Ch.

13 Notes
The Rise of a Mass Democracy

I. Opening
1. So called Era of Good Feelings was never entirely tranquil, but even the illusion of
national consensus was shattered by panic of 1819 and Missouri Compromise of 1820.
2. When the Federalists had dominated, democracy was not respected, but by the 1820s,
it was widely appealing.
a. Politicians now had to bend to appease and appeal to the masses, and the
popular ones were the ones who claimed to be born in log cabins and had
humble backgrounds.
b. Those who were aristocratic (too clean, too well dressed, too grammatical, to
highly intellectual) were scorned.
3. The deference, apathy, and virtually nonexistence party organizations of the good era
of feelings yielded to boisterous democracy.
4. Jacksonian Democracy said that whatever governing that was to be done should be
done directly to the people.
5. Called the New Democracy, it was based on universal manhood suffrage.
a. In 1791, Vermont became the first state admitted to the union to allow all
white males to vote in the elections.
6. While the old bigwigs who used to have power sneered at the “coonskin congressmen”
and the “bipeds of the forest,” the new democrats argued that if they messed up, they
messed up together and were not victims of aristocratic domination.
II. The “Corrupt Bargain” of 1828
1. In the election of 1824, there were four towering candidates: Andrew Jackson of
Tennessee, Henry Clay of Kentucky, William H. Crawford of Georgia, and John Q.
Adams of Mass.
a. All four called themselves Republicans.
2. In the results, Jackson got the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, but he
failed to get the majority in the Electoral College. Adams came in second in both,
while Crawford was fourth in the popular vote but third in the electoral votes. Clay
was 4th in the electoral vote.
3. By the 12th Amendment, the top three Electoral vote getters would be voted upon in
the House of Reps. and the majority (over 50%) would be elected president.
4. Clay was eliminated, but he was the Speaker of the House, and since Crawford has
recently suffered a paralytic stroke and Clay hated Jackson, he threw his support
behind John Q. Adams, helping him become president.
a. When Clay was appointed Secretary of the State, traditional stepping-stone
to the presidency, Jacksonians cried foul play.
b. John Randolph publicly assailed the alliance between Adams and Clay.
5. Evidence against any possible deal has never been found, but both men flawed their
reputations.
III. A Yankee Misfit in the White House
1. John Quincy Adams was a man of puritanical honor, and he had achieved high office
by commanding respect rather than by boasting great popularity.
2. During his administration, he only removed 12 public servants from the federal
payroll, thus refusing to kick out efficient officeholders in favor of his own, possibly
less efficient, supporters.
 3. In his first annual message, Adams urged Congress on the construction of roads and
canals, proposed for a national university, and advocated support for an astronomical
observatory.
a. Public reaction was mixed: roads were good, but observatories weren’t
important, and Southerners knew that if the government did anything, it
would have to continue collecting tariffs.
4. With land, Adams tried to curb overspeculation on land, much to Westerners’ anger,
even though he was doing it for their own good, and with the Cherokee Indians, he
tried to deal fairly with them and the state of Georgia successfully resisted federal
attempts to help the Cherokees.
IV. Going “Whole Hog” for Jackson in 1828”
1. Jacksonians argued, “Should the people rule?” and said that the Adams-Clay
bargaining four years before had cheated the people out of the rightful victor.
a. They successfully turned public opinion against an honest and honorable
prez.
2. However, Adams’ supporters also hit below the belt, even though Adams himself
wouldn’t stoop to that level.
a. The called his mom a prostitute, called him an adulterer (he had married his
wife thinking that her divorce had been granted, only to discover two years
later that it hadn’t been), and after he got elected, his wife died, and Jackson
blamed Adams’ men who had slandered Andrew Jackson on Rachel
Jackson’s death; he never forgave them.
3. John Q. Adams had purchased, with his own money and for his own use, a billiard
table and a set of chessmen, but the Jacksonians had seized, criticizing Adams’
incessant spending.
4. On voting day, the electorate spilt on largely sectional lines.
5. Jackson’s strongest support came from the West and South.
6. The middle states and Old Northwest were divided, while Adams won the backing of
his own New England and propertied “better elements” of the Northeast.
7. Although a considerate amount of Jackson’s support was lined up by machine
politicians in eastern cities, particulary in New York and Pennslyvania.
V. “Old Hickory” as president
1. When he became president, Andrew Jackson had already battled dysentery, malaria,
tuberculosis, and lead poisoning from two bullets lodged somewhere in his body.
2. He personified the new West: rough, jack-of-all-trades, a genuine folk hero.
3. Jackson had been early orphaned, was interested in cockfighting as a kid, and wasn’t
really good with reading and writing, sometimes misspelling the same word twice in
one letter.
4. He went to Tennessee, where he became a judge and a Congressman, and his passions
were so profound that he could choke up on the floor.
5. A man with a violent temper, he got into many duels, fights, stabbings, etc…
6. He was a Western aristocrat, having owned many slaves, and lived in a fine mansion,
the Hermitage, and he shared many of the prejudices of the masses.
7. He was called “Old Hickory” by his troops because of his toughness.
8. He was anti-federalist, believing that it was for the privileged only, but maintained the
sacredness of the Union and the federal power over the states, but he welcomed the
western democracy.
VI. The Spoils System
1. The spoils system: rewarding supporters with good positions in office.
2. Jackson believed that experience counted, but that young blood and sharp eyes
counted more, and thus, he went to work on overhauling positions and erasing the old.
3. Not since the election of 1800 had a new party been voted into the presidency, and
even then, many positions had stayed and not changed.
4. Though he wanted to “wipe the slate clean,” only 1/5 of the men were sent home, and
clean sweeps would come later, but there was always people hounding Jackson for
positions, and those who were discharged often went mad, killed themselves, or had a
tough time with it.
5. The spoils system denied many able people a chance to contribute.
6. Samuel Swartwout was awarded the lucrative post of collector of the customs of the
port of New York, and nearly nine years later, he fled for England, leaving his
accounts more than a million dollars short, becoming the first person to steal a million
dollars from the government.
7. The spoils system was built up by gifts from expectant party members, and the system
secured such a tenacious hold that it took more than 50 years before its grip was even
loosened.
VII. The Tricky “Tariff of Abominations”
1. In 1824, Congress had increased the general tariff from 23% to 37%, but wool
manufactures still wanted higher tariffs.
2. In the Tariff of 1828, the Jacksonians schemed to drive up duties to as high as 45%
while imposing heavy tariffs on raw materials like wool, so that even New England,
where it was needed, would vote the bill down and give Adams another political black
eye.
a. However, the New Englanders spoiled the plan and passed the law
(amended).
b. Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun reversed their positions from 1816,
with Webster supporting the tariff and Calhoun being against it.
