals by banning prostitution and consumption of alcohol, and regulating other kinds of personal behavior.

The Supreme Court and the Indians

in a crucial case involving Indians in 1823, Johnson v M'Intosh , The court had proclaimed that Indians were not in fact owners of their land but nearly had a rate of occupancy. Chief Justice John Marshall declared that from the early colonial era, Indians had lived as nomads and hunters, not farmers. Entirely in accurate as history, the decision start the series blow against Indian efforts to retain their land. In Cherokee nation v georgia in 1831, Marshall described Indians as wards of the federal government. They deserved paternal regard and protection, but they lacked the standing as citizens that would allow the Supreme Court to enforce their rights. The justices cannot, therefore Block Georges effort to extended its restriction over those tribe. Marshall, However believe strongly in the supremacy of the federal government over the states. 1832 in Worcester versus Georgia, the court seem to change its mind, holding that Indian nations were a distinct people with the right to maintain a separate political identity. They must be dealt with by the federal government, not the states, and Georgia's actions violated the Cherokee treaties with Washington. Jackson, however, refused to recognize the validity of the worcester ruling. John Marshall has made his decision, he supposedly declared now let him enforce it. With legal appeals exhausted, one faction of the tribe agreed to see their land, but the majority, led by John Ross, who had been elected principal chief under the Cherokee constitution, adopted a policy of passive resistance. And federal soldiers forcefully removed them during the presidency of Jackson's successor, Martin Van Buren. The army herded 18,000 Cherokee men, women, and children into stockades and then force them to move West. At least 1/4 Paris during the winter of 1838 through 1839 on the trail of tears, as a removal route from Georgia to present-day Oklahoma came to be called. In the Cherokee language it literally meant the trail on which we cried.