He was an English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer.  One of his most prominent accomplishments in his lifetime was popularizing tobacco in England.

This is the right, by law of common customs, of the firstborn male of a family to inherit the entirety of wealth of the family.  This excludes younger siblings from inheriting wealth from the family.

These are companies in which the stock is jointly owned by many shareholders.  It encouraged commercial expansion and provided financial backing for endeavors to colonize America.

This charter became an important document in American History, because it guaranteed the settlers the same rights as the people of England.  The charter revealed the primary motivation for colonization of both King James and the Virginia company: the promise of gold.

This is a settlement located of the Jamestown Island in the Virginia colony.  It was the very first British settlement in the New World.  The land was hot, humid, and mosquito-infested.  Many of the settlers died once they arrived due to disease, malnutrition, and starvation.

John Smith came to Jamestown after a career as a soldier. He provided must needed leadership to the settlers.  The Virginia Company was impressed with Smith and his military background, so he was elected as a resident council to manage the colony.  He implemented the rule “he that will not work shall not eat.”  Smith bargained with Indians so that he was able to explore and map the Chesapeake area.  His resourcefulness allowed the colonists to survive.  He was eventually kidnapped by the Powhatan Indians, but according to legend he was rescued from death by Pocahontas. 

John Rolfe was an English colonist in Virginia.  He perfected the process of curing tobacco, this became the economic savior of the Virginia colony.  Rolfe married Pocahontas to resolve any despises amongst the colonists and the natives.

This was the lower house of the colonial Virginia Legislature.  This was the first assembly of elected representatives of English colonists in North America.  The House was established by the Virginia company who created the group in an effort to encourage English craftsmen to venture to the New World.

Puritans were members of a group of English Protestants who saw the Reformation as incomplete.  They sought to simplify and regulate forms of worship.  Separatists took the act of the Puritans a step further, and completed separated from the Church of England.

The purpose of the Mayflower was to bond the passengers together.  It was the first governing document of the Plymouth Colony, it was written by the colonists.

An elected assembly.  This allowed the representatives to be local, the governor was to be elected by freeman.  New laws were applied to all colony citizens including governor and General Court members.

John Winthrop was a wealthy English Puritan lawyer.  He was also one the leading figures in the founding of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Winthrop led the first large group of immigrants from England, and he served as the governor for 12 of the colony’s first 20 years.

This is based on the notion that hard work is a person’s calling and a visible sign of a personal salvation with Christ.  This was based on Calvinist ideas.

He was an English Protestant theologian who was a believer of religious freedom and the separation of church and state.  He was banished from Massachusetts, so he founded the colony of Rhode Island.  Rhode Island served as a refuge from political and religious persecution.

She was a Puritan who became the leader of a dissident church discussion group.  She led a Bible study for women, which soon spread to men.  At the Bible study, Hutchinson proclaimed her own theology which offended the colonies leadership.  Hutchinson was accused of practicing antinomianism, and was eventually banished from the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

He is an American clergyman who was a founding settler for Hartford, Connecticut.  He also helped to write the Fundamental Orders, which was the original constitution of Connecticut.

This consisted of the orders that described the government set up by the Connecticut River towns.  It set up the structure and powers.  It has the features of a written constitution, and is considered by many to be the first written Constitution in the New World.  

This was an armed conflict between 1634 and 1638.  The war was fought between the Pequot Indian tribe and the alliance of Massachusetts Bay, Plymouth, and Saybrook colonies with the aid of the Native American allies.  Hundreds were killed, and hundreds more were captured and sold into slavery in the West Indies.  The result of this war was the complete annihilation of the Pequot tribe in Southern New England.

He was a war chief of the Wampanoag Indians, and their leader in King Philip’s War.  He was fatally shot near Mount Hope in Rhode Island.  His head was mounted onto a spike and placed at the entrance of Fort Plymouth for 2 decades.

This was an administrative union of the English colonies in the New England region.  The dominion was ultimately a failure because the area it contained was too large for a single governor to manage.  Many of the leaders were unpopular with the citizens.

A member of a certain Religious Society of Friends, which was Christian movement founded by George Fox.  Their general beliefs are the doctrine of the “Inner Light”, or sense of Christ’s work in the believers soul.  They rejected all set forms of worship, and believed that worship was love expressed not rituals.

This act was a law mandating religious tolerance for Trinitarian Christians.  The motive of this law was protection of the Roman Catholics.  If one denied the divinity of Christ the punishment was death.  It was the first legal guarantee of religious tolerance in American history.  It was a definite step forward in religious liberty, it was an early inspiration for others.

This is a form of partial church membership created in New England.  It allowed children of holders of the Covenant to be baptized without fully accepting the Covenant.  This allowed people to participate in the church without a fee to be paid to the church.

These were a series of hearing to prosecute people accused of witchcraft.  Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with more accused but not formally punished by authorities.  

This was a movement among the intellectuals in the 18th century.  This sought to mobilize the power of reason to change society and advance the knowledge of man.  It promoted intellectual interchange, and opposed abuse in the Church and in the state.  It was sparked by many men, John Locke being one of the several

He was an English philosopher and physician.  He was regarded as one of the most influential thinkers during the Enlightenment period.  His works inspired many men including Benjamin Franklin.  His thoughts and beliefs are what prompted the Americans to form their own society.  His thoughts are reflected in the Declaration of Independence.

This is the belief in a supreme being, specifically a Creator.  But this Creator does not intervene in the universe.  He is a distant Creator, this rejects the belief in a supernatural diety who interacts with man.

He was a American statesman, inventor, scientist, and great thinker.  He is the only man to have signed the Declaration of Indepence, the treaty with Great Britain that ended the American Revolution, and the U.S. Constitution. He also introduced electricity.

He was an American cleric and theologian.  He was known for his extreme Calvinism in both his speaking and in his writing.  

This was organized by Ben Franklin.  It stated that colonies should tax themselves, colonies should elect their own national representative, colonies will share power with Britain, and colonies should and will protect themselves.

The purpose was to organize Great Britain’s new North American empire.  This regulated trade, settlement, and land purchases on the western frontier.  

This was a long-standing British policy of avoiding strict enforcement of laws created by the Parliament.  This was used to keep the American colonies obedient to the British crown.

This is the economic doctrine that says government control of foreign trade is absolutely important for ensuring the prosperity and security of a state, country, or territory.

This law was set forth by Parliament on April 5, 1764.  It was a taxation placed on the colonist’s sugar, an essential for colonial living.

He was a Whig who rose to the place of Prime Minister of Great Britain, and he is best known for his policy of the Stamp Act 1764.

