History of USA Pre-Civil War Era (1815–1850) Brief Overview People & Qs
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Brief Overview
The Era of Good Feelings
Americans came out of the War of 1812 with a new sense of national pride. Though the war was largely a stalemate, the astonishing American victory at the Battle of New Orleans made the nation feel as though it had won a second war for independence.
The election of James Monroe to the presidency in 1816 marked the beginning of a period of one-party rule, often termed the Era of Good Feelings. The new sense of pride broke down old political barriers and united Americans behind the common goal of improving the nation. In fact, the nation was so unified that Monroe ran uncontested for a second term in 1820.
The American System
Politicians rallied behind Speaker of the House Henry Clay and his American System to improve the national infrastructure. Clay wanted to make internal improvements to national transportation to link the agricultural West with the industrial North. Dozens of new canals and roads were built at the government’s expense, such as the Erie Canal and the Cumberland Road. Clay also pushed the Tariff of 1816through Congress to protect new manufacturers by raising the tax on goods produced abroad. Finally, Clay hoped to bolster the national economy by establishing a new Bank of the United States.
Landmark Decisions and Doctrines
The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, made several landmark decisions during this period, including McCulloch v. Maryland, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Cohens v. Virginia, Gibbons v. Ogden, and Fletcher v. Peck. An ardent Federalist, Marshall issued decisions that strengthened the Court and the federal government relative to the states.
Meanwhile, President Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams issued the Monroe Doctrine in 1823, warning European powers to stay out of affairs in the western hemisphere. Like the early Supreme Court decisions, the Monroe Doctrine has had a large and lasting influence on American policy.
The Missouri Compromise
The Era of Good Feelings was short-lived. First, the Panic of 1819shook the U.S. economy and caused a brief depression toward the end of Monroe’s first term. Then, the Missouri crisis of 1819–1820 arose when Missouri applied for admission to the Union as a slave state. Northerners in the House rejected Missouri’s application because they wanted to maintain a balance between free and slave states in the Senate. They also passed the Tallmadge Amendment in 1819, stopping any more slaves from entering Missouri and gradually emancipating those already living there. Southerners were outraged by these developments.
Under Henry Clay’s Missouri Compromise, northerners and southerners agreed to admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. The compromise also stipulated that slavery could not expand north of the 36° 30' parallel.
The Corrupt Bargain
By the election of 1824, the good feelings had vanished completely. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams ran against War of 1812 hero Andrew Jackson, but neither candidate won enough electoral votes to become president, so the vote went to the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, who hated Jackson, threw his support behind Adams. Adams won and promptly made Clay his new secretary of state, enraging many Americans, who cried out against this “corrupt bargain.” Adams’s reputation was so damaged that his hands were pretty much tied during his entire term in office.
Jacksonian Democracy
Jackson bounced back and was elected president in 1828. He immediately exploited the spoils system by surrounding himself with political supporters and yes-men. “Old Hickory,” as his troops had called him, was a new kind of president in a new American age. As more and more white males received the right to vote during the 1830s and 1840s, aristocracy and privilege came to be seen as undemocratic and anti-American. Although Jackson himself was fairly well-to-do by the time he took office, he had come from a poor family. Westerners and southerners loved him for his seemingly rugged individuality and strength. Northerners, on the other hand, feared him and his democratic “rabble.”
The Nullification Crisis
Jackson’s two terms were full of political crises, the first of which was the Nullification Crisis over the Tariff of 1828. The tariff, which had been passed near the end of Adams’s presidency, heavily taxed all foreign goods. Northern manufacturers loved this protection, but southerners hated it because they traded heavily with Britain.
Vice President John C. Calhoun secretly wrote a pamphlet called the “South Carolina Exposition and Protest” that urged southern state legislatures to nullify what he called the “Tariff of Abominations.” The South Carolina legislature followed his advice in 1832, making Jackson so angry that he threatened to send troops to the state to collect the taxes forcibly. Civil war was barely averted, thanks to Henry Clay, who proposed the Compromise Tariff of 1833as a middle road.
Indian Removal
A renowned Indian fighter during his military years, Jackson continued to persecute Native Americans during his presidency. In 1830, the Indian Removal Act authorized the army to relocate, by force, any Native Americans living east of the Mississippi River. The act violated an earlier Supreme Court decision that recognized Indian lands, but Jackson didn’t care. More than 100,000 Native Americans were moved to present-day Oklahoma and Nebraska, and thousands died on the difficult journey that became known as the Trail of Tears.
Jackson’s Bank War
Jackson also caused a stir with his Bank War against the Bank of the United States. Because the Bank was a private institution funded by a small group of wealthy speculators, Jackson believed it was undemocratic. He vetoed the bill to renew the Bank’s charter and then effectively killed the Bank by refusing to put any more federal money in it, depositing the money in smaller banks instead. This action sent the national economy into a depression after the Panic of 1837. It also united Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and other Jackson-haters, which in turn led to the creation of the Whig Party.
