2.3 Manifest Destiny

Reading Objectives

1. Describe the issues surrounding the War with Mexico and the statehood of Texas and California.
2. Evaluate how the Fugitive Slave Act and the transcontinental railroad heightened sectional tensions.
3. Analyze the significance of the Dred Scott decision and John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry.
4. Explain how the election of Abraham Lincoln as president led to the secession of the South.

Pushing West

• 1830’s to 1860’s – move west through the Louisiana Territory to California and Oregon Territory.
• MANIFST DESTINY: the nation should span from coast to coast.
• 1848 – gold is discovered in CA
• People came from all over to strike it rich
• Chaos & disorder ensued
• To settle down, CA applies to be a state
• Again, there is conflict over slavery
• CA brought in as free state and add’l laws created to appease the South
• known as the Compromise of 1850

Fugitive Slave Act

• Part of the Compromise of 1850
• Said that a slave owner only had to point out an alleged runaway to have them taken into custody.
• Slaves couldn’t testify, and judges got more $ to rule on the owner’s side.
• Opposed by the North for moral reasons
• Underground Railroad: network of abolitionists that helped slaves flee north

Conflict in the Midwest

• Transcontinental railway: new transportation from coast to coast
• Problem? It would cut through unsettled territory, and new states would need to be created.
• A plan proposed to divide the land into 2 states: Nebraska and Kansas.
• The question? Whether they would be slave states.

Kansas-Nebraska Act

• Part of Missouri compromise would be repealed. Nebraska would be a free state and Kansas a slave state
• Trouble in Kansas: after a ton of illegal pro-slavery voters affected the gov’t, the antislavery settlers started their own gov’t.
• Called “Bleeding Kansas” – it was a territorial civil war
• Broke up Whigs

More Political Drama

• Whigs, democrats, & others form the Republican Party: wanted to keep slavery out of new territories
• American Party gained support based on their anti-Catholic stance; eventually split over K-N Act.
• James Buchanan, a Democrat, wins the 1856 election

Dred Scott v Sanford

• Scott: a slave that said that because he had been living in the north he should be free
• Case was heard by Supreme Court, who ruled against Scott, saying that banning slavery was unconstitutional.
• Conflict increased after this. Kansas was urged to become a state but the 2 gov’ts fought over what kind of state. Took 4 years to come to an agreement and become a state

Harper's Ferry

• John Brown: violent abolitionist
• Murdered 5 people to get back at a pro-slavery group in Kansas
• Plotted an insurrection (rebellion) against slaveholders
• Tried to raid Harper’s Ferry arsenal, was captured and sentenced to death
• Seen as a martyr to north, a sign of the north’s plotting against them in the south
• A sign of the “evil” republicans

The Union Dissolves

• Southerners saw the Republicans as being against them
• Angry that the North was allowing people to get weapons and attack them

1860 Election Conventions

• Democrats met in South Carolina to choose a candidate. They were divided, ended up w/ 2: Stephen Douglas and John C Breckinridge
• People worried about succession formed new party: Constitutional Union Party. (John Bell – candidate)
• Republicans’ goal: win the north. Chose Abraham Lincoln as their candidate

1860 Election

• Lincoln won all the northern states except New Jersey
• A divided vote among the Democrats caused Lincoln to win, even though he didn’t win a single southern state
• Right after his election, South Carolina voted to secede (Dec 1860)
• By Feb, Mississippi, Florida,alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, and Texas also seceded
• As a result, Lincoln didn’t take office until March while Buchanan tried to work things out.

Crittenden's Compromise

• Proposed by John J Crittenden
• Guarantee slavery where it already existed
• Reinstate the Missouri Compromise and stretch it all the way to California
• Republicans voted against it

Birth of the Confederacy

• Feb 8, 1861: delegates from the 7 states met and declared a new nation: the Confederate States of America
• Based their gov’t on the constitution but made changes
• 6 year president terms
• Strong states rights and independence
• Guaranteed slavery
• President: Jefferson Davis
• They called for the rest of the south to join them

2.2 Growing Division and Reform

Sectionalism

• 1819: Missouri applies for statehood as a slave state.
• The Problem? The Union had 11 free states and 11 slave states. Letting in any new state, either slave or free, would upset the balance of power in the Senate.
• Missouri Compromise: the solution, written by Henry Clay
• let in Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state.
• prohibited slavery in the Louisiana Territory north of Missouri’s southern border.
• Sectionalism: a division within the party
• 1824: 4 Republican candidates ran for president
• Andrew Jackson won the popular vote, but no one won a majority in the Electoral College.
• The election then went to the House of Representatives, who chose from the with highest votes. Henry Clay was eliminated, so he threw his support to John Quincy Adams. Adams won the House vote, and became president.