He was the leader during the Seven Years’ War also known as the French and Indian War.  He was also the king of Britain during the Revolutionary War.  He passed the Sugar Act, Stamp Act, and the Tea Act.  He was greatly hated by many of the colonial Americans.

This was a direct tax imposed by the Parliament of England, that required many printed materials in the colonies to be printed on stamped paper, which was an increased tax on the colonies.

This is a political group made entirely of American patriots that helped begin the pre-independence North American British colonies.  They are best known for the Boston Tea Party in 1773.

This act which was made in 1766 repealed the Stamp Act, but it stated that the crown’s authority in America was the same of that in England.  It asserted that the monarchy was allowed to make laws that bound the American colonies.

These were a series of acts passed by British Parliament.  The purpose of the acts were to raise revenue in the colonies, this increase of revenue payed the salaried of governors and judges so that they would be independent of the colonial rule.  These acts were enforcing compliance.

He was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States.  He was a leaders in the movement that eventually became the American Revolution.  He was one of the architects of the principles of American republicanism, this shaped the political culture of the United States.

This was an incident on March 5, 1770, in which the British soldiers killed five civilian men.  A mob formed around a a group of British soldiers, the soldiers (without order) fired into the crowd killing 3, and wounding 2.  Those 2 eventually died later from their shot wounds. 

This act added taxes to tea that was shipped to the colonies.  This act caused uproar amongst the colonists.

This was a direct action by American colonists against the British regime.  On December 16, 1773, a group of colonists dressed as Indians, loaded tea ships loaded in Boston Harbor and dumped 342 chests of tea into the water.

These were also known as the Coercive Acts.  These regulations placed on the colonies caused an uproar.  The colonists believed these laws to be a violation of their rights.  The colonists became furious, these laws, amongst other frustrations, lead to the American Revolution.

This act was passed in 1774, and basically gave the territory of Quebec land that the colonists believed to be theirs.  This included modern day Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Wisconsin and parts of Minnesota.

This is a work of political philosophy.  The First Treatise attacks patriarchalism, and the Second Treatise outlines a political idea based solely on natural rights and contract theory.

This was a pamphlet that at that time had the largest sale and circulation of an book in our history.  It presented the colonies was an argument for freedom against the British regime.

This Congress was attended by 56 appointed members.  This Congress debated everything that involved the colonies, including the colonies freedom from British rule.  Members of this congress include Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and John Adams among others.

This was a proposal by Joseph Galloway, in an attempt to keep the English North American colonies in the British Empire.

This was a statements that was adopted by the First Continental Congress, in response to the Intolerable Acts.  This Declaration basically outlined the colonies objections to the Intolerable Acts.  It provided quite a detailed list of grievances.

This was a convention of delegates from the 13 colonies.  They began meeting soon after the American Revolutionary War had begun.  This Congress managed all war efforts, and moved towards independence.

This was adopted by the Second Continental Congress in an attempt to avoid a full-blown war with the mother country.  

This was a document issued by the Second Continental Congress to explain why the 13 colonies took up arms and began the revolution.  The final draft was written by John Dickinson, who used language from an early draft by Thomas Jefferson.

These were American colonists who remained loyal to the British monarch during the Revolutionary War.  At the time, they were called Tories, Royalists, or the King’s Men.

These are 18th century German regiments hired through their rulers by the British Empire.

These men were members of teams of select men from the American colonial partisan militia during the American Revolutionary War.  They were  highly mobile, rapidly developed force that allowed the colonies to respond immediately if needed.

This was a set of treaties which ended the American Revolutionary War.  On the 3rd of September 1783, representatives of Great Britain signed a treaty in Paris with United States representatives.  They also signed treaties with King Louis XVI of  France and King Charles III of Spain.  This treaty said that Great Britain lost their 13 American colonies.

this is the thinking or belief that a nation should be governed as a republic, where the head of state is appointed or elected.  This is a 180 degree difference from aristocracy, from the of England.

this was an agreement among the 13 founding states that legally established the United States as a confederation of states.  This served as the nation’s first constitution.  It was drafted by the Continental Congress in 1776-1777, and was formally ratified by all 13 states in 1781.

this was drafted in 1777 by Thomas Jefferson.  This document was in direct support of the Establishment and Free Exercise Clause from the First Amendment.

this means to put an end to something, or to stop something.  Abolitionism is the movement to end human slavery, which was a prevalent debate in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s.

he was an American artist during the American Revolutionary War.  He is remembered for this historical paintings.  His paintings are in the modern-day Capital Building and his painting Declaration of Independence is on the reverse side of the two-dollar bill.  He painted portraits of “the greats”, including Hamilton and Washington.

this called for the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River to be divided into separate states.

this was a organized incorporate territory of the United States.  After the Northwest Ordinance in 1787 provided administration of the territories and set the rules for admission as a state.

this was adopted by the United States Congress on May 20, 1785.  The immediate goal of this ordinance was to raise money through the sale of land in the largely unmapped territory west of the original states.

this was an act by Congress, the major goal of this ordinance was the creation of the Northwest Territory to be the first organized territory of the United States.

this was an armed uprising in central and western Massachusetts.  The rebellion started on August 29, 1786 over financial difficulties.  A militia was raised as a private army, and in total only 5 were killed.

this was a meeting in Annapolis, Maryland of 12 delegates from 5 states that called for a constitutional convention.  They were attempting to fix the rules that limited trade and commerce between the states.

the main idea of this convention was to address the problems in governing the United States which was under the Articles of Confederation.  The purpose was to revise the Articles of Confederation, but instead they wrote the United States Constitution.

he was an American statesman and a political theorist.  He was also our fourth president, and was called the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author.  He also helped to produce the Federalist Papers. He believed in federalism and the system of “checks and balances”.

was a proposal by Virginia gates, for a bicarmel legislative branch. The plan was drafted by James Madison while he waited for a quorum to assemble at the Constitutional Convention of 1787.  The Virginia Plan was notable for its role in setting the overall agenda for debate in the convention and, in particular, for setting forth the idea of population-weighted representation in the proposed national legislature.

was a proposal for the structure of the United States government proposed by William Patterson at the Constitutional Convention on June 15, 1787.The plan was created in response to the Virginia Plan’s, calling for two houses of Congress, both elected with apportionment according to population or direct taxes paid.

this was an agreement between large and small states that was decided upon during the Constitutional Convention.  This defined the legislative structure and representation that each state would have under the United States Constitution.

this was a compromise between Southern and Northern states that was decided during the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in which a slave counted for 3/5’s of a person for appointment of members to the House of Representatives.

this was a nickname given to the state of Rhode Island, referring to the fact that they were rarely at Constitutional Convention’s.

this is a specific political belief that a group of states should have a central government, but it will have independence on internal affairs.  This was the 1st American political party, it was formed by Alexander Hamilton.

this refers to the movement that opposed the creation of a stronger U.S. federal government.

