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166 C h a p t e r 10 The Continued Move West

Learning Outcomes After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

10-1 Describe the economic system known as the American System.

10-2 List the three specific parts of the Market Revolution in early- nineteenth-century America, and evaluate how the United States developed during this era.

10-3 Describe the growth of America’s middle class during the first half of the 1800s, and discuss some of the stronger movements toward reform during the era.

The Market Revolution

Chapter 10

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“The rise of localized, commercial agriculture changed the way Americans lived their lives.”

In the years following the War of 1812, America became rela- tively isolated from Europe. It focused inward. There was a strong feeling that the United States needed to strengthen its economy to protect itself against further incursion from outside powers. This view took tangible form as politicians and citizens designed what they called an “American System” of economics that focused on keeping American goods within the United States.

The American System of economics was a fantastic success, and it facilitated so many economic and social changes between 1812 and the 1860s that historians see this period as the social and economic equivalent of the political revolution of the 1770s. They describe all these transitions under the umbrella term Market Revolution. Aided by numerous transportation, commu- nication, and technological innovations, the Market Revolution refers to the time when an increasing number of farmers willingly turned away from the ideal of being self- sufficient to focus on a single crop that could be sold at market. This change encouraged specialization and the growth of a dynamic string of market hubs within the United States. The United States had always been a part of the colonial world market, and between 1810 and 1860 the markets moved closer to home. Instead of American com- merce focusing on transactions between the Atlantic seaboard and Europe, it shifted, focusing now on transactions between the East Coast and the lands extending to and beyond the Mississippi River.

The rise of localized, commercial agriculture changed the way Americans lived their lives. It moved them closer to the world of the marketplace and allowed many to leave the world of agriculture altogether. At the dawn of the 1800s, more than 80 percent of the American labor force worked in agriculture. By 1850, that figure had declined to 55 per- cent. By the 1880s, less than half of America’s work force was engaged in farming. Local markets needed local salesmen, lawyers, factories, marketers, economists, and book- keepers. The changes associated with this transition affected nearly every American, and America in 1860 looked dramatically different than it did in 1810.

This chapter examines the Market Revolution, its causes and effects, and the variety of responses to it.

10-1 Economic Nationalism The second generation of American politicians (James Monroe was the last American revolutionary to be president, serving from 1817 to 1825) did not have the distrust of

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The social and economic changes that occurred between 1812 and the 1860s were as much of a revolution as the political changes that had taken place in the 1770s. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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What do you think?

<< Steamboats and other mechanized forms of transportation helped usher in an economic revolution.

Market revolution Umbrella term for the many economic and social changes that took place between 1812 and the 1860s

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168 C h a p t e r 10 The Market Revolution

centralized authority that characterized the revolution- ary era. Several men of this younger generation devel- oped a nationalist program for economic growth simi- lar to the one proposed by Alexander Hamilton during the Federalist era. Updated to fit the demands of the 1810s and 1820s, they called this economic plan the American System.

10-1a The American System The American System came from a surprising source: young Democratic-Republican politicians from the West, the South, and the Middle Atlantic states who had superficially embraced Jefferson’s vision of a small federal government but in fact eagerly sought the patronage that a large federal govern- ment could dole out. Henry Clay from Kentucky and John C. Calhoun from South Carolina led this group. Together, they advanced a vision that the federal government should encourage economic enterprise in three ways: (1) by creating roads and canals, col- lectively called internal improvements; (2) by devel- oping secure economic institutions, such as banks; and (3) by providing for the security of America’s economic interests through high tariffs. After seeing the weaknesses of Jefferson’s vision of a disparate

american System Economic plan based on the idea that the fed- eral government should encourage economic enterprise

internal improvements Building of roads and canals by the federal and state governments

Second Bank of the United States National bank established in 1816 to curb rampant currency speculation

collection of states, the leaders of the American System wanted to strengthen the nation and secure the advancement of the West through the creation of tremendous public works projects. Their plan was very much in the Hamiltonian mold.

10-1b A New National Bank One of the key components of the American System was the creation of a national bank. When Congress, before the War of 1812, refused to recharter the First National Bank in 1811, the states chartered their own banks, offering a bewildering variety of credit and currencies. More than four hundred banks were operating in 1818, each offering its own form of currency and credit. Speculation ran rampant, as investors attempted to pick which currency would appreciate the quickest. Fortunes were won and lost very quickly, and investors had little idea which cur- rencies would be the most durable.

To end the mayhem and strengthen the national government, proponents of the American System designed the Second Bank of the United States. In a bill drafted by Calhoun, the Second National Bank was established with support from west- ern and southern congressmen. New Englanders, who had adequate and secure banks in the North, opposed the creation of the bank. With Democratic- Republicans mostly supporting a national bank and former New England Federalists opposing it, times had changed since the Federalist era; now each party was advocating what it had opposed just two decades prior. The new bank was chartered in 1816.

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>> The states chartered their own banks, offering a bewildering variety of currencies and credit. It was, to say the least, unstable.

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Ironically, the loose credit offered by the newly rechartered bank, and then a sudden tightening of that credit, led to a major economic recession, the Panic of 1819 (discussed in Chapter 11).

10-1c A Protective Tariff Calhoun and Clay also supervised the passage of the Tariff of 1816, which taxed all incoming goods at the stiff rate of 25 percent. They designed the tariff to limit consumption of foreign goods in the United States and to encourage the development of American commerce and industries. This meant that the goods in the American System were to be American.

10-1d Court Cases During these years, the Supreme Court issued a num- ber of decisions that advocated economic growth at the expense of the states or of previous contracts. One of the most consequential cases was Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), which forbade state leg- islatures from altering college charters in order to gain control over them, because a corporation (the university) had drafted the charter. This decision prioritized the rights of a corporation over those of the state, thus clearing the path for increased economic development. In Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), a steamboat operator named Aaron Ogden argued that his business license from the state of New York entitled him to a monopoly on transporting commerce along the New York coastline. The U.S. Supreme Court disagreed, however, arguing that Thomas Gibbons, whose steamboat company had been chartered by the U.S. Congress, could navigate there as well, suggesting that the federal govern- ment’s power to regulate commerce overruled that granted by states.

10-1e A Protected Hemisphere The War of 1812 and the economics of national- ism also allowed the United States to assert its dominance throughout the Western Hemisphere. In 1818, it established a northern boundary at the 49th parallel between the United States and British Canada, and in 1819 it won from Spain both Florida and lands extending nearly to today’s Oregon, all in exchange for parts of Texas. Now the United States extended from the southern tip of Florida to the current-day northern boundary with Canada, and from the Atlantic almost to the Pacific (although it still did not claim today’s American Southwest).

The new dominance was expressed most clearly in the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. This doctrine declared that any European nation attempting to colonize Latin America would be treated as a party hostile to the United States. President James Monroe announced that the Western Hemisphere was the domain of the United States and was to remain separate from the affairs of Europe. At the same time, Monroe agreed to refrain from any interference with existing European colonies or with the internal affairs or wars of the European powers. Although the Monroe Doctrine was little noted at the time, it later became a foundation for American foreign policy, used to justify American expansion into and involvement with the countries of Latin America.

10-1f Opponents of the American System

Not everyone favored the American System. Some southerners saw it as merely an attempt to wrangle taxes from wealthy cotton planters and give the

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>> James Monroe. Although the Monroe Doctrine was little noted at the time, it later became a foundation for American foreign policy.

Monroe Doctrine Declaration of 1823 pro- claiming that any European nation attempting to colo- nize Latin America would be treated as a party hos- tile to the United States; President James Monroe announced that the Western Hemisphere was the domain of the United States and was to remain separate from the affairs of Europe

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money to northern and western business interests. Others liked the American System well enough when the money was spent in their home state but opposed it when resources were spent else- where. War-hero-turned-politician Andrew Jackson at first enjoyed the fruits of the plan but eventually came to see it as a vehicle for corruption. Despite these mounting complaints, which would increase throughout the first half of the 1800s, the American System was the prevailing economic plan for the nation until the 1830s and 1840s.

10-2 The Market Revolution

Combining tariffs, internal improvements, and a national bank, the American System of economics facilitated the Market Revolution. Farmers, more than ever before, could focus on producing what they produced best, bring their goods to local American markets, and purchase the items they could not grow or make themselves. The result was that people’s notions about their role in the economy changed. Leaving behind the idea that they had to be self- sustaining farmers, instead they began to think of themselves as participants in the national and inter- national marketplace. This made them more accept- ing of commercial and capitalist goals, for they were becoming not only producers, but also consumers. For the most part, the Market Revolution had to do with commercialized agriculture and not with industri- alization (although the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution can be identified in this period).

The Market Revolution was made up of three parts, in roughly this order: (1) a transportation and communications revolution, (2) a transition to com- mercialized farming, and (3) industrialization. Each transition provoked significant social changes.

10-2a The Transportation and Communications Revolution

Along with friendly government policies, the Market Revolution could not have happened without a revolution in the way people and goods moved around and the way people communicated with one another. Since the start of European settlement in North America, long-distance travel had meant using rivers or the sea. Water offered the quickest and most reliable means of moving goods from their place of origin to a market where they could be sold. However, America’s rivers run primarily from north

to south, making travel from east to west difficult. For instance, there was not a single navigable river connecting the northeastern cities of New York, Philadelphia, or Boston to the farmlands of the Ohio River Valley.

Recognizing the importance of speedy trans- portation, in the years after 1800 some states began internal improvements. They financed, for the most part through tax dollars, the construction of toll roads, canals, and other modes of transportation. This fund- ing sparked four eras of transportation innovation: (1) the turnpike era, (2) the canal era, (3) the steamboat era, and (4) the railroad era (Map 10.1).

The Turnpike Era The first improvements were roads and turnpikes (private roads with tolls), and the 1810s were the turnpike era. Between 1800 and 1825, hundreds of miles of toll roads crisscrossed the nation. The Cumberland Road was the best known, extending from Maryland to West Virginia. But these early roads were mostly unpaved, and huge ruts and tree stumps made them dangerous and slow going. The roads were too unpredictable for Americans to use reliably to transport large amounts of commercial goods.

The Canal Era To solve this problem, human ingenuity provided the country with something that nature had not—a series of east-to-west canals—and the 1820s were the canal era. New York led the way in 1817, when the New York legislature paid for the construction of the

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>> These early roads were mostly unpaved, and huge ruts and tree stumps made them dangerous and slow going.

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on paths along the shore could tow with a rope a barge filled with more than a ton of goods. The barge moved as fast as the mules. The Erie Canal opening was a land- mark event for four reasons (see “The reasons why . . .” box on the next page).

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Erie Canal, an artificial river connecting Buffalo—on the shore of Lake Erie—to Albany. Because Albany was linked to New York City by the Hudson River, the Erie Canal provided a continuous water route from the shores of the Atlantic to the Great Lakes. This was an immensely complex project. At the time, the longest canal in the world was 28 miles long. The Erie was 364 miles long and 40 feet wide. New Yorkers completed construction in eight years. When it was done, mules

Map 10.1. Rivers, Roads, and Canals, 1825–1860 The first fifty years of the nineteenth century witnessed four separate revolutions in trans- portation: the turnpike era, the canal era, the steamboat era, and the railroad era. All but the steamboat era were concentrated in the North and the West.

Erie Canal Artificial river connecting the New York State cities of Buffalo and Albany; pro- vided a continuous water route from the shores of the Atlantic to the Great Lakes; measured 364 miles long and 40 feet wide

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The Steamboat Era Despite the general reluctance of the South to invest in transportation improvements, there were inno- vations in the South and the West as well. There, steamboats, developed in the early 1800s, proved to be effective transport on the regions’ broad rivers. By the 1830s, they carried much of the commerce in those regions and succeeded in reducing cargo rates across the country. Their fabulous success made many southerners consider the funding of other internal improvements unnecessary.

The Railroad Era The most transformative new form of transporta- tion was the railroad, which became the corner- stone of the American transportation revolution of the 1840s and 1850s. The development of railroads further extended the transportation improvements begun during the canal and steamboat eras, but railroads had three crucial advantages over water travel: (1) unlike canals, rail lines did not depend on natural waterways as their end points; (2) railroads did not freeze; and (3) trains traveled significantly faster than mules.

For these reasons, railroads completed the full transition to a market-based economy. In the 1830s, American builders laid more than 3,000 miles of

track. By the 1860s, more than 30,000 miles of track ran through the country. As with the canals, most of the nation’s railroads were concentrated in the North, laid by merchants and state governments eager to develop a diversified economy. The South, meanwhile, maintained its plantation-based culture and its dependence on natural waterways to move its key staple crops.

From 1810 to 1850, the speed with which goods and people could be moved across vast stretches of land increased considerably. In the 1810s, a journey via horseback from the Atlantic Coast to the Great Lakes would have taken several weeks. In the 1850s, one could take either the Erie Canal or a railroad and be there in a matter of days.

