Ch7: Nationalism and Sectionalism

1. Ch7: Nationalism and Sectionalism 1812-1855

2. How did transportation developments and industrialization affect the nation’s economy? New technology changed the way Americans lived and worked. The United States was set on a course of industrialization.

3. The major settlements in the U.S. originally developed along the rivers and harbors of the Atlantic coast. Overland transportation by horse drawn wagon was expensive. Moving freight a few dozen miles by land cost as much as shipping the same items across the ocean. Water was the most efficient way to move people and goods.

4. Profits were supposed to be used for road improvements but most roads remained in poor condition. • Few turnpikes made a profit or really improved the cost or speed of transportation. • An exception was the National Road. This route extended from Maryland to the Ohio River in 1818. States chartered toll roads called turnpikes.

5. Water travel was revolutionizedby the steamboat. In 1807, the first practical steamboat began sailing from New York City. Steamboats shortened a trip up the Mississippi to mere days. Inventor Robert Fulton and his Clermont

6. Canals linked farms and cities. In 1825, the 363-mile Erie Canal connectedLake Erie to the Hudson River. Shipping costs between Buffalo and New York City plummeted from $100 to $4 per ton. The resulting rise in commerce pushed New York City’s population to 800,000 by 1860. Now linked to markets in the East,Midwest farmers experienced tremendous growth.

7. The first railroads started in Britain in the 1820s. • The United States had 13 miles of track in 1830 and 31,000 miles by 1860. • A trip from Detroit to New York City that took 28 days in 1800 took just 2 days by train in 1857. Introduction of railroads provided the most dramatic transportation growth.

8. Major Canals, Roads, and Railroads, 1840-1850

9. In the 1700s, British factories began using machines powered by water to spin thread or weave cloth. This was the start of the Industrial Revolution. Britain tried to prohibit the export of industrialtechnology. In 1793, Samuel Slater, anEnglish emigrant, built a water-powered mill from memory inPawtucket, Rhode Island.

10. The Industrial Revolution soon transformed the American economy. Several mills used the family system that employed parents and children who lived in a company-owned village.

11. In the 1820s, F.C. Lowell built his factory town of Lowell, Massachusetts. He employed young single girls from area farms. Lowell girlslived in closely supervised boarding houses with strict rules. After several years, most married.

12. Technology changed how people worked and lived.

13. Rather than a skilled artisan making a single clock or musket, workers made individual components that were later assembled. • Eli Whitney produced muskets with standardized parts. A component from one gun fit any other gun. • Elias Howe and Isaac Singeralso used interchangeable parts to build sewing machines. Interchangeable parts improved efficiency.

15. In 1837 Samuel F.B. Morse revolutionized communications with his invention the electric telegraph. • The telegraph sent electrical pulsesalong metal wires. • “Morse Code” used dots and dashes to instantly send information for miles. • By 1860, the United States had 50,000 miles of telegraph line.

16. Agriculture remained America’s chief industry but innovations made farms more productive.

17. How did the North and the South differ during the first half of the 1800s? Industrialization occurred mainly in the Northeast while cotton production deepened the South’s dependence on slavery. These two geographical regions developed in different ways, creating a complicated political environment.

18. U.S. government policies contributed to the growth of American industry in the early 1800s. • • With the supply of British goods cut off, American industry grew during the 1807 embargo andWar of 1812. • • The Tariff of 1816 protectedAmerican industry. • The tariff inflated prices. Thisprofited manufacturers but wascostly for farmers.

19. Factory owners had access to money for investment called capital. • Immigrants provided inexpensive labor. • Swiftly flowing rivers provided cheap power. In the early 19th century, the North embraced industry.

20. The Lowell girls were forced to accept pay cuts when their protests failed in 1834 and 1836. • Factory owners frequently turned to sympathetic judges for assistance. • A New York court convicted twenty tailors of conspiracy for forming a union in 1835. Early attemptsto force employersto raise pay through strikes seldom succeeded.

