Chapter 13': A Democratic Revolution (1820-1844)

Europeans thought that the American politics was unrefined, ex. Frances Trollope's 1832 Domestic Manners of the Americans, and did not place the most able in charge, ex. Alexis de Tocqueville's 1835 Democracy in America 1820s and 30s in the American democratic revolution, American political ideology was transitioning from republicanism, with rule by the propertied, talented, and virtuous, to democracy, with rule by those popularly elected The Rise of Popular Politics (1820-1829): Late 1810s, many states eliminated property qualifications for the franchise, allowing an unprecedented portion of the population to vote Contrast with the English Reform Bill of 1832 that extended the franchise to only 10% of their population

The Decline of In the traditional agricultural society, the political system was dominated by gentry, AKA the Notables and notables, ex. northern landlords, slave-owning planters, and seaport merchants, to whom the Rise of people of lower social status deferred and who used their wealth and family connections to Parties win over their constituents The rise of democracy: Started in the Midwest and Southwest: Were mostly populated by smallholding farmers and ambitious laborers Late 1810s IN, IL, and AL extended the franchise to all males So ordinary citizens elected middling men to office who listen to their demands, so enacted laws that restricted imprisonment for debt, kept taxes low, and allowed farmers to claim squatter's rights to unoccupied land The Eastern response: Eastern states wanted to deter migration to the western states and unrest So 1810 to mid-1820s all eastern states except for NC, VA, and RI adopted universal white manhood suffrage, starting with MD, though some excluded those who did not pay taxes Also, 1818 to 1821 CT, MA, and NY reapportioned representation of legislative districts based on population and instituted more democratic forms of local government So now politics was more complex and contentious: Powerful entrepreneurs and speculators wanted and bribed for government assistance for their business enterprises Bankers wanted charters from the state and opposed laws that limited interest rates Land speculators wanted the eviction of squatters and the construction of roads and canals to increase the value of their holdings 1828 in Utica, NY, Presbyterians wanted a town ordinance to restrict non-religious activities on Sunday; in response, a Universalist (a free-thinking Protestant) called for Religious Liberty Parties take command: The Founding Fathers had condemned political parties as antirepublican and dangerous But as the notables declined in power, political parties emerged as organized machines run by professional, middle-class politicians to make the voices of diverse interest groups heard Martin Van Buren of NY was the main figure in the emergent party system:

 1817 to 1821 created the Albany Regency, the first statewide political party A few years later, created the Jacksonian Democrats, the first nationwide political pary Believed that political parties would check tyrants' and governments' abuse of power Was successful because: Used party newspapers, ex. the Albany Argus, to promote their platform and garner votes Patronage; the Albany Regency's control of the NY legislature appointed thousands of fellow party members to salaried positions in the NY legal bureaucracy, thus providing the Regency with a source of income Required state legislators to follow caucuses, or the majority decisions of a party meeting The Election of 1824 By the election of 1824, the Federalist party had virtually disappeared, and the Democratic party had broken up into competing factions Although the Republican party officially nominated Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford as the Republican candidate, four other candidates also called themselves Republicans: Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun, speaker of the House Henry Clay, and General Andrew Jackson This time, eighteen of the twenty-four states chose their members of the electoral college through popular elections rather than a vote of the state legislatures The candidates were closely matched: John Quincy Adams was well-known for his diplomacy and popular in New England because of his MA origins Clay was popular among Westerners but unpopular among Southerners because of his American System Crawford was popular in the South and led a contingent of Old [Jeffersonian] Republicans who feared the consolidation of all political power in Washington Calhoun withdrew his candidacy and instead nominated Jackson for president and himself for vice president because knew he would not be able to win more Southern supporters than Crawford Jackson had nationwide support because of his victory at New Orleans during the War of 1812 and his common origins Jackson won the electoral college vote, but no candidate had the absolute majority, so the vote for the top three candidates (Jackson, Adams, and Crawford) was turned over to the House House representatives and Clay did not want Jackson in office because was a westerner and was from the military, so Adams ended up being elected as president In gratitude, Adams made Clay secretary of state, but Calhoun and many of Jackson's Congressional supporters thought that they had made a deal before the election was decided, so Congress swore that Clay would never become president

Quincy Adams wanted bold national leadership and a government based on talent and virtue The Last Notable Called for the establishment of a university in Washington, scientific exploration in the Far President: John West, and the adoption of a standard system of weights and measures Quincy Adams Embraced Clay's American System (protective tariff, federally subsidized internal improvements, and a national bank) Internal improvements rejected: Northeastern business elite and Midwestern entrepreneurs and commercial farmers liked Adams' policies