A New Party is Created

• Jackson’s supporters accused Adams and Clay of a “corrupt bargain,” in which Clay was accused of winning votes for Adams in return for the cabinet post of secretary of state.
• Jackson and his supporters took the name Democratic Republicans, later shortened to Democrats. Adams and his followers became known as National Republicans.
• In the early 1800s, many states eliminated property ownership as a qualification for voting.
• hundreds of thousands of white males gained the right to vote.
• 1828: John Quincy Adams vs. Andrew Jackson for president.
• The candidates resorted to mudslinging, criticizing each other’s personalities and morals.
• Jackson won.
• Many voters who supported him were from the West and South, rural and small-town men who thought Jackson would represent their interests.

JACKSON’S CHANGES

• Jobs given based on the Spoils System
• Jobs given based on party loyalty and support. He believed that this practice extended democracy and opened up the government to average citizens.
• New way to choose presidential candidates.
• Old way: chosen through a closed meeting, or caucus, in which congressional party members would choose the nominee.
• New way: the national nominating convention, where delegates from the states met at conventions to choose the party’s presidential nominee

Problems with South Carolina

• South Carolina’s economy was weakening – tariffs took the blame.
• Most goods bought from England = higher price
• 1828: new tariff (“Tariff of Abominations”) passed South Carolina threatened to secede, or withdraw, from the Union.
• John C. Calhoun (VP) proposed the idea of nullification.
• - because states had created the federal union, they had the right to declare a federal law null, or not valid.
• Jackson defended the Union (OBVIOUSLY).
• 1832: SC’s special convention declared the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 unconstitutional.
• Jackson considered the declaration an act of treason.
• After Senator Henry Clay wrote a bill that would lower tariffs gradually until 1842, South Carolina repealed its nullification of the tariff law.

The Whigs

• New political party. Formed to oppose Jackson. Henry Clay – head whig
• 1835/6: couldn’t pick just one candidate, so they ran 3, but none of them won.
• Jackson’s popularity and the nation’s continued economic prosperity helped Democrat Martin Van Buren win.
• The Panic of 1837, when thousands of farmers lost their land in foreclosures and unemployment soared, gave the Whigs a 2nd chance to beat the Democrats.
• 1840 election: they nominated General William Henry Harrison for president and John Tyler for vice president.
• They won, but Harrison died one month after his inauguration, and Tyler became pres.
• Tyler was a bad Whig
• refused to support a new national bank or a higher tariff.
• established a firm boundary between the United States and Canada in the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty.

The Reform Spirit

• mid-1800s: Americans worked to reform different parts of society.
• Dorothea Dix: improved treatment of the mentally ill.
• 2nd Great Awakening: revived religion
• Charles Finny – father of modern revivalism
• New religions: Unitarians, Universalists, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons)
• Women were big in religion and religion-based reform groups
• Many reformers believed that alcohol was one of the major causes of crime and poverty.
• These reformers advocated temperance, or abstinence from alcohol. 1833: American Temperance Union formed. Temperance groups also pushed for laws to prohibit the sale of liquor.
• Some reformers focused on improving prison conditions in the nation. Others advocated for better schools.

Women's Rights Movement

• women began to believe that they had an important role to improve society, and needed greater rights or equal rights.
• 1848 Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention
• focused on equal rights for women
• the beginning of the women’s movement.
• wrote the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,
• Throughout the 1850s, women organized more conventions to promote greater rights for women.

Abolition

• Abolition: the end of slavery
• New movement that divided the nation
• Some antislavery societies believed that the best solution was to send African Americans back to Africa.
• American Colonization Society (ACS)’s goal was to move African Americans to Africa.
• They bought land in West Africa, chartered ships, and moved some free African Americans to a colony in West Africa that eventually became the nation of Liberia.
• Most African Americans regarded the United States as their home and had no desire to migrate to another continent.
• 1830s: large national abolitionist movement attributed to William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the Liberator, an antislavery newspaper.
• he founded the American Antislavery Society in 1833.
• He called for emancipation, or freeing, of enslaved persons.
• Free African Americans also played a prominent role in the abolitionist movement.
• The most prominent was Frederick Douglass, who published his own antislavery newspaper, the North Star.
• Sojourner Truth was another important African American abolitionist.

