Articles of Confederation

Colonies unified—allowed to declare way and peace, power to make treaties with other nations; mechanism for settling disputes between states; set up a system to request $ for the states, but couldn’t require taxes

John Adams

Alarmed by the Penn. Constitution (radical) and writes the Mass. Constitution

Bicameral leg. With governor who can veto and judiciary to approve legislation

First American President.

Mediator between Federalist and Antifederalist

Led by Shay’s rebellion of Mass. Farmers to march against Mass government when

Mass. Raised taxes to relieve debt

refers to the period during the last half of the 18th century in which the Thirteen Colonies that became the United States of America gained independence from the British Empire.

In this period, the Colonies united against the British Empire and entered a period of armed conflict known as the Revolutionary War or as the American War of Independence, between 1775 and 1783. This culminated in an American Declaration of Independence in 1776, and victory on the battlefield circa 1781.

 (1789–1799) was a period of political and social upheaval in the political history of France and Europe as a whole, during which the French governmental structure, previously an absolute monarchy with feudal privileges for the aristocracy and Catholic clergy, underwent radical change to forms based on Enlightenment principles of republic, citizenship, and inalienable rights.

 a French term meaning "people of color." This is often a short form of gens de couleur libres ("free people of color"). In practice, it can refer to creoles of color with Latin blood, and certain other free blacks.^[1] The term was commonly used in France's West Indian colonies prior to the abolition of slavery.

Before the Revolution broke out in Haiti, there were four distinct groups of people living in Saint-Domingue: whites, black slaves, the maroons, and the free people of color. There were approximately 28,000 gens de couleur in 1789. Roughly half of them were mulattoes, usually born of French men and slave women.

Combination of New Jersey Plan and Virginia plan

Two houses – lower house (elected by people, number dependant on population)
Upper house – fixed number, elected by people  

President is chosen by electoral college (group of educated men chosen by state legislatures)

Important because it allowed the states to agree enough to ratify the Constitution and allowed equal representation for small and large states

Antifederalist, spoke against the constitution, says that 4 states are being left out by only needing 9 to ratify, gets mad over “we the people” – the people making decisions are not representing people but their own state interests, he’s a Virginian – doesn’t want slaves freed – says that Northern men are making the decisions

Very important to the antifederalists – Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Sam Adams needed promise of Bill of Rights – convinced them to ratify the constitution

John Adams – enacts Sedition Acts (Alien and Sedition Acts) in 1798 out of fear of French ideas – stop immigration, allows government to kick out and imprison anyone who is a threat or making threats against government, Naturalization Act – increases time needed to become citizen from 5 to 14 years to keep immigrants from voting in French ideas

Presidents who belonged to this party: John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, Zachary Taylor. They were Northern capitalists, western farmers, with big farms, and they were also Southern planters.
       

Thomas Skidmore, Robert Dale Owen, Laborers in the North. They believed that political independence was impossible without economic independence. For economic independence to occur, laborers must receive the fruit of their labor. They believed in shorter working days, higher wages, and the abolition of banks, equal taxation and universal education.  They implemented their vision by striking and the establishment of political parties, which were successful in NYC and Philly. They were more radical than Democrats; the government should not step out of the system, but should step in to keep fairness.

An aspect of what the Whigs believed. Those who have talents will rise to the top, if one can rise to the top, then you were a leader.

A tariff placed on imported goods.  Because of this people started making/buying their own goods at home.  The exception is southern planters who did not see this as helpful because other countries would retaliate and effect cotton exports.

National Republicans (Whigs) supported the Second National Bank; the Democrats led by Jackson were opposed to it.  The bank played an important role in the expansionary period as it could shift funds around the country as needed and could influence state banking activity.  Businessmen, state bankers needing credit, and national politicians were in favor of it.  Others thought it unconstitutional, resented its power over state banks, and thought it immoral because it dealt with paper rather than landed property.  Jackson strongly opposed it because it was a special privilege monopoly that hurt the common man and called it a threat to the Republic. Clay and Webster convinced Biddle to ask Congress to renew the Bank’s 20-year charter four years ahead of time thinking that Jackson wouldn’t dare veto it in an election year.  He did and was re-elected.  After winning the bank war and transferring $10 million in government funds to state banks, there were negative economic consequences.  Speculation grew in western lands and new state internal-improvement ideas in the mid 1830s produced inflated land prices and a flood of paper money.  As a result, Jackson was blamed for the Panic of 1837.