Van Buren and Depression
Jackson’s Democratic successor, Martin Van Buren, had an even rockier time. Although Jackson had tried to nip the depression in the bud with the Specie Circular law, it only made matters worse. Without a strong central bank to provide stability, hundreds of smaller “wildcat banks” went out of business.
Blamed for a depression that was not his fault, Van Buren lost the election of 1840 to Whig war hero William Henry Harrison. However, the relatively unknown Vice President John Tyler became president after Harrison died only a month into his term.
John Tyler and the Whigs
Whig leaders Henry Clay and Daniel Webster initially rejoiced when Harrison was elected, for he shared their support of higher tariffs, internal improvements, and a revived Bank of the United States. To their surprise, though, Tyler ruined all their plans.
Tyler, a former Democrat, had become a Whig because he personally disliked Jackson, not because he believed in the Whig platform. Tyler did pass the slightly higher Tariff of 1842 but refused to fund internal improvements or bring back the Bank of the United States. Whigs, outraged by his betrayal, expelled him from the party.
Nonetheless, Tyler had a productive term. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842 established a permanent eastern border with Canada and cooled tensions with Britain. During his final days as president, Tyler also pushed through congressional measures to annex Texas.
Texas
Texas caused controversy from the day it declared independence from Mexico in 1836. Southerners badly wanted Texas to become a new slave state in the Union, for they believed that westward expansion of slavery was vital to their socioeconomic system. Northern Whigs, however, didn’t want slavery to spread any further than it already had, so they blocked the annexation of Texas in 1836.
The Abolitionist Movement
This debate over slavery was the most divisive issue of the era. While southerners spoke loudly in support of slavery, the abolitionist movement grew from a small faction in the 1820s to a powerful social and political movement by the 1840s and 1850s. Though the abolitionists opposed slavery, they by no means advocated racial equality—most of them wanted only gradual emancipation or even resettlement of blacks in Africa. At the time, only radical abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison demanded immediate emancipation of all slaves.
Social Reform and Religious Revivalism
At the same time, some progressive northerners—many of them women—started social reform movements against prostitution, alcohol, and mistreatment of prisoners and the mentally disabled. Others tried to expand women’s rights and improve education. Many of these movements were successful in convincing state legislatures to enact new legislation.
Linked to these reform movements was a new wave of religious revivalism that spread across America at the time. Many new religious denominations flourished, including the Methodists, Baptists, Shakers, Mormons, and Millerites, among others. In general, women were especially involved in these new denominations.
The Market Revolution
At the same time that these social transformations were taking place, the U.S. economy was evolving into a market economy. New inventions and infrastructure made it much easier to transport goods around the country.
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and system of interchangeable parts revitalized the South, West, and North. Cotton production became a more efficient and lucrative business, so southern planters brought in more slaves to work their fields. Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical mower-reaper revolutionized wheat production in the West, enabling farmers to send surplus crops to northern industrial cities.
Immigration
Immigration and wage labor, meanwhile, completely transformed the North. The potato famine in Ireland and failed democratic revolutions in Germany sent several million Irish and German immigrants to the North in the 1840s and 1850s. Many found work as wage laborers in the new factories.
Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War
Within the United States, people were itching to move further west. Land-hungry westerners and southerners in particular wanted more land on which to farm and plant cotton. Inspired by revivalism, many Americans began to believe that it was their “manifest destiny” from God to push westward across the continent. Politicians were encouraged to acquire more and more land.
Westward expansion was particularly important to James K. Polk, who was elected president in 1844. During his four years in office, Polk acquired all of the Oregon Territory south of the 49th parallel. With his eye on California (then a Mexican territory), he provoked the Mexican War, which the United States won handily. Under the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the war in 1848, Mexico gave up Texas, California, and everything in between.
Key People
John Quincy Adams
Son of President John Adams and the sixth U.S. president. As James Monroe’s secretary of state, John Quincy Adams helped secure the Treaty of 1818with Britain and was influential in formulating the Monroe Doctrine. In the 1824 presidential election, Adams ran against Andrew Jackson, but neither candidate received enough electoral votes to become president, so the election went to the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Henry Clay supported Adams, possibly in exchange for the position of secretary of state. This “corrupt bargain” tainted Adams’s presidency from the start and left him politically impotent during his term.
Susan B. Anthony
An ardent women’s rights activist from the 1840s to the end of the century. “Suzy B.” spoke out tirelessly against racial and gender inequality and also supported the temperance movement.
Nicholas Biddle
President of the Bank of the United States during the 1820s and 1830s. Biddle exerted significant influence over the American economy through his position. Andrew Jackson, however, despised Biddle and the wealthy whom he represented and eventually destroyed the Bank by withholding all federal deposits.
John C. Calhoun
Vice president to both John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, who also led the movement to nullify the 1828Tariff of Abominations. Shortly after Congress passed the tariff, Calhoun wrote an anonymous essay entitled “South Carolina Exposition and Protest” that urged southern legislators to declare the tax null and void in their states. This Nullification Crisis was the greatest challenge the nation had yet faced and illustrated the emerging sectional differences.