North and South

• Many Northerners opposed abolitionism. Why?
• a threat to the existing social system.
• produce conflict between the North and South.
• possible huge influx of African Americans to the North.
• destroy the Southern economy, and thereby affect their own economy.
• Most Southerners viewed slavery as essential to their economy, so they opposed abolition.
• Their defense: claiming that most enslaved people had no desire for freedom because they benefited from their relationship with slaveholders.
• 1831: a revolt by enslaved people killed more than 50 white Virginians. Southerners demanded the suppression of all abolitionist publications. Southern postal workers refused to deliver such publications, and the House of Representatives, under pressure from the South, shelved all abolitionist petitions. The North-South split continued to widen.

2.1 The New Republic

Main Ideas
The United States established a federal government, created the Bill of Rights, and witnessed the first political parties.
During the Jefferson administration, the Supreme Court established judicial review, and the country doubled in size.
After the War of 1812, Americans focused on policies that brought the nation together. New industries and railroads transformed the North in the early 1800s, while slavery expanded in the South.

Vocabulary
cabinet, enumerated powers, implied powers, judicial review, nativism, labor union

Reading Objectives

1. Describe the rise of political parties, nationalism, and the Supreme Court.
2. Explain why industrialization thrived in the North and cotton dominated the Southern economy.

The Early Years of the Republic

• In 1789 Congress created the Department of State, the Department of the Treasury, the Department of War, and the Office of the Attorney General. Washington then chose his cabinet—the individuals who would head these departments and advise him.
• The judicial branches as well as the first federal judges were established with the Judiciary Act of 1789. John Jay became the first chief justice of the United States.
• In 1791 ten amendments to the Constitution went into effect. These amendments, known as the Bill of Rights, offered safeguards for individual rights against actions of the federal government. The Ninth Amendment states that people have rights other than the ones listed. The Tenth Amendment states that any powers not specifically listed to the federal government would be reserved for states.
• To help ease the debt amassed by the Continental Congress, Alexander Hamilton wanted the federal government to take responsibility for the states’ debt and create a national bank.
• Opponents of a national bank said that establishing such a bank was not an enumerated power—a power specifically mentioned in the Constitution. Alexander Hamilton said the “necessary and proper” clause created implied powers, or powers not listed in the Constitution but necessary for the government to function. A national bank was needed to collect taxes, regulate trade, and provide for defense.
• In 1791 Hamilton’s proposed high tax on the manufacture of American whiskey passed in Congress. Western farmers were outraged by the 25 percent tax, and in 1794 the Whiskey Rebellion began. Washington sent in 13,000 troops to stop the rebellion.
• The split in Congress over Hamilton’s financial plan resulted in the formation of two political parties.
• The Federalists, led by Hamilton, wanted a strong national government in the hands of the wealthy. They believed in manufacturing and trade as the basis of wealth and power. Artisans, merchants, manufacturers, and bankers supported the Federalist Party.
• Madison and Jefferson led the Democratic-Republicans. Their party was referred to as the Republicans. The group supported agriculture over trade and commerce. They favored the rights of states against the power of the federal government. The rural South and West tended to support Republicans.
• Washington was succeeded after two terms as president by fellow Federalist John Adams.
• The Federalists, in a move to silence Republican criticism against them, passed the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. It was now a crime to criticize the federal government and federal officials. Also, the laws made it harder for aliens, who typically voted Republican, to gain citizenship.
• In 1798 and 1799, the laws were challenged by Kentucky and Virginia, who stated they were unconstitutional.
• The election of 1800 was closely contested and revealed a flaw in the system for selecting a president. Each state chooses electors that are sent to the Electoral College to vote for the president. In the election of 1800, two candidates, Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, each had the same number of electoral votes. According to the Constitution, the House of Representatives votes for president when there is a tie. However, there was also a tie in the House of Representatives. Finally, Jefferson became president by one vote.
• The election of 1800 proved that despite disagreements between political parties, power in the United States could be peacefully transferred.

The Republicans Take Power

• Thomas Jefferson wanted to limit the scope of government. He began paying off the federal debt, cut government spending, and did away with the whiskey tax. He also trimmed the armed forces.
• On his last day in office, Adams appointed dozens of Federalist judges and court officers. Jefferson asked the new Republican Congress to not allow the last-minute appointments. The Supreme Court agreed with Jefferson.
• In Marbury v. Madison, the Supreme Court asserted its right of judicial review, or the power to decide whether laws passed by Congress were constitutional and strike down laws that were not.
• By 1803 Napoleon began plans to conquer Europe. Short on funds, Napoleon agreed to sell the Louisiana Territory as well as New Orleans to the United States. On April 30, 1803, the United States purchased Louisiana from France for $11.25 million, and took on French debts of about $3.75 million. The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States.
• When Madison took office in 1809, he faced growing tensions with Great Britain. The British were seizing American ships and kidnapping American sailors, and they were accused of inciting Native Americans to attack white settlers.
• Economic sanctions were beginning to work, but too late—Congress had declared war, and the War of 1812 began.
• The British marched into Washington D.C. and burned the White House and Capital, but faced strong opposition in Baltimore.
• The Treaty of Ghent, signed on December 24, 1814, restored prewar boundaries, generated patriotism and national unity, and destroyed the Federalist Party, whose members had opposed the war.