The Communications Revolution At the same time, Americans were inventing and incorporating new methods of communication. The key development was Samuel F. B. Morse’s success- ful transmission via the first telegraph, which used electric wires to send a message nearly instan- taneously from one place to another. Now news about politics, the price of goods, and arrival of new products could be known throughout the nation

Read more about roads, canals, steamboats,

and railroads.

Financial. First, the project was a tremendous economic success. The cost of moving one ton of goods from Buffalo to New York City dropped from nineteen cents per mile to a little more than one cent. The canal cut the time it took to move goods between Buffalo and New York City from twenty days to six. The state of New York charged tolls on the canal, which yielded a huge profit.

Copycats. Second, these profits pushed other states to invest in transportation. Many states chartered private corporations to build those internal improvements, which greatly politicized the role of corporations in American life. This process became political because it was profitable to run a canal, so winning a charter to build one was comparable to winning the lottery. Significantly, all but three of the largest canals were built in the North, signifying a northern commitment to the Market Revolution. Southern leaders, who were usually wealthy landowners, remained content to rely on the rivers that transported cotton and other staple crops.

Creating a major metropolis. Third, it spurred the growth of New York City. As the major trading link between the interior of the United States and the Atlantic Ocean, New York City became the nation’s major economic center.

A change in farming. Fourth, the creation of a cheap way to move goods to market made it more enticing to farmers in the interior to produce only the few items that would be the most profitable.

There were four reasons why the opening of the Erie Canal was a landmark event:

the reasons why . . .}{

>> The Erie Canal provided a continuous water route from the shores of the Atlantic to the Great Lakes.

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in a matter of seconds. The telegraph facilitated nationwide commerce and lowered the cost of com- munication. It also symbolized the energy of the era, when, for the first time in human history, com- munication was set free from the realm of physical transit. Americans at the time were unaware of the kinds of communications that would emerge in future years, but they were aware that they were living at a transformative time in human history. Morse emphasized this notion when he chose the first words to be transmitted: “What Hath God Wrought?”

10-2b Commercialized Farming The transportation and communications revolu- tions caused a transition in how farmers (that is, most Americans) farmed their land. No longer did each family have to produce almost everything it consumed. This transition was not entirely new to farmers in the South and in areas of the Middle Colonies, where colonial-era farmers had already

oriented their production around staple crops. But the rest of the nation had concentrated on self- sufficiency and diversified farming, and this market transition led to dramatic changes in the South, the West, and New England.

>> This image of Louisville, Kentucky, circa 1850, demonstrates how prevalent steamboats were in the era, especially in the South, and how numerous factories and warehouses oriented themselves to transporting their goods via the area’s rivers.

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>> “What Hath God Wrought?”—Samuel F. B. Morse. Morse’s first transmission via the telegraph spoke to the transformative nature of instant communications.

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Changes in the South Before 1793, southern agri- culture consisted of the staple crops of tobacco and rice, but farmers had added a few more varieties of crops

during the 1700s. After 1793, when Eli Whitney promoted a new invention called the cotton gin, everything changed. The cotton gin allowed for the profitable cultivation of cotton even in land with poor soil by allowing the harvesting of “short staple” (or hard-to-clean) cotton. Thus cotton became easy and profitable to produce throughout the South (not just in areas rich in nutrients), and cotton produc- tion rapidly took over southern agriculture and the southern economy. By 1825, the American South was the world’s largest producer of the fiber. Between 1816 and 1840 southern cotton constituted more than half the value of all American exports.

This development created obvious opportunities for white southerners. If you could get a little land and a few slaves, you could earn huge profits. The ease with which wealth could be generated spurred a large westward migration throughout the South, as small farmers searched for land to grow cotton. The development of the cotton gin also reinforced the farmers’ dependence on slaves because it made their labor even more valuable (slaves could be used profitably on even poor land). At the same time, slavery moved west with the cotton farmers, making the slave trade profitable even after the importation of slaves from Africa had stopped in 1808, per the agreement reached in the U.S. Constitution. These farmers revived the domestic slave trade. Any ideas that emancipation might be plausible in the South during these years vanished after the introduction of the cotton gin.

This cotton boom had two other key outcomes. First, cotton impeded any significant internal

improvements in the South because wealthy southern- ers considered waterways sufficient to transport cot-

ton. This hurt small farmers, who could not afford land along waterways, and it stalled the develop- ment of any major railroad lines in the southern states. Second, the roaring success of cotton, in combination with the Market Revolution elsewhere in the nation, hindered southerners from develop- ing a diversified economy. They could rely on other parts of the nation for the goods they needed. This meant that if the South’s cotton production was ever threatened, the southern economy would be in trouble.

Changes in the West The Market Revolution also meant that farmers in the Midwest (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) could take maximum advantage of the land’s rich soil and plentiful rain. Reflecting the Market Revolution’s transition to commercialized agriculture, a wheat belt stretched from western New York to Wisconsin, a corn belt reached from Ohio to Illinois, a tobacco belt extended from Kentucky to Missouri, and a cot- ton belt spread from Georgia to Mississippi. Each area continued to grow a diverse range of crops, but each increasingly specialized in what it grew best.

The commercial development of these regions prompted a huge shift of the American population (Map 10.2). With the Land Act of 1820, the federal government helped promote settlement of land west of the Appalachians by setting affordable prices for manageable plots of land. This prompted one of the largest internal migrations in American history. In 1789, two-thirds of all Americans (about 3 million people) lived within 50 miles of the Atlantic Ocean, while only 5 percent lived west of the Appalachians. By 1840, one-third of the population (more than 5 million people) lived in new states west of the

Read more about cotton produc- tion in the South.

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After the 1793 invention of the cotton gin, cotton became king in the South.

Land act of 1820 Legislation that promoted settlement west of the Appalachians by setting affordable prices for manageable plots of land

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Appalachians. Several new areas applied for state- hood, almost all of them as a result of westward migration: Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), Alabama (1819), Maine (1820), Missouri (1821), Arkansas (1836), Michigan (1837), Florida (1845), Texas (1845), Iowa (1846), and Wisconsin (1848). During these years, between 5 and 10 percent of all Americans moved each year.

The West and Slavery Westward migration provoked another signifi- cant question: what to do about slavery? In 1819, Missouri sought entry into the union as a slave state. Its request provoked a debate in Congress that Congress wished desperately to avoid. Even the aging Thomas Jefferson wrote that the issue of slavery frightened him like a “fire bell in the night.”

The issue of whether slavery would be allowed in Missouri was pivotal for two reasons: (1) Missouri lay along the same latitude as sev- eral free states, and its entry into the Union as a slave state would move slavery northward; and (2) the admission of Missouri as a slave state

would upset the congres- sional balance of eleven slave states and eleven free states. Northerners, mind- ful of the ideals of the Revolution and intent on avoiding a large black popu- lation in the North, sought to keep slavery in the South. Southerners sought to expand the development of cotton, which, they felt, required the labor of slaves.

When Representative James Tallmadge, Jr., pro- posed the Tallmadge Amendment, which would have enforced gradual emancipation in Missouri, a vicious debate broke out on the floor of Congress. Henry Clay brokered a compromise: Missouri could enter as a slave state if Maine could enter as a free state. In addition, Clay drew a line at the latitude of 36°30'. Territories north of the line would remain free, while territories south of it could maintain slavery. This was the Missouri Compromise, passed in 1820, which

tallmadge amendment Proposal that would have enforced gradual emanci- pation in Missouri

Missouri Compromise Arrangement brokered by Henry Clay that set 36˚30’ as the divider between free and slave territories and that allowed Missouri to enter the nation as a slave state if Maine were allowed to enter as free

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would dictate the spread of slavery in the West for the next thirty years.

The New England Transition New England farmers had since colonial times devel-

oped diversified farms that could fulfill many of their families’ needs, while local markets provided the items that could not be grown or manufactured easily. The Market Revolution (combined with soil exhaustion) slowly eroded this life- style. Rocky, cold New England had never been a great place to farm, and access to cheap western agri- culture furthered the decline in farming during the 1820s.

Without a central profitable crop to turn to, New Englanders reorganized their economy. Giving up on corn and wheat, they began to grow garden vegetables, fruit, dairy products, meat, eggs, and other perishable goods that could sustain growing urban markets. They also took advantage of the new methods of transportation to get their goods to market. In 1820, about one-third of all New England produce was sent to market. By 1850, that propor- tion had jumped to about one-half.

The result was dazzling success—for those who owned land. Those who did not own land confronted rising land prices. Many headed west, where land was cheaper. Others worked as wage laborers on farms, hoping one day to earn enough money to buy land of their own.

Women’s output was similarly affected. Many women stopped weaving clothes, because store- bought cloth was cheaper. They churned butter and made cheese instead, participating in the new market economy by selling these dairy products at market.

10-2c Industrialization The transportation revolution and the conver- sion to commercial agriculture required machines. Railroads needed machinery to fabricate engines, cars, and tracks; cotton crops required factories to turn the raw product into cloth; and specialized farming in the West demanded large reapers and tough plows. Thus, the third aspect of the Market Revolution was the rise of industrialization and the creation of factories. It is important to remember that this was not yet the full-scale industrialization

associated with today’s large factories. But it was the beginning of that process.

The Mechanization of Agriculture Cyrus McCormick’s development of the reaper in 1831 was the most significant industrial development in agriculture. A twenty-five-year-old Virginia farmer, McCormick created a machine that harvested grain much faster than manual labor could. This was a boon for the western states because they had miles of flat farmland that was perfect for the reaper. In 1837, McCormick moved his factory from Virginia to

Chicago, the principal city of the booming Midwest, and sold his reapers to farmers there. In the same way, John Deere’s steel plow (1837) made it easier to plow tough fields, and of course the cotton gin (1793) sped up the process of separating short-staple cottonseed from its fiber.

The Mechanization of Machine Tools

McCormick and Whitney noted the precise specifica- tions of the many moving parts that made up their machines. They then reproduced those parts in large quantities, thus introducing the system of inter- changeable parts. Eli Whitney was chiefly credited for this development (more than he deserved) and won government contracts to develop muskets that used interchangeable parts. With interchangeable parts, producers could make products more quickly and cheaply instead of handcrafting each item one by one. Watches, clocks, and locks—all luxury items in 1800—became inexpensive household goods by 1840 because of interchangeable parts.

Factories Factories were the most efficient way to produce the large quantities of goods that were needed to accommodate the Market Revolution, but they did not prosper as quickly as one might imagine. Before 1800, most production was done in a decentralized system of family- or artisan-based manufacturing. Large manufacturers would pay one family to per- form one task and then pass the item on to the next family or artisan to perform the next task. This was called the “putting out” system.

The rise of the factory in the 1820s altered this system by bringing nearly all aspects of produc- tion under one roof. Samuel Slater was the first to develop the workings of a factory on American soil, designing in 1789 a factory that spun cotton

“putting out” system Division of labor in which large manufacturers would pay one family to perform one task, then pass the item on to the next family or artisan to perform the next task

The aging Thomas Jefferson wrote that the issue of slavery frightened him like

a “fire bell in the night.”

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The Market Revolution 177

into thread. Within its first ten years of operation, Slater’s textile mill hired more than one hun- dred people, mostly women and young children. The amount of thread produced by Slater’s mill prompted a rise in the volume of thread-based goods (mainly clothes, but also towels and curtains) and a drop in their price.

Entrepreneurs opened other factories, and these new factories continued to improve production. Slater could not weave thread into cloth at his mill, for example (he still had to “put out” his thread to home workers for this task). In 1813, Boston mer- chants developed a power loom to weave cloth. Headed by Francis Lowell, the new factory brought all the processes of clothmaking under one roof, thereby quickening the pace of work and cheap- ening the price of production. Between 1820 and 1860 textile mills sprouted all over the northern and Middle Atlantic states, harnessing the power of swift-moving rivers. Americans began purchas- ing their clothing rather than making it, a change that boosted the rise of retail clothing stores. Other manufacturing industries, such as shoemaking and clockmaking, followed.

10-2d Social Changes Associated with the Market Revolution

The Market Revolution had many social ramifica- tions. The six most significant were (1) the growth of

cities; (2) the impact on the environment; (3) the chang- ing face of the labor force; (4) an increase in religious divisions; (5) the beginnings of a working class and a mid- dle class; and (6) increased protest movements.

The Growth of Cities The expansion of markets and the growth of facto- ries led to a slow process of urbanization. In 1830, only 5 percent of Americans lived in towns of 8,000 people or more. By 1850, that number had more than tripled, to 16 percent. With the development of the Erie Canal, New York City solidified its position as the largest city in the nation, with a population in 1840 of more than 300,000. Philadelphia, Boston, and Baltimore experi- enced robust growth as well. Of the ten largest cities in 1860, only one, New Orleans, was in the South.

