The Politics of Social Reform

1. The Politics of Social Reform

2. Two parties developed Early 19th C • Whigs used government to improve individual morality and discipline • Prostitution, temperance, public education, asylums and penitentiaries • Democrats felt morality through legislation was anti-republican • Social reform provoked angry differences between the two parties

3. Public Schools • Common school movement • Normal Schools • Female teachers • Party differences about organization of schools • Whigs want state-level centralization • Democrats preferred local school districts

4. Ethnicity, Religion, and the Schools • Issues for many Irish Catholic immigrant children • Offensive texts and Bibles used in schools • Some parents refused to send children to school • State subsidy for Parish schools • Foreign language schools for bilingual instruction created • State-supported church-run charity schools

5. Prisons • State governments built and supported institutions for orphans, dependent poor, insane, and criminals • Market Revolution increased visibility of these groups and cut them off from family resources • Reformers assert these groups exist because of bad family situation • Both political parties favored state-support for criminals and dependents • Whigs favored rehabilitation • Democrats favored isolation and punishment • “Auburn system”

6. Asylums • Dorothea Dix • By 1860: legislatures of 28 out of 33 states established state-run insane asylums • Few Democrats supported insane asylums

7. The South and Social Reform • Social reform “expensive and wrong-headed” • Southern schools • Locally controlled • Limited curriculum • Temperance succeeds for individuals, but no state level prohibition • Southern resistance to social reforms • Doomed to failure because of human imperfection • Seen as self-righteous imposition of Northeasterners

8. Ardent Spirits • American Temperance Society (1826) • Lyman Beecher • Six Sermons on the Nature, Occasions, Signs, Evils, and Remedy of Intemperance (1826) • Temperance becomes badge of middle class respectability

9. Military ends traditional liquor ration 1832 • Congressional Temperance Society 1833 • Alcohol consumption cut in half by 1840 • 3.9 – 1.9 gallon year

10. The Origins of Prohibition • Mid-1830s: • Whigs made Temperance a political issue • “Fifteen-Gallon Law” in Massachusetts 1833 • Democrats: Forced temperance violates Republican liberty • Alcohol becomes defining political difference for many

11. Ethnicity and Alcohol • 1840s-1850s: millions of Irish and German immigrants • Germans: lager beers, old-country beer halls • Irish: whiskey, bars • Legitimized levels of male drunkenness and violence • Nativism and temperance politics merge in the 1850s at expense of Democrats

12. The Politics of Race • Traditional view: God gave white males power over others • Whig evangelicals • Marriage changes from domination to sentimental partnership • Emergence of a radical minority envisioning a world without power • Attacked slavery and patriarchy as national sin

13. Free Blacks • North: states began to abolish slavery • Revolutionary idealism • Slavery was inefficient and unnecessary • Gradual emancipation (Pennsylvania model) • Free black populations grew and moved into the cities • Many took stable, low-paying jobs

14. Discrimination • Discrimination rises • White workers drive blacks out of skilled and semi-skilled jobs • Blacks increasingly politically disenfranchised • Segregated schools • Blacks build their own institutions • African Methodist Episcopal Church (1816) • Black Anti-slavery activism • David Walker: Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World (1829) • Harriet Tubman • Frederick Douglass

15. Abolitionists • William Lloyd Garrison • The Liberator (1831) • American Anti-Slavery Society (1833) • Abolition a logical extension of middle class evangelicalism • American Anti-slavery Society demands: • Immediate emancipation • Full civil and legal rights for African-Americans

17. Agitation • Abolitionists minority of Evangelicals • Beecher - end of slavery will come with conversion of masters • Logical end of antislavery is civil war • “Postal Campaign” • Petition campaign • Jackson administration response • Censor mail • Right to petition abridged

18. Lydia Maria Child was a leading voice in the anti-slavery movement as well as a champion of women’s Lucretia Coffin Mott sheltered runaway slaves and became one of the early leaders of the women’s rights movement

19. Women’s Rights • Women’s role as missionaries to their family make them public reformers • Antislavery movement leads women to advocate for equal rights • State legislative changes in favor of women • Married Woman’s Property Act (New York 1860) • Women’s Rights Convention, Seneca Falls, NY (1848) • Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions • Female participation in politics

20. Conclusion • 1830s: most citizens firmly identified with one of the two parties: Whig or Democrat • Whigs: embraced commerce and activist government • Democrats: localistic and culturally conservative

21. James Clavell’s The Children’s StoryCritical Thinking Assignment  What is this story about and why does it matter?  Author of fiction James Clavell wrote this short manuscript to explore social and political issues. Write A 1500 word paper (+/- 10%) describing what you believe to be the most important issue or issues raised in the piece and whether these same issues have been seen in one or more occasion of American history in both, national and international relations.  Due Thursday 3rd December

