Today: Unit 4 + Part of Unit 5 until the Compromise of 1850
Unit 4: Election of 1800 - end of the M-A War (1848)
Unit 5: M-A War (1844) - Compromise of 1877
10 Facts in Unit 4 that you find important (HAVE THE YEAR):
1. Louisiana Purchase (1803)
- under Thomas Jefferson (Democratic Republic, opposed by
Federalist)
- the Americans wanted to purchase New Orleans for the port, so
that the French would not have a tight control over the port
- bought land from Napoleon Bonaparte
- Napoleon needed money and fast
- facing Haitian Revolution, fighting with British --> offered the
entire Louisiana territory (effectively doubled the size of the US)
- Strict vs Loose interpretation of the constitution:
- strict interpretation (view of the D-R): the federal
government can only do what is described in the constitution.
- loose interpretation (view of Federalists): the federal
government can do anything that is not prohibited by the
constitution.
- Jefferson (part of D-R) but used the looser interpretation in
practice.
- significance:
- intensified conflicts with Native Americans
- westward expansion: migration and settlement
- the debate of free vs slave states
- by free states we mean the northern states, by 1804
all northern states had gradual emancipation of slavery. NJ was the
last northern state to ban slavery in 1804.
NOTE: Emancipation - setting someone free
legally/politically/socially
Abolition - getting rid of a system
2. War of 1812 (1812-1815)
- under James Madison (Democratic-Republican, opposed by
Federalist)
- Americans wanted to invade Canada; British interfered with US-
French trade
- 1814 British burned Washington DC (the only time in history when
a foreign power took DC)
- 1815 the Battle of New Orleans, a decisive/dramatic American
victory --> Andrew Jackson
- the Treaty of Ghent (1814)
- the battle of New Orleans was fought after the peace treaty
was signed
- restored the status quo, the territories remained largely
unchanged
- Ultimately: nationalism and the rise of young war hawks like
Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay
- Also led to a growth in manufacturing, because import was cutoff
during the war
3. the Era of Good Feeling (the same presidential term as James
Monroe 1817-1825)
- this was the period of a one-party system: D-R
- the Federalists party declined, and D-R became the only
party
- unity? regional sectionalism between N and S over slavery
and economic policy
- was it actually good? the Panic of 1819 - the first major
economic depression in US history due to bank failures
4. the Missouri Compromise of 1820
- under Monroe
- Compromise: Missouri enter as a slave state; Maine entered as a
free state; 36’30 line is the border - all states north of this line would
be free, and vice versa
- it temporarily and superficially kept the balance
5. Monroe Doctrine
- isolationism
- US: keep away from the Americas and we will not interfere
with Europe
- did the US actually have the military power to enforce this? no
- the British actually helped them enforce this
- culturally significant: American exceptionalism
parties:
1. Federalist vs Anti-federalist (the precursor to the bi-partisan
system)
2. Federalist vs DR
3. only DR (under Monroe, the era of good feeling)
4. Quincy Adams was a DR, but during his presidency, the National
Republican faction and the Jacksonian Democrats emerged.
the Election of 1824
- no one won the popular vote
- the votes were split between Andrew Jackson, John Quincy
Adams, William Crawford and Henry Clay
- Clay backed Quincy Adams --> Quincy Adams elected as president
- in return, Quincy Adams appointed Clay as the secretary of
state
6. Andrew Jackson (Democrat opposed by Whig, Whig just hated
Jackson)
- Jacksonian Democracy - extended suffrage to all adult white men.
- Trail of Tears - Indian Removal Act (1830) granted the federal
government to negotiate treaties with Native Americans tribe to
move
- in practice these negotiations was forced --> led to the trail
of tears where massive suffering and death occured
- Nullification crisis (1832-1833) to nullify the tariffs
- the Tariff of 1828 aimed to protect domestic manufactures
by raising tax duties on foreign imported goods.