Environmental Costs of the Market Revolution There were significant environmental costs of the Market Revolution as well. Steamboats and early railroads burned wood as a source of power, which caused rapid deforestation in the Northeast. Similarly, as the transportation revolution enabled more people to move west, new settlers cleared land and chopped wood, destroying animal habitats and western landscapes. Sawmills and textile mills, relying on waterways for their power, interrupted the paths of spawning fish. These costs would only increase as industrialization expanded through the rest of the century.

Women and Immigrants in the Labor Force There was also a dramatic change in the composi- tion of the labor force. Setting a pattern followed by other factory owners, Francis Lowell hired single women from New England farms to work in his clothmaking factory. He needed cheap labor, and young women would work for lower wages than men. To present a wholesome image to the farm families who might send their daughters to work there, Lowell built boarding houses for his “mill girls,” where they were taught Christian ethics and monitored by chaperones. This was called the Lowell System. Factory life was harsh for these workers, however, and most sought to return home to start families after a short tenure in a Lowell mill. Most stayed just five years. They worked without insur- ance, wage guarantees, or legal protections of any

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Lowell System A labor and production model for manufacturing textiles that, for the first time, brought all stages of textile production under one roof, with employees living near the factory in employee housing, away from their families; featured mostly female employees, young women seeking to earn wages before getting married

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kind, and when times were hard, these factory workers were the first to suffer.

For the most part, work- ing in a factory was ardu- ous, and wages were low. People often worked fifteen- hour days, six days a week, and usually an entire family had to work in order to get by. Men, women, and young children spent long hours in the hot, noisy factories.

But mill owners were not obligated to listen to com- plaints; they could always find eager replacements. After 1840, the number of immigrants arriving in the United States suddenly

soared, causing the nation’s population to increase a whopping 36 percent in the 1840s. Roughly two- thirds of these new arrivals were Irish, fleeing years of miserable poverty and hunger that peaked during the Great Irish Famine of 1845–1851. The majority of Irish immigrants settled in northeastern cit- ies and worked at industrial jobs, replacing New England women and children. By the 1860s, half of the employees in most American factories were immigrants, most of them Irish. The Irish became a distinct underclass in the nineteenth-century United States.

Challenges to the Protestant Consensus Along with a willingness to work for cheap wages, the Irish immigrants brought Roman Catholicism. Catholicism had been present in the United States since the first European settlements, but Catholics had always been a small minority compared to the Protestant majority (roughly 1 percent at the time of the Revolution). With the wave of Irish immigrants, Catholics formed the first sizeable reli- gious minority in American history. Many Protestant Americans feared this development, believing that rising levels of Catholic immigration threatened the character of America, which they considered a “Protestant nation.” Catholics, most nineteenth- century Americans believed, were too bound to the teachings of the pope to behave like free and independent republicans. They were also prone to the excesses of drinking and licentiousness, or so claimed Protestant nativists.

To counteract the growing Catholic presence, some Protestants began seeking an official proc-

lamation of Protestantism as the official religion of the nation. Such efforts did not succeed, but they stirred controversy. For instance, the efforts of Protestant educators to introduce Protestant reli- gious study into the curriculum of the nation’s pub- lic schools prompted the development of the first Catholic parochial schools.

A New Working Class In their new jobs, Irish workers earned little pay. Indeed, what made Irish laborers so attractive to factory owners was their willingness to work for low wages. Moreover, the Irish were forced to accept the worst housing available. Irish families crowded together in basement apartments or in attics, and Irish slums became hotbeds for diseases like chol- era and tuberculosis. To the eyes of native-born Americans, these conditions served as unhappy notice that the squalor of Britain’s industrial towns had been transplanted to America. In fact, the Irish slums were simply a part of the new working class that worked in the factories, earned day wages, and were increasingly removed from the fruits of their labor. Over the course of the 1800s, these laborers would begin to feel aligned with one another, creat- ing a sense of belonging to a particular class.

Protest Movements Several movements arose to protest the living and working conditions experienced by the working class. Protest movements of the early nineteenth century were usually one of two kinds: (1) an orga- nization of middle-class reformers seeking to safe- guard the morality of workers or (2) laborers fighting for economic and work-related protections, such as a shorter workday. The two movements often opposed each other, usually because the middle- class reformers were anti-immigrant, while the labor movement was made up of Irish and non-Irish immigrants. Furthermore, the federal and state gov- ernments firmly supported economic development, so ceding to the demands of laborers did not seem to offer immediate gains for the economy.

Despite these hurdles, the laborers enjoyed some successes. Neighborhood groups began to meet up in citywide trade assemblies that delved into politics and rallied to elect politicians sympa- thetic to their cause. They then attempted to unify the citywide assemblies into nationwide unions. One such union, the Workingmen’s Party, was formed in 1828 and spread through fifteen states. It was surpassed in 1834 by the National Trades Union, which is usually regarded as the nation’s first large- scale union. And, although the power of the trade

Read a firsthand description of the Lowell mills

from one young female worker.

Great Irish Famine Years of miserable pov- erty and hunger in Ireland that peaked during 1845– 1851 and led millions of Irish to the United States

Workingmen’s party Union of laborers, made up from citywide assem- blies, that formed in 1828; eventually spread through fifteen states

National trades Union First large-scale labor union in the United States; formed in 1834

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Reformers 179

unions varied depending on the economy, in 1840, President Martin Van Buren instituted the ten-hour day for federal employees, yielding to one of the long-standing demands of the laboring classes.

10-3 Reformers But the most influential reform movement of the early nineteenth century emerged from the middle class. Spurred by a religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening, a large group of middle- class social reformers attempted to control the changes brought about by the Market Revolution. The men and especially the women who led the reform movement promoted a vision of a more caring nation, one more considerate of human life. In doing so, these reformers broached some of the most consequential issues the nation would face during the next two hundred years, including rac- ism, the rights of workers, and the rights of women.

10-3a The Creation of the Middle Class

Where did these reformers come from? As more and more unskilled laborers transitioned to factory work, a need arose for paper-pushing bureaucrats who could manage others, balance the books, and sell goods. This was new. In 1800, a shoemaker would have made shoes himself, selling them at his own shop. By 1860, however, many “shoemakers” did not actually make shoes at all. Rather, they supervised a group of semiskilled or unskilled laborers, each

of whom completed a part of the shoemaking pro- cess. Similarly, large factories needed bookkeepers, accountants, salesmen, and clerks.

This management class formed the backbone of an emerging middle class. Before 1800, Americans had hardly ever used the term middle class. By 1850, the term was part of the popular vocabulary. The middle class began to develop a culture distinct from that of the elite property owners or that of the workers. In the middle class of the mid-1800s, men were presumed to be the sole income earn- ers, usually working outside the home. Their wives, meanwhile, transitioned from income providers to guardians of the home and family, a concept that came to be called the “cult of female domesticity.” Middle-class women developed their own social and cultural outlets. Manufacturers were quick to recognize this trend, providing products exclusively geared to women, in a feminization of consumer- ism. Publishers introduced a “ladies” literature, a feminization of culture. But a woman’s first priority was making the family home a sanctuary for her laboring husband, a “haven in a heartless world.”

10-3b The Second Great Awakening For most people, and especially for women, new evangelical churches lay at the center of middle- class culture. More than any other group in American society, the middle class—the shopkeepers, clerks, and managers—was most active in the evangeli- cal sects that developed in the 1830s and formed the center of what historians call the Second Great Awakening. The Second Great Awakening

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180 C h a p t e r 10 The Market Revolution

was a Protestant religious revival that began in the West but shortly moved to the Northeast and the South. It lasted from the 1790s to the 1840s and reached its high tide between the 1820s and 1840s.

The Theology The central theological idea behind the Second Great Awakening was that an individual’s soul could be saved through human agency (meaning hard work) and his or her acceptance of respon- sibility for a sinful nature. This meant that divine revelation was not the only path to salvation. This stood in contrast to Jonathan Edwards’s and George Whitefield’s theology of relying on divine benevo- lence for salvation, which was paramount during the First Great Awakening. The ideas behind the Second Great Awakening were that humans could achieve a level of perfectibility—both individual and social—by doing good works and by promoting what

they understood to be God’s intent. Action was the key. Humans had the power to choose good or evil, and, by choosing good, they could eventually alle- viate sin or, put another way, become perfect. The name for the idea that humans can accept or reject divine grace is Arminianism.

How It Spread The Second Great Awakening spread through a series of three- or four-day revivals orchestrated by itiner- ant preachers. The most prominent was Charles G. Finney, a New York lawyer who gave up the law in 1821 to convert souls. Finney was a spellbinding orator whose sermons were particularly effective in the towns that had experienced the most changes during the Market Revolution. One area in upstate New York had so many converts it was called the burned-over district, having been penetrated by fiery orators speaking the Word of God. Many people genuinely believed God had touched them, and the habits they developed because of their faith—thrift, sobriety, obedience—led them to succeed in the new market-based economy. In the South, women and African Americans were particularly moved by the Christian message of salvation and hope. American Catholics and Jews responded to the newfound fer- vor as well, usually by upgrading the importance of the sermon in their worship ceremonies, although Catholics and Jews were still not widely accepted by the mainstream. The Methodists and the Baptists, both reform-minded low-church traditions, capital- ized on the religious fervor to the greatest extent. By the 1820s, both denominations had surpassed all others to become the two largest churches in America. Meanwhile, the Second Great Awakening led to a “Christianization” of African Americans, both free and enslaved, during this era.

Why a Revival? Some historians have argued that middle-class interest in religion stemmed from a desire for eco- nomic security. As the American economy became more competitive, those who aspired to succeed embraced religion for a sense of hope and confi- dence in the future. In addition, evangelical religion promoted the values—frugality, sobriety, diligence, and zeal—that Americans needed to achieve their economic goals. More prosaically, church member- ship also bestowed social respectability, and those who joined were more likely to impress their supe- riors at work, which might lead to promotions. Both religion and the cult of female domesticity were central aspects of the emerging American middle class.N

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burned-over district Area in upstate New York that had many converts who had been inspired by the fiery orators speaking the Word of God during the Second Great Awakening

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Reformers 181

The Transcendentalists The theology of perfectibility appeared in secu- lar form in writings by the Transcendentalists, a group of thinkers and writers in the Northeast who believed that ultimate truths were beyond human grasp—that they “transcended” our capac- ity for understanding. This being so, they turned inward—to themselves and to their society—asking what could be done to improve the human condition. The best-known Transcendentalists were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, two genuine celebri- ties of the time. Seeking to live by Transcendentalist ideals, Thoreau attempted to return to nature and nar- rated his experiences in his book Walden. Telling the tale of his two-year journey

living in the wil- derness, the book d e m o n s t r a t e d Thoreau’s desire

for self-sufficiency and for the con- servation of nature. He also protested slavery and war, and he advocated civil disobedience, starting a tradition that would influence later reformers like

Martin Luther King, Jr. His friend Emerson, meanwhile, critiqued economic competi- tion and social conformity. Their critiques of a market- based society, with the manufacturing of desire and economic disparity, still res- onate with many Americans.

The purity of Thoreau’s and Emerson’s ideals struck a chord with their genera- tion and with the generation that followed, whose luminaries included Nathaniel Hawthorne and Herman Melville. These writers debated in their fiction the perfectibility of human- kind. Perhaps ironically, all of these thinkers were speakers on the lyceum circuit, a touring lecture circuit that was made possible only by the transpor- tation breakthroughs of the Market Revolution.

Utopianism Utopianism provided another response to the quest for perfectibility. After their inception in Europe, several “perfectionist” communities popped up in the 1840s and 1850s, mostly in the Northeast but also in the Midwest. One was in Oneida, New York, where John Humphrey Noyes led a group of fifty-one followers to develop what he viewed as a perfect community. The Oneida community had open sex- ual mores, communal child rearing, a unique divi- sion of labor, and a therapeutic milieu where people freely offered constructive criticism of one another under the watchful eye of Noyes.

The Shakers, who developed from a group of Quakers, also believed in perfectionism and com- munal property. Their communities developed a

Read portions of Thoreau’s Walden.

>> A replica of Thoreau’s cabin at Walden Pond, where he spec- ulated about the changes wrought by the Market Revolution.

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transcendentalists Group of thinkers and writers in the Northeast who believed that ultimate truths were beyond human grasp

lyceum circuit Schedule of lectures in which clergymen, reform- ers, Transcendentalists, socialists, feminists, and other speakers would speak to large crowds in small towns

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182 C h a p t e r 10 The Market Revolution

tradition of rejecting com- mercial endeavors, one result being their creation of beau- tiful handcrafted furniture, which continues to be sold today. There were many more of these groups. More than one hundred utopian com- munities were established

between the 1820s and the 1850s, mostly in the Northeast and Midwest.