c. The Southerners immediately branded it as the “Tariff of Abominations.”
3. In 1822, Denmark Vesey, a free Black, had led an ominous slave rebellion in
Charleston.
4. The South mostly complained because it was now the least expanding of the sections.
5. Cotton prices were falling and land was growing scarce.
6. Southerners sold their cotton and other products without tariffs, while the products that
they bought were heavily tariffed.
7. Tariffs led the U.S. to buy less British products and vice versa, but it did help the
Northeast prosper so that it could be more of the South’s products.
8. John C. Calhoun secretly wrote “The South Carolina Exposition” in 1828, boldly
denouncing the recent tariff and calling for nullification of the tariff by all states.
9. However, South Carolina was alone in this nullification threat, since Andrew Jackson
had been elected two weeks earlier, and was expected to sympathize with the South.
VIII. Bank war
1. President Jackson did not hate all banks and all businesses, but he distrusted
monopolistic banking and overtime big businesses, as did his followers.
2. The flowering the political democracy was in part caused the logical outgrowth of the
egalitarian ideas that had taken root in colonial times.
a. The steady growth of the market economy also nourished it.
 b. More and more people understood how banks, tariffs, and internal
improvements affected the quality of their lives.
3. In the panic of 1819, overextended banks had called back their debts, and often,
farmers unable to pay up lost their farms while the bankers didn’t have to lose their
property because they simply suspended their own payments, and the apparent
favoritism caused outcry.
4. But the Bank of the United States was a private institution, accountable not to the
people, but to its elite circle of moneyed investors
5. To some the bank’s very existence seemed to sin against the egalitarian credo of
American democracy.
6. Clay’s scheme was to ram a recharter bill through Congress and then send it to the
white House.
7. If Jackson signed it, he would alienate his worshipful western followers. If he vetoed
it he would presumably lose the presidency.
8. Jackson’s veto message reverberated with constitutional consequences. It not only
squash the bank bill but vastly amplified the power of the presidency
IX. “Old Hickory Wallops Clay in 1832
1. Clay and Jackson were chief gladiators in the looming electoral combat.
2. Ensuing campaign was raucous
a. Jackson: “Jackson forever: Go the Whole Hog”
b. Clay: “Freedom and Clay
3. Jackson commanded fear and respect from his subordinates, and ignored the Supreme
Court on several occasions; he also used the veto 12 times (compared to a combined
10 times by his predecessors) and on his inauguration, he let commoners come into the
White House.
a. They wrecked the china and caused chaos until they heard that there was
spiked punch on the White House front lawn; thus was the “inaugural bowl.”
b. Conservatives condemned Jackson as “King Mob” and berated him greatly.
4. Henry Clay and his overconfident National Republicans enjoyed impressive
advantages. Ample funds flowed into their campaign chest, including $50,000 in “life
insurance” from the Bank of the United States.
5. Most of the newspaper editors dipped their pens in acid when they wrote of Jackson.
6. The popular vote stood at 687,502 to 530,189 for Jackson; the electoral count was a
lopsided 219 to 49.
X. Burying Biddle’s Bank
1. After the denial of the charter for the Bank of the United States, the bank was fated to
expire in 1836.
2. Jackson was convinced that his voters now wanted to exterminate the Bank, and he
was personally afraid that Nicholas Biddle would try to manipulate the bank and force
it to recharter.
3. So Jackson decided in 1833 to “busy” the bank forever by removing federal deposits
in it.
4. He proposed not depositing any more funds with Bidddle and slowly shrinking
existing deposits by using them to pay off the day-to-day expenses of the government.
By slowly draining off the government’s funds, he would bleed the bank dry and
ensure its extermination.
5. Many of Jackson’s supporters opposed his unconstitutional policy. Jackson had to
reshuffle his cabinet twice before he found a Secretary of State that would agree with
 his policies. Biddle created a minor financial crisis, by calling in his bank’s loans, in
order to show the bank’s importance.
6. Weaker banks were influenced by “Biddle’s Panic” but Jackson’s resolution was firm.
7. The death of the United States Bank created a financial vacuum and started a cycle of
booms and busts. Extra funds were placed in dozens of state institutions-called as “pet
banks”- that were pro- Jackson.
8. With no central bank in control, the pet banks and smaller “wildcat” banks(nightly
operations that consisted of only a few chairs and a suitcase full of printed notes)
flooded the country with paper money
9. In 1836, the year Biddle’s bank finally collapsed, Jackson tried to rebuild the
economy. “Wildcat” money was very unreliable, especially in the West, and Jackson
authorize a Specie Circular (a decree that required all public lands to be purchased
with hard or metallic money.
10. This move contributed to a panic and crash in 1837.
XI. The Birth of the Whigs
1. In 1828- the Democratic Republicans of Jackson adopted ‘once-tainted’ the name of
“Democrats”
2. Jackson’s opponents called themselves the Whigs
3. The Whig Party was much diversified and called “an organized incompatibility”. The
only cement in the party at first was the hatred of Jackson.
4. Whigs emerged as group in Senate where Clay, Webster, and Calhoun in 1834 that
criticized Jackson for removing federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.
5. Whigs evolved when they adopted supporters of Clay’s American System, southern
states’ activists offended by Jackson’s stand on nullification, the larger northern
industrialists and merchants, and eventually many evangelical Protestants associated
with anti-Masonic party.
6. Whigs were conservatives (that’s how they thought of themselves), yet they were
progressive in their support of active government programs and reforms.
7. Instead of focus on acquiring territory, Whigs were more concerned with internal
improvements like canals, railroads, telegraph lines, and institutions like prisons,
asylums, and public schools.
8. Whigs welcomed market economy, drawing support from manufacturers in North,
planters in South, and merchants and bankers in all sections.
9. Whigs actually represented common man now, rather than aristocrats, as Democrats
had portrayed them. They declared Democrats as party of cronyism and corruption.
XII. The Election of 1836
1. Jackson was too old to run for a 3rd term, so he appointed Martin Van Buren of NY as his
successor in 1836. He basically forced the delegates to choose Van Buren and rigged the
convention.
2. Whigs, disorganized as they were, nominated several different men to spread out the votes
so that no candidate would have a majority. The deadlock would then have to be broken
by the House of Reps., where the Whigs could have a chance.
3. The leading Whig “favorite son” was General William Henry Harrison of Ohio, her of the
Battle of Tippecanoe.
4. Van Buren one with a popular vote very close to the Whigs by a comfortable margin to of
all the Whigs combined (170 to 124) in the Electoral votes.
XIII.Big Woes for the “Little Magician”
1. Martin Van Buren was above the average of presidents since Jackson in intelligence,
education and training.
2. He was resented by many Democrats because he was a machine-made candidate
3. He lacked the powerful, dynamic attitude of Jackson and was mild-mannered. He
inherited Jackson’s enemies.
4. A rebellion in Canada in 1837 stirred up ugly incidents on northern frontier and threatened