21. The industrial revolution brought about the emergence of a middle class. • The middle class was made up of managers, clerks, accountants, and retailers, who worked in offices outside the home. • The middle class was economically above laborers but below business owners. • They moved away from the crowded city, which led to socially segregated neighborhoods. • Middle class women began to stay at home.

22. Immigration changed America’s urban population beginning in the 1840s.

23. For the first time, many immigrants were Catholic or Jewish. Many Protestants distrusted the Catholic Church and resented immigrants as competitors for jobs. Nativist politicians in the new Whig Party campaigned against immigration and immigrants. In response, most Catholic and Jewish immigrants joined the Democratic Party.

24. The rapid influx of people caused social, economic and political strains in cities. • Various immigrant groups and free Blacks competed for jobs and housingin shabby neighborhoods. • This competition led to riots in Philadelphia in 1844 and in Baltimorein 1854. Most immigrants became urban laborers, though some set up businesses or moved to the Midwest.

25. The Founding Fathers had hoped that slavery would gradually fade away. Slavery continued. • The invention of the cotton gin • The expansion of cotton production westward • A huge demand for cotton due to industrialization Three developments caused cotton production to surge, making slavery very profitable in the Deep South:

26. In 1793, Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, making it easier to separate the seeds from the cotton fibers and turning cotton into the major export of the American South. Between 1793 and 1820,cotton production rose from5 million to 170 millionpounds a year. Planters expanded or builtnew cotton plantationsthroughout the south. Whitney’s cotton gin

27. “King Cotton” soon accounted for half the value of all U.S. exports. Importation of slaves was abolishedin 1808, causing a huge increasein the cost of a slave from $600 in1802 to $1,800 in 1860. The slave population grew from1.5 million in 1820 to 4 millionin 1860.

28. Dependence on “King Cotton” greatly limited the economy of the South. • Fluctuating prices led to bankruptcies in bad years and high profits in others. • Few immigrants were attracted to the South. • The South failed to develop the commercial towns common inthe Northeast and Midwest.

29. As the North’s urban population grew, the South lost political power, especially in the House of Representatives. Southerners feared that Northerners would threaten their investment in slavery. Little was done for poor whites. Illiteracy was three times the rate in the North. Southerners rationalized that slavery was a positive that Christianized and helped Africans.

30. In 1860, only one in four southern families owned slaves. • Three fourths of the families who did own slaves owned fewer than ten. • Only a small aristocracy of 3,000 wealthy planters owned 100 or more slaves. • The typical slaveholder lived in a farmhouse and worked beside his four or five slaves. While the South defended slavery, slaveholders were actually a small minority.

31. Most aspired to acquire slaves and a plantation. • Southern whites shared a sense of racial superiority and pride in their independence. • Most believed that slaves were better off than poor northern factory workers. • Most feared that freed blacks would seek a bloody revenge. If so few benefited from slavery, why did Southerners defend the slave system?

32. Jefferson, Madison, and Washington apologized for slavery as a necessary evil. But by the 1850s, pro-slavery Southerners defended slavery as a positive good.

33. How did domestic and foreign policies reflect the nationalism of the times? After the War of 1812, nationalism affected economic and foreign policy and began to create a sense of national identity. Supreme Court rulings supported nationalism by favoring federal power.

34. The party backed nationalistic economic policies that used federal power to assist business and industry. This focus on business was a change from the government’s earlier support of agriculture. With so little political fighting, some believed that political parties might disappear. Under President James Monroe, the Democratic Republicans enjoyed an“era of good feelings.”

35. Henry Clay campaigned for a nationalistic economic policy called the American System, which included: • high tariffs to protect industrial growth. • road and canal construction, called internal improvements, to link the different sections of the nation. Clay believed the different regions could work together for the prosperity of the entire nation.