The Latter-Day Saints Creating a utopia was not for everyone. Some pre- ferred to anticipate the Second Coming of Christ, when perfection would reign for the chosen. The most significant group was the Mormons, founded by Joseph Smith, a Protestant convert who witnessed one of Charles Finney’s revivals. After his conversion in the burned-over district, Smith claimed to have been visited by the angel Moroni, who showed him several golden tablets that revealed the foundations for a new religion based on the lost tribe of Israel. According to Smith, these tablets contained The Book

of Mormon (he said he returned the tablets to the angel after he had transcribed them, so no one has seen them). Smith asserted that the tablets possessed an ancient revelation of God that predicted the “end- times,” making the Mormons “saints” called out by God to usher in the new millennium; this is why Mormons called themselves the Latter-Day Saints.

Smith’s vision appealed to a growing number of people who were either convinced by Smith’s vision or dissatisfied with the new social order unfolding during the Market Revolution. Chastised as heretics, Joseph Smith led his congregation to Ohio, then Missouri, then Illinois, in an attempt to avoid per- secution. By 1844, Smith was tried for treason, and, facing persecution once again, the Mormons headed west in 1846, ultimately settling in the territory of Utah. (For more on the Mormons, see Chapter 13.)

10-3c The Reform Impulse While movements striving for perfectibility con- tinued to blossom throughout the first half of the 1800s, most Americans preferred more subtle attempts at reform.

The Benevolent Empire Instead of drastically altering the entire society, most Americans sought to change one element at a time, leading to a series of single-issue reforms. Many of the reformers felt that, all together, their various efforts would create a “Benevolent Empire” on American soil. Led by individuals like Arthur and Lewis Tappan, evangelical brothers who advocated numerous reforms, the reformers of the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s sought social change with a messianic fer- vor. In their advocacy, they sometimes patronizingly questioned the morality of impoverished immi- grants and non-Protestants, but they claimed to do so only in an effort to improve American society.

Female Reform Societies The reforming impulse was particularly meaningful for nineteenth-century women. Politics were thought of as men’s arena, but social reform was considered within women’s sphere, and thus activist women played a large role in the movement for social reform. This role was most dramatically illustrated by the American Female Moral Reform Society, which by 1840 had more than five hundred local chapters throughout the country and had success- fully lobbied for legislation governing prostitution.

>> The revivals of the Second Great Awakening proved fertile ground for new religions, the largest of which is Mormonism, which began when Joseph Smith claimed to be visited by the angel Moroni, who led Smith to golden tablets upon which were written the Book of Mormon.

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american Female Moral reform Society Women’s activist group that had more than five hundred local chapters throughout the country by 1840 and had suc- cessfully lobbied for legislation governing prostitution

Read more about Seneca Falls.

What else was happening . . . 1815 John Roulstone writes the first three verses

of “Mary Had a Little Lamb” after his class- mate Mary Sawyer comes to school fol- lowed by her pet lamb.

1823 The game of rugby is invented.

1833 Britain outlaws slavery in response to the continued efforts of evangelical Christians and the politician William Wilberforce.

1838 Massachusetts prohibits the sale of liquor. One man gets around the law by painting stripes on a pig and advertising that, for 6 cents, a person could see the pig and get a free glass of whiskey.

1847 Hanson Gregory, a New England mariner, invents the donut.

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186 C h a p t e r 11 The Continued Move West

Learning Outcomes After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

11-1 Describe the changes that took place in American politics during the first decades of the 1800s, and explain reasons for these changes.

11-2 Explain how Jackson’s approach to the “spoils system,” the nullification crisis, the National Bank, Indian removal, and the Panic of 1837 reflected his vision of federal power.

11-3 Explain the development of America’s second two-party political system between the Democrats and the Whigs.

Politics of the Market Revolution

Chapter 11

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Politics in the Age of Jackson 187

“Despite what his appearance on today’s $20 bill might suggest, Andrew Jackson ruined the national currency, which did not revive again

until the Civil War.”The first half of the 1800s saw political developments almost as momentous as the social and economic changes brought on by the Market Revolution. While the American economy was booming and busting and booming again between 1814 and 1850, American politics were becoming more and more democratic. The politics of deference—in which people were expected to defer to the wisdom of the more educated elite—was dying out. Historians have called it “the era of the common man,” in which politics expanded beyond its elite origins and the vote was extended to more and more of the population.

To be sure, the America of the early 1800s considered the “common man” to be white and, quite literally, a man. However, while racial minorities and women were still excluded from the franchise, many states ceased requiring property ownership as man- datory for full citizenship. This meant that a much higher percentage of Americans could vote in 1840 than in 1790. Large political parties arose to woo the new voters. The result was a vibrant, sometimes raucous political life for men that featured the rise of two new parties to replace the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans from the founding era. These new parties—the Democrats and the Whigs—mostly argued about the best way to manage the economy during the Market Revolution. Because Andrew Jackson symbol- ized this new style of politics, the period is often called the Age of Jackson.

11-1 Politics in the Age of Jackson 11-1a A New Kind of Politics Four factors contributed to the rise of a new kind of politics in the 1820s and 1830s: (1) economic booms and busts caused Americans to feel that the government should be more responsive to their needs; (2) the expansion of the franchise, or vote, allowed greater numbers of American men to participate in politics; and (3) the contentious presidential election of 1824 led the entire nation to become increasingly political, which (4) led to the rise of mass parties and the second two-party system.

The Panic of 1819 As we saw in the last chapter, during the first half of the nineteenth century, the United States became a more market-driven society, with increasingly rapid communications and transportation. At the same time, Americans were on the move, settling western lands and building railroads to connect the new settlements with eastern cities. The South was booming as well, becoming Europe’s principal supplier of cotton. With these developments,

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Andrew Jackson’s election showed that the United States was finally a true democracy. Strongly Disagree Strongly Agree 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

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What do you think?

<< Andrew Jackson, as he appears on the $20 bill.

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188 C h a p t e r 11 Politics of the Market Revolution

many Americans felt they were destined to reap con- tinued economic success.

Such optimism did not last. In 1819, global demand for American agricultural production (particularly cot- ton) plummeted, in part because of Europe’s recov- ery after the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815. At the same time, the Second Bank of the United States tightened credit, due to fears

about overinvestment in factories and land. With fewer people buying American goods and with credit tightened, the United States entered its first major economic depression. Land values tumbled across the nation, and the demand for goods and foodstuffs slackened. Every bank south and west of Pennsylvania failed except two. Thousands of people declared bankruptcy or were sentenced to debtors’ prison.

The Panic of 1819 deeply affected the average American. Farmers in the West were particularly hard pressed. Having bought their farms on credit, many could not make their payments, and banks foreclosed the loans. In desperation, people turned to their state governments, demanding financial assistance during these tough times. In Kentucky and other states, voters agitated in vain for the government to declare a moratorium on the collec- tion of debts. In general, Americans began to feel that the government should protect its constituents from economic disaster and, more importantly, from the topsy-turvy nature of a market-based economy.

Expansion of the Franchise This push to make government more responsive to the common people coincided with the opening up of the political process. In the first years after the Revolution, most states limited the vote to white men who owned a certain amount of property. Such requirements were designed to place political power in the hands of men who were considered to have a “real stake” in society.

These limits did not last long. During the first part of the 1800s, almost every state removed property restrictions on citizenship. By 1824, most states had liberalized their laws so that every free white man was allowed to vote; only Rhode Island, Virginia, North Carolina, and Louisiana still main- tained property restrictions.

“corrupt bargain” Alleged deal between John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay to manipulate the voting in the House of Representatives to install Adams as presi- dent and Clay as his sec- retary of state in 1824

second two-party system Evolution of political organizations in 1824 into the Jacksonians and the Whigs

As states expanded the franchise to all white men, legislators of the early 1800s simultaneously developed restrictions that prevented African Americans from voting. If slavery had slowly departed from the North following the American Revolution, racism had not. For example, the New York Constitution of 1777 did not mention race at all, but in 1821, the revised New York Constitution restricted the vote to all white men and to wealthy African Americans. Women and poor black men were specifically excluded. The world of politics was becoming more democratic, and more people were allowed to participate, but it still maintained signifi- cant barriers to participation.

The Election of 1824 Nowhere was this new politics better reflected than in the election of 1824 (see Map 11.1). Since

GA 9

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TN 11

MICHIGAN TERRITORY

MISSOURI TERRITORY

KY 14

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OH 16

MO 3

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Craw-1

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Jackson

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Territories, unsettled, etc.

99 38%

Electoral VoteCandidate Popular Vote

84 32%

153,544 43.1%

108,740 30.5%

41 16%

37 14%

46,618 13.1%

47,136 13.2%

1824

Cengage Learning Ms00309 Presidential Election of 1824 Trim 20p6 x 31p0 Final proof: 4/30/10

Single column map No bleeds

Map 11.1. The Election of 1824 © Cengage Learning 2014

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Politics in the Age of Jackson 189

the Federalist Party fell apart in the late 1810s (after contemplat- ing secession at the Hartford Convention), all national politi- cians of the 1820s considered them- selves Democratic-Republicans. Five Democratic-Republicans were nominated to the presidency in 1824, for example, and each had strong regional support. Yet no sin- gle candidate was able to muster a majority.

Per the Constitution, the election was handed over to the House of Representatives, which was, by law, instructed to consider only the top three candidates. They were Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and William H. Crawford. The candidate who had come in fourth place (and was thus no longer on the ballot) was Henry Clay. Clay instructed his back- ers to support Adams—an action that infuriated Jackson, who had won the most popular and electoral votes. With Clay’s support, then, John Quincy Adams, the son of for- mer president John Adams, leapfrogged Jackson in the election and was elected president of the United States on the next vote of the House.

When Adams shortly thereafter appointed Clay to be secretary of state (a frequent stepping-stone

to the presidency), Andrew Jackson and his followers protested that there had been a “corrupt bargain” between the two men. Jackson and his supporters vowed revenge,

and revenge they would get, but it would have to wait until 1828.

The split between Clay and Adams on the one hand and Jackson on the other was a key step in the development of the second two-party system. By 1824, the followers of Jackson called themselves the Jacksonians, and they advocated a strong execu- tive branch, perpetual westward expansion, and an aggressive democratization of the political process, especially opening the franchise for white men. A few years later, the followers of Clay and Adams chose to be called the National Republicans. They later changed their name to the Whigs, in honor of Britain’s Whigs, who had protested the authoritar- ian actions of the king of England (thus insinuating that Jackson yearned to be a dictatorial king). They advocated a strong legislature, government-funded internal improvements, economic protectionism, and the American System of economics.

But the more immediate effect of the “corrupt bargain” was to stimulate partisanship and get more people interested in politics. In the election of 1824, national voter turnout was just 24 percent. By 1840, turnout was nearly 80 per- cent. National parties had devel- oped in the intervening years to capitalize on and profit from the newfound interest in politics.

A New Culture of Politics These national parties fed a new culture of politics in the 1820s and 1830s. Between the increased num- ber of eligible voters and the expan- sion of political parties, popular interest in politics soared. Because

most “common men” now had the right to vote, politi- cal candidates had no choice but to mingle with the masses and earn their respect and attention. As a result, politics for the first time became mass enter- tainment. Partisan newspapers flourished. Campaigns were conducted to appeal to popular tastes and fea- tured public rallies, picnics, and elaborate parades with marching bands. Alcohol flowed freely at these events. What better way for a candidate to prove to be a man of the people than to raise a glass of whis- key to their health? In this jovial atmosphere, no one charmed the people better than Andrew Jackson.

11-1b Andrew Jackson and the Politics of the “Common Man”

Resentful of the “corrupt bargain,” in 1828 Jackson and his newly emerging Democratic Party set out to

What better way for a candidate to prove to be a man of the people than to raise a glass of whiskey to their health? In this

jovial atmosphere, no one charmed the people better than Andrew Jackson.

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>> Andrew Jackson on the campaign trail. Note his roughly worn attire and his engaged, aggressive stance.

Use historical evidence to evaluate how

corrupt the “corrupt bargain” truly was.

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190 C h a p t e r 11 Politics of the Market Revolution

mobilize voters and achieve the presidential victory he felt he deserved.

The Election of 1828 They had a busy four years between 1824 and 1828, barnstorming all twenty-two states. Jackson’s opponent in 1828 was the incumbent president, John Quincy Adams, an old-style, patrician politi- cian in the mold of his father. He made no effort to reach out to the people, relying instead on his record as president, which mostly included a suc- cessful series of internal improvements in the West.

In his platform, he proposed even more internal improve- ments, funding explorations of the western interior, and leveraging American manu- facturing, but he made his

case to the electorate mostly from the White House, not the campaign trail.