The seventh U.S. President, a leader of the Democratic Party, opposed the National Bank, a leading advocate for the Indian Removal policy…as far as significance goes, he’s known for a lot especially with his dealings with the national bank

Lead revivalist in the Second Great Awakening

• condemned sexuality and demanded absolute chastity. Believed in a dual personality of God (male and female)
  
  
• grew in the Second Awakening and had communities from Maine to Kentucky. Part of the “perfectionism” movement that came out of Finney’s teaching of working to improve even after conversion.

• Founded by Joseph Smith: a convert in response to Finney’s teaching. Claimed to be visited by the angel Moroni, who led him to golden tablets buried near his home, labeled The Book of Mormon
  
• It attracted thousands of ordinary people trying to escape what they viewed as social disorder, religious impurity, and commercial degradation in the 1830s.  They were persecuted. Nauvoo, Illinois was the greatest Mormon population. They moved west and along w/ other utopian communities had the goal of spreading “righteousness upon the earth”

1820, in upstate NY and receives vision and gets tablets that contain the book of Mormon

            1. Starts with converting his family

            2. Patriarchal authority big

            3. Move west to Illinois and he dies

            4. Brigham Young takes over 1843 and they go to Utah

He started a foundation for a major religion in the U.S. and spread it out over the U.S. by starting a church in NY and then later moving to Illinois.

Feminine incarnation of Christ, begins community called Shakers in NY

            1. An offshoot of the Quakers that she moved from England

            2. 1830s, 3000 Shakers and by 1930s, most Shaker communities gone because they must be celibate (no children to take on faith)

Took over the Mormon Church in 1843 after Joseph Smith was killed, he moved them to Utah and added many new things to the religion.  This became a major religion in the U.S. and still is today.  Emphasized spreading the faith. 

A. Movement to cotton as staple crop and the need for a great, captive labor force

B. Westernization—gained more American ideas and traditions

C. Less Africans—African-American society

D. Acceptance of Christianity

            1. Hymns

            2. Identity outside slavery

            3. Identify with Israelites when they were in slavery

E. Shift in relationship between blacks and whites

F. Divisions among African-Americans grew

G. Slaves form own economy

H. Border States—societies with slaves

I. Shift in gender dynamics—slave women gain power

J. Slave family—start becoming like a family even with people who aren’t blood relatives because many families were broken apart

Slave importation was outlawed and the plantation agriculture was growing, so slaveholders had to get slaves from elsewhere in the U.S., which lead to a massive domestic slave trade.  This caused slaves to be moved all across the country, which led to families being broken apart.  This really changed the culture of the slaves as they made their fellow slaves their family instead of just their actual blood relatives

With his decisive victory seen also as a victory for his bank policy, Jackson decided to transfer $10 million of government funds to state banks. This produced inflated land prices and a flood of paper money.

·        Results: Economic Crisis

o       Banks and businesses began to collapse

o       One third of America’s workers were unemployed

o       Those who remained employed saw 30-50% pay cuts

o       Destruction of the Trade Union Movement

The Cult of Domesticity identified the home as the "separate, proper sphere" for women, who were seen as better suited to parenting.

·        He was a Frenchman who visited the United States in 1831 and 1832

·        He observed that he could find “no country in the world in which the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America.” This was Tocqueville describing a new and powerful religious enthusiasm among American Protestants that was The Second Great Awakening.

Democracy in America predicted the violence of party spirit and the judgment of the wise subordinated to the prejudices of the ignorant. Tocqueville correctly anticipates the potential of the debate over the abolition of slavery to tear apart the United States (as it indeed did in the American Civil War). On the other hand, he predicts that any part of the Union would be able to declare independence. He also predicts the rise of the United States and Russia as rival superpowers

·        In a bid to save his job and the jobs of his men, John Henry challenges the inventor of the steam engine to a contest: John Henry versus the steam hammer. John Henry wins, but in the process, he collapses and dies.