 But Southern planters opposed protective tariffs and smallholding farmers feared powerful banks 1817 President Madison vetoed a Bonus Bill that would have used income from the national bank to fund internal improvement because argued that it was unconstitutional because internal improvement was under the jurisdiction of the states Van Buren sided with the Old Republicans and voted against and proposed constitutional amendments to limit federal subsidies for roads and canals Congress only approved a few navigation improvements and a short extension of the Natoinal Road The tariff battle: Tariff of 1816 excluded imports of cheap English cotton cloth, so gave control of the market to New England textile producers 1824 another tariff taxed iron goods and more expensive woolen and cotton cloth Now Quincy Adams and Clay wanted even higher tariffs to protect the PA and New England iron and textile industries 1826 Van Buren and the Jacksonians took control of Congress and also wanted higher tariffs, but wanted them to be on raw materials like wool and hemp in order to gain the support of NY, OH, and KY farmers for Jackson in the 1828 presidential election So the Tariff of 1828, AKA the Tariff of Abominations, raised duties on raw materials and manufactured goods The South disliked because now either had to buy more expensive American textiles and iron goods, thus enriching the northeast, or highly taxed British goods, thus funding the national government Adams was unlikely to be reelected: The Democracy and Southerners blamed President Adams for the Tariff of 1828 and also disliked him for his Indian-sympathetic land policy the Election of 1828 As the last notable president, was aloof, moralistic, and paternalistic Instead of using patronage to reward his supporters, allowed hostile federal officeholders to keep their positions Stood, not ran for the presidency Jackson formed a coalition of northern farmers and artisans and southern slave owners and smallholding farmers, just like the ones that had gotten Jefferson Madison, and Monroe into office Jacksonians orchestrated a newspaper campaign, mass meetings, torchlight parades, and barbecues The campaign emphasized Old Hickory's frontier origins and his being a self-made man The Jacksonians at first called themselves the Democratic Republicans, but became the Democrats or The Democracy, because felt that the American republic had been corrupted by special privilege and corporate interests and wanted to destroy the artificial distinction and ensure rule by the majority Supporters of Jackson: Northeastern urban workers and artisans, because felt threatened by industrialization Southeasterners and Midwesterners, because of his anti-Indian policy Southerners, because he hinted at a lower protective tariff 1828 more than half of all eligible voters voted, up from about a fourth in 1824 Jackson became the first Western president

 The wealthy and influential were frightened by the popular support of the Mob King The Jacksonian Jackson wanted the Sovereignty of the People, the Rights of the Sates, and a Light and Presidency (1829Simple Government 1837): Jackson's Jackson had an informal Kitchen Cabinet, the most influential members being Francis Agenda: Preston Blair of KY, Amos Kendall of KY, attorney general and then chief justice Roger B. Patronage and Taney of MD, and esp. Secretary of State Van Buren Policy Insisted that bureaucrats be replaced with each new administration; dismissed argument that the rotation would get rid of expertise by saying that public duties were easy for the intelligent to learn Used the spoils system (to the victor [of the presidential race] belong the spoils of the enemy) to give government jobs to help friends and gain support Mainly, wanted to destroy the American System; rejected federal support for transportation projects and vetoed internal improvement bills, because thought unconstitutional because were under the jurisdiction of the states The Tariff and Nullification The Tariff of 1828 caused SC slave owners to fear slave rebellion and the abolition of slavery, because was the only state with an African American majority, and the because the British promised to end West Indies slavery (which they did in 1833), and because the central government was growing more and more powerful, so SC politicians attacked the Tariff to try to limit the central government's power 1832 pro-Tariff congressmen ignored Southern opposition and passed legislation retaining the duties from the Tariff of Abominations So November 1832 SC held a state convention that produced the Ordinance of Nullification, which declared the tarrifs of 1828 and 1832 void, forbade the collection of those duties starting from February 1833, and threatened secession if such duties were to be collected The Ordinance rested on the arguments in Vice President Calhoun's 1828 anonymously published The South Carolina Exposition and Protest; argued that an unchecked majority was a despotism, so instead state conventions should decide whether a federal law was unconstitutional Jackson also wanted to limit the power of the federal government, but through the existing constitutional system; declared that nullification was unconstitutional, and 1833 Congress passed a Force Bill that authorized him to use military force on SC 1833 Jackson passed a compromise Tariff Act that would reduce tax rates to those in 1816 by 1842 So SC was satisfied and rescinded its nullification of the tariff The Second Bank of the United States was established in 1816 by a twenty-year charter from the federal government, which held 20% of its stock, and was privately managed The Bank promised to redeem notes and bills of credit, which made up most American money, for specie, or gold or silver coins; prevented inflation by collecting notes and regularly demanding specie During the prosperous 1820s, the Bank had restrained expansion-minded Western banks and forces others to close; mixed reactions: Bankers and entrepreneurs in big Eastern cities supported But most ordinary people did not understand the Bank's regulatory role and feared its ability to void the worth of paper money by forcing banks to close