Jackson took a different route. Instead of focus- ing on specific issues, he used a campaign strategy all too familiar to American voters today: mudsling- ing. While Jackson defamed the personal character of his political adversaries, his fellow Democratic leaders organized rallies and barbecues to attract and mobilize voters. The Democrats amplified Jackson’s biography as a hero of the War of 1812, and his biography changed slightly depending on where he campaigned. He was most successful with three groups: (1) southerners, who appreciated the fact that some of the Indians he had killed were Florida’s Seminoles, who were hated by southerners because the tribe had invited slaves to escape to freedom in Seminole lands; (2) westerners, who viewed him as a hearty frontiersman (his supporters avoided

revealing the fact that his frontier lifestyle depended largely on the hundred slaves he owned); and (3) the working classes of the North, who had come to resent what they called the “elitism” of the Federalists and their political offspring. Jackson won the election of 1828 (Map 11.2) by a wide margin— all the more impressive because the total number of voters had tripled in just four years. He did not make the customary visit to President John Quincy Adams before taking office, and, to return the snub, Adams refused to attend Jackson’s inauguration, a rollicking affair that was open to the public (for the first time) and that led to significant damages to the White House. Indeed, the inauguration has come to symbolize how politics had shifted to embrace the “common man.”

A New Style of Politics The election of 1828 marked a major turning point in American political history. A new style of poli-Li

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>> John Quincy Adams made no effort to reach out to the people, relying instead on his record as president. It didn’t work out so well for his re-election in 1828.

Hear music for an Andrew Jack- son campaign

song, and be sure to read the lyrics!

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Jackson as President 191

tics had emerged, characterized by pandering to the masses. Style over substance became the rule. Moreover, new techniques of mass mobilization, such as campaign leaflets, public speeches, and other kinds of political propaganda, became essen- tial to running a successful campaign. The election of 1828 signaled the beginning of the kind of politi- cal culture that persists in America today.

White Male Democracy Jackson’s ascendance to the presidency is often described as the dawning of the age of the common man, or the revolt of westerners and southerners against a northeastern elite. Both interpretations are somewhat misleading. Jackson was a successful lawyer and a wealthy slaveholder and, in political acumen at least, he was far from common. And, in the 1828 triumph, he won sections of large northern states such as New York.

Nevertheless, it was Jackson’s appeal to the American masses that got him elected in 1828. More than anyone else, Jackson symbolized the power of the people in the new political system. He was the first president from the West (Tennessee) rather than from the aristocracy of New England or Virginia. He was supported by a coali- tion of western frontiersmen, southern planters, and the northern working class who supported manhood suffrage (extending the vote to all white men regardless of property ownership) and opposed anyone they considered an aristocrat, even if those aristocrats were interested in extending rights to other, less privileged minorities.

Racism in the North One group that did not support Jackson, largely because they did not have the legal right to do so but also because of the racism of Jackson’s support- ers, was African Americans. Slavery remained legal in the South, and although Jackson did not design any policies specifically against free blacks, the Democrats were hostile to any suggestion of improv- ing the condition of free blacks living in the North. These northern free blacks were usually denied basic civil rights. Often they could vote, but only in Massachusetts, for example, could a black person sit on a jury. Worse still, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois passed laws that prohibited free blacks from settling within their borders. By custom, segregation was the rule in the North. Blacks had to sit in separate sections on railroads, steamboats, and stagecoaches. They were barred from entering many hotels and restaurants. Thus, although the North had abolished slavery during the first quarter of the 1800s, society- wide racism made blacks an underclass, separate from the “common men” whom Jackson came to represent.

11-2 Jackson as President He may have symbolized the “common man,” but Andrew Jackson’s presidency was anything but common. Four issues dominated his presidency: (1) patronage, (2) the nullification crisis, (3) the Bank War, and (4) Indian removal. The way he handled each of them had long-lasting ramifications, some of which we live with today.

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J. Q. Adams (National Republican)

Jackson (Democrat)

Territories, unsettled, etc.

178 68%

Electoral VoteCandidate (Party) Popular Vote

83 32%

647,286 56.0%

508,064 44.0%

1828

Cengage Learning Ms00310a Presidential Election of 1828 Trim 20p6 x 28p8 Revised Final proof: 8/14/08 Revised 8/14/08—cm: add white feather; standardize vote tally Kennedy variant: Eastern US only

Single column map No bleeds

Map 11.2. The Election of 1828 © Cengage Learning 2014

Read Andrew Jackson’s First Annual Message,

and see what might have appealed to the “common man.”

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192 C h a p t e r 11 Politics of the Market Revolution

11-2a Patronage When Jackson and his fol- lowers came to power, they sought to exact revenge on Adams, Clay, and their sup- porters. Following the advice of the masterful New York politician Martin Van Buren, Jackson took control of the federal government through a system of political patron- age. Patronage is defined as the direct exchange of

a government job in return for political campaign work. This means that, rather than seek out the best-qualified person for a job, a politician simply awards the job based on the campaign support one has given him. This system was routinely called the “spoils system,” as in “to the victor go the spoils.” Upon his victory in 1828, Jackson fired many fed- eral workers and replaced them with committed Jacksonians, surrounding himself with like-minded men. Among other things, the open use of patron- age shifted the focal point of national politics squarely on the White House.

The one non-Jacksonian who could not be fired was Vice President John C. Calhoun, a former senator from South Carolina and a strong advocate of states’ rights. The battles between Jackson and Calhoun were legendary, especially during what came to be known as the nullification crisis.

11-2b The Nullification Crisis By far, the most serious crisis Jackson confronted— in fact, the most serious crisis in the nation between the Revolution and the Civil War—developed around the concept of states’ rights and whether or not a state could “nullify” a federal law. Nullification emerged as a major issue during Jackson’s first term.

The Context of Nullification By the time Jackson was elected president in 1828, the Panic of 1819 was just an ugly memory, but Americans were still anxious about economic mat- ters. The economy was changing so rapidly during the Market Revolution that many Americans felt they could hardly keep up. This was especially true in South Carolina, where the cotton market had been hit hard by the depression and by soil deple- tion. South Carolinians focused the blame for their economic problems on the high tariff placed on their goods.

Tariffs Congress had begun increasing America’s tariffs in 1816 to protect American industries, especially the newly mechanized textile industry taking root in New England, which used southern cotton as its raw material. This was a key component of the American System. The western states also benefited from the tax on imported goods because taxes on European wheat, hemp, and other agricultural products made them more expensive; with the tariff, Americans would buy American goods. The South, however, felt left out. American tariffs did not affect southern staple crops because Europeans did not grow com- peting crops. As southerners saw it, they were forced to pay higher prices for goods to subsidize the eco- nomic development of the North and West.

When Congress raised these tariffs in 1824, South Carolina and other southern states vigor- ously objected. Despite these complaints, Congress narrowly approved the tariff. Then in 1828, in a stunning move that backfired, Jackson, running for president against Adams, advocated a ridiculously high tariff, assuming it would not pass. Jackson’s promotion of the tariff would have gained him the support of the West and the North (which might otherwise have supported Adams), while the South would be content that no tariff had been passed. Jackson’s support was intended to be a political ploy.

To Jackson’s shock, the Tariff of 1828, which came to be known as the “Tariff of Abominations,” passed in Congress. Adams, the outgoing president, did not veto the measure, leaving Jackson with a tariff that made many of his supporters unhappy. The South was furious and, in response, the South Carolina legislature issued a document called the South Carolina Exposition. The anonymous author of this document was John C. Calhoun, Jackson’s incoming vice president.

What Was Nullification? The South Carolina Exposition gave voice to a new political idea: nullification. Calhoun’s concept of nullification was designed to answer a serious prob- lem of political theory: how to protect the rights of a minority in a government based on the rule of the majority. (This is something we have seen before, in Jefferson’s Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798.) Calhoun’s theory of nullification asserted that the United States was made up of independent and sovereign states. In joining the Union, Calhoun argued, states did not agree to give up their autonomy.

patronage Exchange of a govern- ment job in return for political campaign work

nullification Assertion that the United States was made up of independent and sovereign states; states did not agree to give up their autonomy; and every state reserved the right to reject any federal law it deemed unconstitutional

Read South Carolina’s Ordinance of

Nullification.

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Jackson as President 193

Therefore, every state reserved the right to reject any federal law it deemed unconstitutional.

In 1828, South Carolina did nothing more than articulate the idea of nul- lification, but in 1832, after Congress failed to revise the Tariff of Abominations, South Carolina actually put nullification into prac- tice. The state legislature authorized the election of delegates to a popular con- vention, and, in November 1832, that convention passed an ordinance declaring the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void in South Carolina, effective February 1, 1833.

Jackson’s Response As an ardent nationalist, President Jackson was not about to let South Carolina challenge the authority of the federal government. In his Proclamation on Nullification, delivered in December 1832, Jackson emphasized that the states of the Union were not independent and that, therefore, no state had

the right to reject a federal law; only the Supreme Court had the authority to do that. Moreover, Jackson declared that the Union was perpet- ual. By this logic, Calhoun’s

assertion that a state could withdraw from the Union was treason.

To demonstrate how seriously they took the threat, Jacksonians in Congress passed the Force Bill in March 1833, which confirmed the president’s authority to use the army and navy to put down insurrection. But Jackson was wise enough to use the carrot as well as the stick. While threatening South Carolina with the possibility of force, Jackson also urged Congress to lower the tariff. By doing so, Jackson isolated South Carolina. No other state would defend South Carolina when the federal government was trying to be accommodating. As a result, Calhoun himself backed away from nullifica- tion and supported a compromise tariff bill. It went into effect on the same day as the Force Bill, March 1, 1833. South Carolina promptly repealed its nullifi- cation of the tariff, but, in a final display of spiteful defiance, it nullified the Force Bill. Jackson sagely ignored this and allowed the nullification crisis to die out. For the moment, Jackson’s brand of national-

ism had triumphed over the forces of nullification and secession.

11-2c The Bank War

As strong as Jackson’s sense of nationalism was, it did not prevent him from attacking and eventually destroying one major national institution: the Second Bank of the United States. The crisis

surrounding the charter of the Second Bank of the United States was the third issue that polarized the politics of the 1830s (along with patronage and nullification).

The Bank The Second Bank of the United States, located in Philadelphia, had been created by Congress in 1816 and been granted a twenty-year charter. During its first years, the Bank extended credit easily, helping grow the economy in the aftermath of the War of 1812. Americans were on the move, buying and cul- tivating new lands in the West, and credit from the Bank underwrote much of this economic activity. In 1819, however, the Bank reversed course and began calling in its loans, contributing to the Panic of 1819. People late on their payments now had to pay up. Many Americans went to debtors’ prisons; others suffered bankruptcy. Although the Bank was not the sole cause of the panic, many citizens considered the Bank a dangerous institution.

In 1823, Nicholas Biddle, a Philadelphia busi- nessman, assumed leadership of the Bank. Biddle believed that the Bank could serve as a stabilizing influence over the American economy by prevent- ing the national credit supply from expanding too far or contracting too quickly. It is important to remember that America’s monetary system in the nineteenth century was dramatically different from today’s. Until 1863, there was no standardized national currency. Several forms of money existed, and payments were made in (1) specie (gold or silver); (2) barter (goods exchanged for other goods without the use of money); and (3) state bank notes (paper money issued by state-chartered banks). The problem with the paper money was that its value fluctuated depending on the status and solvency of the bank. When too many notes were in circulation,

“On your undivided support of your government depends the decision of the great question it involves, whether your sacred

Union will be preserved, and the blessing it secures to us as one people shall be perpetuated.”

—Andrew Jackson, Proclamation on Nullification, December 10, 1832

Read Jackson’s Proclamation on Nullification

(especially the last four paragraphs).

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194 C h a p t e r 11 Politics of the Market Revolution

their value declined. Biddle promised to use the Bank to control fluctuations in the value of paper money by limiting the amount in circulation.

Jackson’s Opposition Jackson personally distrusted the Bank. After losing his money in a bank in the 1790s, he viewed paper money as dangerous. In his eyes, only specie pro- vided stability. Outright conflict between Jackson and Biddle erupted in 1832, when Biddle applied for a renewal of the Bank’s charter four years before the charter was set to expire. Jackson presumed that Biddle was trying to make the Bank an issue in the presidential election of 1832. Already reeling from the nullification crisis, Jackson had no patience for Biddle’s request and vowed to destroy the Bank altogether. Despite Jackson’s objections, Congress renewed the Bank’s charter in the summer of 1832. Undeterred, Jackson vetoed the charter. He justified his veto with a powerful message, arguing that the Bank was a nest of special privileges for the wealthy who were out to hurt America’s humble poor. He also argued that the Constitution did not allow for the creation of a national bank or for the use of paper money. His veto was popular with the working classes, westerners, and southerners.

Crushing the Bank Once Jackson was reelected at the end of 1832, the Bank still had four years of its charter left. Jackson brashly resolved to crush the Bank before its charter expired. He ordered that all $10 million of federal deposits be withdrawn and redeposited in state banks. The Senate censured Jackson for defying its wishes, but it could not prevent the Bank from going under. When the Bank’s charter expired in 1836, the institution closed its doors for good.