Henry Clay
A Kentuckian who served as Speaker of the House of Representatives, secretary of state to John Quincy Adams, and later as a U.S. senator. Clay was the father of the American System, which promoted higher tariffs and internal improvements at the government’s expense. He earned the nickname “Great Pacificator” for devising both the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and the Compromise Tariff of 1833to end the Nullification Crisis. In 1834, Clay and Daniel Webster of New England formed the Whigs, a new progressive political party favoring internal improvements, limited westward expansion, and reform. Although Clay never served as president (he ran and lost three times), historians regard him as one of America’s greatest statesmen.
Dorothea Dix
A schoolteacher from Massachusetts who spearheaded the campaign to establish publicly funded asylums to help the mentally ill. Dix’s report on the state of the mentally disabled in the state’s prisons convinced legislators to build the first asylums. She traveled tens of thousands of miles to promote her cause.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
An American essayist and philosopher who was one of the leading Transcendentalists in the 1830s through 1850s. Emerson’s essays, such as the famous “Self-Reliance,” made him one of the nation’s most popular practical philosophers.
Charles G. Finney
A former lawyer who applied his sharp wit and intellect to preach evangelism throughout the North during the 1830s. Finney’s camp-style meetings put thousands of people into a frenzy during his fifty-year crusade. He encouraged women to lead groups in prayer and railed against the evils of slavery and alcohol.
John Frémont
An American surveyor and explorer who, days after Congress declared war on Mexico in 1846, went about taking control of the territory of California. In January 1847, after only a few minor battles, California surrendered to Frémont. Many accused him of being an agent of President James K. Polk and believed his presence in California to have been more than a coincidence. Frémont later ran unsuccessfully for president in 1856 as the first presidential candidate for the fledgling Republican Party.
William Lloyd Garrison
A radical abolitionist who advocated the immediate emancipation of all slaves in the United States. Garrison’s infamous magazine, The Liberator, earned him many enemies in the South.
William Henry Harrison
A former governor of Indiana Territory and army general who defeated incumbent Martin Van Buren in the presidential election of 1840. Harrison’s election marked the beginning of the era in which the Whigs and Democrats were the two major opposing forces in American politics. Unfortunately, he died after less than a month in office. Harrison was also the grandfather of President Benjamin Harrison, who was elected in 1888.
Andrew Jackson
A hero of the Battle of New Orleans and the Creek War who entered the national political arena when he challenged John Quincy Adams for the presidency in 1824. After a controversial loss, Jackson ran again in 1828 and won. His presidency was plagued by numerous crises, from the Bank War and the Nullification Crisis to forced Native American removal. Jackson’s presidency has become associated with populist democracy, westward expansion, and a strengthened federal government.
Horace Mann
A champion of public education who served as secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education in the 1830s. Mann supervised the creation of many new tax-supported schools and fought for better curriculum, higher pay for teachers, and more teacher qualifications.
John Marshall
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court from 1801–1835. A die-hard Federalist, Marshall generally ruled in favor of the national government over the individual state governments, even after Federalism had died out. His most famous rulings include Cohens v. Virginia, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Fletcher v. Peck, Gibbons v. Ogden, Marbury v. Madison, and McCulloch v. Maryland.
Cyrus McCormick
Inventor of the mechanical mower-reaper, which had an enormous impact on Western agriculture in the 1840s and 1850s. Whereas American farmers had primarily been planting corn, the mower-reaper allowed them to plant wheat, which was a far more profitable crop. As farmers planted more and more wheat, they began to ship their surpluses to manufacturing cities in the North and Northeast.
James Monroe
A Democratic-Republican from Virginia who was elected president in 1816 and inaugurated the Era of Good Feelings. An excellent administrator, Monroe bolstered the federal government and supported internal improvements. The nation was so united under his first term that he ran uncontested in the election of 1820. The good times ended, however, during the Missouri crisis, which effectively split the United States into North and South. Monroe is most famous for his 1823Monroe Doctrine, which warned European powers to stay out of Latin American affairs.
James K. Polk
An expansionist Democrat from Tennessee who was elected president on a manifest destiny platform in 1844. During his four years in office, Polk lowered tariffs, revived the independent treasury, acquired Oregon, and seized California in the Mexican War. Many critics have accused him of provoking war with Mexico simply as an excuse to annex western land.
Joseph Smith
A New Yorker who founded the Mormon church (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) after claiming to have received a new set of gospels from an angel. Smith attracted a large following but was forced to move to the Midwest to escape persecution for the Mormons’ acceptance of polygamy. After he was murdered by a mob, his disciple, Brigham Young, led thousands of Mormons to the Great Salt Lake in Utah. The Mormon Church was one of the more successful new religions to sprout during the wave of revivalism in the first half of the 1800s.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
One of the first American feminists. Stanton joined Susan B. Anthony in the mid-1800s to call for social and political equality for women. She helped organize the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and drafted the convention’s Declaration of Sentiments.
