Unit 5: Jacksonian Democracy/The Young

NationChapter 12: Responses

to the Great Transformation 1828-

1848

TranscendentalismFirst true American contribution to philosophy

& intellectual thought

Emphasized simple living, claiming that truth can be found within themselves & in nature

Two leading writers were Ralph Waldo Emerson & Henry David Thoreau

Hudson River SchoolFirst school of American art

Landscape painting became the prevalent genre of 19th century American art

Visual embodiments of the ideals of the Transcendentalists

UtopiasUtopian spirit led to the formation of 40 communities

that stressed living in a cooperative natureBrook Farm, MAOneida Colony in NY – practiced “free love”, birth

control, & eugenic selection of parents to produce “superior offspring”

Most failed b/c there was no democratic free enterprise or land ownership

Longest sect was the ShakersProhibited marriage & sexual relations which led to

their demise in the 1940s

Second Great Awakening

One of the biggest religious revivals in American history

Preached spiritual rebirth, individual self-improvement, & perfectionismCharles FinneyLyman Beecher

Spread to the masses on the frontier by huge “camp meetings”Western NY known as the “burned-over district”

Middle class women were the most fervent enthusiasts of religious revivalism

Second Great AwakeningResults

Shattered churches, leading to many new sects

Missionary work increased (Indians)Encouraged the reform movement – public

education, temperance, women’s rights, asylums for mentally ill, abolition

Public EducationEarly public schools were for educating the poor, but

many didn’t support them

Viewpoint changed once the poor were allowed to voteTax supported public education triumphed between

1825-1850

Reform was needed & came from Horace MannMore & better school housesLonger school termsBetter-trained & higher-paid teachersExpanded curriculum

TemperanceAlcohol wasn’t perceived as a social problem

until the 1820s/1830s

Problems with drinkingDecreased the efficiency of laborThreatened the familyThreatened spiritual welfare

The Drunkards Progress

Women in RevoltMovement was led by middle-class women

Followers held conventions in the NE & Midwest

Seneca Falls Convention (1848)Organized & led by Elizabeth Cady Stanton &

Lucretia MottFeminists created a Declaration of

SentimentsLaunched the modern women’s rights

movement

AbolitionAnti-slavery societies began to develop

Some of the earliest abolition efforts focused on transporting blacks back to AfricaAmerican Colonization Society (1817)

Meeting of the American Colonization Society. Members felt that free blacks were “unfavorable to our industry and morals.”

Abolition

Most vocal leader at this time was William Lloyd GarrisonFounded the first

abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator (1831)

Advocated immediate emancipation for slaves

American Anti-Slavery Society

Abolition

Had little support at first

Congress passed a gag rule that tabled any petition to Congress that discussed the abolition of slavery

Support for the movement gradually grew, largely because of the role of womenSarah & Angelina Grimke

“I appeal to you, my friends, as mothers; Are you willing to enslave your children? You start back with horror and indignation at such a question. But why, if slavery is no wrong to those upon whom it is imposed? Why, if as has often been said, slaves are happier than their masters, free from the cares and perplexities of providing for themselves and their families? Why not place your children in the way of being supported without your having the trouble to provide for them, or they for themselves? Do you not perceive that as soon as this golden rule of action is applied to yourselves that you involuntarily shrink from the test; as soon as your actions are weighed in this balance of the sanctuary that you are found wanting? Try yourselves by another of the Divine precepts, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." Can we love a man as we love ourselves if we do, and continue to do unto him, what we would not wish any one to do to us? Look too, at Christ's example, what does he say of himself, "I came not to be ministered unto, but to minister." Can you for a moment imagine the meek, and lowly, and compassionate Saviour, a slaveholder? Do you not shudder at this thought as much as at that of his being a warrior? But why, if slavery is not sinful?”

Angelina Grimke: Appeal to the Christian Women of the South

The Whig Alternative to Jacksonian Democracy

1832 Election

The New Political Coalition

Opponents of Jackson formed a new party in 1834 – the Whig PartyName represented opposition to the British

monarchy prior to the Revolution

Generated support fromAdvocates of strong govt. & Clay’s American

SystemNullifiers in the SouthNorthern industrialistsEvangelical Protestants

The New Political Coalition

Campaigned forActive govt. programs & reformsInternal improvements instead of westward

territorial expansionNational Bank & industrial growth

1836 Election

Van Buren in the White House

The Whigs lost the 1836 election to Democrat Martin Van Buren

Biggest problem he faced was the depression he inherited from Jackson (Panic of 1837)

Election of 1840Whigs nominated William Henry

Harrison & John Tyler to run against Van Buren

Whigs portrayed Van Buren as an aristocrat and Harrison as a simple frontiersman who lived in a log cabin“Tippecanoe & Tyler Too!”

Election had the biggest voter turnout at that time

Harrison won but died in 1841

1840 Election

Manifest DestinyTyler worked to support the cause of Manifest

Destiny

Belief that the U.S. was destined to expand westward to the Pacific

Used to gain public support for American territorial expansion

".... the right of our manifest destiny to over spread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federaltive development of self-government entrusted to us. It is right such as that of the tree to the space of air and the earth suitable for the full expansion of its principle and destiny of growth.” – John L. O’Sullivan

Expansion & the Election of 1844

Tyler refused to support the larger Whig political agendaIn response, the Whigs nominated Clay to run

against Democrat James K. Polk in the 1844 election

Polk based his platform on westward expansion; Clay emphasized economic policies

Polk won the election, and Tyler pushed through a bill to annex Texas just before leaving office (1845)

Election of 1844

War with Mexico

Polk wanted to buy CA, but relations with Mexico City were tense

Mexican govt. had severed diplomatic relations after the U.S. annexed Texas

Boundary issues involving Texas

Wouldn’t consider Polk’s offer to buy CA

War with Mexico

Jan. 1846 Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande & attacked General Taylor & his men – start of the war

Wilmot ProvisoCalled for the prohibition of slavery in lands

acquired from Mexico in the Mexican WarNever became federal law

War with Mexico

Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848)Mexico ceded

TexasU.S. paid $15

million for the land west to the Pacific