American revolutionary. As a member of the Continental Congress 1774–76, he was noted as an orator. He is best remembered for an impassioned speech in which he urged the colonies into readiness with the statement "Give me liberty, or give me death."

a collection of essays written under the pseudonym "Publius" by Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison, addressed to "The People of the State of New York," first published in New York City newspapers between October 1787 and August 1788. The purpose of The Federalist was to persuade New Yorkers to ratify the Constitution adopted in Philadelphia in September 1787.

this is a statement of the rights of a class of people.  The First 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution and is guaranteed the rights to speech, press, assembly, and worship.

he was a Founding Father, soldier, economist, and political philosopher.  He was the founder of the federalist was of thinking, and became the Secretary of the Treasury under George Washington.

this was one way of reading into the United States Constitution.  This basically says, if the Constitution does not prohibit it then the government is allowed.

the report analyzed the financial standing of the United States of America and made recommendations for the retirement of the national debt.

“The Congress shall have Power - To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department of Officer there of.”

this was one way of reading into the United States Constitution.  This basically says, if the Constitution does not prohibit it then the government is not allowed.

was a tax protest in the United States in the 1790s, during the presidency of George Washington. Farmers who sold their corn in the form of whiskey had to pay a new tax which they strongly resented.

this is the ideological belief that relates to the American statesman Alexander Hamilton or his doctrines.

it was named after its leading advocate Thomas Jefferson.  The Jeffersonians advocated a narrow interpretation of the Constitution's Article I provisions granting powers to the federal government. They strenuously opposed the Federalist Party, led by Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton.

he was an American politician, statesman, revolutionary, diplomat, a Founding Father of the United States, and the first Chief Justice of the United States (1789–95).  Jay also co-wrote the Federalist Papers, along with Alexander Hamilton and James Madison.  Jay was a minister (ambassador) to Spain and France, helping to fashion United States foreign policy, and to secure favorable peace terms from Great Britain (with Jay's Treaty of 1794) and the First French Republic.

was a treaty between the United States and Great Britain that is credited with averting war.

also known as the Treaty of San Lorenzo or the Treaty of Madrid, was signed in San Lorenzo de El Escorial on October 27, 1795 and established intentions of friendship between the United States and Spain. It also defined the boundaries of the United States with the Spanish colonies and guaranteed the United States navigation rights on the Mississippi River.

was written to “The People of the United States”.  The work was later named a "Farewell Address," as it was Washington's valedictory after 45 years of service to the new republic, first during the French and Indian War, through the American Revolution, and finally as the nation's first president.

an incident in Franco-American relations in which a bribery attempt perpetrated by French agents in 1797 led the U.S. to the brink of formal war with France.

this was an undeclared war fought mostly on sea, between the United States and the French Republic.  The cause was that we did not aid the French in their war against the British, like they had aided us in the American Revolution.

this was a treaty between the United States and France to settle hostilities that had erupted during the Quasi-War.

these were 4 bills passed in 1798 by the Federalists.  The Naturalization Act increased the amount of time necessary for immigrants to become naturalized citizens in the United States.  The Alien Act authorized the President to deport any resident alien considered “dangerous”.  The Alien Enemies Act authorized the president to deport resident aliens if their home countries were at war with the United States.  The Sedition Act made it a crime to publish “false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government.

these were political statements drafted in 1798 and 1799, in which the Kentucky and Virginia legislatures took the position that the federal Alien and Sedition Acts were unconstitutional.

Vice-President Thomas Jefferson defeated President John Adams. The election was an election that ushered in a generation of Democratic-Republican Party rule and the eventual end to the Federalist Party.

this amendment of the United States Constitution provides the procedure for electing the President and Vice President for our country.

this was a purchase by the United States of 828,000 square miles of  

France’s claim of the Louisiana territory for 15 million dollars. It encompassed 15 current U.S. states and 2 Canadian provinces.

Meriwhether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator.  William Clark was an American explorer, soldier, Indian agent, and territorial governor.  Together they lead the Lewis and Clark expedition.

he is an important political figure in the early history of the United States of America.  Burr became a successful lawyer and politician, but is remembered as the man who killed Alexander Hamilton.

this represented an effort to solve an issue in the U.S. Supreme Court during the early 19th century. 

this is a landmark case in United States law and in the history of law worldwide.  It formed the basis for the exercise of judicial review under Article III of the Constitution.  It was also the first time in Western history a court invalidated a law by declaring it “uncostitutional”.

this is the doctrine under which legislative and executive actions are subject to review (and possible invalidation) by the judiciary.

this was a term used by Europeans from 16th until the 19th century to refer to much of the collective land of the Berber people.

was eventually captured and its men held hostage. After four years of sporadic fighting, Jefferson finally negotiated a treaty with Tripoli. For $60,000, the captured Americans were released. To make sure that the weapons on the Philadelphia could not be used against Americans, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur slipped on board the ship and set it ablaze.

a crew of the British frigate Leopard stopped the American ship Chesapeake and demanded to search it. When the captain refused to obey the orders, the British warship opened fire, killing three Americans and injuring several more. When Jefferson learned of the incident, he ordered all British ships to leave U.S. territorial waters. The British, however, responded with even more aggressive searches.

a “peaceable coercion”, it encouraged Congress to pass this act which stopped all exports of American goods.

The British acted under the “Orders in Council,” and punished Americans who traded directly with France, and the French punished Americans who traded with Britain under orders referred to as the “Milan Decree.”

this was made To revive the sluggish economy, this measure eliminated all restrictions on commerce with France and England. It also stated that if either France or England revoked its sanctions against the U.S., America would re-establish its embargo against the other nation.