- the north supported it because it protected their
manufacture; the south were against it b/c of foreign retaliation
- the south relied heavily on exporting goods to the
foreign market, if there was retaliation, they cannot export and
hence will lose profit
- nullification: the theory stated that a state could declare a
federal law unconstitutional and nullify it within its borders
- eg. South Carolina nullified and threaten secession
- Jackson rejected nullification; Force Bill allowing the military
enforcement of federal laws
- resolution: a compromise that lowered tariffs gradually
7. Market Revolution (spans throughout Period 4)
- transformation of 1) transportation 2) industry 3) communication
4) commercial agriculture
- better roads, canals, faster industrial productoin, farmers
increasingly produce for distant/even foreign markets, etc.
- cotton is the king of the South, dominated the southern economy --
> slavery is soooo important in the South and why they seceded
after the election of 1860.
8. the Second Great Awakening (end of 18th century to 1840s) and
the reforms it led to
- reaction to Enlightenment ideology: rational
- in the forms of emotional preaching, believes that that individuals
can choose and have salvation
- social significance:
- 1. women’s rights movement; Seneca Falls Convention of
1848, the first major women’s rights convention, ‘all men and
women are created equal’
- 2. African Americans are connected to the second great
awakening --> abolitionist ideologies
- 3. temperance: the precursor of prohibition, it is the first
major movement/reform to reduce or ban the consumption of
alcohol
9. Panic of 1837
- under Martin van Buren (Democratic, opposed by Whig)
- severe economic depression caused by bank failure
- caused by the Bank War (1832-1836)
- Jackson hated the Second Bank of the US b/c the bank
concentrated wealth and power for the elites, criticized it as
undemocratic
- Congress proposed new reforms of the bank, which Jackson
vetoed
- put the federal deposits into state banks, which led to
economic instability and ultimately the Panic of 1837
- van Buren put the federal money in government vaults instead of
private vaults but still the depression lasted for years --> hurt the
democrats
- election of 1841, WHIGS WON
- William Henry Harrison elected as president (died within a
month)
- John Tyler the VP rose to presidency --> proved that this
mechanism works
10. Annexation of Texas
- under Tyler (Whig) and Polk (it officially entered the Union)
- Texas was independent from Mexico in 1836, America tried to
annex it under Tyler
- problem:
- annexation would risk war with Mexico
- and would risk increasing sectional conflict
- culturally: feed into the popular ideology of white freedom,
opportunity, nationalism, etc.
11. Polk (Democrat)
- Mexican American War (1846-1848)
- Polk (being an expansionist) sent troops to the disputed
border and fight immediately broke out
- the US won decisively (they captured Mexico City)
- Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of 1848
- the US got California --> compromise of 1850
- Manifest Destiny
- justifies the westward expansion and removal of Native
Americans
- importantly culturally --> blended nationalism, racism,
frontier optimism, American Exceptionalism
DBQ Unit 4:
Analyze the extent to which political and economic changes
reshaped American society between 1800-1848
DOC 1
Source: John Quincy Adams, Personal Diary, January 8, 1820.
The Diary of John Quincy Adams: 1794–1845, ed. Allan Nevins (New
York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1951).
One of the most remarkable features of what I am witnessing every
day is a perpetual struggle in both Houses of Congress to control the
Executive—to make it dependent upon and subservient to them.
They are continually attempting to encroach upon the powers and
authorities of the President. As the old line of demarcation between
parties has been broken down, personal has taken the place of
principled opposition....A prospect thus dark and unpropitious
abroad is far more gloomy and threatening when we turn our eyes
homeward. The bank, the national currency, the stagnation of
commerce, the depression of manufactures, the restless turbulence
and jealousies, the Missouri slave question, the deficiencies of the
revenue to be supplied, the rankling passions and ambitious
projects of individuals, mingling with everything, presented a
prospect of the future which I freely acknowledged was to me
appalling.
DOC 2
Source: Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, 1831
Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, edited and translated
by Harvey C. Mansfield and Delba Winthrop (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2000)
When an artisan engages constantly and uniquely in the
manufacture of a single object, in the end he performs this work
with singular dexterity. But at the same time he loses the general
faculty of applying his mind to the direction of the work. Each day
he becomes more skillful and less industrious, and one can say that
the man in him is degraded as the worker is perfected. As the
principle of the division of labor is more completely applied, the
worker becomes weaker, more limited, and more dependent. The
art makes progress, the artisan retrogresses. On the other hand, as
it is more plainly discovered that the products of an industry are so
much more perfect and less dear as manufacture is vaster and
capital greater, very wealthy and very enlightened men come
forward to exploit industries which, until then, had been left to
ignorant or awkward artisans. They are attracted by the greatness
of the necessary efforts and the immensity of the results to be
obtained. So, therefore, at the same time that industrial science
constantly lowers the class of workers, it elevates that of masters....