The Bank War

 Some wealthy people opposed because disliked the power held by the Bank's arrogant president Nicholas Biddle NY bankers wanted federal specie to be deposited in their own banks rather than the Second Bank, because feared Biddle's power Expansion-minded Western bankers disliked supervision by a central bank Jackson vetoes the Rechartering Bill: 1832 under Clay and Webster, Jackson's opponents in Congress requested an early recharter of the bank in order to lure Jackson into a veto that would split the Democrats just before the 1832 elections Jackson did veto the bill, but defended his position and gained public support by saying that Congress did not have constitutional authority to charter a national bank, that the Second Bank served special interest and monopoly power, and that British aristocrats owned much of the Second Bank's stock So in the 1832 election, Democrat Jackson, with running mate Calhoun and vice president Van Buren, defeated Republican Clay Supporters of Jackson included Eastern workers and Western farmers who had been affected by falling wages or price fluctuations, expansion-minded state bankers, and middle-class Americans who liked his attacks on privileged corporations The bank destroyed: 1832 Jackson appointed Roger B. Taney as secretary of treasury and directed him, likely illegally, to withdraw the government's gold and silver from the Second Bank and deposit them in state banks (pet banks); was the first president who justified acting independently of Congress with victory at the polls March 1834 opponents of Jackson in the Senate passed a resolution, written by Clay, that censured Jackson and warned against executive tyranny Despite opposition, 1836 Jackson succeeded in revoking the Second Bank's charter, and the Second Bank became a state bank without public responsibilites So Jackson had destroyed both Hamilton's national bank and Clay and Adams' protective tariffs and internal improvements Indian Removal Late 1820s, many Westerners and Easterners wanted the resettlements of Indians to the west of the Mississippi River; even Indian-sympathetic whites supported because thought it was the only way to protect the Indians from alcoholism and economic exploitation Though the Creeks were forced out of millions of acres by Jackson's efforts in the War of 1812, Indians still held huge tracts of land and strongly resisted removal Mixed-blood descendants of white traders and Indian women, who grew up in a bicultural world, led the resistance; Sequoyah developed a writing system for the Cherokee language and the tribe published a newspaper, and 1827 the Cherokees introduced a charter of government based on the American Constitution Full-blooded Cherokees, or 90% of the population, resisted many mixed-blood innovations, but still were determined to keep their lands But the Georgia legislature paid them no mind; 1802 had given up its Western land claims in exchange for a federal promise to remove Indian landholdings in Georgia, so declared the Cherokees tenants on state-owned lands, and Jackson removed troops that had been protecting Indians in AL and MS Then Jackson pushed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 that gave territory in OK and KS to Indians who would give up their ancestral land 1832 the Sauk and Fox, under Chief Black Hawk, refused to leave, so Jackson sent troops