·        John Henry became an important icon of the working class and representing their marginalization during changes entering the modern age in America.

·        Journalist John L. O’Sullivan who strongly believed that Texas should be annexed by the US, coined the phrase in 1845. “Our Manifest Destiny is to overspread the continent allotted by providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.”

Texas revolution against Mexico dates far back when Mexico, after earning independence from Spain, encouraged American settlers on the pretense that they would be exempt from slavery rules.  As a consequence slave owners flood to Texas.  Texans outnumber Mexicans and (in 1836) revolt, establishing Texan Republic.

Third Party and political scapegoat for Northerners and antislavery leaders (specifically Whigs and Republicans) who opposed the extension of slavery in the newly acquired western territories, such as Texas.

The treaty helped precipitate the Civil War especially b/c of the political extremism that followed the influx of new land.  The expansion of slavery in the United States had been settled by the Missouri Compromise (1820), but the new land included into this treaty reopened the question. Attempts to settle it led to the uneasy Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas–Nebraska Act (1854).

Abolitionist, Naturalist, Transcendentalist best remembered for his works: Walden (reflections of simple living) and Civil Disobedience (that advocated civil disobedience when morality is compromised).

Freed slave and leading abolitionist.  Believed that it was time for those who "suffered the wrong" to lead the way in advocating liberty. 

They were statutes passed by the United States Congress in 1850 to provide for the return of slaves who escaped from one state into another or into a public territory.

Book by Harriet Beecher Stowe published in 1852. It personalized slavery to Northerners through vivid imagery and its sentimental, maternal tone.

1854 saw Kansas-Nebraska Act passed by Douglas, organizing Kansas and Nebraska territories. It removes the line forbidding slavery in the north, letting Kansas and Nebraska elect for themselves whether to be slave or free.  Influx of people trying to determine which way vote goes in Kansas. Violence erupts. Kansas finally comes in as a free state in 1861.

Supreme Court Justice who heard the Dred Scott Case.

Significance: Ruled that Slaves were property, and furthermore went on to say that no black person was considered a citizen and therefore did not have the rights to sue in the court system.  Ruled that territories could not outlaw slavery, and ruled the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional.

The 16^th President of the United States.

Preserved the union over the civil war, which was his primary reason for the war, and later issued the emancipation proclamation making the war about the abolition of slavery.

States that held importance to the union in the civil war due to there geographical location. These states were Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, and Missouri.

These states were slave states, however slavery had become a side note and they began industrializing to help the north.

Stated that on January 1^st 1863 all rebel states must give up their slaves, however if they came back to the union by this date they could keep their could hold on to their slaves.

All Black regiment that sustained heavy losses in the siege of fort Wagner.

This event and regiment help to change Northerners minds towards fighting in the war and the emancipation proclamation when they saw that Blacks were willing to fight for their freedom.

 issued by Gen. Sherman, confiscated as Federal property a plantation owners land and redistributed it to slaves, giving them 40 acres and a mule.  The government however took the land back saying that Sherman did not have the authority to issue such and order.

A system that arose out of the civil war between former masters and slaves.  The plantation owners found themselves with large amounts of land and no money to pay workers.  They allowed former slaves to work their land at a price, but they worked the book keeping to make the former slaves always fall deeper into debt.

Kept the black man from ever getting ahead, and staying in poverty.

FEAR:

§         Technology/transportation revolution also caused fear and adverse effects on American society

§         It improved life, at least for the wealthy.  For the poor it meant the loss of jobs due to mechanization of production. 

§         What jobs the industrial/technology revolution did create were factory jobs, which inherently depraved the individual

§         The industrial revolution also carried mixed feelings.  It caused deforestation yet linked territories, improved life yet polluted, gave way to new jobs although dangerous ones. 

§         Many thought the old way was best (example John Henry)

            HOPE

§         Antebellum Era was a time of booming road construction, the age of trains, canals…In short the Transportation Revolution

What were Lincoln’s thoughts on slaves, free blacks, and slavery?

• U.S. civil Service grows from 40,000 people to 200,000
• The establishment of the Sanitary convention
  • Commissioned to keep soldiers taken care of, during the war.