Tecumseh was a Shawnee chief and his brother Tenskwatawa,  was known as “The Prophet” because he claimed to have religious visions. The two worked to unify the tribes east of the Mississippi against the white "invaders."

he governor of Indiana Territory, assembled a small army and advanced on Prophet Town While Tecumseh traveled to recruit followers, Tenskwatawa and a few braves attacked Harrison and his men. Although the Indians were overpowered, the Battle of Tippecanoe pushed Tecumseh to join forces with Britain against the United States. In the end, it was the Americans who actually helped the British-Indian alliance become reality.

these were daring young go-getters, such as Henry Clay of Kentucky, who were intent on defending America's honor. These new leaders, called "War Hawks" by their Federalist opponents, were the primary force behind Madison's decision to call for war with Britain.

he witnessed the continuous bombing at Fort McHenry.  Just before the attack, Key went on board a British ship in search of a captured doctor. Key kept his eyes on Fort McHenry, and on the American flag that flew over the fort, as rockets lit up the night sky. Key peaked out from his cover to see the Stars and Stripes still waving. The Americans had successfully defended their ground. Moved by the scene, Key scribbled his thoughts on the back of an old letter. Eventually becoming "The Star Spangled Banner," a song the United States would adopt as its national anthem.

this was an event where the British planned another attempt to overtake New Orleans. An armada of 60 ships and 11,000 men, led by Major General Sir Edward Pakenham, set out from Jamaica to the mouth of the Mississippi. American farmers saw the ships and raced to inform General Andrew Jackson, who was in charge of defending the Gulf Coast. Jackson quickly rallied his troops and ambushed the British fleet. The battle raged for weeks.  The Battle of New Orleans was an overwhelming success for the Americans and made General Andrew Jackson a hero.

this was the meeting of radical New England Federalists who considered seceding from the Union. Some members proposed the creation of a New England Confederacy that would establish peace with England so trading could be reinstated.

this was a treaty signed on Christmas Eve in 1814, was essentially a draw. It called for both the British and Americans to quit fighting and return conquered territory. It made no reference to the complaints that prompted the United States to declare war on Britain. Search and seizures, Orders in Council, and the impressment of American sailors were basically ignored, and both parties were content to agree to a truce. After the treaty was signed, ships were free to sail to any port, goods could be traded with any customer, and Royal Navy warships no longer patrolled the American coastline.

there was a continuation of the so-called “Virginia Dynasty,” since all of the presidents between 1801 and 1825 were from Virginia.

This phrase has often been used to describe Monroe’s presidency, but it is, unfortunately, somewhat misleading. The first few years of Monroe’s presidency were blessed with peace, liberty, and progress. However, the prosperity following the War of 1812 collapsed, the Panic of 1819 took hold, and a resurgence of sectionalism erupted.

he Panic of 1819 marked the end of the economic expansion that followed the War of 1812. It featured deflation, depression, bank failures, foreclosures, unemployment, a slump in agriculture and manufacturing, and overcrowded debtors’ prisons.  Many factors contributed to the Panic of 1819, including a downturn in exports and strong price competition from foreign goods. The falling prices impaired agriculture and manufacturing, triggering widespread unemployment, the risky lending practiced by banks in the west, The Second Bank of the United States tightened their credit lending policies and eventually forced these “wildcat” frontier banks to foreclose mortgages on countless farms and similar high-risk debtors, which resulted in bankruptcies and prisons full of debtors. The Panic of 1819 affected the entire country.

Henry Clay came up with a plan called the “American System” that drew upon the nationalism Americans were still feeling after the War of 1812. Clay’s plan for developing profitable American markets had three main parts: a strong banking system to provide abundant credit, a protective tariff to ensure successful eastern manufacturing, and internal improvements, such as a network of roads and canals. Clay’s American System was meant to build the national economy and bind the country together both economically and politically.

in this agreement the United States and Britain agreed to a limited naval presence on the Great Lakes, eventually resulting in the demilitarization of the entire border. The spirit of this agreement gave rise to the tradition of an unfortified border between the United States and Canada. 

at this convention the United States and Britain negotiated three important points. The vague northern limit of the Louisiana Purchase was settled along the 49th parallel, from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. The United States was also granted the right to share the Newfoundland and Labrador fisheries. And the third point of agreement was that the Oregon Country would be open to joint occupation by both the British and Americans for 10 years. 

in this treaty there were negotiations with the Spanish Minister to Washington, Luis de Onís, Adams bargained for Spain to cede all of Florida for $5 million—which the United States actually paid to Americans who held claims against Spain—in exchange for America’s abandonment of claims to Texas, thus setting the western boundary of the Louisiana Purchase.

his amendment stating that no more slaves could be brought into Missouri and that all slaves born in Missouri after the territory became a state would be freed at the age of 25.  Southerners were extremely concerned about the Missouri emancipation amendment and felt the future of the slave system might depend on it being vetoed.  The House of Representatives passed the Tallmadge Amendment on a strictly sectional vote, but the Senate rejected it, with some Northern Federalists joining the South to spite the Republicans.

Missouri was admitted as a slave state, and Maine was separated from Massachusetts and admitted as a free state. This compromise preserved the balance between northern and southern states, as well as free and slave states. In addition, Congress prohibited slavery in all other parts of the Louisianan Purchase north of the line of 36° 30’—the southern boundary of Missouri. This second part of the Compromise was rather ironic, considering Missouri was north of the designated no slavery line.  The Missouri Compromise lasted for 34 years. Both sides had yielded something in the compromise, but both felt they had gained something as well. Northerners were satisfied with the compromise because it kept the balance in the Senate between free and slave states. Southerners felt they won a victory with the Missouri Compromise because at that time most Americans felt it was unlikely that the area north and west of Missouri would ever be settled.

in this case members of the Georgia legislature were bribed in 1795 to sell 35 million acres in Mississippi for a small amount to private speculators. The following year, a new Georgia legislature rescinded the sale. The case was taken to the Supreme Court, and Marshall, speaking for the Court, ruled that the original sale was a legal contract—regardless of whether or not it was fraudulent—and therefore protected by the Constitution. The ruling was historically significant because it protected property rights against popular pressures, and it also clearly asserted the Supreme Court’s right to invalidate state laws that conflicted with the Constitution.

in this Supreme Court case the state of Virginia confiscated land owned by a British Loyalist named Denny Martin Fairfax. Virginia granted David Hunter 800 acres of the confiscated lands, and Fairfax brought suit against Hunter for return of the land. The Treaty of Paris (1794) and Jay’s Treaty (1795) seemed to make it clear that Fairfax was the rightful owner of the property, but the Virginia court upheld the grant to Hunter.  The Supreme Court and Justice Marshall overruled the Virginia court, declaring that the land belonged to Fairfax and voided the grant to Hunter. The Court’s ruling rejected “compact theory,” the idea that the states were equally sovereign to the federal government. This ruling was significant because it enforced the rights of the Supreme Court, which held appellate jurisdiction over state courts. Thus, Marshall’s ruling upheld the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

in this Supreme Court case the state of New Hampshire tried to alter the college’s charter, which had been granted in 1769 by King George III. A New Hampshire court ruled that Dartmouth was to be changed from a private to a public institution. Dartmouth appealed the case to the Supreme Court, where Marshall ruled that the original charter must stand because it was a contract and could not be altered or canceled without consent of both parties. The Marshall Court ruled that the Constitution protected contracts against state encroachments. The significance of Marshall’s ruling was far reaching because it effectively safeguarded private corporations from domination by the states’ governments. Unfortunately, the case also set the precedent for giving corporations the ability to skirt governmental controls. Once the states became aware of this dilemma, they generally wrote into charters the ability to make changes so that it was part of the contract.