The Growth of American Nationalism

• Republican president James Monroe was greeted with a spreading sense of nationalism and political harmony. The focus shifted to domestic issues.
• Congress prepared an ambitious economic program. Their program included creating a new national bank, protecting American manufacturers from foreign competition, and improving transportation in order to link the country together.
• Between 1816 and 1824, Chief Justice of the United States, John Marshall, ruled in several cases that established the power of the federal government over the states.
• In the 1819 decision of McCulloch v. Maryland, Marshall said that the Second Bank was constitutional because the “necessary and proper” clause meant that the federal government could use any method for carrying out its powers, as long as the method was not expressly forbidden in the Constitution. He also ruled out that state governments could not interfere with an agency of the federal government exercising its specific constitutional powers within a state.
• n the 1824 decision of Gibbons v. Ogden, the Supreme Court ruled that the Constitution granted the federal government control over interstate commerce. Marshall’s decisions expanded federal power with the help of the “necessary and proper” clause and the interstate commerce clause.
• Nationalism in the United States influenced the nation to expand its borders and assert itself in world affairs.
• In the early 1800s, Spanish-held Florida angered many Southerners because runaway slaves fled there and because the Seminoles often clashed with American settlers across the border in Georgia. In 1818 General Andrew Jackson seized Spanish settlements in Florida. In the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, Spain ceded all of Florida to the United States.
• Many of Spain’s colonies on the American mainland were declaring independence. Some European monarchies proposed helping Spain regain control of its overseas colonies. In response, President Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine. This policy declared that the United States would prevent other countries from interfering in Latin American political affairs.

A Growing Nation

• In the early 1800s, a transportation revolution and the Industrial Revolution helped the North become a major manufacturing center.
• In 1806 Congress funded a major east-west highway called the National Road.
• Steamboats made river travel more reliable and upstream travel possible.
• Railroads appeared in the 1800s. Trains helped settle the West and expand trade among regions.
• The Industrial Revolution began in Britain in the 1700s. The revolution consisted of several developments in business and industry.
• The United States industrialized quickly. The key factor may have been the American system of free enterprise based on private property rights.
• Industrialization began in the Northeast. Eli Whitney popularized the use of interchangeable parts which led to factory-based production.
• Samuel F. B. Morse perfected the telegraph and developed Morse code, which sped communication.
• Industrialization and the search for higher-paying jobs drew thousands from rural areas into the cities.
• Immigrants by the millions poured into the United States between 1815 and 1860. Some immigrants became farmers; others provided a steady stream of cheap labor.
• Some Americans organized against the newcomers. These nativists had a preference for native-born people and wanted to limit immigration. They formed the American Party, which became known as the Know-Nothings.
• Factory workers, which included women and children, were poorly paid and worked under horrid conditions. Some workers began to organize into labor unions, or groups of workers who press for better working conditions and member benefits.
• Despite industrialization, agriculture remained the country’s leading economic activity, especially in the South. In the South, cotton was king and accounted for nearly two-thirds of U.S. exports. However, the South accounted for only about 16 percent of U.S. manufacturing.
• The success of cotton and the growth of plantations greatly increased the demand for slave labor. The slave trade was outlawed in 1808, but a high birthrate among enslaved women kept the population growing. By 1850 enslaved Africans comprised 37 percent of the total Southern population.
• All enslaved persons suffered indignities ranging from a complete lack of citizenship and political rights to extreme violence and murder.
• Free African Americans lived in both the North and the South. They were not embraced in either region but, in the North, they could organize their own churches and associations and earn money from jobs.

1.3 The Constitution

Main Ideas:
The states created constitutions that gave people more rights, but the national framework could not address all the problems of the new nation.
American leaders created a new constitution based on compromise.
The promise of a Bill of Rights guaranteed the ratification of the Constitution.

Vocabulary
republic, recession, popular sovereignty, federalism, separation of powers, checks and balances, veto, amendment, ratification

Reading Objectives:
Describe features of the governments set up under the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.
Identify key steps and events leading up to ratification of the Constitution.