Thus as the mass of the nation turns to democracy, the particular
class occupied with industry becomes more aristocratic. Men show
themselves more and more alike in the one, and more and more
different in the other, and inequality increases in the small society
as it decreases in the great.
DOC 3
Source: Michael Chevalier, Society, Manners, and Politics in the United States, 1836
Everything has become an object of speculation...that is to say, cotton, land, city and
town lots, banks, railroads....Most of these speculations are imprudent, many of them
are foolish. The boom today may and must be followed by a crisis tomorrow....In the
midst of all this speculation, while some enrich and some ruin themselves, banks
spring up and diffuse credit; railroads and canals extend themselves over the country;
steamboats are launched into the rivers, the lakes, and the sea; the career of the
speculators is ever enlarging, the field for railroads, canals, steamers, and banks goes
on expanding. Some individuals lose, but the country is a gainer; the country is
peopled, cleared, cultivated; its resources are unfolded, its wealth increased...here, all
is circulation, motion, and boiling agitation. Experiment follows experiment;
enterprise follows enterprise....Men change their houses, their climate, their trade,
their condition, their party, their sect; the States change their laws, their officers, their
constitutions....The influence of the democracy is so universal in this country that it
was quite natural for it to raise its head among speculators.
DOC 4
Source: Andrew Jackson, Farewell Address, 1837
James D. Richardson, ed., A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the
Presidents, 1789–1897, Volume 4 (New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1969).
The planter, the farmer, the mechanic, and the laborer all know that their success
depends upon their own industry and economy, and that they must not expect to
become suddenly rich by the fruits of their toil...these classes of society...are the bone
and sinew of the country—men who love liberty and desire nothing but equal rights
and equal laws....But...they are in constant danger of losing their fair influence in the
government, and with difficulty maintain their just rights against the incessant efforts
daily made to encroach upon them....Unless you become more watchful in your states
and check this spirit of monopoly and thirst for exclusive privileges you will in the
end find that the most important powers of government have been given or bartered
away, and the control over your dearest interests has passed into the hands of these
corporations....You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad; your
strength and power are well known throughout the civilized world as well as the high
and gallant bearing of your sons. It is from within, among yourselves—from cupidity,
from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power—that
factions will be formed and liberty endangered....Providence has showered on this
favored land blessings without number, and has chosen you as the guardians of
freedom, to preserve it for the benefit of the human race.
DOC 5
Source: Francis P. Blair, The Globe, January 11, 1840
If we are to believe the assertions of members of Congress advocating a protective
tariff, there is no other domestic industry than that employed in our great
manufactories. According to their definition, tending spinning jennies in a stupendous
brick building, six or seven stories high, some ten or twenty miles from home...is your
only domestic industry for the young and blooming daughters of the land.
“DOMESTIC INDUSTRY” is no longer represented by the ruddy matron sitting at
her own fireside in her own home, turning the spinning wheel with one foot and
rocking a chubby bantling [child] with the other, while singing it to sleep with
lullabies....“DOMESTIC INDUSTRY,” according to the tariff definition, is not that of
the healthy mechanic or artisan, who works for himself at his own shop....Domestic
industry is nothing but bondage in its most oppressive form, labor in its utmost
extremity of degradation. “DOMESTIC INDUSTRY,” according to the protective
tariff cant, is that which separates wives, husbands, parents and children; annihilates
every domestic tie and association, and renders all domestic duties subservient to the
will, not of a husband or parent, but that of an unfeeling taskmaster, to whom the
sacrifice of every moment of time, and every comfort of life, is wealth and prosperity.
DOC 6
Source: Changes in U.S. Presidential Voting Patterns, 1824–1844
Henretta et al., America’s History, Seventh Edition, Bedford/St. Martin’s, p. 311.