this Supreme Court case is often considered John Marshall’s single most important interpretation of the Constitution, because it dealt with the division of power between the federal government and the states. The state of Maryland, in order to protect its local banks, placed an annual tax on the Bank of the United States and other “foreign” banks. The Maryland branch of the Bank of the United States refused to pay, and Maryland brought suit against the chief bank employee, called the “head cashier,” John W. McCulloch.  Marshall upheld the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States, using Hamilton’s bank message of 1791 to support his position. He argued that the Bank’s legality was implied in many of the powers specifically granted to Congress. Since the bank was legal, the Maryland tax was unconstitutional, for “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” which was exactly what many states had in mind with respect to the Bank. The Marshall Court’s ruling in favor of McCulloch used a “loose” interpretation of the Constitution and, with the ruling, strengthened federal authority and the implied powers of Congress.

in this Supreme Court case the, also called “steamboat case,”, involved the regulation of interstate commerce. In 1808, Robert Fulton and Robert Livingston pioneered commercial use of the steamboat and held a monopoly of steamboat navigation on the Hudson in New York. In 1815, Aaron Ogden purchased exclusive rights to operate a ferry between New York and New Jersey. When Thomas Gibbons, who held a federal trade license, set up a competing line, Ogden sued him. The case was presented to the Supreme Court, where Marshall decided in favor of Gibbons, destroying Fulton’s and Livingston’s monopoly and reminding New York that Congress alone controlled interstate commerce.

this doctrine had two main points. First, Monroe proclaimed that the era of colonization in the Americas had ended: "The American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers." Europe’s political system was different than that of the New World, and he felt the two should not be mixed. He stated that any attempts by European powers to extend their political system to the Western Hemisphere would be seen as a threat to the nation’s “peace and safety.” The second point Monroe made in his policy statement was that the United States would not interfere with existing European colonies in North or South American and would avoid involvement in European affairs.

this was a party that in 1849, nativists formed a group in New York called the “Order of the Star Spangled Banner,” which developed into a political party called the “American Party.” When asked about the organization, members refused to identify themselves saying, “I know nothing,” which eventually led the group to be labeled the “Know-Nothing” Party. The anti-Catholic group won many elections up until the 1850s, when the anti-Catholic movement subsided and slavery became the focal issue of the time.

he left Britain in disguise and arrived in America with the plans in his head for a textile machine that would spin cotton. He contracted with a merchant-manufacturer in Rhode Island to build the machine, and in 1791, he created the first efficient American machinery for spinning cotton thread. By 1815, there were 130,000 cotton spindles turning in 213 factories. Slater is often called the “Father of the Factory System” in America.

he, in 1793, another mechanical entrepreneur, Eli Whitney, graduated from Yale and spent some time as a tutor on a cotton plantation in Georgia. While there, Whitney devised a mechanism for removing the seeds from the cotton fiber that was 50 times more effective than the handpicking process, thus inventing the cotton “gin” (short for “engine”). Whitney hoped to improve the life of slaves with his cotton gin by making the tedious process of removing seeds less burdensome and to perhaps even eliminate the need for slaves altogether. The machine was fairly simple to create, and by the time Whitney secured a patent in 1794, a number of copies had already been created. Although he did not see much profit from the cotton gin, Whitney had unintentionally begun a revolution. Cotton production soared, the South became tied to King Cotton, and planters cleared more and more land for cotton growth. The North prospered from the fiber as it was shipped to the New England factories and processed in Slater’s cotton thread machine. The Industrial Revolution had arrived in America.

he, in 1844, Samuel Morse transmitted the first intercity telegraph message 40 miles from Baltimore to Washington. The message itself was borrowed from the Bible by the daughter of the Commissioner of Patents and said, "What hath God wrought?" It took a while for Morse’s invention to catch on, but by 1861, the connections between cites spanned all the way to San Francisco, putting distant people in almost instant communication with one another.

this was a group of merchants headed by Francis Cabot Lowell, added a new dimension to factory production. Many of the early factories used Samuel Slater’s cotton spinning machines and set up hand looms, but the weavers could not keep up with the machines. In 1813, in Waltham, Massachusetts, Lowell combined the spinning machines with power weaving machines at the Boston Manufacturing Company plant. Lowell focused on mechanization of the entire process for mass-producing standardized cloth. The cloth was plain and rather coarse, but durable and cheap. The Boston Associates used the Boston Manufacturing Company as a model for new factories. In 1823, they harnessed the power of the Merrimack River at East Chelmsford, Massachusetts to develop a new plant. The town was appropriately renamed Lowell and within three years had over 2,000 inhabitants. By 1850, factories based on the Waltham model produced one-fifth of the nation’s total output of cotton cloth.  In the new Lowell textile factories, the Boston Associates developed a labor system that employed young, unmarried women. By the 1820s, young women came to the factory towns from farms all over New England. The women lived in boardinghouses that were strictly supervised, and they earned between $2.50 and $3.25 per week, about half of which went for room and board. Often, the young women were not working to support themselves, but sending most of the money they made back home. Many worked simply for the excitement of meeting new people and to escape the confines of the farm for a few years before they married. A variety of educational and cultural opportunities offset, to some degree, unsafe and unhealthy conditions during the twelve-hour days and six-day workweeks.  As the Lowell factories experienced booming growth, the conditions for the workers changed. The cities in which the textile factories operated became dirty, bleak industrial cities. Wage cuts and deteriorating working conditions became the norm. As the demand for cheap labor grew, child workers also became vulnerable to exploitation in the factories. Over half of the nation’s industrial workers in 1820 were children under the age of 10 who were both physically and mentally abused. Factory owners increasingly turned to Irish and German immigrants to operate their machines.

in the Supreme Court case of Commonwealth v. Hunt 1842, the court ruled that forming a trade union was not illegal. While on the surface this ruling looked to be significant for organized labor, it soon proved to be more of a symbolic gesture. Trade unions provided only marginal benefits for the workers of this time, and it would be nearly a century before they could meet management on even terms.