23. Manifest Destiny

24. John L. O’Sullivan • Democrat Journalist • New York City “our manifest destiny to overspread and to posses the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us” • 1840s Growth became watchword of America • Land acquired through annexation, negotiation, and war

25. Relentless pressure on limits of Indian settlements • 1850 Native American population • > ½ Million • Appeal of West as source of expansion • Oregon and California were especially attractive • Travelled through America, Mexico and Britain • Missions and presidios in California

26. Overland Trails

27. Mormon migration to Utah, 1847 • New York – Ohio – Illinois • 15,000 people in Nauvoo • Joseph Smith • Polygamy • June 1844 mob killed him in jail

28. New leader Brigham Young • Led group to Salt Lake • “This is the right place” • July 24, 1847 • At time Mexican territory • Territorial governor 1850 -57 • Uneasy peace with DC

30. Texas • 1824 the Mexican government begins to encourage American settlement in Texas • American slave holders conflict with Mexican authorities (slavery would be abolished in 1829) • Mexico bans immigration in 1830

31. 1834 President Antonio López de Santa Anna • passes a series of laws that restrict powers of regional governments • Many locals rebelled • In Texas Stephen Austin and other Americans become determined to push for Independence from Mexico

32. Sam Houston becomes leader of American Forces • Initially success for Santa Anna’s forces • The Alamo • Golliad • Texans regroup • Deal crushing blow to Santa Ana at San Jacinto on April 21, 1836

33. To join the US or Not? • Originally the idea was popular in Texas • Texas begins to form ties with Europe • Britain interested • access to the cotton and other trade items • Hope to persuade Texans to become pro-abolition • Santa Anna threatens war with USA if Annexation occurs • Conflict over the position of slavery in Texas leads to uncertainty • 1838 the idea is rejected

34. Election of 1844 in USA • James Polk elected Pro annexation • result was a mandate for territorial expansion • By February of 1846 Texas was officially part of USA • Texas was added as a slave state due to the Missouri compromise

35. Missouri Compromise • 1819 Missouri appealed for statehood • Missouri was a slave state • If added to the US this would upset the balance of slave and free states • Questions arose about the roles of the Federal government making laws for the States

36. The Solution 1) Missouri admitted as a slave state along with the addition of Maine as a free state 2) Territory north of 36´ 30º free forever

38. All looked good • until ……. • Missouri adopted a STATE constitution that disallowed free African Americans from entering state • Congress passed a law that Missouri could never deny any citizen of other states their rights under the FEDERAL constitution

39. A situation had arisen within the debate over the Missouri compromise whereby • The North expressed its political and moral opposition to slavery • The South had defended and promoted the “peculiar institution” that was slavery

40. Meanwhile back in Texas….. Mexico considered annexation of Texas a hostile act America was unable to get money from Mexico to pay the damage claims that American Texans had

41. dispute over the southern boundary of Texas • Mexico wanted the old border Nunces • USA wanted the Rio Grande • At the same time Americans were pushing into California • In 1843 Mexico had ordered the expulsion of Americans from California

42. US president Polk sent Slidell to Mexico to negotiate • the offer was • US government would assume damage claims in return for Mexican acceptance of lower border line • Offer of $5 Million for New Mexico • Offer of $20 Million for California

43. Mexico refused to negotiate - in part due to the political upheavals in Mexico USA Declares war on May 12, 1846

44. Taylor Northern Mexico defeats Santa Anna at Buena Vista Kearny New Mexico and California Marched to California along Santa Fe Trail and met up with Freemont and the Bear Flag Republic soldiers Scott Landed at Vera Cruz - fought his way to Mexico city Forced Peace treaty on Mexicans

46. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo • February 1848 • Mexico cedes New Mexico and California • Mexico recognizes Rio Grande boundary • USA pays Mexico $15 Million • USA assumes America damage claims

47. Sectional Crisis

48. Slavery in the New Territories From the south Congress has no right to exclude slavery in new territories From the North Congress has the right to make laws for the new territories Moderate view proposes “Squatter Sovereignty” later known as “Popular Sovereignty”

49. 1850 Compromise • Senator Henry Clay • Attempted to introduce a bill that would settle the question over slavery in the new territories • The collection of issues he wished to introduced became known as the Omnibus Bill • He died without getting it passed

50. Stephen A Douglas took on the compromise legislation and after separating it he got it passed • CA admitted as a free state • NM & Utah admitted with no reference to slavery • Texas debt assumed and boundary restricted • Slave trade but not slavery banned in DC • New slave fugitive law passed