Wildcat Banking The result was not what Jackson had anticipated. Jackson deposited all of the government’s money in several state banks, many of which were owned by his friends. (This was another example of Jackson’s controversial use of political patronage.) The absence of a central bank allowed for the rise of many state and local banks that had less than adequate credit and little government regulation.

Hundreds of paper currencies appeared, many of which were valueless. Counterfeiting was popular. Ironically, the only people who were knowledgeable about currencies were the commercial elite, rein- forcing the notion that paper money only helped the wealthy. Jackson fulfilled his own prophecy—when he took away the regulations, his rhetoric about the insecurity of paper money made sense, and some states, such as California in 1849, outlawed

paper money entirely. Quite predictably, the financial instability handicapped eco- nomic growth. Despite what his appear- ance on today’s $20 bill might suggest, Andrew Jackson ruined the national cur- rency, which did not revive again until the Civil War.

11-2d Westward Expansion and Indian Removal

While all this was happening, Americans continued their perpetual move west. Soil exhaustion in the Southeast, a shortage of land in New England, and the alluring expanses of the Midwest drew Americans to the Great Plains. Southerners usually moved west to find land where they could grow cotton. Cotton growers moved through Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas, popu- lating Texas (with free blacks and slaves) in the 1840s. Similarly, northerners moved in order to cultivate the fields of the Midwest, pushing as far as Iowa by the 1840s.

>> The Second Bank of the United States in Philadelphia.

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Jackson as President 195

All this growth boosted the development of sev- eral cities that served as trading and transportation hubs for the growing West. Louisville, Cincinnati, Detroit, Chicago, and St. Louis grew into the largest cities in the region. Connected to the East Coast by a chain of steamboats, canals, or trains, these cities boomed as centers of America’s westward expan- sion. Rapidly they, too, became industrial centers, with mills and factories lining their riverways.

Indian Resistance And, as before, the tribes of Native America were the chief obstacles to westward migration and settlement. Although the U.S. government pursued numerous treaties with the various tribes during the first part of the 1800s, such agreements proved untenable because the federal government would not keep its word. In addition, westward pioneers did not heed the restrictions placed on them; they often strayed into Indian territory. In some instances, Indians were invited to trade with the Americans at specified trading posts, but the result often plunged the Indians into debt, forcing them to sell their lands to find economic relief. The Choctaw, Creek, and Chickasaw tribes all succumbed in this way. And, as Americans moved west, they introduced disease. Smallpox wiped out the Pawnee, Omaha, Otoe, Missouri, and Kansas tribes in the Midwest during the 1830s and 1840s. Where debt and disease did not crush Indian resistance, war did: for example, the small tribes in the Midwest were decimated in the Blackhawk War of 1832, after which any significant

Indian presence in today’s Midwest disappeared.

Indian Removal Act of 1830 In the South, the tribes were larger and better organized. Constant battles raged, and complete Indian removal became established U.S. policy. After some harsh political debate, Congress passed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which allowed the federal government to trade land west of the Mississippi River for land east of the river. Citing the act, Jackson forced sev- eral tribes, including the Creek and the Lower Creek, to move west throughout the 1830s. This, however, would not happen so easily.

The Cherokee Nation Versus Georgia The Cherokee had accommodated to the American way of life more than any other Indian tribe. They had adopted an American-style bicameral govern- ment, translated a Christian Bible into the Cherokee language, and adopted American rules regarding property and slaveholding. By 1833, the Cherokee owned 1,500 black slaves.

But when gold was discovered in western Georgia, white Georgians wanted the Cherokee removed so they could mine the gold. They there- fore attempted to dissolve the Cherokee constitu- tion and take away their property rights. To resist, the Cherokee took advantage of a primary American

Indian removal act of 1830 Legislation that allowed the federal government to trade land west of the Mississippi River for land east of the river, allowing the federal government to move Indians further west

>> The Trail of Tears, when, in 1838, the United States forced the Cherokee Nation from its home in Georgia to Oklahoma, even after the Cherokee had won a Supreme Court case affirming Cherokee sovereignty.

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196 C h a p t e r 11 Politics of the Market Revolution

institution: they sued the Georgians in federal court. And they won. In Worcester v. Georgia (1832), which followed a simi- lar case from the year before, Cherokee v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee nation was a sovereign nation and that the state of Georgia could not enter it without Cherokee per- mission. According to the Court, if the U.S. govern- ment wanted to move the Cherokee, it would have to do so in a treaty, not through the Removal Act.

Amazingly, Jackson simply ignored the decision. One newspaper reported the president as saying, “[Chief Justice] John Marshall has made his decision: now let him enforce it.” With the prospect of violence looming and the federal government not willing to stand by a decision from its highest court, a tiny

faction of Cherokee (500 out of 17,000) attempted to end hostilities by signing a treaty with Jackson. The treaty traded Cherokee land for land west of the Mississippi, and when Congress rati- fied the treaty (by a single vote, over the strenuous objections of Henry Clay and Daniel Webster), the Cherokee lost title to their land. (The tribe later mur- dered the Cherokee treaty makers, who were viewed by the majority as trai- tors.) After one American general resigned in pro- test, in 1838 General Winfield Scott invaded the Cherokee nation and forced the Cherokee to travel a thousand miles, from Georgia to Oklahoma, enduring

hardship and death on what was called the Trail of Tears. About 4,000 Cherokee died along the way, and, when they arrived in Oklahoma, they faced conflict with the tribes that had already settled there. For more on why the Cherokee were pushed off their lands in Georgia, see “The reasons why . . .” box.

trail of tears Forced removal of the Cherokee nation from Georgia to Oklahoma in 1838; the Cherokee were forced to travel more than a thousand miles

White land lust. First, soil exhaustion in the Southeast sent farm- ers further west in search of land where they could grow staple crops such as cotton, which had been made considerably easier to do after the invention of the cotton gin in 1793.

Racism. Second, since the early colonial days, European colonists in North America (and later, white Americans) had rarely treated Indians with any decency, largely thinking of them as un-Christian, uncivilized dark-skinned heathens. By the 1820s and 1830s, many Americans, such as Andrew Jackson, simply felt the Indians were dying out, which would, of course, open land in the West for settle- ment by white Americans.

Federal policy. In light of these two long-standing propositions, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 made it established U.S. policy to move

Indians west of the Mississippi River, pushing them further away from the settled parts of the United States.

Andrew Jackson’s ire. In 1832, the Cherokee nation sued the state of Georgia for allowing white Georgians onto their land while searching for gold, with the Cherokee claiming they were a sover- eign nation beyond the bounds of the Indian Removal Act of 1830. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Cherokee claims, but, citing a controversial treaty with a tiny faction of Cherokee, Andrew Jackson ordered the U.S. military to march the Cherokee from Georgia to Oklahoma, on what has come to be called the “Trail of Tears.” One general resigned in protest of Jackson’s order.

There were four reasons why the Cherokee were pushed off their lands in Georgia:

the reasons why . . .}{

“I have recommended them to quit their possessions on this side of the Mississippi, and go to a country

in the west where there is every probability that they will always be free from the mercenary influence of White men, and undisturbed

by the local authority of the states: Under such circumstances the

General Government can exercise a parental control over their

interests and possibly perpetuate their race.”

—Andrew Jackson, in a letter to Captain James Gadsden, 1829

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Was Jackson Anti-Indian? Jackson had a complicated relationship with Native Americans. His Indian Removal Bill of 1830 forced

all Native Americans to move west of the Mississippi, clearing their lands for white settlement. But he defended

these actions under the guise of paternalism—the idea that Jackson was moving Indians for their own good, saving them from the ravages and greed of the white man. He put this idea into practice when he adopted a Creek Indian as a son after the Creek War. On the whole, however, the evidence begins to stack up against Jackson. He ultimately believed any Indian presence east of the Mississippi River was illegitimate, and, in fact, he believed the Indian people as a whole were destined for extinction any- way. His policies nearly made him correct.

The Seminole Revolt Jackson’s paternalism had limited appeal for those who were being patronized, though, and Jackson’s Indian removal plan and his attitude toward African Americans combined to provoke what may have been the largest slave revolt in American history. Seminole

Indians in northern Florida had long provided a refuge for escaped slaves. Beginning in 1835, Seminoles had been

fighting a perpetual war with American settlers over land in Florida. In 1836, the Seminoles and their free black population (called Black Seminoles) attacked at least twelve white-owned sugar plantations.

Enslaved plantation workers joined the fray, striking back at their slave masters.

In the mayhem that fol- lowed, many slaves freed themselves and burned all the sugar plantations in the region. The residents of St. Augustine watched the smoke drift from the south as the plantations burned to the ground. Sugar was never again a viable product in northern Florida. The war between the Seminoles and the settlers lasted until 1842 without a clear victor.

11-2e The Panic of 1837 The westward push, the Indian policy, and Jackson’s bank policy all combined to create an economic panic in the mid-nineteenth century, one so deep that it was only rivaled by the Great Depression of the 1930s.

The Specie Circular Once again, currencies were the provocation. Once Indian removal became official policy of the federal government in 1830, speculators began purchasing land in the West. To do so, many used paper money from the wildcat banks that had emerged in the aftermath of Jackson’s Bank War. This proved a toxic combination because the cash was not stable, and it often lost much of its value. In an attempt to pro- tect the settlers and to affirm his distrust of paper money, Jackson, in 1836, passed the Specie Circular,

Learn more about the Semi- nole Revolt.

Specie Circular Executive order of 1836 requiring that the govern- ment cease accepting paper money as credible currency, accepting only gold or silver (specie) for all items, including public land

>> In 1837, the United States plummeted into an eco- nomic depression that, ever since, has been rivaled only by the Great Depression of the 1930s. The Times, pub. by H.R. Robertson, New York, 1837 (colour litho), Clay, Edwards Williams (1799–1857) (after)/. Museum of the City of New York, USA, The Bridgeman Art Library

View an interac- tive account of Indian removal.

Jackson as President 197

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198 C h a p t e r 11 Politics of the Market Revolution

an executive order requiring that the government cease accepting paper money as cred- ible currency, instead accepting only gold or silver (specie) for all items, including public land. The result of the federal govern- ment’s saying it did not trust the value of paper money was of course to devalue paper money even further, abandoning set- tlers to worse economic trouble and sending much of America’s specie west.

The Panic of 1837 The Specie Circular could not have happened at a worse time. The rollicking economy of the Market Revolution experienced a boom in the early 1830s, mostly due to rampant specu- lation in the West along new transportation routes. The Specie Circular caused an immediate drop in demand for western lands and drained most of the specie from New York banks.

Unable to match its paper money with specie reserves, several hundred banks in New York City closed their doors in April. In May 1837, every bank in New York refused to accept paper money for specie. Paper money lost nearly all of its value, and nearly a quarter of all banks in the United States closed. After the Bank War, there was no central bank to control the economic contraction, and the United States plummeted into an economic depression.

11-3 The Development of the Second Two- Party System

Jackson’s contentious presidency stirred up a vibrant, flourishing opposition, and during the 1830s the second two-party system in American history took hold, pitting Jackson’s Democrats against Adams’s and Clay’s Whigs.

11-3a Jackson’s Democrats For their part, Jackson’s Democrats were extremely nationalistic and believed it was best to keep

>> As this 1832 cartoon shows, the Whigs lambasted Jackson for his authoritarian style, styling his presidency as a return to the royalty overcome during the Revolution. Copyright © The Granger Collection, New York / The Granger

Collection

the federal government small. They fashioned themselves as the heirs of Jefferson, who considered govern- ment as nothing more than a necessary evil. To Jackson’s Democrats, the government was not supposed to control the way that people con- ducted themselves privately. This made them less aggres-

sive in pushing America’s economic development, viewing American society as being divided between two hostile camps: “the people” (farmers, planters, workers), who worked hard to make an honest living, and “the aristocracy” (merchants, bankers, financial agents), who manipulated markets for their own private enrichment. This, of course, did not preclude Jackson’s Democrats from supporting America’s westward expansion. Jackson’s Indian Removal Bill secured much new territory for white settlement, and subsequent Democratic presi- dents would eventually push the boundaries of the United States all the way to the Pacific. Prominent Jacksonians included Andrew Jackson, Martin Van Buren, and James K. Polk.

11-3b The Whigs The Whigs, on the other hand, favored a more active federal government. They supported using federal funds to finance internal improvements like turnpikes and railroads. They also believed that government power could be used to promote the moral health of the nation through temperance laws or antislavery legislation. And the Whigs were more comfortable with market capitalism. As they saw it, economic development made people richer, increased popular demand for foodstuffs and other agricultural products, and created jobs. The Whigs denied that there was any conflict between the

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The Development of the Second Two-Party System 199

the country. In short, the Whigs did well in cities and rural areas that embraced market competi- tion. Appealing to these various constituencies, and playing the new politics developed by the Jacksonians, the Whigs developed a solid party by the late 1830s, symbolized by William Henry Harrison’s presidential victory over Martin Van Buren in 1840 (Map 11.3).