to trigger war with Britain.
5. He attempted to be neutral but was criticized for it.
6. Anti-slavery agitators in the North were crying out, and were condemning the possible
annexation of Texas.
XIV. Depression Doldrums and the Independent Treasury
1. The Panic of 1837 was brought on by the financial sickness of the times. It was caused by
speculation from the mania of get-rich-quickism. Gamblers in the west were doing “land
office business” on the unreliable money of the “wildcat banks”.
a.) Speculation spread to canals, roads, railroads, and slaves.
2. Jackson’s Bank War and Specie Circular further weakened the teetering economy
3. Grain prices soared, and NY mobs stormed warehouses and broke open barrels of flour.
4. Panic began before Van Buren took office, but he had to deal with most of it.
5. Financial issues abroad also endangered America’s economy. Late in 1836, the failure of
2 prominent British banks created tremors, which caused British investors to call in
foreign loans from America.
6. Europe’s economic distresses have often become America’s distresses.
7. In the panic, hundreds of American banks collapsed, including some “pet banks” which
brought down with them millions in government funds.
8. Commodity prices fell, sales of public lands fell off, and customs revenues dried to a
rivulet. Factories closed their doors, and unemployed workers milled in the streets.
9. Whigs had proposals for active government remedies for the economy’s ills. They called
for the expansion of bank credit, higher tariffs, and subsidies for internal improvements.
But Van Buren refused their ideas
10. Van Buren set up the controversial “Divorce Bill”- it would divorce the government from
banking altogether. He was convinced that some of the financial problem was that federal
funds were injected into private banks.
11. By establishing an independent treasury, the government could lock its surplus money in
vaults in several of the larger cities. Government funds would be safe, but they would
also be denied to the banking system as reserves, thereby shriveling available credit
resources.
12. In 1840, the Independent Treasure Bill passed Congress. It was repealed the next year by
victorious Whigs, and then the scheme was reenacted by triumphant Democrats in 1846
and then continued until merged with the Federal Reserve System in the next century.
XV. Gone to Texas
1. Americans liked the vast expanse of Texas, which the US had abandoned to Spain when
acquiring Florida in 1819. The Spanish authorities wanted to populate Texas but before
they could make plans, the Mexicans won their independence.
2. A new regime in Mexico City ended arrangements in 1823 for granting a huge tract of
land to Stephen Austin, with the understanding that he could bring into Texas three
hundred American families.
3. Immigrants were to be Roman Catholic and to become mexicanized.
 4. However, Americans moved to Texas were still American at heart. They ignored the
stipulations (above).
5. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were famous adventurers that lived in Texas
6. A latecomer and leader was ex-governor of Tennessee, Sam Houston. He resided with the
Arkansas Indians after being left by his wife. He drank heavily but later took an oath of
temperance.
7. Friction increased between Mexicans and Texans over issues such as slavery,
immigration, and local rights. Mexico emancipated its slaves in 1830 and did not allow
Americans to import slaves into Texas. The Texans refused to honor the Mexican
prohibition and kept their slaves in bondage, and new American settlers brought more
slaves into Texas.
8. Stephen Austin went to Mexico City to discuss American differences with the Mexican
government, but Dictator Santa Anna he put him in jail for 8 months. In 1835, Santa
Anna erased all local rights and started raising an army to suppress the upstart Texans.
XVI. The Lone Star Rebellion
1. In 1836, Texans declared their independence, unfurled their Lone Star flag and named
Sam Houston commander in chief.
2. Santa Anna swept into Texas with 6,000 men.
3. He trapped nearly 200 Texans at the Alamo in San Antonio and in a 13-day siege he killed
all but one. Later a band of 400 American volunteers were butchered.
4. Americans in US remembered cries like “Death to Santa Anna” and “Remember the
Alamo”.
5. Many Americans ran to the aid of the relatives, friends, and compatriots.
6. General Sam Houston’s army went to the East, luring Santa Anna to San Jacinto.
Suddenly on April 21, 1836, Houston turned. The Texans wiped out the pursuing force
and captured Santa Anna. The dictator was forced to sign 2 treaties. In the terms, he
agreed to withdraw Mexican troops and to recognize the Rio Grande as the extreme
southwestern boundary of Texas. When released he said the agreement was illegal
because he was extorted.
7. Under international law, the US Government was obligated to remain neutral in the Texas
situation, but American public opinion nullified existing legislation.
8. Texans wanted not only recognition of independence, but wanted to be in union with US
9. Antislavery crusaders in the North opposed annexation for they believed that the whole
scheme was a conspiracy of the south to bring new slave pens, in Texas, into the Union.
10. In reality, Texas was merely party of the Westward movement. However many
southerners migrated there and there were many Texan slaveholders.
XVII. Log Cabins and Hard Cider of 1840
1. Martin Van Buren was renominated in 1840 by Democrats. The Whigs united behind
William Henry Harrison.
a.) John Tyler of Virginia was his vice-presidential running mate)
13. Hard Cider and Log Cabins were mentioned in a Democratic criticism of Harrison, but the
Whigs adopted them as campaign symbols. In actuality, Harrison lived in a mansion.
14. Harrison won by a close margin of popular votes, but an overwhelming electoral margin.
XVIII. Politics for the People
1. Now, in the 1840s, democracy was respectable while aristocracy was the taint.
Candidates that appeared too clean, too well dressed, too grammatical, too intellectual
now had the handicap.
 a.) Daniel Webster even publicly apologized in 1840 for not being born in a humble
place.
15. However, most offices were still held by “leading citizens” though they had to represent
the common man to win elections.
XIX. The Two-Party System
1. The Jeffersonians of the past had absorbed so many programs of their Federalist
opponents that a full party system had never emerged.
2. But in 1840, two national parties the Democrats and Whigs were defined.
a.)Both parties had grown out of the soil of Jeffersonian republicanism, and each laid
claim to different aspects of it.
3. Jacksonian Democrats glorified freedom of the individual and were on guard against
“privilege” into government.
a.)They hung to states’ rights and federal restraint in social and economic affairs as
their basic doctrines.
4. Whigs trumpeted the national harmony of society and the community, using government
to realize objectives.
a.)They favored a renewed national bank, protective tariffs, internal improvements,
public schools, and moral reforms.
5. Parties still had much in common. Both were “catchall” parties that tried to mobilize as
many voters as possible for their cause. Although Democrats were more humble and
Whigs more prosperous, both parties commanded the support of all kinds of Americans.
6. The Social diversity in each party prevented each party from assuming extreme or radical
positions. The geographical diversity of the 2 parties halted the emergence of purely
sectional political parties. This temporarily suppressed, through compromise, the
ultimately uncompromisable issue of slavery.
7. When the 2-party system began to open in the 1850s, the Union was put into danger.
 Chapter 14 Notes
Forging the National Economy