Zachary Taylor
A Mexican War hero who became the second and last Whig president in 1848. In order to avoid controversy over the westward expansion of slavery in the Mexican Cession, Taylor campaigned without a solid platform. He died after only sixteen months in office and was replaced by Millard Fillmore.
John Tyler
A former Democrat who became a Whig and then became president upon the death of William Henry Harrison. Tyler joined the Whigs in the 1830s because he couldn’t stand Democrat Andrew Jackson’s autocratic leadership style. Tyler’s political ideologies never really changed, though, and during his four years in office, he consistently shot down most Whig legislation: he refused to revive the Bank of the United States and disapproved of funding internal improvements with federal money. Outraged, the Whigs kicked him out of the party during his term. In his final days as president, Tyler succeeded in signing the Texas annexation bill into law.
Martin Van Buren
Secretary of state to Andrew Jackson who went on to become the Democratic president in 1836. Van Buren’s term was plagued by a depression that arose after the financial Panic of 1837. Van Buren, believing that the economy had worsened because federal funds were being stored in smaller banks, pushed the Divorce Bill through Congress to create an independent treasury. Van Buren lost by a large margin to William Henry Harrison in the election of 1840 and later ran again, unsuccessfully, as the Free-Soil Party candidate in 1848.
Daniel Webster
A senator from New Hampshire, renowned for his oratory and for his ardent belief in the American System. A leading statesman of his day, Webster allied with Henry Clay in 1834 to form the new Whig Party. As Whigs, he and Clay campaigned for progressive new reforms and attempted to limit westward expansion. Webster also served two stints as secretary of state.
Eli Whitney
Inventor of the cotton gin and the system of interchangeable parts, which dramatically changed the American economy and social fabric. Whitney’s cotton gin (1793) made cotton farming much easier and more profitable for southern planters, who consequently converted most of their fields to cotton fields. This surge in production required more slaves to pick the cotton. Southern cotton and interchangeable parts in turn stimulated the growth of textile manufacturing in the North and the birth of the wage labor system.
Terms
American System
A movement spearheaded by Speaker of the House Henry Clay that called for internal improvements, higher protectionist tariffs, and a strong national banking system. The system’s supporters, including Daniel Webster, succeeded in chartering the Bank of the United States in 1816 and creating both the Tariff of 1816and the steeper Tariff of Abominations in 1828. They also funded the Cumberland Road from Maryland to Missouri and supported the construction of various other roads and canals.
Aroostook War
A small-scale 1838–1839 turf war, fought between American and Canadian woodsmen in northern Maine, that almost erupted into a larger war between Britain and the United States. The Aroostook War convinced both countries that settlement of northern Maine territorial disputes had to be negotiated promptly. The dispute was resolved by the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, negotiated by Secretary of State Daniel Webster and Lord Ashburton of Britain, which established a permanent border between Maine and Canada.
Bank of the United States
A private bank, chartered in 1816 by proponents of Henry Clay’s American System, that provided the fledgling United States with solid credit and financial stability in the 1820s and 1830s under the leadership of Nicholas Biddle. Many in the West and South, however, despised the Bank because they saw it as a symbol for aristocracy and greed. In 1832, Andrew Jackson initiated the Bank War by vetoing a bill to renew the Bank’s charter. He eventually destroyed the Bank in the 1830s by withholding all federal gold and silver deposits and putting them in smaller banks instead. Without any reserves, the Bank withered until its charter expired in 1836. Deprived of stable credit, the blossoming financial sector of the economy crashed in the Panic of 1837.
Bank War
A conflict between Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay over 1832 legislation that was intended to renew the charter of the Bank of the United States. Clay pushed the bill through Congress, hoping it would slim Jackson’s reelection chances: signing the charter would cost Jackson support among southern and western voters who opposed the bank, whereas vetoing the charter would alienate wealthier eastern voters. Jackson vetoed the bill, betting correctly that his supporters in the South and West outnumbered the rich in the East. Upon reelection, Jackson withheld all federal deposits from the Bank, rendering it essentially useless until its charter expired in 1836.
Black Hawk War
A brief 1832 war in Illinois in which the U.S. Army trounced Chief Black Hawk and about 1,000 of his Sauk and Fox followers, who refused to be resettled according to the Indian Removal Act.
Burned-Over District
An area of western New York State that earned its nickname as a result of its especially high concentration of hellfire-and-damnation revivalist preaching in the 1830s. The Burned-Over District was the birthplace of many new faiths, sects, and denominations, including the Mormon church and the Oneida community. Religious zeal also made the area a hotbed for reform movements during the 1840s.
Cohens v. Virginia
An 1821 Supreme Court ruling that set an important precedent reaffirming the Court’s authority to review all decisions made by state courts. When the supreme court of Virginia found the Cohen brothers guilty of illegally selling lottery tickets, the brothers appealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall heard the case and ruled against the family. Though he concurred with the state court’s decision, he nonetheless cemented the Supreme Court’s authority over the state courts. This case was one of many during the early 1800s in which Marshall expanded the Court’s and the federal government’s power.
