The Age of Jackson

The Age of Jackson Unit 3.5

Election of 1824 • By 1816 & 1824, U.S. had only one political party (Republican Party) • 4 candidates for president in 1824 • Jackson won majority of the electoral votes • Winner determined by the House of Representatives • Speaker of the House Henry Clay & John Quincy Adams made a deal • Adams won the vote in the House & ultimately won the election • Clay became the Secretary of State under Adams • Jackson/supporters cried “corrupt bargain” • Felt election was “stolen” from Jackson • Began plotting for the Election of 1828 & formed the Democratic-Republican party

Election of 1828 • John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson • Campaign buttons • Rallies • Slogans • Jackson won in a landslide • The “common man” would bring a different attitude to Washington • A new Democratic political party was born and Jackson’s inauguration showed that changes were coming

Indian Removal Act • 1823: Supreme Court rules Native Americans have “domestic dependent nations” American lands • Natives lived in isolated pockets east of Mississippi River • Devastated by war, disease, and bad treaties • The 5 “civilized tribes” (Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Chickasaw and Seminole) had become “Euro-assimilated” • 1830: Jackson supports Indian Removal Act • Indian forced to give up land east of the Mississippi in exchange for land west of the Mississippi ($5 million) • Led to the “Trail of Tears”

Tariff of Abominations • The Protectionist Tariff of 1828 • Increased tariffs to 37% • Goal: protect U.S. trade & industry • Southerners (including VP J.C. Calhoun) attacked the tariff as “Tariff of Abominations” • They depended on imported British farm tools and textiles • Allowed Northern manufacturers to raise prices to just below the British costs and “gouge”Southerners • Calhoun developed the Nullification theory • Every state has right to reject unconstitutional federal laws • If federal gov’t refused nullification, state could secede the Union • The Seeds of the Civil war are planted!

Nullification Crisis • Following a small lowering of the tariff (of abominations) in 1832, SC called the Nullification Convention • South Carolina nullified the tariff and threatened to secede • President Jackson hated Calhoun & his threats, and began preparations for war • Henry Clay, “the Great Compromiser” stepped in with the Compromiser Tariff • South Carolina agreed and Civil War was avoided for a while longer

Bank of the U.S. • Jackson hated the BUS and threatened to destroy it several times. • Election of 1832 • Henry Clay (Speaker of the House) wanted to push the re-chartering of the BUS as a campaign hoping Jackson would veto it and lose the election • Jackson vetoed the BUS and instead won great acclaim in the South and West (it backfired on Clay)

Bank of the U.S. • BUS’s charter due to expire in 1836 • Jackson ordered his Secretary of Treasury to create “pet banks” • All government funds placed in these new banks • President of the BUS (Nicholas Biddle) reacted by calling in loans from these “pet banks” • Also refused to make new loans • As a result, many banks went bankrupt & caused economic chaos nationwide. • Biddle’s decision cost him much of his backing. The BUS collapsed.

Industrial Revolution • 19th Century: the U.S. followed Europe’s examples of Industrial Revolution. • Samuel Slater • est. the 1st textile mill in RI, which produced thread • known as “father of the American Ind. Rev.” • Francis Cabot Lowell • Built a weaving factory in Mass., which used the thread to produce cloth. • This sparked a major push for Industry in New England, where citizens had depended heavily upon shipping & trade

Industrial Revolution • Eli Whitney • Built the cotton gin • Cotton farming soared • Slave prices sky-rocketed throughout the region. • Introduced concept of interchangeable parts • Used mass produced identical parts, which allowed muskets to be assembled rapidly by unskilled workers. • The concept was adopted on a large scale by numerous U.S. manufacturers. • THE U.S. INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION HAD BEGUN!

“Go To Texas!!!” • 1820s: Mexico advertised for Americans settlers to populate its northern border • Goal: protect the area from native attacks • U.S. repeatedly offered to buy the territory, but Mexico refused • Land agents, or “empresarios,” were given huge tracks of free land to divide and sell to American settlers inexpensively • In exchange Americans had to agree to do 2 things: • obey Mexican law • observe Roman Catholicism as the official religion.

Tensions Build • Problems: • Most settlers were Protestant • Refused to speak Spanish • Refused to honor Mexico’s abolishment of slavery. • In 1830, Mexico attempted to seal its border, but the flood of Americans was too much. • By 1834, the Anglo pop. of TX doubled. • 1833: empresario Stephen Austin traveled to Mexico City to present petitions for increasing TX self-gov’t. Pres. Santa Anna imprisoned him for “inciting revolution.”

Texas Revolution • President Santa Anna revoked local powers in Texas and other Mexican states • Attempting to enforce his new laws, Santa Anna w/ a 4,000 strong army, marched on San Antonio. • Meanwhile, Austin issued a call for Texans to arm themselves! • 1835, Texans attacked Santa Anna and his men @ a small Catholic mission (the Alamo), but were eventually defeated. “REMEMBER THE ALAMO!!!”

Texas Revolution • Battle of Jacinto • Texans, led by Sam Houston • They killed over 600 and captured Santa Anna. • Pres. Santa Anna was freed after signing over Texas Independence in the Treaty of Valasco. • September 1836, the Republic of Texas was born • 1838: Texas annexed by the U.S. as the “Lone Star State” by pro-slavery President James K. Polk.

Manifest Destiny • Expansionism gripped the country as Americans believed that the movement westward was “destined” and “ordained by God.” • Following the annexation of Texas, a newspaper editor stated that it was “the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent…for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.” • Many Americans adopted the phrase to express their own beliefs.