I. The Westward Movement

1. The rise of Andrew Jackson, the first president from beyond the Appalachian Mountains,
exemplified the westward march of the American people
2. By the eve of the Civil War, the demographic center of the American population had
crossed the Ohio River
3. Frontier life was trough and crude- required them to call upon neighbors for help and upon
the government for internal improvements
II. Shaping the Western Landscape
1. Traders virtually annihilated the beaver populations and bison populations and other
animals.
2. America revered also revered nature’s beauty and that attitude toward wilderness inspired
literature and painting, and later a powerful conservation movement
3. George Catlin came up with idea to create a national park system
III. The March of the Millions
1. The population was doubling approximately every 25 years
2. Overrapid urbanization brought about urban problems with sanitation
a) NY in 1842 pioneered a sewer system
3. Immigration quadrupled in the 1850s
IV. The Emerald Isle Moves West
1. Ireland in the mid-1840s experienced a potato famine, many Irish fled to America
2. They were poor and “received no red-carpet treatment”
a) they were hated by native workers and resented blacks who shared their
place in society
3. Irish became involved with politics and American politicians cultivated the Irish vote
V. The German Forty-Eighters
1. Germans came to America saddened by collapse of democratic revolutions and crop
failures in their fatherland
a) they were liberal
2. They did much to stimulate art and music and as outspoken champions of freedom, they
became relentless enemies of slavery during years before the Civil War
VI. Flare-ups of Antiforeignism
1. the “native” stock of Americans were hostile against the Irish and some Germans who
brought along with them Roman Catholic beliefs
2. “Nativists” agitated for rigid restrictions on immigration and naturalization and for laws
authorizing the deportation of alien paupers.
3. There was occasional mass violence
4. Immigrants made America a more pluralistic society
a) immigrants and the American economy needed each other
VII. The march of Mechanization
1. The factory system, which originated in Britain, gradually spread to the US
2. It spread so slowly because labor was scarce and so were consumers.
3. American factories were no competition towards the British factories
VIII. Whitney Ends the Fiber Famine
1. Samuel Slater put into operation the first efficient American machinery for spinning cotton
thread
2. Within ten days Eli built a crude machine called the cotton gin
3. Slavery was dying out but the invention of the gin called for more labor
4. South became known for producing cotton and North became industrial center.
IX. Marvels in Manufacturing
1. Factories spread quickly until 1807 when the embargo relating to the War of 1812 started.
a. “War America” became a popular slogan as the government promoted using
American things in order to cripple British exports
2. Interchangeable parts adopted by 1850 which became the basis of modern mass
production.
3. New inventions popped up at this time, such as the cotton gin, Eli Whitney, the sewing
machine, Elias Howe, the telegraph, Samuel Morse.
b. Telegraph was a huge advancement in communication, helped troops in the Civil
war.

X. Workers and “Wage Slaves”

1. Industrial revolution took away personal, home run business, became impersonal giant
factories.
2. In 1820 half of the nation’s industry workers were under the age of ten.
b. These children were mentally blighted, emotionally starved, physically stunted and
even brutally whipped.
3. Strongest weapon of day laborers was strike.
4. Trade unions helped workers find work, get better conditions and organized strikes.

XI. Women and the Economy

1. Women on farms and in homes spun and sold cloth, but giant textile mills displaced these
workers, often employing them as well. “Factory” girls worked six days a week for twelve to
thirteen hours in horrible conditions.
2. Although some women had jobs, factory jobs were still unusual and women’s chances to
economically support themselves was still odd.
3. The vast majority of working women were single, unmarried.
4. Women started to gain in society as the fertility rate dropped and women employment rose
during the industrial revolution.

XII. Western Farmers Reap a Revolution in the Fields

1. Corn was the major Midwest crop and Cincinnati slaughtered so many pigs that it became
known as Porkopolis
2. John Deere produced a steel plow to make sowing fields and cutting top soil easier.
3. The most important farming invention was by Cyrus McCormick when he invented the
mechanical mower-reaper.
4. Farmers wanted to expand, but they were land locked.

XII. “Clinton’s Big Ditch” in New York

1. Canals became a giant for of transportation as did steamboats and turnpikes.
2. Canals connected the great lakes and made cargo transportation easier.
 3. Canals dropped the price of transporting a ton of grain from Buffalo to New York City fell
from 100 to 5 dollars.
XIII. The Iron Horse
1. The most significant advancement and contribution to the economy of the 1800s was the
railroad.
2. Pullman rail cars made travel comfortable and improved brakes made riding safer and
more efficient as conductors would not miss stations as frequently.

XIV. Cables, Clippers, and Pony Riders

1. Cyrus field stretched a cable from Newfoundland to Iceland, connecting the American and
European continents.
2. Clippers ships, streamlined and very fast, run by sails, they sacrificed room for speed.
3. Pony express speedily delivered mail across two thousand miles of land to deliver mail.
Horse drawn coaches were also large at this time.
4. As did the clipper ships, both these enterprises fell to technology.