Compromise Tariff of 1833
A tariff, proposed by Henry Clay, that ended the Nullification Crisis dispute between Andrew Jackson and South Carolina. The compromise tariff repealed the Tariff of Abominations and reduced duties on foreign goods gradually over a decade to the levels set by the Tariff of 1816.
The “Corrupt Bargain”
A scandal that arose during the election of 1824 that tainted John Quincy Adams’s entire term in office. When neither Adams nor his opponent, Andrew Jackson, received enough electoral votes to become president, the election was thrown to the House of Representatives. Speaker of the House Henry Clay, who hated Jackson, threw his support behind Adams, which effectively won him the presidency. When Adams later announced Clay as his new secretary of state, Jackson and the American people cried foul. Adams was accused of having made a “corrupt bargain,” and the political fallout rendered him politically paralyzed during his term.
Cotton Gin
A 1793 invention by Eli Whitney that enabled automatic separation of cotton seeds from raw cotton fiber. The cotton gin made cotton farming much easier and more profitable for southern planters, prompting them not only to increase their cotton output but also to increase their demand for slave labor. Along with Whitney’s other innovation, the use of interchangeable parts, the cotton gin stimulated the growth of textile manufacturing in the North and the birth of the wage labor system.
Cumberland Road
A federally funded road, also known as the National Road, that was completed in 1837 and then expanded several times throughout the antebellum period. When finally completed, the Cumberland Road stretched all the way from Maryland to Illinois. It was a one of the most significant internal improvements made under Henry Clay’s American System.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward
An 1819 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the right of private institutions to hold private contracts. When the New Hampshire state legislature revised Dartmouth College’s original charter from King George III, the college appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that even though the college’s contract predated the Revolutionary War, it was still a legal contract with which the state of New Hampshire could not interfere. This precedent asserted federal authority and protected contracts from state governments.
Declaration of Sentiments
A declaration read at the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention for women’s rights. The Declaration of Sentiments mimicked the Declaration of Independence by stating that “all men and women were created equal.” Written primarily by suffragette Elizabeth Cady Stanton, it is regarded as one of the most important achievements of the early women’s rights movement.
Era of Good Feelings
A nickname given to James Monroe’s early years as president (1816–1819), when the Democratic-Republicans were the only political party and nationalist Americans concentrated on improving America. The Era of Good Feelings dissipated after the crisis over Missouri in 1819 and the Panic of 1819.
Erie Canal
A canal between the New York cities of Albany and Buffalo, completed in 1825. The canal, considered a marvel of the modern world at the time, allowed western farmers to ship surplus crops to sell in the North and allowed northern manufacturers to ship finished goods to sell in the West.
Fletcher v. Peck
An 1810 Supreme Court decision in which the Court ruled that the Georgia state legislature could not cancel a contract that a previous legislature had already granted. The decision by Chief Justice John Marshall protected the permanence of legal contracts and established the Supreme Court’s power to overrule state laws.
Force Bill
An 1833 bill that authorized the federal government to use military force to collect tariff duties. The bill demonstrated Andrew Jackson’s resolve to end the 1832–1833Nullification Crisis in South Carolina.
Gag Resolution
An order that the House of Representatives, beleaguered by the growing abolitionist movement in the North, passed in 1836 to ban further discussion of slavery.
Gibbons v. Ogden
An 1824 Supreme Court ruling that declared that the state of New York could not grant a monopoly to a company engaged in interstate commerce. Chief Justice John Marshall thus exerted federal power by upholding that only the federal government had the right to regulate interstate commerce according to the Constitution.
Independent Treasury Bill
An 1840 bill that created an independent U.S. Treasury. The bill established the independent treasury to hold public funds in reserve and to prevent excessive lending by state banks, thus guarding against inflation. The Independent Treasury Bill was a response to the Panic of 1837, which many blamed on the risky and excessive lending practices of state banks.
Indian Removal Act
An 1830 act, supported by Andrew Jackson, that authorized the U.S. Army to evict by force all Native Americans east of the Mississippi River and resettle them in “permanent” reservations in present-day Oklahoma and Nebraska. Thousands of Native Americans died on the “Trail of Tears” to their new and unwanted home. The Army was forced to fight the Black Hawk War and Second Seminole War after some tribes refused to leave.
Interchangeable Parts
A system, devised by Eli Whitney in 1797, that allowed machines to mass-produce identical goods. This innovation prompted a boom in new factories in the North during the antebellum period.
Internal Improvements
A term referring to infrastructure projects, mostly involving transportation, that were key features of Henry Clay’s American System. Scores of canals and roads were dug to link the East with the West during the period from 1816 to 1852. The most famous of these were the Erie Canal and the Cumberland Road.
Know-Nothing Party
A party, known formally as the American Party, of nativist Americans who wanted to stop the tide of foreign immigrants from Ireland and Germany entering the United States in the 1840s and 1850s. The Know-Nothings nominated former president Millard Fillmore in the 1856 presidential election. Members of the American Party were so secretive that they often claimed to “know nothing” whenever questioned, hence the nickname.