DOC 7
Source: Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, 1848 Report of the
Woman’s Rights Convention, held at Seneca Falls, New York, July 19th and 20th,
1848.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal;
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among
these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness....The history of mankind is a
history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having
in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her....He has never
permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise. He has
compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice. He has
withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men—
both natives and foreigners....He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough
education—all colleges being closed against her....He has usurped the prerogative of
Jehovah (God) himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action,
when that belongs to her conscience and her God....Resolved, that the speedy success
of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women,
for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an
equal participation with men in the various trades, professions and commerce.
After the Second War of Independence, the Market Revolution and Jacksonian
Democracy brought canals, factories, banks, and expanded voting rights. These
political and economic changes reshaped American society to a significant extent by
expanding the economy, democracy and industry while creating inequality and
demands of reform. Growing democracy and market were most visible but widened
class divides and sectionalism, disrupted families, and sparked women’s rights
demands.
More and more participated in presidential voting as property restrictions fell.
Jackson’s Farewell Address (1837) praises farmers and mechanics as the nation’s
backbone but warns corporations threaten equal rights. As a populist president, he
showed his firm attitude to his supporters that defended democracy against elites.
John Quincy Adams’ diary (1820) describes Congress attacking executive power,
party lines breaking into personal rivalries, and Missouri crisis turmoil. Adams, as an
elite writing privately, feared instability from rising democracy. These shifts revealed
how expanded white male participation that fostered democacy also fueled factions
that divided society.
Chevalier’s Society, Manners, and Politics (1836) describes reckless speculation in
land, banks, railroads, and cotton that caused booms, crises, and national growth
despite individual ruin. This European celebrated progress. On the other hand,
Tocqueville, French aristocrat analyzing democracy, highlighted political equality
versus industrial aristocracy. In his Democracy in America (1831), he explains
division of labor weakened workers while enriching factory masters and increasing
inequality.
Francis P. Blair’s The Globe (1840) attacks protective tariffs for turning home-based
“domestic industry” into factory bondage that split families and degraded women.
Blair, a Democratic editor targeting Whig voters, cloaked his political maneuvering in
the rhetoric of defending traditional families, a calculated move designed to drive a
wedge between the Southwest's home-based artisans and the Northeast's industrial
capitalists within the Whig coalition. Since then home production were gradually
replaced by wage labor and speculation from Northeast to Southwest. The Seneca
Falls Declaration of Sentiments (1848) appeared as a reaction declaring women equal
to men, lists denials of vote, education, and professions, and demands equal rights in
trades and suffrage. The Erie Canal linked markets, sped western migration, and
accelerated factory growth and urbanization.
Something to note is that political gains empowered white men but ignored women
and slaves. Economic growth enriched the nation yet created inequality and crises. All
seven documents show change outweighed continuity; the era became a turning point
toward mass democracy and market society.
Political and economic changes in 1800–1848 reshaped American society to a
significant extent. Expanded democracy and industry brought growth and
participation but also inequality, family breakdown, and reform demands. Continuities
in gender roles and sectionalism remained, yet the period set the stage for future
change.
1. Evaluate the extent of the influence of the Monroe Doctrine on the formation of
United States foreign policy in the early 19th century.
Thesis:
Context:
Evidence 1:
Evidence 2:
Nuance:
Historical reasoning skills: Comparison; Causation; Continuity and Change Over
Time
2. Evaluate the extent to which Andrew Jackson’s economic views affected
the economy during the 1830s.
Thesis:
Context:
Evidence 1:
Evidence 2:
Nuance:
Historical reasoning skills: Comparison; Causation; Continuity and Change Over
Time
3. Evaluate the extent of the similarities among the reform movements
during the period of 1800–1848.
Thesis:
Context:
Evidence 1:
Evidence 2:
Nuance:
Historical reasoning skills: Comparison; Causation; Continuity and Change Over
Time
4. Evaluate the extent to which the election of Andrew Jackson fostered a
change in politics during the period of 1800–1848.
Thesis:
Context:
Evidence 1:
Evidence 2:
Nuance:
Historical reasoning skills: Comparison; Causation; Continuity and Change Over
Time