to expel them; the troops rejected Black Hawk's offer to surrender and killed most of his warriors in the Bad Axe Massacre Over the next five years, diplomatic and military pressure forced over 70 tribes to sign shortchanging treaties and move west of the Mississippi The Cherokees go to court and get conflicting rulings: 1831 the Cherokees took their case to the Supreme Court in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia and claimed the status of a foreign nation, but Chief Justice John Marshall declared that they were domestic dependent nations But in the 1832 Worcester v. Georgia, Marshall declared that the Cherokees were distinct political communities to whom Georgian state law did not apply A removal treaty was signed and al Cherokees required to abide by it, but by May 1838 only a minority of Cherokees had left, so summer of 1838 new President Van Buren ordered General Winfield Scott to enforce the treaty; General Scott rounded up most of the remaining Cherokee and in the Trail of Tears forced them to march to their new territory Except for some Seminoles, with the help of runaway slaves, who successfully fought a guerrilla war in the 1840s to remain in Florida, all eastern Indian peoples had been forcefully removed The Jacksonian Impact Disrupted the trend toward a stronger central government and reinvigorated the Jeffersonian tradition of a limited, frugal federal government by destroying the American System During the nullification crisis, defended the laws enacted by the national legislature Expanded the authority of the president by declaring that the President is the direct representative of the American people The Taney court: 1835 Chief Justice Marshall died, and Jackson appointed Rober B. Taney as chief justice of the Supreme Court, a position he was to hold until 1864 1837 in Charles River Bridge Co. v. Warren Bridge Co., declared that the charter held by the Charles River Bridge Company did not give them a monopoly because it did not explicitly state exclusive rights, so the legislature retained the right to charter a competing bridge company, so encouraged competitive enterprise 1837 in Mayor of New York v. Miln, ruled that NY could use police power to inspect the health of arriving immigrants 1837 in Briscoe v. Bank of Kentucky, allowed a KY state bank to issue its own currency because it did not violate the provision in the Constitution that forbade states from issuing bills of credit State government reform: 1830-1860 twenty states held conventions to revise their charters; most adopted universal white manhood suffrage and required the election, rather than the appointment, of most public officials Changed the character of the constitutions from republican governments that undertook public projects to liberal, laissez-faire governments that limited the power of the state; most: Prohibited states from granting exclusive charters to corporations or extending loans or credit guarantees to private businesses Set limits on and state debts and encouraged judges to enforce them in order to protect taxpayers So undermined the commonwealth philosophy of using chartered corporations and state funds to promote economic development; instead, were the first American populists and supported the ability of ordinary people to make economic and political decisions

 Class, Culture, and Mid-1830s the Whigs emerged as a second national party as a result of the rise of the the Second Party Democracy and Jackson's tumultuous presidency System: The Whigs and Democrats would dominate American politics for the the next two decades in the Second Party System 1834 in Congress the Whig party began when opponents of Jackson banded together against his kinglike, unconstitutional actions that they said undermined government by elected legislators, the true representatives of the sovereign people Called themselves Whigs to identify with the pre-Revolutionary American and British Whig parties who had opposed the arbitrary actions of the British kings Whig ideology: Sough the support of evangelical Protestants and the upwardly mobile middle- and working-classes, because wanted politics to be dominated by men of ability and wealth, as determined by talent, not birth Thought that America was a country of self-made men, the Industrial Revolution had increased social harmony, and capitalists' investments supported the poor, and wanted a return to Clay and Adams' American System In the South, support was fragmentary: Some wealthy planters supported because invested in railroads and banks or sold cotton to NY merchants Most were backcountry yeomen whites who wanted to break the lowcountry planter's control over politics and who had supported nullification But most did not also support high tariffs, social mobility, and equal opportunity; thought common enemy of southern slave owners and northern factory owners were enslaved blacks and propertyless whites In the North, most supporters were prosperous farmers, small-town merchants, and skilled industrial workers from the middling classes Anti-Masonry influence: Many Whigs were former Anti-Masons, who were a powerful 1820s political movement who opposed the Order of the Freemasonry and which was founded by newspaper editor Thurlow Weed after the murder of Mason William Morgan because he threatened to reveal the Masons' secrets The Order of the Freemasonry was a secret deistic and republican organization whose members included political leaders, ex. Washington, Clay, and Jackson, and ambitious businessmen The Anti-Masons accused the Masonry of being a secret aristocratic fraternity and succeeded in driving them out of local and state offices The Anti-Masons valued tempereance, equality of opportunity, and evangelical religious values The Whigs gained Anti-Mason support by advocating restrictions on the sale of alcohol and the preservation of Sunday as a day of worship The Election of 1836: Van Buren was the Democratic candidate; emphasized his opposition to the American System and to Whigs' plans to use federal power to impose temperance, evangelical religious values, and the abolition of slavery The Whigs had four regional candidates because hoped to get enough electoral votes to throw the vote to the House, which they controlled, but failed