XV. The Market Revolution

1. It transformed a subsistence economy of scattered farms and tiny workshops into a
national network of industry and commerce.
2. Although factories brought prosperity to all social classes, it widened the gap between the
rich and the poor.
3. Wages of unskilled workers raised one percent between 1820 and 1860.
 Chapter15
The Ferment of Reform and Culture
I. Reviving Religion
A. 3/4 of Americans attended church in 1850
B. Thomas Paine's book The Age of Reason declared that all churches were "set up to terrify
and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit"
1. Promoted Deism
C. Deism
1. Relied on reason rather than revelation, science rather than the bible
2. Rejected the concept of original sin and denied Christ's divinity
3. Believed in a Supreme Being who created a knowable universe
4. Inspired unitarian faith
D. Unitarians
1. God existed in only one person and not in the orthodox Trinity
2. Essential goodness of human nature- choice of free will and possibility of salvation
through good works
E. The Second Great Awakening
1. 1800
2. "Camp meetings"- starved souls "got religion" for a few days
3. Humanitarian reform- prison reform, temperance cause, women's movement, and
crusade to abolish slavery
4. Methodists and Baptists
a). Attracted most of the people of the revivalism
b) Stressed personal conversion, a relatively democratic control of church
affairs, and emotionalism
5. Revival preachers
a). Peter Cartwright- Methodist circuit rider, a traveling frontier preacher,
calling upon sinners to repent

b). Charles Grandison Finney- greatest revival preacher. Devised the "anxious
bench" where repentant sinners could sit in full view of the congregation, encouraged
women to pray aloud, and denounced both alcohol and slavery
6. Feminization of religion
a) middle class women enthusiastic or religious revivalism and made up the
majority of new church members
II. Denominational Diversity
A. Western New York was so blistered by sermonizers preaching "hellfire and damnation"
that it became known as the "Burned-Over
B. Millerites (Adventists)
1. Rose from the Burned-Over region in the 1830s
2. Named after William Miller
3. Interpreted the Bible to mean that Christ would return to Earth on October 22, 1844,
but when Jesus did not descend, their movement was dampened, however, not destroyed
C. Diversity
1. Methodists and Baptists split with northern brethren over slaves
2. 1857- the Presbyterians, North and South, parted company
III. A Desert Zion in Utah
A. Mormons
1. Joseph Smith constituted the Book of Mormon, and the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints was launched
2. Disliked because voted as a unit, drilled their militia for defensive purposes, and
were accused of polygamy
3. Moved from Ohio, to Missouri, and then Illinois
4. 1844- Smith and his brother were murdered by a mob
5. Brigham Young stepped up as the Mormon leader and led them to Utah
6. Utah flourished as men married as many as 27 women and had up to 56 children
7. After Young was made territorial governor, a federal army marched against the
Mormons in 1857- quarrel adjusted without too much bloodshed
IV. Free Schools for a Free People
A. Tax-supported public education, though lagging in the South, triumphed between 1825 and
1850
1. Laborers demanded education for their children
B. Schools
1. Teachers, most men, were often ill trained, ill tempered, and ill paid.
2. Usually only taught as much as the three R's: readin', ‘ritin', and ‘rithmetic
C. Horace Mann
1. Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
2. Campaigned for more and better schoolhouses, longer school terms, higher pay for
teachers, and an expanded curriculum

D. However, education remained an expensive luxury for many communities

Noah Webster
1. Known as "Schoolmaster of the Republic"
2. Improved textbooks designed to promote patriotism
3. Devoted twenty years to his famous dictionary
E. William H. McGuffey
1. Teacher-preacher
2. McGuffey's Readers- lessons in morality, patriotism, and idealism
V. Higher Goals for Higher Learning
A. Liberal arts colleges arose, narrow curriculum of Latin, Greek, mathematics, and moral
philosophy
B. The first state supported universities sprang up in the south, beginning with North Carolina
in 1795
1. Federal land grants increased the growth
2. University of Virginia- designed by Thomas Jefferson
C. Women
1. Education frowned upon at the beginning of the century- made women unfit for
marriage
2. Women's schools at the secondary level began to attain some respect in the 1820s
a) Emma Willard- established the Troy Female Seminary
b) Oberlin College became co-ed
D. Traveling lecturers carried learning to the masses through lyceum lecture associations.
VI. An Age of Reform
A. Women
1. Reform provided women wiht the opportunity to escape the confines of the home
and enter an arena of public affairs
B. Market Economy
1. Reformers desired to reaffirm traditional values as they plunged into a work
disrupted by the turbulent forces of a market economy
2. People were unaware that they were witnessing the dawn of the industrial era
3. People either ignored factory workers or blamed their problems on bad habits
C. Imrisonment for debtors increased until state legislatures gradually abolished debtors
prisons
D. Criminal Codes
1. The number of capital offenses was reduced, and brutal punishments, such as
whipping, were slowly being eliminated
2. New idea that prisons should reform as well as punish- "reformatories", "houses of
correction", and "penitentiaries
E. Dorothea Dix
1. Afflicted with lung trouble
2. Traveled for eight years damning reports on insanity and asylums from first-hand
observations
3. Her prodding resulted in improved conditions and in a gain for the concept that the
demented were not willfully perverse but mentally ill
F. Agitation for Peace
1. 1828- American Peace Society- declaration of war on war
2. William Ladd- leading spirit
VII. Demon Rum- The "Old Deluder"
A. Drinking Problem
1. Heavy drinking increased in society and caused the decrease in the efficiency of
labor, and an increase of work accidents when drunken people controlled heavy machinery
B. American Temperance Society formed at Boston in 1826
C. T.S. Arthur's melodramatic novel, Ten Nights in a Barrom and What I Saw There
described a once happy village ruined by a tavern
D. Temperance stressed rather than teetolism, the total elimination of intoxicants
E. Neal S. Dow
1. Mayor of Portland, Maine
2. "The Father of Prohibition"- sponsored the Maine Law of 1851
a) prohibited the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor
F. Other Northern states followed Maine's example but within a decade some of the statutes
were repealed or declared unconstitutional
VIII. Women in Revolt
A. Women as the "Submerged Sex"
1.could not vote, hold property, and was beaten by her master 9husband) who she had
to subordinate herself to
B. Women began to avoid marriage and 10% remained spinsters
C. Women were thought to be physically and emotionally wea, while artistic and refined at
the same time
1. They were the keepers of society's conscience and to guide the citizens to be good
and productive
 D. "Cult of Domesticity"
1. The home was a woman's special sphere
2. While some enjoyed this role, others felt that the home was a gilded cage and
yearned to break free
E. Female Reformers
1. Lucretia Mott- a Quaker who was aroused when she and fellow female delegates to
the London antislavery convention of 1840 were not recognized
2. Elizabeth Cady Stanton- insisted of leaving "obey" out of her marriage ceremony,
and further shocked feminists by also advocating for womens suffrage
3. Susan B. Anthony- militant lecturer for women's rights, progressive women began
to be called "Suzy Bs"

4. Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell- firts female graduate of medical college

5. Margaret Fuller- edited journal, The Dial, and took part in the struggle to bring
unity and republican government to Italy
6. Grimke sisters- Sarah and Angelina, championed antislavery
7. Lucy Stone- retained her maiden name after marriage
8. Amelia Bloomer- revolted against the current female attire by wearing semi-
masculine short skirt with Turkish trousers
F. Seneca Falls
1. Fighting feminists met at Seneca Falls, New York for Woman's Rights Convention
in 1848
2. Stanton read a "Declaration of Sentiments" - all men and women created equa

VIV. Wilderness Utopias

A. New Harmony
1. Founded by Robert Owen, a Scottish textile manufacturer
2. Communal society, founded in 1825 in Indiana
3. Attracted radicals, work-shy theorists, and scoundrels
4. Colony failed because of contradiction and confusion
B. Brook Farm
1. Founded by twenty intellectual transcendentalists
2. Massachusetts in 1841
3. 1846-lost a new communal building to a fire shortly after completion
4. Collapsed due to debt
5. Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Blithedale Romance about Brook Farm in 1852
C. Oneida Community
1. Founded in New York in 1848
2. Practiced free love, birth control, and eugenic selection of parents to produce
superior offspring
3. Flourished for more than 30 years
4. artisans made superior steel traps and Oneida Community (silver) Plate
D. Shakers
1. Led by Mother Ann Lee in the 1770s
2. Set up first of about 20 religious communities
3. Prohibited sexual relations and marriage
4. Virtually extinct by 1940
X. The Dawn of Scientific Achievement
A. Practical gadgets
1. Jefferson won a gold medal for a new type of plow
2. Nathaniel Bodwitch wrote on practical navigation
3. Oceanographer Matthew F. Maury wrote on ocean winds and currents.
B. Scientific Advances
1. Benjamin Silliman taught and wrote at Yale for more than 50 years about
chemistry
2. Louis Agassiz served for 25 years at Harvard College as a professor of biology
3. Asa Gray also of Harvard published over 350 books, monographs and papers on
botany
C. Nature Studies
1. John J. Audubon painted wild fowl in their natural habitat
2. Audubon Society for protection of birds was named for him
D. Medicine
1. Still primitive, bleeding remained a common cure
2. Smallpox plagues continued
3. Several thousand lives taken by yellow fever in Philadelphia in 1793
4. Illness was widespread due to poor diets, hurried eating, perspiring and cooling off
too rapidly and ignorance of sanitation
5. Life expectancy was about 40 years for whites, less for blacks
6. Many suffered from rotten teeth, tooth extractions were often performed by
blacksmiths
7. Use of ineffective self-prescribed medicines and fad diets
8. Medicines prescribed by doctors were often harmful
9. Before the use of laughing gas and ether as anesthetics came about in the 1840s,
surgical patients were tied down, given alcohol, and the procedure was done very
quickly
XI. Artistic Achievements
A. Architecture
1. In the first half of the century, American architecture imitated European models
2. A Greek revival came about between 1820 and 1850, Gothic forms, pointed arches
and large windows
3. Thomas Jefferson brought a classical design to his hilltop home in Virginia, and
created the quadrangle of the University of Virginia
B. Painting
1. Suffered from the lack of a wealthy class and absence of leisure
2. Some artists were forced to go to England to succeed
3. Also suffered from Puritan prejudice that art was a sinful waste of time
4. Gilbert Stuart began his painting career in Britain and produced several portraits of
Washington
5. Charles Wilson Peale painted some sixty portraits of Washington
6. John Trumbull recaptured the Revolutionary War in his paintings
7. Hudson River School excelled at human landscapes and romantic mirrorings of
local landscapes
8. Louis Dauguerre perfected the daguerreotype, a crude photograph
C. Music
 1. Began slowly moving away from the idea that all singing should be religious
2. Rhythmic and nostalgic tunes popularized by the whites became popular by mid-
century
3. Special favorites were American minstrel shows, featuring white actors with
blackened faces
4. Stephen C. Foster wrote some of the most famous black songs
XII. The Blossoming of a National Literature
A. Most of American Literature at the time was imported or plagiarized from Britain
B. Writing came in a practical form
1. Political essays, pamphlets, political orations
2. Ben Franklin’s autobiography was one of the only non-religious works to achieve
genuine distinction
C. A wave of nationalism hit after the War of Independence and the War of 1812 which
sparked writing
1. Older seaboard areas no longer had the survival mentality of tree-chopping and
butter-churning so literature could be supported
D. Knickerbocker Group of New York
1. Washington Irving published Knickerbocker’s History of New York in 1809, The
Sketch Book in 1819, included English and American themes, used Dutch-
American tales, later tured to Sapnish locales and biography
2. James Fenimore Cooper wrote The Spy in 1821, adventures like Leatherstocking
Tales and The Last of the Mohicans brought him fame
3. William Cullen Bryant wrote “Thanatopsis” in 1817, he was a Puritan, Editor for
the New York Evening Post
XIII. Trumpeters of Transcendentalism
A. Transcendentalist Ideas
