The Expanding Republic

1815-1840

Networks of roads, canals, steamboats, and railroads

lowered the cost of travelMoved goods to wider marketsFacilitated the flow of political information

through newspapers and US mail

Improvements in Transportation

Steamboat

Erie Canal

Steamboat explosion

Young women employees were cheaper than menYoung women flocked to factory towns from

farms, hoping to earn money and to have more freedom

Shoemaker also a lot of women, shoebinders (stitching the top parts of the shoe)

By the 1840s, the young women were replaced by immigrant families

Factories

Lowell, Massachusetts1821 a group of

Boston entrepreneurs founded Lowell, where all aspects of cloth production—combing, shrinking, spinning, weaving, and dyeing were centralized

Lowell MillsBy 1830, eight

mills in Lowell employed more than 5,000 young women who lived in closely supervised company owned boardinghouses.

From 1814 to 1840 a tremendous explosion in state-chartered banks

Second Bank of the United States, with eighteen branches, opened in 1816 with a 20-year charter (the first bank of US charter had expired in 1811)

Banks enlarged the money supply by making loans to manufacturers; they had a lot of power over economy by deciding who got loans

Banking

Commercial law profession expanded as the banks did

Lawyers wrote new state laws of incorporation for businesses, protecting individuals from being liable for corporate debts

Rewrote laws of eminent domain, empowering states to buy land for roads and canals

Lawyers

Some state banks had suspended specie payments (the exchange of gold or silver for banknotes)

1818 the Bank of the US called its loans, requiring the state banks to call their loans, contracting the economy.

Coupled with a financial crisis in Europe in 1819, the result was the “panic of 1819”

Financial Panic of 1819

The first presidential election in which popular votes determined the outcome; in 22 out of 24 states, voters chose the electors in the electoral college, not the state legislatures

Election of 1828

New campaign stylesState level candidates gave speeches, appeared at

picnicsPartisan newspapers publicized personalities like

never beforeFirst time politicians identified themselves as “Jackson

men” or “Adams men” and party lines were solidified by the mid 1830s into Whig or Democrat

1828 first election where character issues of the candidates was importantAdams was vilified as elitist, a monarchist, a bookish

academicJackson was exposed for his notorious violent temper

Political Campaigns

Emergence of Two PartiesWhigs (like Adams) a moralistic, top-down party ready to make major decisions to promote economic growth

Democrats (like Jackson) a contentious, energetic party ready to embrace individualism

President JacksonHe appointed only

loyalists, unlike predecessors who tried to dampen conflict by appointing people of different points of view

Jackson Victory and Calhoun as VP

Jackson won a huge victory, and he chose John C. Calhoun as his VP; Calhoun had been VP with Adams but had broken with his policies

“to the victor belong the spoils”He replaced many competent people with party loyalists, initiating the “spoils system”

Spoils System

He exercised veto power over CongressVetoed a federal highway bill in

Maysville Kentucky, Henry Clay’s home state

Jackson believed federal tax dollars should not be spent on local projects, but general projects

He used the veto 12 times; all previous presidents together up to that time used it 9 times

Veto Power

Trail of Tears A 1,200 mile journey west under armed guard25% died, 1838-39

The Indian Removal Act of 1830Congress

appropriated $500,000 to relocate eastern tribes west of the Mississippi

Indian policyJackson explained that the removal was

the only way to “save the Indians.”The Indians that resisted were attacked

by militias and killedThe Creeks, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and

Cherokee tribes in the South refused to relocate and a second Seminole War broke out in Florida.

1831. Cherokee leaders asked the Supreme Court to stop the State of Georgia from seizing their property. The Court sided with Georgia saying they were not citizens and therefore had no right to sue;

a year later they brought suit again, this time in the name of a white supporter. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832) the Supreme Court upheld the territorial sovereignty of the Cherokee people

Jackson was so angry he ignored the Court saying “If they now refuse to accept the liberal terms offered, they can only be liable for whatever evils and difficulties may arise. I feel conscious of having done my duty to my red children.”

Legal Challenges to Indian Policy

1828 Congress passed revised tariff known as the Tariff of Abominations, a bundle of conflicting duties as high as 50% and contained provisions that pleased and angered every economic and sectional interest

Economic Policy

South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun advanced a doctrine of nullification, arguing that states had the right to abolish Congress’ acts in cases when Congress overstepped its powers.

Nullification

Jackson became president in 1829, and shut out his VP Calhoun from access and power

Calhoun resigned in 1832, and was elected to the US Senate

President shuts out VP

South Carolina declared federal tariffs to be null and void in 1833

Jackson sent armed ships to Charleston’s harbor and threatened to invade the state; he pushed through Congress the Force Bill, defining South Carolina stance as treason and authorizing military to collect federal tariffs

Federal Government Vs. States’ Rights

Congress passed a revised bill more acceptable to the South and South Carolina withdrew its nullification; it did however nullify the Force Bill.

Federal power had prevailed over a dangerous assertion of states’ rights but the question was far from settled and slavery threatened to emerge as a national political issue.

Federal Government prevails

Abolition

Grimke’s

Great Awakening

William Henry Harrison