The Democrats, in contrast, attracted farm- ers and workers who felt alienated by America’s increasingly commercialized economy, as well as small businessmen who hoped the Democratic Party would stand watch against monopolies and give “little guys” a chance to succeed. They also found a ready constituency in the Irish immi- grants who immigrated in large numbers during the 1840s.

11-3d Political Stability By the election of 1840, Americans had succeeded in building a stable two-party system. Although the Jacksonians were always numerically superior to the Whigs, each party held together a coalition of northerners and southerners, and the party system helped relieve sectional tensions over slav- ery. (Basically, neither party wanted to talk about slavery and its westward expansion for fear of dividing their party.) As long as the second two- party system existed, hostilities between the North and South faded into the background. Such ten- sions never disappeared entirely, however, and territorial expansion in the 1840s set in motion a

the Differences Between Jacksonians and Whigs

Jacksonians Whigs

Strength in government

Presidency Legislature

Economics Local growth Nationalists

National Bank Against For

Internal improvements

Against For

Constituents Southerners, west- erners, and the working class

Social conserva- tives, native born

common people and big business. According to their view, banks were not evil; they were essential for controlling the flow of money. Many Whigs also opposed the expansion of slavery into new ter- ritory, but they did form alliances with southern states’ rights groups. Prominent Whigs included Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and William Henry Harrison.

11-3c Constituencies Although it is tempting to categorize the Democrats as the party of the poor and the Whigs as the party of the rich, this was not the case. Most Americans were farmers of the “middling sort” who were neither miserably impoverished nor impressively wealthy. It was true that most busi- nessmen joined the Whig Party, but the Whigs had several other key constituencies: (1) farmers who wanted better methods to transport their produce to market; (2) workers who believed they would benefit from economic growth; and (3) planters who wanted the United States to have a stable bank system that would float loans. The Whigs also appealed to people concerned about the increasing numbers of Irish Catholics entering

GA 11

AL 7 MS4

LA 5

AR 3

MO 4

MI 3

TN 10

IN 9

IL 5

OH 21

KY 9

VA 23

NY 42

PA 30

SC 11

NC 15

VT 7 NH

DE 3

NJ 8

MA 14

ME 10

CT 8

RI 4

MD 10

WIS. TERR.

IOWA TERR.

INDIAN TERRITORY

FLORIDA TERR.

Harrison (Whig)

Van Buren (Democrat)

Territories

234 80% 1,274,624 53.1%

60 20% 1,127,781 46.9%

Electoral VoteCandidate (Party) Popular Vote

1840

Cengage Learning Ms00337 The Election of 1840, by state Trim 20p6 x 19p0 Final proof: 8/26/09

Single column map No bleeds

Map 11.3. The Election of 1840 © Cengage Learning 2014

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200 C h a p t e r 11 Politics of the Market Revolution

breakdown of America’s second two-party system, leading to renewed sectional conflict and, ulti- mately, civil war.

What else was happening . . . 1821 Mexicans finally win an eleven-year war for their

independence from Spain.

1822–1834 English mathematician Charles Babbage proposes constructing machines to perform mathematical calculations: the Difference and Analytical Engines, forerunners of the modern computer. He runs out of money before completing either.

1824 Michael Faraday invents the first toy balloon.

July 4, 1826

Both John Adams and Thomas Jefferson— longtime friends, rivals, and, in the end, correspondents—die, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

1830 Simón Bolívar dies of tuberculosis in Colombia, after contributing to the independence of much of Latin America, including Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia.

1837 The first kindergarten, called “small child occupa- tion institute,” opens in Germany.

Visit the CourseMate website at www.cengagebrain.com for additional study tools and review materials for this chapter.

Looking Ahead . . . As the Market Revolution stirred up numerous social and economic changes, politicians sought to manage the rapidly transforming republic. They expanded patronage and developed a new political culture that was defined by race and gender. In one respect, the politicians were struggling to keep an increasingly disparate nation together through a series of political endeavors. At the same time, how- ever, reformers were provoking questions that only increased sectional divisions, the most prominent of which concerned slavery.

In the end, the economic tugs of the Market Revolution would be too strong to preserve this unity and, between the 1830s and the 1850s, America to a large degree fractured into a regionalized nation. This is the subject of the next chapter.

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202 C h a p t e r 12 The Continued Move West

Learning Outcomes After reading this chapter, you should be able to do the following:

12-1 Describe social life in the commercial North as it developed between 1830 and 1860.

12-2 Describe social life as it developed in the South between 1830 and 1860 as a result of dependence on cotton.

A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

Chapter 12

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Social Life in the Commercial North 203

“Regionalized identities persisted despite the best efforts of politicians to bridge sectional gaps.”

Between 1830 and 1860, American life became increas- ingly regionalized. Different ways of living emerged in the North, the South, and the West. Work relations were dif- ferent, communities devel- oped in different ways, and people often thought of them- selves in regional terms. “I’m a northerner,” they might say, “and I don’t work for slave wages.” Another might say, “In the West, we operate by a different law.”

Slavery, western expansion, and commercial development were the vital issues that perpetuated regionalized identities, although the transportation revolution bound the West with either the North or the South. These regionalized identities persisted despite the best efforts of politicians to bridge sectional gaps (see Map 12.1).

This chapter describes social life in the North and the South as it developed during the Market Revolution. The next chapter describes life in the West, which had an identity all its own.

12-1 Social Life in the Commercial North Three forces dramatically altered life in the northern United States in the three decades before the Civil War: (1) the Market Revolution, (2) massive immigration, and (3) urbanization.

12-1a The Market Revolution First, although some protested the Market Revolution (recall Thoreau and others from Chapter 10), most northerners accommodated and even promoted the transitions associ- ated with it. The beginnings of an industrial urban sector, the opening of the farmlands of the West, and the interconnectedness of the different groups living in the North affected the social life of every northerner. For the most part, northerners acclimated themselves to these changes. Railroads crisscrossed the North. Commerce blossomed. The Market Revolution ignited the processes that made the North look like a modern society.

12-1b Immigration The second dramatic change was the massive wave of immigrants that came to the United States between 1830 and 1860. By 1860, about 20 percent of the total population of

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<< A crowded marketplace of diverse people was a signal feature of society in the antebellum North.

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204 C h a p t e r 12 A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

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Social Life in the Commercial North 205

the North was foreign-born. Most of the immigrants came from Europe, and nearly two-thirds came from just two countries: Ireland and Germany. These immigrants settled almost entirely in the North, creating distinct immigrant neighborhoods. As these immigrant groups became established and stable, they prompted new definitions of what it meant to be an American. These were not descendants of the American Revolution and thus had a different vision of what America meant.

12-1c Urbanization The third dramatic change to affect the northern states during the first half of the nineteenth century was urbanization. In 1860, cities still housed a minor- ity of the American population (most Americans were still farmers), but within their borders the dramatic interplay of America’s social divisions played out. Differences between black and white, rich and poor, and native-born and foreign-born all became flashpoints in early-nineteenth-century urban American life. Each of these developments contributed to a unique and tumultuous social life in the antebellum North. And the cities would only continue to grow.

12-1d Life in the Northern Countryside

These three events had widespread ramifications for all groups, but life in the North varied depend- ing on whether one lived in the cities or in the countryside.

Communal Values For the most part, communal values still prevailed in the northern countryside. Farm families gath- ered regularly to raise barns, participate in politics, and attend church, an especially popular activ- ity in the wake of the Second Great Awakening. Social networks were strong. Sewing bees and apple bees brought communities together. Most farming families in the “Old Northwest” of Illinois, west- ern Pennsylvania, and Indiana (areas west of the Appalachians but east of the Mississippi River) found a balance between their roles as consumers and as producers. Some, like the Shakers and the utopians, rejected these impulses, but most north- erners adapted to them.

Decreased Isolation Nevertheless, change did come to the northern countryside. For one, the countryside was less iso- lated than it had been. Markets sprang up at railroad depots, and mail and news traveled rapidly from one part of the country to the next.

Meanwhile, the transportation revolution com- municated new ideas to once-isolated areas. The itinerant ministers of the Second Great Awakening, for example, moved across the country on canals and, later, railroads. The countryside also enjoyed an active lyceum circuit, where clergymen, reformers, Transcendentalists, socialists, feminists, and other provocative orators would speak. The North opened some public schools and enjoyed a burgeoning newspaper industry as well. The press, though, was heavily partisan, because it was usually financed by political parties. This meant that in almost every

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>> A stone house typical of those built by the early German and Swiss immigrants to what is today called Pennsylvania Dutch country.

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206 C h a p t e r 12 A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

town there were at least two papers: one Democrat, one Whig. Meanwhile, the entire North, including the coun- tryside, achieved almost universal literacy in those years. And at the same time, immigrants from Germany and Scandinavia moved into the Old Northwest to con- tinue the farming life they had left behind in Europe. These newcomers slightly altered midwestern accents, politics, and social life, while upholding steadfast rural ideals. Descendants of these immigrant groups still have

a significant presence in these areas today. In sum, the communications and transportation revolutions that were associated with the Market Revolution had sewn together the vast stretch of lands in the northern United States.

12-1e City Life City life in the North was changing much more rap- idly than life in the country. The cities were growing at a tremendous rate. Between 1830 and 1860, the number of towns with 10,000 or more people quin- tupled, totaling ninety-three in 1860. There were seven towns in the North with more than 100,000 people. In 1830, there had been just one city that large, New York City, which had just over 200,000 inhabitants. By 1860, more than 814,000 people lived in New York, making it by far the nation’s larg- est city. The Market Revolution had increased the importance of commercial hubs, making cities singularly important and vibrant. Nevertheless, they were still depen- dent on and connected to the products being grown and produced in the northern countryside.

Immigrants Immigrants contributed to much of the urban growth. In all, more than 5 million immigrants came to America between 1830 and 1860. The peak period of immigration came in the late 1840s and 1850s, when nearly 1 million Irish came to the United

States to escape the potato famine. Many Germans came at this time too, especially in 1848, after a failed revolution in Germany forced many political dissidents to flee. Unlike the Irish, these German immigrants, called the 48ers, were educated and often financially well off.

The immigrants arrived in such numbers that they changed the nature of the cities. For example, more than half of all the inhabitants of New York City were foreign-born in 1855. More than a third of Bostonians were. Within the cities, immigrants usually created enclaves of ethnic neighborhoods, starting their own churches, leisure societies, sport- ing clubs, and charitable organizations.

While most of these new immigrants stayed in the Northeast, some moved to the Midwest. In 1855, for example, more than 60 percent of St. Louis was foreign-born. And many of the 48ers moved to the rural western provinces, where they could farm and where they could vote after just one or two years of residency. These new immigrants largely avoided the South because of its dependence on slave labor, which limited access to jobs.

Racial and Ethnic Identities With the arrival of these millions of immigrants, many Americans began to consider what it was that made someone an American. One response was to

define an American as someone with an English background who was born in the United States. The most ardent supporters of these views formulated a racial and eth- nic identity that differentiated the various immigrant groups and pro- claimed the superiority of their own group, usually labeled “native Americans.” They chastised the Irish, equating them with black slaves in the South. And they were offended by the German tradi- tion of gathering at beer gardens on Sundays, which these “native Americans” considered a day of worship. The native American

movement, sometimes called nativism, moved into politics and into the social and economic life of America as well. Nativists placed restrictions on what fields of business the new immigrants could enter, where they could live, and where they could find work. The influential temperance movement also contained within it a large amount of anti- Irish and anti-German nativism. This was the era when the term yankee came to have meaningful

the 48ers Germans who came to the United States in 1848, after a failed revo- lution in Germany forced many political dissidents to flee

nativism Political identity that defined an American as someone with an English background who was born in the United States; support- ers formulated a racial and ethnic identity that proclaimed the supe- riority of their group, usually labeled “native Americans”

Immigrants from Germany

and Scandinavia moved into the Old Northwest to continue the

farming life they had left behind in

Europe.

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Social Life in the Commercial North 207

social significance, differen- tiating between those whose family lineage predated the Revolution and those who arrived later.

Related to this racial and ethnic stereotyping was a brutal form of anti-Catholicism. The Irish were usually willing to work for lower wages than any- one else, which provoked anti-Irish sentiment from workers who felt threatened by this cheap labor force. Because the Irish were identifiable by their Catholicism, mobs, angry at how the nation was changing, sometimes attacked Catholic churches, convents, and priests. In Boston, where large num- bers of Irish had settled, anti-Catholic riots broke out regularly. Public education became more visibly influenced by Protestantism in the 1840s and 1850s, prompting many American Catholics to establish alternative parochial schools.