this was completed by a private company, a broad, paved highway that was similar to the good European highways at that time. It was called a “turnpike” because as drivers approached the tollgate they were confronted with a barrier of sharp spikes that was turned aside when they paid their toll. The completion of the Lancaster Turnpike resulted in a turnpike-building boom that lasted nearly 20 years. By 1821, nearly 4,000 miles of turnpikes had been completed, mostly connecting eastern cities.

although states’ rights proponents regularly blocked spending federal funds for internal improvements, one notable exception was the Cumberland Road. In 1811, the federal government began to construct a turnpike—Cumberland Road, also called the “National Road”—which stretched 591 miles from Cumberland, in western Maryland, to Vandalia, in Illinois. The project was completed in 1852 with a combination of federal and state aid, with different states receiving ownership of segments of the highway.

he, in 1807, Robert Fulton sent the first commercially successful steamboat, the Clermont, from New York City up the Hudson River to Albany. Skeptics initially thought the project would never work and nicknamed the boat “Fulton’s Folly.” The Clermont made the run of 150 miles at about five miles an hour, proving that it was an efficient vessel. Thereafter, use of the steamboat spread rapidly, with steamers making the run from New Orleans as far north as Ohio. By 1830, there were more than 200 steamers on the Mississippi.

in 1817, the New York legislature endorsed Governor DeWitt Clinton’s plan for connecting the Hudson River with Lake Erie—the Erie Canal. Completed in 1825, the canal ran 363 miles from Albany to Buffalo. The completion of the canal reduced travel time from New York City to Buffalo from 20 days to six, reduced the cost of moving a ton of freight from $100 to $5, and moved the country a step closer to linking the Mississippi Valley and the Atlantic Ocean. The canal also provided a water route from New York to Chicago, via the Great Lakes, and marked the beginning of Chicago’s rapid growth.  The Erie Canal was immediately a financial success, paying for itself within seven years. The success of the “Big Ditch” sparked a canal-building mania that lasted for more than a decade and resulted in around 3,000 miles of waterways by 1840. Ohio built the Ohio and Erie Canal, running from the Ohio River to Cleveland, and Indiana built the Wabash and Erie Canal. Both were feeders that supplied farmers west of the Appalachians with water connections to the east.  The Erie Canal had broad economic implications. The value of land along the route increased, new cities in New York such as Rochester and Syracuse sprang up, industry in New York boomed, and farming in the Old Northwest attracted thousands of newcomers who could now easily ship their goods to market on the east coast. 

This happened days after Adams was selected as President, he chose Clay as his Secretary of State, a coveted position because frequently the individual in this role went on to be president. Clay’s appointment caused an uproar among Jackson’s supporters, who believed that Clay and Adams had conspired to get Adams into office—Clay scratching Adams’ back by giving him the presidential nod, and Adams returning the favor with a prime position in his cabinet.

The act of appointing friends and supporters to the Presidential Cabinent.

The Jacksonians expected a backlash from their somewhat outrageous tariff proposal, which was exactly their purpose. They hoped to push this tariff through to embarrass Adams and his administration and to assist Jackson in getting elected in 1828. As it turned out, Jackson did not need the tariff to be elected; his popularity got him elected in 1828. However, the proposal was still on the table. It finally passed in 1828, and instead of being an embarrassment to Adams, it wreaked havoc during Jackson’s presidency and came to be called the “Tariff of Abominations.” 

This was a pamphlet that offered persuasive arguments for nullifying the Tariff of 1828, stating that it was unjust and unconstitutional. South Carolina eventually revealed that the author of “The South Carolina Exposition” was none other than John C. Calhoun, Vice President of the United States. Calhoun was raised in South Carolina and supported the efforts to nullify the Tariff of 1828.

Jackson wanted this bill to be passed in order to authorize his use of army personnel to enforce the tariff. Existing legislation already granted him that power, but Jackson felt that a new and specific bill would strengthen his case against South Carolina.

This was Clay’s plan, the high tariffs that burdened the South would be reduced by ten percent over an eight-year period. The Compromise Tariff of 1833 was passed by a small minority in Congress, but it finally brought about significant tariff change.

This is when a government mints gold and silver coins.

were unable to meet their obligations, which created financial difficulties for their creditors and depositors, and so on throughout the economy.

He headed the Second Bank of the United States.

Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, Chickasaws, and Seminoles

The Cherokees established their own governing body called the Cherokee National Council. In 1808, the Cherokee National Council developed a legal system, and in 1827 wrote a constitution enacting a system of tribal government to regulate affairs within the borders of their lands. Their government included an electoral system and a legislative, judicial, and executive branch. One tenet of the constitution was that on their own lands the Cherokee were not subject to the laws of Georgia. Treaties with the U.S. government recognized the Cherokee Nation, but the State of Georgia objected to having an independent Indian nation within its boundaries. Believing that the laws of Georgia should be sovereign throughout their state, Georgians passed legislation claiming jurisdiction over the Cherokee Nation in 1828.

Congress passed the Indian Removal Act, which provided for the resettlement of all Native Americans then residing east of the Mississippi to a newly defined Indian Territory in what is now Oklahoma. There the Indians were to be free to pursue their lives without interference. This removal was intended to be voluntary, but groups of Indians were strongly pressured to go. The legislation affected not only the Indians in Georgia, but over 100,000 Native Americans in other states, including all of the Five Civilized Tribes.

Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that the Cherokee had “an unquestionable right” to their lands, but that they were "not a foreign state, in the sense of the Constitution" but rather a “domestic, dependent nation” and so could not sue in a United States court over Georgia’s voiding their right to self-rule. Although this was a blow to the Cherokee case against Georgia, it cast doubt on the constitutionality of the Indian Removal Act.

the Court reversed itself and ruled that the State of Georgia could not control the Cherokee within their territory. The case revolved around two missionaries, Samuel Austin Worcester and Elizur Butler, who were welcomed by the Cherokee but who had not obtained a license under Georgia law to live on Cherokee lands. Worcester and Butler were ordered by Georgia to take an oath of allegiance to the state or leave Cherokee land. They refused and were arrested. The missionaries were consigned to hard labor on a chain gang for 16 months while the case was being decided. Later they would accompany the Cherokees on their long trek to Oklahoma. In 1992, the Georgia legislature formally pardoned Worcester and Butler.