1. Resulted from people trying to free themselves from Puritanism in the 1830s
2. Emerged from German romantic philosophers and religions of Asia
3. Believed that every person has an inner light that can illuminate the highest truth
and put him or her in direct touch with God or the Oversoul
4. Individualism in religion and society, self-reliance, self-discipline, hostility to
authority, exaltation of all humanity whether black or white
B. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)
1. Trained as a Unitarian minister
2. Lyceum lecturer and took a western tour every winter for twenty years
3. Delivered a Phi Beta Kappa address at Harvard in 1937 called “The American
Scholar” that urged writers to throw off tradition and delve into their own souls
4. Hailed as both poet and philosopher
5. His ideals reflected those of an expanding America
6. Critic of slavery and supported Union cause in the Civil War
C. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
1. Emerson’s closest associate
2. Poet, mystic, transcendentalist, and a nonconformist
3. Jailed for a night for refusing to pay his Massachusetts poll tax
4. Well known for Walden: Or Life in the Woods in 1854
5. Encouraged Gandhi to resist British rule in India and inspired the development of
Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolence tactic
D. Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
 1. Bold, brassy and swaggering
2. Famous for Leaves of Grass, a collection of poems in 1855 that caught the
enthusiasm of independent America. It was not popular at first, but later made
Whitman famous in America and Europe
3. Highly romantic, emotional and unconventional
4. Dispensed with titles, stanzas, rhymes and meter
XIV. Glowing Literary Lights
A. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882)
1. Taught modern languages at Harvard
2. He was adopted by the less cultured masses
3. Took many themes from European lit., but some of his most admired poems were
based on American traditions
4. Only American to be honored with a bust in the Poets’ Corner of Westminster
Abbey
B. John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-1892)
1. Quaker, antislavery
2. Less talented writer than Longfellow, more important in social issues
3. Poems cried out against inhumanity, injustice and intolerance
4. Helped arouse a calloused America on the slavery issue, one of the most moving
forces of his generation
C. James Russell Lowell (1819-1891)
1. Succeeded Longfellow at Harvard
2. Poet, essayist, literary critic, editor and diplomat
3. Remembered as a political satirist in his Biglow Papers, especially dealing with
the Mexican War
4. Condemned slavery expansion
D. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894)
1. Taught anatomy at Harvard Medical School
2. Poet, essayist, novelist, lecturer and wit
3. Nonconformist and fascinating conversationalist
E. Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888)
1. Grew up in Massachusetts under the influence of transcendentalism
2. Father, Bronson Alcott was a philosopher
3. Wrote Little Women in 1868
F. Emily Dickinson
1. Also from Massachusetts
2. Lived as a recluse but created her won world through poetry
3. Explored nature, love, death and immortality with deceptively simple poems
4. Refused to publish her works while she was alive, but it was found after her death
and printed
G. William Gilmore Simms (1806-1870)
1. Wrote 82 books
2. Themes deal with southern frontier in colonial days and the South during the
Revolutionary War
3. Neglected by his own section, even though he was married into the socially elite
and a slave owner
4. Most noteworthy literary figure produced by the South before the Civil War
XV. Literary Individualists and Dissenters
A. Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)
1. Eccentric genius from Virginia
2. Orphaned at an early age, cursed with ill health and lost his wife and children to
tuberculosis
3. Poet, short story writer
4. Fascinated by ghostly things
5. More prized by Europeans than Americans
6. Found drunk in a Baltimore gutter and died soon after
B. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804-1864)
1. Memories of his Puritan forbears and father’s tragic death on an ocean voyage
2. Wrote The Scarlet Letter and The Marble Faun
3. Came from Salem, Massachusetts
C. Herman Melville
1. Orphaned and well-educated from New York
2. Went to serve 18 months at sea on a whale ship
3. Lived among cannibals in the South Seas whom he providently escaped from
4. Epic novel Moby Dick was ignored when it was published and Melville died in
obscurity
XVI. Portrayers of the Past
A. George Bancroft (1800-1891)
1. Secretary of the navy
2. Helped Found the Naval Academy at Annapolis in 1845
3. Published a spirited, super-patriotic history of the United States to 1789 in six
volumes
B. William H. Prescott (1796-1859)
1. Published classic accounts of conquest of Mexico and Peru
C. Francis Parkman (1823-1893)
1. Penned a series beginning in 1851 in an epic style
2. Covered the struggle between France and Britain in colonial times for North
America
D. General American Historians
1. Mostly from New England because the Boston area provided libraries and literary
tradition
2. Writers were mostly abolitionists, viewing the South as evil
3. American history was bound to suffer an anti-southern bias for generations to
come
 Chapter 16
The South and the Slave Controversy