Liberty Party
A northern abolitionist party that formed in 1840 when the abolitionist movement split into a social wing and a political wing. The party nominated James G. Birney in the election of 1844 against Whig Henry Clay and Democrat James K. Polk. Surprisingly, the Liberty Party siphoned just enough votes away from Clay to throw the election to the Democrats.
Maine Law
An 1851 law that prohibited the sale, manufacture, and consumption of alcohol in the state of Maine. The law, a huge victory for the temperance movement, encouraged other states in the North to pass similar prohibitory laws.
Manifest Destiny
A belief, common in the United States in the mid-1800s, that Americans had been “manifestly destined” by God to settle and spread democracy across the continent and perhaps even the entire western hemisphere. To achieve this destiny, thousands left their homes during the 1840s and 1850s and embarked on journeys on the Oregon Trail, on the Mormon Trail to Utah, or to mine for gold in California. Manifest destiny also led many southerners to seek—unsuccessfully—new slave territories in places as far away as Nicaragua and Cuba. Manifest destiny led presidents John Tyler and James K. Polk to annex Texas, acquire Oregon from Britain, and wage the Mexican War to seize California.
McCulloch v. Maryland
An 1819 Supreme Court ruling that upheld the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States. Chief Justice John Marshall, like Alexander Hamilton, was a loose constructionist who believed that the federal government was authorized to create the Bank even though the Constitution said nothing about it. President Andrew Jackson ignored Marshall’s ruling and vetoed a bill to renew the Bank’s charter in 1832 on the grounds that it was unconstitutional.
Mechanical Mower-Reaper
An invention by Cyrus McCormick that had a profound effect on agriculture in the West during the 1840s and 1850s. Most western farmers had been planting corn, but the mower-reaper allowed them to plant wheat, which was far more profitable than corn. As farmers planted more and more wheat, they began to ship their surpluses to manufacturing cities in the North and Northeast.
Missouri Compromise
An 1820 compromise, devised by Henry Clay, to admit Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. The compromise maintained the sectional balance in the Senate—twelve free states and twelve slave states—and forbade slavery north of the 36° 30' parallel. It ended a potentially catastrophic dispute and tabled all further slavery discussions for the next couple of decades.
Monroe Doctrine
An 1823 policy statement, drafted by James Monroe and his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, warning Old World colonial powers to stay out of affairs in the Western Hemisphere. The doctrine stated that the New World was closed to further colonization and that European attempts to interfere would be considered hostile acts against the United States. In return, the United States would not interfere in Europe’s internal affairs or with existing European colonies in the New World. Britain, anxious to preserve a hold on its remaining colonies in North America, helped enforce the doctrine. The Monroe Doctrine has had great influence on American foreign policy over the years.
Nullification Crisis
A crisis over the Tariff of 1828 (Tariff of Abominations), which was enormously unpopular in the South. Andrew Jackson’s supporters pushed the tariff through Congress during John Quincy Adams’s term, but when Jackson took office, his vice president, John C. Calhoun, opposed the tariff vehemently. Calhoun secretly wrote and published an essay called “South Carolina Exposition and Protest” to encourage state legislatures in the South to nullify the tariff. Though Jackson personally disliked the tariff, he refused to allow any state to disobey a federal statute. When South Carolina did nullify the tax in 1832, Jackson threatened to use the military to enforce the law. Fortunately, Henry Clay proposed the Compromise Tariff of 1833to reduce the tariff gradually over a decade.
Panic of 1819
A financial panic, caused in part by overspeculation in western lands, that slid the U.S. economy into a decade-long depression. Farmers in the West and South were hit hardest, but the depression’s effects were felt everywhere. The panic helped bring an end to the Era of Good Feelings.
Panic of 1837
A financial panic caused by the default of many of the smaller “pet banks” that Andrew Jackson had used to deposit federal funds when he withheld them from the Bank of the United States in the 1830s. The crisis was compounded by overspeculation, the failure of Jackson’s Specie Circular (which required that all land be purchased with hard currency), and the lack of available credit due to the banking crisis.
Seminole War
A war fought by the U.S. Army against members of the Seminole tribe in Florida who refused to be resettled west of the Mississippi River in the late 1830s.
Seneca Falls Convention
A convention of early women’s rights activists in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 to launch the American feminist movement. The convention’s Declaration of Sentiments, penned by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was modeled on the Declaration of Independence in its declaration that all men and women were created equal.
“South Carolina Exposition and Protest”
An essay, written anonymously by Vice President John C. Calhoun, that called on the southern states to declare the 1828Tariff of Abominations null and void. The essay encouraged South Carolina legislators to nullify the tariff, pitting the state against President Andrew Jackson in the most serious internal conflict the nation had yet faced. This Nullification Crisis is regarded as one of the stepping stones that eventually led to Civil War.