The Young Nation

• In the new United States of America, a republic was formed. In a republic power resides with a body of citizens who have the right to vote. Elected leaders must govern according to a constitution.
• Many states already had constitutions that embodied ideas such as separation of powers and a list of rights guaranteeing freedoms.
• The Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, passed in 1786, reflected the concern for individual liberty. It said that Virginia no longer had an official church.
• Voting and most other political rights were extended to white males only.
• After the Revolution, women made some advances. They could more easily obtain a divorce. They also gained greater access to education.
• Thousands of enslaved African Americans obtained their freedom during and after the war. Many American leaders felt that enslaving people conflicted with the new views of liberty and equality.
• On March 2, 1781, American leaders created the Articles of Confederation which loosely organized the states under one governing body, the Confederation Congress.
• Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress could negotiate with other nations, raise armies, and declare war, but could not regulate trade or impose taxes.
• 
• To raise money, Congress created the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, a plan for how states would be created in the lands west of the Appalachians and north of the Ohio River—the Northwest Territory.
• Because the Congress lacked the power to regulate trade and to tax, the new country fell into a recession, or economic slowdown. Congress could not pay its expenses or war debts, or stop the states from issuing their own money, which further damaged the economy.
• Poor farmers were hit hard by the recession. In 1787 a bankrupt Massachusetts farmer named Daniel Shays led 1,200 followers in a protest of new taxes. Shay’s Rebellion illustrated the weaknesses of the Confederation Congress. People began to argue for a stronger central government.

A New Constitution

• At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, 55 delegates went to Philadelphia to revise the Articles of Confederation. They threw them out and wrote a new framework of government.
• The convention appointed a special committee to resolve differences between the large and small states. The committee worked out the Great Compromise. It proposed that in the House of Representatives, the states would be represented according to the size of their populations. The Senate would have equal representation. The voters in each state would elect the House of Representatives. The state legislatures would choose the senators.
• The Three-Fifths Compromise was a plan for counting enslaved people in a state. Every five enslaved people in a state would count as three free persons for determining both representation and taxes.
• The Constitution was based on the principle of popular sovereignty, or rule by the people. The Constitution created a system of government called federalism. This divided the government between the federal, or national, government and the state governments.
• The Constitution provided for a separation of powers among the three branches of government. The legislative branch makes the laws. It is made up of the two houses of Congress. The executive branch enforces the laws. It is headed by a president. The judicial branch interprets federal laws. It is made up of a system of federal courts.
• The Constitution also provides for a system of checks and balances to prevent any one of the three branches from becoming too powerful. The powers of the president include proposing legislation, appointing judges, putting down rebellions, and the ability to veto, or reject, legislation. The powers of the legislative branch include the ability to override the veto with a two-thirds vote in both houses. The Senate approves or rejects presidential appointments. Congress can impeach, or formally accuse of misconduct, and then remove the president or any high official in the executive or judicial branch if convicted during trial. The judicial branch would hear all cases arising under federal laws and the Constitution.
• The Constitution has a system for making amendments, or changes to the Constitution. There is a two-step process for amending the Constitution—proposal and ratification.
• New amendments can be proposed by a vote of two-thirds of the members of both houses of Congress, or two-thirds of the states could call a constitutional convention to propose new amendments. A proposed amendment must be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures or by conventions in three-fourths of the states.

The Fight for Ratification

• On September 28, 1787, the Confederation Congress submitted the Constitution to the states for ratification, or approval. Nine of the 13 states had to approve it.
• People who supported the Constitution were Federalists. Many Federalists were interested in protecting their property and regulating trade.
• Constitution opponents were called Antifederalists. They wanted a national government but were concerned about which would be supreme—the state governments or the national government.
• Federalists organized their arguments in a collection of 85 essays called The Federalist.
• In order to get the Constitution ratified in Massachusetts, Federalists promised to add a bill of rights to the Constitution once it was ratified and to support an amendment that would reserve for the states all powers not specifically granted to the federal government.
• The Bill of Rights, or the first ten amendments to the Constitution, guaranteed the freedoms of speech, press, and religion; protection from unreasonable searches and seizures; and the right to a trial by jury.
• In June of 1788, New Hampshire became the ninth state to ratify the Constitution. New York and Virginia had not ratified it, however, and many feared the new government would not succeed without their support. Gradually, all 13 states ratified the Constitution.
• George Washington was chosen as the first president under the new Constitution.

Extra Credit #1

Watch one of the following movies.  After you watch write a  (minimum) one page paper that includes:
       a) a synopsis of the film
       b) what historical event(s)  it discusses
       c) in your opinion, how good a job at showing actual historical events does the movie do?
       d) whether or not you would recommend it to others and why

Films to choose from:
The Last of the Mohicans
The Patriot
1776
John Adams
The Crossing

* if you have another film, get permission first.