36. Clay wanted reestablishment of a national bankto control the nation’s money supply and banking. The First National Bank’s charter expired in 1811. Private and state banks were printing their own money, causing widespread uncertainty in value. Clay argued that control over the nation’s money supply and banking would restore confidence. As a result, Congress established the Second Bank of the United States in 1816.

37. In Dartmouth College v. Woodward and Fletcher v. PeckMarshall limited the power of state governments to interfere with business contracts. The Supreme Court continued to strengthen federal power under Chief Justice John Marshall

38. InMcCulloch v. Maryland(1819) Marshall assertedthe superiority of federal law over state laws. • The state of Maryland tried to tax a branch of the Second National Bank. • Marshall ruled that the power to tax is the power to destroy and a state can’t use taxes to destroy a bank created by Congress. • The ruling broadly defined commerce and the power of Congress to control it.

39. Paintings like Jasper Cropsey’s 1859 Autumn on the Hudson celebrated the beauty of the wild American land.

40. President Monroe feared France or Spain might interfere in nearby South America. • Monroe warned European monarchiesthey had no business in the Americas. • In 1823 the United States was incapable of enforcing the doctrine, but it became a cornerstone of American foreign policy. • American nationalism was also reflected in the Monroe Doctrine.

41. United States policy toward Florida reflected nationalism. In 1818, Andrew Jackson invaded Florida to fight the Seminole Indians who harbored runaway slaves. Madison’s Secretary of State John Quincy Adams concluded the Adams-Onís Treaty by which the United States purchased Florida from Spain.

42. Despite nationalistic feelings, sectional differences remained strong. • In 1819, Missouri sought admission as a slave-owning state. • Acceptance would upset the balance between free and slave-owning states in the U.S. Senate. • A northernproposal to ban slavery as the price of Missouri’s admission caused debate. • The slavery debate worried many. Thomas Jefferson likened it to a “fire-bell in the night.”

43. Maine and Missouri became states together—one free,the other slave. • Aline was drawn across the territories; any new state south of Missouri’s southern border would be slave, anything north free. Henry Clay averted a crisis withthe Missouri Compromise of 1820. Still, Southerners were worried. They blamed the 1822 Denmark Vesseyplot on the Missouri debate.

45. What changes did Andrew Jackson represent in American political life? In 1824, a new political party emerged, signaling a shift in American culture. The nation’s concept of democracy was changing.The era became known for one towering and controversial figure: Andrew Jackson.

46. Four candidates ran for President in 1824. • Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts was the most experienced. • A congressional caucus of Democratic Republicans favored Georgian William Crawford. • War hero Andrew Jackson of Tennessee and Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky were seen as Adams’ greatest competition.

47. Jackson received the most popular votes, but no candidate won a majority in the electoral college. WhenAdamsnamed Clay to be Secretary of State, Jackson angrily called it a “corrupt bargain” and started preparing early to defeat Adamsin 1828. In the House of Representatives, Adams was selected after Clay threw his support behind Adams.

48. Jackson symbolized the rise of new democratic ideals uniting city workers, western settlers, and southern farmers against privileged “aristocrats.” This combination came to be known as “Jacksonian Democracy.” Andrew Jackson won the Presidency in 1828.

49. Under Martin Van Buren his campaign was the first to be run in a disciplined and professional fashion. • Opponents were replaced in government jobs by supporters, using what critics called “the spoils system.” • Jackson promised a weak federal government but was ruthless against anyone who challenged his decisions. Jackson’s followers called themselves “Democrats.”

50. As the “People’s President,” Jackson symbolized America’s “get ahead” and “self-made” image. • Born poor in a log cabin, Jackson was orphaned as a boy and wounded in the Revolutionary War. • As an adult, he ventured west, earned a fortune as a lawyer and planter, and fame as an Indian fighter, and he was the hero of the Battle of New Orleans. • His inauguration was attended by a rowdy crowd of common people.