Spot Resolutions
Resolutions introduced in 1847 by Congressman Abraham Lincoln,who, unconvinced that the Mexican army had attacked U.S. forces unprovoked, demanded to know the exact spot where Mexicans had attacked. Lincoln’s persistence—and the confusing answers that Democrats gave—suggested that General Zachary Taylor, or perhaps even President James K. Polk himself, had provoked the attack and initiated the Mexican War.
Tallmadge Amendment
An 1819 act passed by the northern-dominated House of Representatives in an attempt to curb westward expansion of slavery. The act declared that Missouri could be admitted to the Union as a slave state, but only on the condition that no more slaves enter the territory and that its existing slaves gradually be freed. Outraged southern legislators, who wanted to push slavery westward, blocked the act in the Senate, throwing Congress into a logjam. The crisis eventually was resolved by the Missouri Compromise of 1820.
Tariff of 1816
A tariff, passed under the leadership of Henry Clay, that was designed to protect American manufacturing (prior tariffs had had the sole purpose of raising revenue). Whereas northerners loved the tariff, southerners disliked it, for they had little manufacturing to protect but still had to pay higher prices for foreign goods. The tariff was a key component of the American System.
Tariff of 1832
A slight reduction on the “Tariff of Abominations” that was passed as a gesture of good will to encourage South Carolina to end the Nullification Crisis. Most South Carolinians saw the concessions as minimal at best and declared both the Tariff of Abominations and the Tariff of 1832 null and void out of principle.
Tariff of 1842
A tariff passed by John Tyler that brought duties on foreign manufactured goods down to the level of the Compromise Tariff of 1833.
Tariff of 1846
Tariff of Abominations
A nickname for the Tariff of 1828 that reflected southerners’ enormous objections to the tariff. Vice President John C. Calhoun’s opposition to the tariff and his publication of the “South Carolina Exposition and Protest” pushed the nation into the Nullification Crisis. When South Carolina’s legislature followed Calhoun’s advice and declared the tariff null and void in their state, President Andrew Jackson threatened to use the military to enforce the tariff. Fortunately, Henry Clay proposed the Compromise Tariff of 1833, which settled the dispute.
Trail of Tears
The route by which thousands of Native Americans, primarily Cherokee, were forcibly removed in the 1830s from their southeastern homelands and relocated to new reservations west of the Mississippi. This program of relocation was initiated under Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act. The journey has been labeled the “Trail of Tears” because countless Native Americans, forced to walk hundreds miles under horrible conditions, died along the way.
Transcendentalism
An American philosophical and intellectual movement of the 1830s–1850s whose followers believed that truth “transcended” the reality perceivable by the five senses. Transcendentalism originated in New England and was especially strong in eastern Massachusetts, where Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau lived. The movement emphasized individuality and strength of character, and most of its members were reformers, abolitionists, and Whigs.
Treaty of 1818
A treaty between the United States and Britain that established a fixed border with Canada from Minnesota to the Rocky Mountains. The treaty also declared that both countries would occupy the Oregon Territory jointly until 1828. Though not highly regarded at the time, the treaty is considered one of John Quincy Adams’s most important achievements as secretary of state to James Monroe.
Universal Manhood Suffrage
The extension of voting rights to nearly every white American male during the antebellum period. In the early United States, men had had to meet certain property-ownership and literacy qualifications in order to vote, but during the 1830s and 1840s, more and more states eliminated these restrictions. As more men in the poorer classes were able to vote, the Democrats received a huge boost in popularity.
Walker Tariff
An 1846 tariff that lowered tariff rates, which had climbed higher and higher after their brief reduction in 1842.
Webster-Ashburton Treaty
An 1842 treaty between the United States and Britain that established a permanent border between Maine and Canada after the Aroostook War.
Whigs
A party formed in 1834 under the leadership of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. The Whigs, named after an anti-British party during the Revolutionary War era, promoted a platform of social reform (education, prison, temperance, and so on), abolition of slavery, and limited westward expansion. Several Whig candidates ran and lost against Martin Van Buren in the election of 1836, but the party rebounded four years later when they put William Henry Harrison in the White House.
Wildcat Banks
Fly-by-night banking operations that plagued the West and South during the 1800s. The wildcat banks were highly unstable because they were impermanent, printed their own unregulated paper money, and had almost no solid credit. Whenever there was a financial panic, as in 1819 and 1837, many of these banks went bankrupt.
Study Questions
How did the Market Revolution affect the United States socially, politically, and economically? What major developments contributed to the Market Revolution?
The Market Revolution brought enormous changes to the United States, economically, socially, and politically, and in so doing pushed the North and the South further apart. The most important drivers of the Market Revolution were Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and interchangeable parts, Silas McCormick’s mower-reaper, and textile factories. Internal improvements such as canals and railroads were also crucial to the Revolution.