I. “Cotton is King!”
A. Cotton Gin
1. Invented by Eli Whitney and introduced in 1793. Because of it, cotton
quickly became the dominant Southern crop. With the increased cotton
cultivation, slave labor was demanded.
2. Northern shippers reaped a portion of the profits. They loaded the bales of
cotton at the Southern ports, transported them to England, sold them, and
bought goods for sale in the U.S.
3. After 1840, cotton accounted for half the value of all American exports. The
South produced more than half the entire world’s supply of cotton. About
75% of Britain’s cotton came from the South.
II. The Planter Aristocracy
A. The gap between rich and poor
1. In 1850, 1,733 families owned more than 100 slaves each. These families
provided political and social leadership for the South. These people enjoyed
a great portion of Southern Wealth.
2. The aristocracy widened the gap between rich and poor. It stressed public
education because the rich planters sent their children to private institutions.
B. Plantation Women
1. The plantation system shaped the lives of Southern women. They
commanded the household staff of mostly female slaves. Virtually none of
the slaveholding women believed in abolition.
III. Slaves of the Slave System
A. “Land Butchery”
1. Cotton was destroying the earth. Quick profits led to “land butchery” which
caused a heavy leakage of population to the West and Northwest.
B. Economy in the South
1. The economy of the South was becoming more and more monopolistic.
Small farmers sold their land to more prosperous neighbors. The rich got
richer and the poor got poorer.
2. The plantation system suffered from financial instability. Many planters felt
the temptation to over speculate in land and slaves.
3. Cotton’s price level was at the mercy of world conditions.
C. North vs. South
1. The North was resented by the South because they were growing at the
South’s expense. The Cotton Kingdom repelled large scale European
immigration (this added to wealth of the North). The South became the most
Anglo-Saxon section of the nation.
IV. The White Majority
A. Slave-owners & Non Slave-owners
1. Only ¼ of white southerners owned slaves or belonged to a slave-owning
family.
2. The smaller slave-owners made up a majority of the masters. They were
generally small farmers who toiled in the fields right next to the slaves.
 3. Beneath the slave-owners were the whites who didn’t own any slaves. By
1860 they represented ¾ of all Southern whites. They were red-necked
farmers who raised corn and hogs in the backcountry and the mountain
valleys. They were even scorned by blacks. Many of these farmers suffered
from malnutrition and parasites. Were among the stoutest defenders of the
slave system.
4. The mountain whites were more or less isolated in the valleys of the
Appalachian range. They still lived under Spartan frontier conditions, and
kept some habits that had died out it Britain. They helped cripple the
confederacy. Andrew Jackson was a mountain white.
V. Free Blacks: Slaves Without Masters
A. Unwelcome blacks in the South
1. By 1860, there were about 250,000 free blacks in the South. Free blacks were
either emancipated mulattoes or blacks who had purchased their freedom.
2. The free blacks could only do certain jobs and they weren’t allowed to testify
against whites in court. They were constantly at risk of being taken back into
slavery.
B. Unwelcome blacks in the North
1. Free blacks were even more unwelcome in the North. About 250,000 of them
lived there. They were prohibited from entering some states, most of them
could not vote, and some states forbade blacks from going to public schools.
2. They were hated especially by Irish immigrants because they competed for
the same jobs.
C. Frederick Douglass
1. He was an abolitionist, former slave, and self-educated orator. He was often
mobbed and beaten by Northerners.
VI. Plantation Slavery
A. Slave importation is banned
1. Legal importation of African slaves into America was ended in 1808 by
Congress. Despite this, thousands of blacks were smuggled into the South.
There was a death penalty for slave traders but most were acquitted. N.P.
Gordon was the only slave trader ever executed (New York, 1862).
B. Slaves are investments
1. Slaves were regarded as investments. Since they were so valuable, they were
often spared dangerous work, like putting a roof on a house. A prime field
hand was worth $1,800 by 1860. Great planters profited from slavery, but the
region as a whole did not.
C. Slaves in the Deep South
1. By 1860, the Deep South states: South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi,
Alabama, and Louisiana each had a near majority of blacks, and accounted
for about half of all slaves in the South.
2. Thousands of blacks from the slave states were “sold down the river” to
work as field-gang laborers on the cotton frontier of the lower Mississippi
River valley. Women who bore thirteen babies were good breeders, and
some were promised their freedom after ten babies.
3. Slave auctions were brutal. They were sometimes sold with livestock and
families were separated. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
focused on these auctions.
VII. Life Under the Lash
A. Slave Rights and Treatment
1. Slaves had no civil or political rights except for protection from arbitrary
murder and unusually cruel punishment. Their marriages were not
recognized.
2. Whips were frequently used on slaves. Breakers were used on strong-willed
slaves. Their technique consisted mostly in lavish whipping. (lash marks hurt
resale values)
B. The Black Belt
1. Most slaves were in the black belt by 1860. It stretched from South Carolina
and Georgia into Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Life there was rough
and raw. The lot of the slave was harder here than in other areas.
C. Slaves and Religion
1. Blacks in slavery molded their own distinctive religious forms from
Christian and African elements. They persisted in the “responsorial” style of
preaching-the congregation frequently punctuates the minister’s remarks
with assents and amens.
VIII. The Burdens of Bondage
A. Revenge on the masters
1. Slaves slowed the pace of their work intentionally, stole goods that had been
purchased by their labor, sabotaged expensive equipment, and sometimes
poisoned their master’s food.
B. Slave revolts
1. 1800- a slave named Gabriel in Richmond, Virginia led an armed
insurrection. It was foiled by informers and its leaders were hanged.
2. A free black named Denmark Vesey led a rebellion in Charleston in 1822. It
was also foiled by informers, and Vesey (plus 30 other followers) was
publicly hanged.
3. Nat Turner, a black preacher, led an uprising in 1831. They slaughtered
about 60 Virginians, mostly women and children. Reprisals were swift and
bloody. The counterstrike was swift.
4. White Southerners lived in a state of imagined siege, surrounded by
potentially rebellious blacks.
IX. Early Abolitionism
A. Efforts made
1. Abolitionists wanted to transfer blacks back to Africa. The American
Colonization Society was founded for this in 1917.
2. 1822- The Republic of Liberia was established for former slaves. The capital,
Monrovia, was named after President Monroe. 15,000 free blacks were
transported there over the next 40yrs.
3. 1833- British abolitionists freed slaves in the West Indies. American
abolitionists were inspired by this.
4. Theodore Dwight Weld- merchant brothers, Arthur and Lewis Tappan,
financed Weld’s trip to Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Weld and many others were expelled in 1834 for organizing a debate on
slavery. He and the “Lane rebels” went across the old northwest, preaching
against slavery. Weld put a propaganda pamphlet together called American
Slavery As It Is in 1839.
X. Radical Abolitionism
A. William Lloyd Garrison
1. an abolitionist who on New Year’s Day 1831, published the antislavery
newspaper the Liberator in Boston. With this, Garrison triggered a 30yr. war
of words.
B. The American Anti- Slavery Society
1. Founded by abolitionists after Garrison put out his newspaper. Among them
was Wendell Phillips, a Boston patrician. He would not eat cane sugar or
wear cotton clothing because they were produced by slaves.
C. David Walker
1. Wrote the Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829. This
advocated a bloody end to white supremacy.
D. Sojourner Truth
1. A freed black woman in New York who fought for black emancipation and
women’s rights.
E. Martin Delaney
1. One of the few black leaders to take the notion of mass recolonization of
Africa seriously. In 1859, he visited West Africa’s Niger Valley looking for a
site for relocation.
F. Frederick Douglass
1. he escaped from slavery in 1838, and was discovered by the abolitionists in
1841.
2. In 1845 he published his autobiography, narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass.
XI. The South Lashes Back
A. Virginia legislature debates
1. 1831-1832 the Virginia legislature debated and defeated various
emancipation proposals.
2. After this, all the slave states tightened their slave codes and moved to
prohibit emancipation.
B. Nullification crisis
1. 1832- put fear in the minds of white southerners. They responded by
launching a defense of slavery as a positive defense. They said it was
supported by the bible.
C. Gag resolution
1. 1836- driven through by the south. It required that all antislavery appeals be
tabled without debate. Ex-president John Quincy Adams waged a successful
8 yr. fight for its repeal.
D. Pro slavery
1. In 1835, a mob in Charleston, South Carolina burned a pile of abolitionist
propaganda in a post office. In response to this, the Washington government
ordered that all southern postmasters destroy all abolitionist material.
XII. The Abolitionist Impact in the North
A. The South
1. By the late 1850s, the southern planters owed northern bankers and other
creditors about $300 million.
2. Since the nation’s wealth depended on the slaves and their producing cotton,
the North developed hostilities against the radical antislaveryites.
B. The North
1. In 1834, a gang of men broke into Lewis Tappan’s house in New York and
destroyed his interior.
2. In 1835, Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston by the
Broadcloth Mob, but escaped.
3. Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy of Alton, Illinois impugned the chastity of
Catholic women. His printing press was destroyed 4 times. In 1837, he was
killed by a mob. He was then called “the martyr abolitionist.”