The Sac (Sauk), and Fox tribes of Illinois and Wisconsin were also affected by the Indian Removal Act. One Sac chief signed a treaty abandoning Indian lands east of the Mississippi, and he moved the tribes to Iowa. Chief Black Hawk, however, along with a faction from the tribes, revolted against forced removal from the land of their ancestors. In 1832, they returned to their Illinois lands and conducted a campaign of raids and ambushes. The United States Army responded and violently suppressed what the government considered an Indian insurrection. Black Hawk was captured and imprisoned in St. Louis in 1833. Among the regular army troops involved in this action was Lieutenant Jefferson Davis of Mississippi, while Captain Abraham Lincoln served with the Illinois volunteers. Thirty years later these two men would head the Confederate and Union governments during the Civil War.

The Seminole Indians were ordered to merge with their ancestral enemy, the Creeks, for relocation. The Creeks were slaveowners, and many of the Seminoles had escaped from Creek slavery. The Seminoles were justifiably outraged and several hundred, joined by runaway black slaves, refused to leave Florida and move west. They retreated to the swamps of the Everglades, where they fought a bitter and protracted war with the United States Army. Over seven years (1835-1842), this conflict claimed the lives of 1,500 U.S. soldiers. In 1837, Chief Osceola was captured by treachery under a flag of truce and sent to a prison where he soon perished. Three thousand Seminoles were then forced to relocate to Oklahoma in a bitter forced march. Another 1,000 hid in the Everglades, however, and continued to fight for five more years. Some were never captured, and the Seminole tribe became divided by this struggle.

In the fall of 1838, the U.S. government, now under Van Buren, ordered the forcible removal of the Cherokees from Georgia to the Indian Territory in present-day Oklahoma. Of the 18,000 that began the 1,000 mile, 116-day trek, 4,000 perished on the way of illness, cold, starvation, and exhaustion. The U.S. Army oversaw the march and forced a continuous pace at rifle and bayonet point disregarding the terrible hardship of the travelers. For this reason, the journey is known as the Trail of Tears. Some historians partially blame the Cherokee leaders for failing to make preparations to leave during the time they were given. Regardless of who was responsible, however, the circumstances of suffering and death remain a tragic chapter in American history. In all, between 1831 and 1839 about 46,000 Indian people were relocated across the Mississippi River.

In this book written by Thomas Paine in 1794 advanced a religious philosophy called Deism that struck at the tenets of organized religions, particularly Calvinism as it was practiced by the Puritans. Paine claimed that churches were “set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.” These thoughts were shocking to Americans who were imbued with a strong religious tradition. At the same time, Paine’s ideas appealed to many Americans who were likewise steeped in the rationality of the Enlightenment period and who had difficulty aligning Calvinist doctrine with reason.

this claimed that human nature was essentially good and that salvation was within reach of every person through faith and good works. Deists believed in a “clockwork” universe. They felt that God had created the world and all the laws that governed it, and then He allowed events to play themselves out as they would without further divine intervention. Deists believed that the laws of the world are knowable to humanity by the application of logic and reason. This contrasted with the Calvinist idea that true knowledge is only obtained by divine revelation as expressed in the Bible. A number of the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, became Deists.

at the turn of the nineteenth century gave expression to a growing conviction throughout Europe and America that there was more to experiencing the world than could be inferred by logic and more to living than could be satisfied by the acquisition of material things. People felt a need to balance reason and calculation with emotion and spirit. The German philosopher Immanuel Kant first framed doubts over rationality as a cure-all for human problems and needs in his Critique of Pure Reason, published in 1781. Sympathetic poets and authors transmuted his ideas into literary works that were meant to be as much apprehended by the soul as understood by the intellect. In England, writers such as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Shelley, Keats, and Tennyson, to name a few, breathed life into Romanticism through their poetry. The Romantics revered nature and felt that contemplation of natural scenes would lead to realization of fundamental truths.

In America, Emerson and Thoreau helped formalize the Romantic Movement into Transcendentalism, a philosophy that reads almost like a faith. The Transcendentalists infused the Romantic impulse with mysticism, a belief in the possibility of direct communion with God and knowledge of ultimate reality through spiritual insight. In part, this was fueled by newly translated Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic texts, which contained elements of mysticism. A thread of the mystic also ran through American Puritanism and in the Quaker faith even more so. Quaker doctrine subscribed to a belief in an Inner Light, which was a gift of God’s grace. The Inner Light expressed itself as divine intuition or knowledge unaccountable by ordinary derivations of thought.

He took up the Transcendentalist banner after studying at Harvard to be a Unitarian minister. He left what he called the “cold and cheerless” Unitarian pulpit to travel in Europe and talk to Romantic writers and philosophers, including Wordsworth, Coleridge, and Thomas Carlyle. Returning to America, he lived in Concord, Massachusetts, near Boston, where he composed poetry and wrote essays. He supported himself through annual lecture tours and was a very popular speaker.

In 1837 at Harvard, Emerson delivered his influential “American Scholar” lecture that exhorted Americans in the arts to stop turning to Europe for inspiration and instruction and begin developing an American literary and artistic tradition.

wrote essays that have had a profound effect on modern thought. His philosophy of individualism and conscious nonconformism is expressed in his book Walden: Or Life in the Woods (1854) where he describes living a full emotional and intellectual life for two years while residing in a tiny cabin he made himself and existing in every other way at a barely subsistence level. His other work of note is the essay On the Duty of Civil Disobedience. Thoreau was against Texas joining the Union because it would be a slave state. He felt that the United States had involved itself in the Mexican War on behalf of Texas and, therefore, he refused to pay a tax that he felt would support the war effort. For this he was briefly jailed. Thoreau’s tactic of passive resistance was later emulated by Mahatma Gandhi in India in his resistance to British rule and by Martin Luther King, Jr. in his non-violent approach to gaining civil rights.

In 1795, Timothy Dwight became president of Yale College, described as a “hotbed of infidelity.” Determined to counter the secular trend in American thinking, Dwight sponsored a series of religious revivals that fired the collective soul of the Yale student body and spread across New England, igniting a religious movement called the Second Great Awakening. The sermons preached from the pulpits of this great revival did not attempt like the old-time Puritans to pressure a captive congregation with dire predictions of a vengeful God’s omniscient power and arbitrary judgments. Rather, they spoke of a benevolent Father whose most passionate desire was the salvation of every one of His children down to the most lost sinner. At a religious assembly, a person could be saved by faith alone during a conversion experience. Unusual behaviors such as “speaking in tongues” or convulsive fits of religious ecstasy sometimes accompanied these experiences. The only absolute requisite to salvation, however, was an acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice as atonement for one’s sins. All people were free to accept this gift or not. But the fires of everlasting hell, described in lush and vivid imagery, awaited those who turned their backs.