Whitney’s cotton gin completely transformed agriculture and thus had drastic effects on the American economy and society, both North and South. The invention, which made it much easier to harvest cotton, turned cotton into a highly profitable crop, which prompted southern plantation owners to abandon almost all other crops and switch to cotton production. To expand their cotton production capacity, planters purchased thousands of additional slaves from Africa and the West Indies before the slave trade was banned in 1808. In addition, the size of plantations increased from relatively small plots to huge farms with as many as several hundred slaves each.
In response to this increasing cotton production, textile factories were built in the Mid-Atlantic states and New England. These factories helped give rise to the wage labor system and urbanization. The development of factories also produced a larger, wealthier merchant class—a group that helped lead the formation of the nationalistic Whig party, which was an important force in U.S. politics of the period.
McCormick’s mower-reaper, meanwhile, revolutionized the West just as the cotton gin had revolutionized the South. McCormick’s machine increased wheat production so much that farmers began to ship their surplus to the North. The North, in turn, shipped manufactured goods that helped develop the West.
Over time, these economic, social, and political changes began to separate North and South. While the North became an industrialized, highly interconnected region that traded vigorously with the West, the South was left out and became more and more reliant on cotton and slaves. Southern politicians therefore sought to protect the slavery that was so important to their economy, contributing to the growing sectional divide that led to the Civil War.
Many of Andrew Jackson’s enemies called him an autocrat because of his leadership style. What effect did Jackson have on the office of the presidency? Did he ever act unconstitutionally? Was this accusation deserved?
During his two terms, Jackson significantly increased the power of the presidency and of the federal government as a whole. He did so primarily by using the presidential veto, repeatedly ignoring the Supreme Court, and asserting federal authority over the states. As a result, Jackson’s enemies were somewhat justified in calling him an autocrat.
Jackson not only used the veto more than any previous president ever had, he also wielded veto power in an entirely different way from previous presidents. Jackson’s actions regarding the Bank of the United States provide one example. Even though the Supreme Court had declared the Bank constitutional in McCulloch v. Maryland, Jackson vetoed the act to renew the Bank’s charter. Regardless of the Supreme Court’s decision, Jackson believed that the Bank was harmful to the nation. No previous president had exercised veto power based merely on personal belief.
The Bank of the United States example also illustrates Jackson’s disregard for Supreme Court decisions. Jackson believed that the executive should be the strongest of the three branches, stronger than either the Supreme Court or Congress. He acted on this belief again when he signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830. Even though the Supreme Court had upheld Native American land rights in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, Jackson ordered the forcible removal of several Native American tribes on the Trail of Tears.
Finally, Jackson believed firmly that the federal government had supremacy over the individual states. When South Carolina nullified the 1828 Tariff of Abomination, Jackson was horrified at such outright disregard for federal authority. In retaliation, he organized troops loyal to the federal government to enforce tax collection in South Carolina. Many historians believe that had Henry Clay not proposed the Compromise Tariff of 1833, the Civil War might have started thirty years earlier, during this Nullification Crisis.
With his assertion of federal authority and liberal use of power, Jackson permanently changed the office of the presidency. As a result, his successors were able to wield much more power over the Supreme Court, Congress, and the states. Jackson did act autocratically at times, but without him, the presidency would not be what it is today.
Do you believe that Polk was justified in asking Congress to declare war on Mexico?
Although Mexico and the United States were already on a collision course over Texas by the time of the Mexican War, evidence suggests that President Polk engineered the war by provoking Mexican troops in disputed territory in Texas. He essentially started a war with Mexico in order to seize California, end the debate for Texas, and win all the western land in between.
Mexico and the United States certainly both had reasons to go to war even before the incident in Texas. First, Mexico had defaulted on U.S. loans valued at several million dollars. Second, both countries had claims on Texas. Despite the fact that white Texans had won their independence and had petitioned the Congress for annexation as early as 1836, Mexico still considered the Lone Star Republic a territory in revolt. Although Mexico twice failed to retake Texas, it believed it would succeed one day.
By the time the United States did annex Texas in 1845, Mexico’s claims—at least in the eyes of Americans—had expired. The United States therefore took all of Texas down to the Río Grande. This action started another controversy, for Mexico claimed that the southern border of Texas was farther north, at the Nueces River. Polk therefore stationed General Zachary Taylor and a small force at the Nueces. When news arrived in Washington, D.C., that Taylor’s troops had been attacked, Polk acted swiftly and asked Congress to declare war.
Just days after the declaration, Polk’s agents and a U.S. Navy ship seized San Francisco and Sacramento—timing that Polk’s critics found suspicious. Abraham Lincoln, a U.S. representative from Illinois at the time, questioned Polk’s motives in the “Spot Resolutions” when he badgered administration officials about exactly where Taylor’s troops had been “attacked.”
Historians have surmised that this chain of events was probably not a coincidence, especially considering that Polk had been elected on a platform of manifest destiny and westward expansion. In fact, it was Polk’s success in the election of 1844 that led lame duck president John Tyler to begin the annexation process in the first place. A war offered Polk an opportunity not only to seize the coveted San Francisco Bay but also to end the Texas debate and seize all of the territory in between, all at once.