War W/ Mexico • December 1845: Texas became 28th state • Dispute: where is the border with Mexico? • Mexico: Nueces Ricer • U.S.: Rio Grande

War W/ Mexico • President Polk orders US forces led by Zachary Taylor and Winfield Scott to march to Rio Grande • Goal: unite Americans behind a war • American settlers in California declared independence, created the Republic of California • Ran Mexican troops out of Cali • American troops led by Officers Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant • General Winfield Scott captured Mexico City in 1847 • Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war (1848) • The US gave 15 million in exchange for the “Mexican Cession.” • US gained valuable fighting experience that they would use on each other in the Civil War

Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo

GOLD!! • January 1848: James Marshall discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill (California) • Gold Fever swept the nation • 1848: 400 people migrated to Cali • 1850: 44,000 people migrated to Cali • Forty-niners: people who flocked west in 1849 gold rush • Asia, South America, Europe • Impact: • San Francisco’s population exploded • New populations settled in the West (Chinese, Free Blacks) • 1850: California became a state

Immigrants Fuel Industry • As U.S. industrialization began to reach its stride in the 1830s & ‘40s, the “first wave” of foreign immigrants began to flood in from Europe. Ellis Island Video • The need for labor steadily rose • Irish & German immigration increased • Women were plentiful, cheap and children even cheaper, small and expendable.

Nativism • Issues with Immigration • urban growth • Poverty • Slums • Disease • Crime • Rise of Nativism • Favoring native-born Americans over immigrants • Know-Nothing Party (aka American Party) formed in 1854 • Roots in a secret organization

The 2nd Great Awakening • Mid 1800s: a new wave of protestant religion reacted violently to a new age of reason. • Huge “camp meetings” lasting days helped thousands “get religion” and “get saved” • esp. Baptists and Methodists • Traveling preachers used personal conversion not predestination • New denominations were created while class and sectional differences split churches (especially over the issue of slavery).

Religion Leads to Reform • American Christians took it upon themselves to reform society during this period. • Known commonly as antebellum reform, this phenomenon included reforms in temperance, women's rights, abolitionism, and many other questions faced by society.

Education Reform • The typical one room school with ill trained/stern female teachers taught “readin’, writin’+’rythmitic.” (3 R’s) • Reformers like Horace Mann and Noah Webster proposed changes. • Pushed for better school-houses, teachers pay, longer terms, more curriculum and “public schools.” • Small Liberal Arts colleges, mostly religiously affiliated developed in the West and East. • Women’s colleges and seminaries also developed • Led by Emma Willard and Mary Lyon.

Women’s Reform • Many women involved in multiple reform movements. • Dorthea Dix personified the “reformer” with her crusade against cruelty in prisons and hospitals/asylums for the sick. • The Grimke sisters of SC championed women’s education and the anti slavery movement. • Alcohol was blamed for many social ills including low work productivity, spousal and child abuse etc. • Temperance societies developed and quickly spread forcing 9 states to go “dry.” • Sufferin' Til Suffrage

Seneca Falls • Women lacked many rights including voting, holding office, property rights, inheritance • Were basically owned by their husbands like slaves (aka “Cult of Domesticity”) • Women made strides particularly in education as pupils and teachers, as well as temperance reform, abolition & womens’ suffrage. • Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, & Susan B. Anthony organized the Seneca Falls Conference (1848) • Wrote the “Declaration of Sentiments” demanding certain rights for women, which sparked the “feminist” movement in U.S. History.

Abolition! • Northern outcries against slavery came about with the 2nd Great. Awakening. • Abolitionist papers and propaganda flooded the south. • William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator caused him to be beaten by northerners who saw him as a radical • Created the American Anti-Slavery Society and The American Colonization Society, which sought to return freed slaves to Africa.

Abolition! • Abolitionist Sojourner Truth was also an icon for women’s rights. • Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who was taught to read & write by his former master’s wife. • After secretly writing a number of editorials for abolitionist papers, he penned his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which led to his career as a publisher, lecturer and icon of the abolitionist movement.

Institution of slavery • 1 in 5 whites owned slaves • Billions of $ were invested and many “poor white” farmers dreamed of slave ownership. • Slaves were forbidden to travel, learn to read and write, to be unattended, and to assemble under the harsh “slave codes.” • Poor whites supported the system to keep blacks “in their place.”

Slave Rebellion! • Nat Turner was a slave preacher in VA, who believed he had been chosen to lead his people out of bondage. • In 1831, following a solar eclipse, he led 80 followers to attack 4 plantations and kill nearly 60 whites before being captured. • Turner hid for weeks, but was captured, tried & hanged. • Over 200 slaves were killed in retaliation! • This event strengthened the resolve of Southern whites to defendthe institution of slavery.

Abolition! • Many slaves escaped to the north and freedom along the underground railroad. • Helped by Harriett Tubman and many other “conductors” such as Quakers, they followed the North Star. • Southerners considered them fugitives and “slave-catchers” made a large profit. • 250,000 free blacks lived in the north especially near Boston Mass • Many racial northerners (Irish), resented and terrorized free blacks and refused to educate or employ them.

The Wilmot Proviso • A resolution authored by David Wilmot of Penn., proposed no slavery in the Mexican Cession Territories. • Passed twice by the House, never passed the Senate. • Set the stage for political debate in the Pre-Civil War period.

North & South Compromise • As slavery spread, the North and South grew further apart • U.S. gov’t attempted to keep the peace • The “Missouri Compromise” • Passed under Jackson • One free state admitted to Union for every slave state • Maine enters as free, Missouri enters as slave state

Compromise of 1850 • California (free) applies for statehood • Utah and New Mexico allowed to vote on issue of slavery (popular sovereignty) • Slave trade banned in Washington D.C. • Stronger fugitive slave laws in the North

The Age of Jackson