Perhaps the greatest evangelist was the former lawyer Charles Grandison Finney, who conducted an intense, sustained revival in the burned-over-district from 1826 to 1831. Beginning in Utica, he made his way in stages to Rochester and New York City. Church membership grew by tens of thousands wherever he held revivals. A spellbinding orator, Finney preached a theology in pointed contrast to Puritan Calvinism. Salvation could be had by anyone through faith and good works, which he felt flowed from one another. People were the captains of their own fate, and since Judgment Day could come at any time, his hearers should take immediate action to ensure the redemption of themselves and their loved ones.  Finney was a master of showmanship and participatory psychology. His revival agenda included hymn singing and solicitation of personal testimonials from the congregation. He placed an “anxious bench” in the front of the assembly for those teetering on the brink of commitment to Christ. The moment of holy redemption for a bench-sitter became a dramatic event. Finney encouraged women to pray aloud and denounced alcohol and slavery from the pulpit. He felt that mass, public conversions were more effective than the old-style, solitary communion because they emphasized the fraternal nature of church membership. Finney later became president of Oberlin College in Ohio, the first U.S. college to admit women and blacks and a hotbed of abolitionism and evangelical zeal.

Brook Farm in Massachusetts, noted as a transcendental literary and intellectual haven, suffered from indebtedness, in part from a disastrous fire and in part from lack of incentive for the members to be productive, since the fruits of the labor of all were shared equally by all, regardless of contribution. Lasting only five years, the experiment in “plain living and high thinking” was forever memorialized as the basis for Nathaniel Hawthorne’s novel The Blithedale Romance.

founded by an Englishwoman, Ann Lee, who came to America in 1774, practiced strict sexual abstinence since they believed the Christian millennium was imminent and therefore saw no reason to perpetuate the human race. Ann Lee died in 1784, but the sect continued to prosper on the strength of its fervent and joyful religious life. The Shakers admired simplicity and made an art of designing buildings and furniture of distinctive, harmonious beauty. By the 1830s, there were 20 Shaker communities, and by 1840 the Shakers had a membership of some six thousand. Shaker communities existed for another 100 years, though dwindling slowly. Their rule of celibacy and communal holding of property discouraged new converts. Because of their high ideals and lack of controversial practices, the Shaker communities lived in harmony with their neighbors.

The Oneida colony practiced free love, birth control, and eugenic selection of parents. These life-style anomalies proved unpalatable to most Americans and caused ongoing problems with the surrounding community. Founded in 1847 in Vermont by John Humphrey Noyes, the colony soon had to relocate to more-tolerant New York. Noyes’s doctrine of “Bible Communism” insisted selfishness was the root of unhappiness. Owning property and maintaining exclusive relationships encouraged selfishness and destructive covetousness of what others have. Therefore, the keys to happiness were communal ownership of property and what Noyes termed “complex marriage” where every woman was married to every man in the group. The Oneidans shared work equally and supported their enterprise by manufacturing such things as steel traps, silk thread, and silverplate tableware. Yielding to external pressure, the Oneida colony gave up complex marriage in 1879, and communal ownership of property soon followed. The group eventually transformed itself into a joint-stock company manufacturing stainless steel knives and tableware. Thus Noyes’s communistic utopia ended as a capitalist corporation.

In New York in the 1820s, Joseph Smith was visited with a vision and claimed to have received golden plates that detailed a new religion he called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormonism. In 1831 Smith founded a small community in Ohio. The Mormon faith was cooperative in nature, which rankled the individualistic temper of the times. But the colony was efficient and successful, which attracted converts. Strife with the local inhabitants caused the colony to relocate to Missouri and then to Illinois, where in 1839 they founded the town of Nauvoo. Five years later Nauvoo was the largest town in the state. Rumors of polygamy and other social irregularities incensed the moral rectitude of neighboring non-Mormons. Smith and his brother Hyrum were arrested, and while in jail they were attacked by a mob and killed.

The Age of Reform--the decades prior to the Civil War--was a period of tremendous economic and political change. Many Americans believed that traditional values were undercut by the emerging industrial and market economy and they supported humanitarian and social reforms in an effort to create a new moral order. Some reformers, including those who embraced transcendentalism, promoted the divinity of the individual and sought to perfect human society. A number of experimental communal "utopias" were formed to further this effort.

a remarkably selfless woman, abandoned a successful teaching career in 1841 to begin a life-long crusade to improve conditions for the mentally impaired. After touring asylums and poorhouses in Massachusetts, she reported to the legislature that the indigent insane were treated as violent criminals: "Chained, naked, beaten with rods, and lashed into obedience." Dix traveled extensively and ultimately persuaded 20 state legislatures and the federal government to establish mental health asylums, including St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. At her urging, Congress passed a bill granting public lands to the states to fund hospitals for the mentally and physically impaired. President Franklin Pierce, however, did not want the federal government involved in charity work and vetoed it. Despite that singular setback, Dorothea Dix clearly influenced governmental policy during the Age of Reform. 

The leading figure in the public school movement was Horace Mann. He served as the secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education from its creation in 1837 until 1848, when he was elected to the Congress. Mann was the driving force behind better school buildings, expanded curricula, and improved teacher training and higher salaries. Boston set the pace with free public high schools in the 1820s, for both boys and girls.

In 1826, the assault upon "demon rum" became a national movement with a confederation of local societies called the American Temperance Union. Within a decade, the A.T.U. boasted a membership of 1.5 million, and an additional five hundred thousand Americans had taken the "cold water pledge" and vowed to forsake all alcohol.

Some women enthusiastically embraced the "cult of domesticity," reveling in their increased influence and leadership within the home.

The three hundred delegates adopted a "Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions," drafted primarily by Stanton, that was patterned on the Declaration of Independence. "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal." The document listed the "repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman," and called for a redress of grievances.

She was an unmarried Quaker who had been active in the temperance movement, shortly thereafter assumed the leadership role in the drive for legal equality and the right to vote.

He was part of the staff of the newspaper The Genius of Universal Emancipation.  He who moved to Boston and started his own abolitionist weekly. Garrison embodied a more radical approach to abolitionism than his mentor. The first issue of The Liberator, dated January 1, 1831, carried a message that Garrison forcefully continued to deliver: "I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD."

He was the greatest African American abolitionist and a mesmerizing speaker. His autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, traced the remarkable life of a young slave who taught himself to read and write before escaping from Maryland in 1838. Douglass founded the North Star, an abolitionist newspaper, in Rochester, New York, and continued the crusade for racial equality.