The Whig Worldview

 But still, the Whigs altogether had almost half the popular vote, showing that the middleclass as well as small farmers and propertyless workers supported them The 1836 election was the beginning of the Second Party System, a close struggle between the Democrats and Whigs that would define American politics for the next two decades Labor Politics and the Depression of 1837-1843 Working Mens Parties: 1827-1833 Working Mens Parties arose because rising prices and stagnant wages had made for lowered standard of living of urban artisans and wage earners Wanted to end private banks, chartered monopolies, and imprisonment from debt, higher taxes on the rich, free, tax-supported schools, and equal rights Goal was a society with no dependent wage earners and all independent proprietors At first, were popular, but voter apathy and internal divisions caused a decline such that by the mid-1830s, most Working Men had joined the Democratic Party The rise of unions: 1830s after an economic boom, workers formed unions to bargain for higher wages and make closed-shop agreements that required employers to only hire union members Employers responded with blacklists of union members, ex. 1836 in NYC with the Union Trade Society of Journeymen Tailors, and took the unions to court because said violated statutes that prohibited conspiracies in restraint of trade, and the judges usually sided with the employers But 1836 popular demonstrations protesting conspiracy charges resulted in those charged being acquitted The Panic of 1837: For the previous 15 years, British manufacturers and investors had stimulated the American economy by providing credit to southern planters and purchasing canal bonds from the northern states Began when the Bank of England suddenly stemmed the flow of money and credit to America, so American planters, merchants, and canal corporations had to withdraw domestic specie to pay their foreign loans and commercial debts, and the price of Southern raw cotton plummeted May 8, 1837 the NYC Dry Dock Bank shut down, so depositors panickedly withdrew specie from other banks, so the other banks and soon every American bank were forced to suspend all payments in specie, so sharp economic decline The depression: After the Panic, state governments increased investments in canals and other transportation ventures, but sold too many bonds to finance such ventures, so the price of the bonds fell sharply, causing an international financial crisis 1837-1841 Also, had bumper cotton crops, so further drove down cotton prices States defaulted or declared moratorium on foreign loans, canal construction and prices dropped, unemployment jumped By 1843, high unemployment had completely destroyed the labor movement But some events improved the long-term prospects of the labor movement: 1842 in the MA Supreme Court Commonwealth v. Hunt, Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw ruled that a union was not an inherently illegal organization and that unions members could legally attempt to enforce a closed shop, even by striking; but still, other courts found ways around to restrict strikes and boycotts 1840 President Van Buren established a 10-hour day for all federal employees The Whigs and many ordinary people, because they did not understand the complex international economy, blamed the Democrats and Jackson for the economic depression, esp. for destroying the Second Bank and 1836 issuing the Specie Circular that required western

Tippecanoe and Tyler Too!

settlers to pay for land purchases in specie Van Buren became president just as the Panic began and was unpopular for seeming to be inactive about the Panic and the depression; refused to revoke the Specie Circular, had a laissez-faire outlook, and 1840 passed the Independent Treasury Act that withdrew specie from Jackson's pet banks, where they had been used to back loans, and deposited them in government vaults, where they did no economic good The election of 1840: 1840 the Whigs nominated William Henry Harrison of OH for their presidential candidate and John Tyler of VA for their vice presidential candidate Harrison, a war hero of the Battle of Tippecanoe and the War of 1812, was inexperienced with politics and was chosen because the Whig leaders in Congress, Clay and Webster, wanted a weak, rubber stamp president, and because the public would like his military record and western origins The campaign of the election of 1840 became the first great log cabin campaign; the Whigs portrayed Harrison as a self-made, common soldier and statesman and Van Buren as a manipulative and aristocratic, and attracted new voters through pamphlets, songs, parades, and well-organized mass meetings For the first time, women were publicly involved in politics when October 1840 Whig Webster held a special meeting of Whig women and promised moral reform; previously, politics was considered a manly, public affair, but the Whigs realized that women were deeply involved in public life through religious revivalism, the temperance movement, and other activities 1840 the voter turnout was higher than ever, and Harrison was elected as the first Whig president, and the Whigs gained a majority in Congress The Tyler administration: But Harrison died of pneumonia one month after his inauguration, so Tyler became president Tyler was a Whig because he opposed Jackson's opposition to nullification, but was really a Democrat on economic issues because agreed with Jackson's hostility to the Second Bank and the American System and also favored ordinary people and the settlement of the West So Tyler vetoed bills that would have raised tariffs or created a new national bank, and 1841 approved the Preemtion Act that allowed poor settlers a free claim to federal land as long as they built a house, farmed the land, and could pay for the property later at a set price The Democrats regrouped and gained the support of Northern subsistence farmers, Southern smallholding planters, the urban working class, and Irish and German Catholic immigrants, so mostly remained the majority