But identity formation went both ways. Upon their initial arrival, Irish and German immigrants

routinely referred to them- selves by the town or county from which they came. But after just a short time in America these immigrants

began to consciously think of themselves as “Irish” or “German” or “Swedish.” A common language was one feature that bound certain groups together. Religion also helped newcomers feel part of a cohe- sive group, especially for the Irish. Restricted to certain neighborhoods, immigrant groups developed communities that embraced cultural forms hark-

ing back to the homeland. For instance, Milwaukee and St. Louis maintain extensive brewing industries today, a legacy of the German immigrants who settled in these cities during the middle of the nine- teenth century. Several of these communities also still have Turnvereine, or turnvereins, gymnasiums founded in the spirit of the German liberation move- ment that erupted in 1848.

Class Consciousness In addition to the formation of racial and eth- nic identities, the combination of ethnic enclaves, middle-class professions, and the incredible wealth earned by canal builders and others led to highly visible social divisions. While most of the working class lived in small apartments, wealthy Americans were constructing large mansions. By the 1850s, affluent neighborhoods had access to indoor plumb- ing and gas lighting. The wealthy moved through the cities via horse-drawn cars and built neighborhoods away from industrial hubs. And the rich were getting richer: in 1845, almost 80 percent of New York City’s individual wealth was owned by just 4 percent of the population. Poorer people had none of these luxuries and were often forced to live in the least desirable neighborhoods, near stockyards or slaughterhouses.

One result of these increasing economic distinc- tions was the creation of identities associated with being a member of a specific class. Although never totally distinct from ethnic, racial, and religious divisions, a commonality began to grow in how poor

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>> The immigrants arrived in such numbers that they changed the nature of the cities. A crowded marketplace like this would have featured people from a variety of backgrounds selling a diversity of goods.

Read a song written by a recent Irish

immigrant about his struggle to find a job.

Read a newspa- per account of an anti-Catholic

riot in Philadelphia.

Take a virtual tour of a New York tenement.

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208 C h a p t e r 12 A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

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>> Milwaukee and St. Louis still today maintain extensive brewing industries, a legacy of the German immigrants.

people talked, voted, and fought. Much of the lower- class consciousness developed not in the workplace but in places of leisure, where workers felt most free. It was in these locations that organizers had success developing the political parties of the working class.

Women and the Middle Class Along with a slowly forming working-class con- sciousness, northern cities also became crucibles of the middle class, made up mostly of managers, desk workers, and educators. This group of educated mid- dlemen and their families cultivated a middle-class identity between wealth and poverty. Their children slept one to a bed, they owned several pieces of large furniture, and their sons often went to college. Women were central to the formation of the middle class, and indeed, one hallmark of a middle-class family (in contrast to working-class families) was that its women rarely worked outside the home. As work moved out of the home and into factories and commercial centers, the home became idealized as a haven in a heartless world, and middle-class

women were expected to cultivate and maintain this idealized perception. In serving as the moral center- pieces of middle-class society, women became the backbone of reform efforts designed to improve the moral character of the nation. Consequently, teach- ing became the main profession open to middle- class women. Catharine and Mary Beecher headed up efforts to ensure that middle-class women were prepared to teach middle-class children the proper disciplines.

Leisure Also during this period, several forms of leisure became commodities to be purchased rather than merely games to play. Although urban Americans still gathered at taverns and competed in physical contests, enterprising merchants developed net- works of theaters and professional sports. Boxing, horse racing, track and field, and, in the 1850s, baseball all evolved into professional sports during this era, attracting large crowds and meriting their own pages in the newspapers. In contrast to male-

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Social Life in the Commercial North 209

dominated professional sports, theaters provided social spaces for both men and women. Towns routinely constructed theaters early in their devel- opment, featuring plays by Shakespeare and other luminaries. Perhaps the most popular form of enter- tainment was minstrel shows, featuring white men smeared with burnt cork (to make them look black) who lampooned slave life in the South. The joke was intended to be twofold, making fun of the South for its backward ways and also ridiculing African Americans for being, in the actors’ minds, dolt- ish and childlike. The most famous minstrel show featured an actor portraying a slave doing a silly dance and singing a song about “jumping Jim Crow.” Despite the slow elimination of slavery in the North

after the Revolution, northern racism held firm. The min- strel shows ran concurrently with Shakespeare’s plays and other forms of what might today be thought of as high culture. Throughout the 1800s, audience participation was expected at plays, and the interaction between performer and audience made plays a democratic form of entertainment rather than a polished form reserved for the educated elite.

In the private spaces of their homes (and with increased access to indoor gas lighting), Americans also began to read more. The number of newspapers skyrocketed during these years (funded mostly by political parties), and American novelists flourished. Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Fanny Fern were some of the most popular authors. The best-selling book of the period was Harriet Beecher Stowe’s antislavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly (1852). Stowe and Fanny Fern were part of the growth of a “ladies’ literature” in which middle-class women used their leisure time to culti- vate what historians have since called a “sentimental culture.” Despite the dis- missive title, Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin emerged from the sentimental culture but had far-reaching political ramifications, enlight- ening people across the country to the conditions of southern slavery. Many of the other works of ladies’ literature were less politically engaged, more often propagating middle-class morality than espousing abolitionist ideology.

Free People of Color The cities of the North were also home to free people of color, albeit in small numbers. In all, there were about 500,000 free people of color in the United States in 1860, about half of whom lived in northern cities. The remainder lived in border states, espe- cially in and around Baltimore, Maryland. These enclaves were important not so much for provoking nativist opposition (as the Irish did), but because they created lasting institutions that perpetually supported movements for freedom. One institution was the organization of African American free- masons named after its founder, Prince Hall.

The most influential institution for free people of color, though, was the black church. During the Second Great Awakening, a majority of African Americans became Christians. Barred from

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>> This 1835 watercolor depicts the American minstrel tradi- tion, a tradition that often featured white men in blackface poking fun at the South’s backwardness and at African American people in general.

>> Teaching became the main profession open to middle-class women.

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Uncle tom’s Cabin Antislavery novel pub- lished by Harriet Beecher Stowe in 1852; best- selling book of that period

Read reviews and other items about Uncle

Tom’s Cabin.

Read Chapter 1 of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

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210 C h a p t e r 12 A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

worshiping in several houses of the Christian religion, black Americans founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in the 1790s. By 1816, there were enough branches to merit a national organization, and by 1824 the AME Church had several thousand congregants. More than just places of worship, the churches functioned as schools and community centers. Because white peo- ple were unwilling to block church development for fear they would be accused of preventing Christian wor- ship, the churches developed a separate sphere of freedom for black Americans.

In the wake of the development of the black church, several African American voluntary groups appeared, promoting abolition, temperance, and other reform causes. Black social fraternities pros- pered as well. If free blacks could not successfully conquer white racism, they could create institu- tions that developed a class of black leaders and an ideology of independence. Leaders such as James Forten and Reverend Henry Highland Garnet became political advocates for the abolition of slavery during these years. And the educated mem- bers of this society began referring to themselves

as “Colored Americans” rather than “Africans” in order to assert their membership in the American nation. Throughout the 1840s and 1850s, these black Americans swayed between optimism and pessi- mism about the place of black people in America, and with the Civil War, their struggle would become central to the nation’s political agenda.

Abolitionism Free African Americans had long advocated the abo- lition of slavery, and in the 1820s they accelerated their protests. Richard Allen, head of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and David Walker, a vocal pamphleteer, advocated immediate emancipa- tion. Walker’s essay Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829) serves as the strongest statement from an African American during the era; it pro- voked many small slave riots across the South.

While African Americans advocated immediate emancipation, most white Americans favored grad- ual emancipation, or gradualism. In the North, slav- ery had been phased out after the Revolution, and the problem seemed less pressing to northern white reformers. Some white Americans demonstrated racism in other ways, however, most significantly in founding the American Colonization Society. The society advocated send- ing all black Americans to Africa, and it even estab- lished the colony of Liberia on the West African coast for this purpose in the 1820s.

african Methodist episcopal (aMe) Church National African American Methodist religious denomination founded by Richard Allen and Absalom Jones in the 1790s; doc- trinally Methodist, it was the first major religious denomination in the Western world to origi- nate for sociological, not theological, reasons

american Colonization Society Group that advocated sending all black Americans to Africa; it established the colony of Liberia on the West African coast for this purpose in the 1820s

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>> Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with one of George Cruikshank’s original illustrations that helped stir reactions to the book’s antislavery message.

View a Library of Congress exhibit about the Ameri-

can Colonization Society.

Read a selection from Walker’s Appeal.

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Garrison and The Liberator Public opinion in the North began to shift in 1831, when William Lloyd Garrison, a white journalist advocating immediate emancipation, began pub- lishing the antislavery newspaper The Liberator. The Liberator served for thirty years as the central voice of the abolition movement. It drew together a group of antislavery advocates, many of whom were evangelical preachers affiliated with the Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati (men like Lyman Beecher and Theodore Weld). The ideas of the Second Great Awakening prodded these leaders to advocate immediate emancipation, although many other northern white churches were slower to adopt the cause of emancipation, prompting Garrison to attack them for their complicity. Garrison was clearly the most steadfast in his pursuit of abolition: at one point, he publicly burned a copy of the U.S. Constitution, suggesting that it too was complicit in allowing slavery (which, of course, it was). This action, and others like it, alienated Garrison from many white abolitionists who favored gradualism. In 1833, Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, an organization that served as a point of contact for escaped slaves like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. His secretary, the dynamic Maria Weston Chapman, edited The Liberator when Garrison was off doing other work.

Resistance to Abolition Abolitionists faced fierce, stubborn resistance in both the South and the North. In northern states like New York and Illinois, merchants and laborers challenged abolitionists mainly because they were afraid that poor black people would be will- ing to work for low wages, thus depressing the econ- omy. In 1837, vigilantes in Illinois even murdered the minister and journalist Elijah Lovejoy for perpetually publishing abolitionist tracts. In the South, south- erners also sometimes violently prevented aboli- tionists from distributing antislavery tracts. Georgia offered a $5,000 reward to anyone who delivered Garrison to state authorities.

Congressional “Gag Rule” Northern abolitionists continued to fight, though, sending thousands of petitions to Congress and fomenting a serious political movement. In an effort to prevent Congress from discussing slavery (and therefore threatening the free state/slave state balance established by the Compromise of 1820), the House of Representatives adopted, in 1836,

what opponents called the “gag rule.” This was a legal provision that automatically tabled any discussion of abo- lition. Under this law, slavery was not open for discussion in Congress. Former presi- dent John Quincy Adams, now a representative from Massachusetts, repeat- edly protested the rule, but persistent opposition frus- trated his efforts for eight years, when Congress finally rescinded the rule.

By the 1850s, the north- ern movement for abolition was growing, and so was its opposition. As the debate became increasingly polar- ized, more and more people had to weigh the costs associ- ated with slavery.

12-1f Conclusion In general, most Americans in the North accom- modated the Market Revolution. The wealthy got wealthier, and the middle class created a unique and comfortable life for itself. Immigrants poured in, and, although the working class faced brutal working hours, painstaking labor, and few benefits beyond a paycheck, all they had to do was look south to see that they were much better off than the labor- ers there, a great majority of whom were enslaved and had no hope of freedom. Indeed, it was around the idea of “free labor” that many northerners, diverse as they were, united. All the symbols of the Market Revolution, including railroads, newspapers, the telegraph, and more, were created by “free labor- ers,” meaning those who were free to work or not to work—in other words, those who were not enslaved. Impoverished as many were, they saw themselves as uniquely distinct from the slave society of the South. Indeed, the North in this period even housed a small and contentious, but growing and dynamic, move- ment advocating the abolition of slavery.

12-2 Social Life in the Cotton South

Between 1830 and 1860, southerners experi- enced dramatically different developments than

american anti-Slavery Society Organization founded by journalist William Lloyd Garrison in 1833 that served as a point of con- tact for escaped slaves like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman

“gag rule” Legal provision of 1836 that automatically tabled any discussion of abolition in Congress; under this law, slavery was not open for discussion

free labor The concept that most unified the diverse collec- tion of people in the north- ern states, centered on a society filled with those who were free to work or not to work, as opposed to being enslaved

Read Garrison’s remarks from the Anti-Slavery

Convention.

Social Life in the Cotton South 211

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212 C h a p t e r 12 A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

northerners. In every way, cotton became king. It constituted nearly half of the exports of the entire nation, and southerners knew they could get rich if they could succeed as cotton farmers. But grow- ing cotton required slaves and land, so southern- ers brought slaves and slavery with them into the southwestern territories of the United States. This ended any potential talk of gradual emancipation during this period. Furthermore, southerners had lit- tle need for big cities, and, without jobs to offer, they did not attract immigrants in the same numbers as the North. This was the period when southerners solidified their plantation economy and developed a vehement defense of it—one based on the superior- ity of the white race.

When we think of the antebellum South, we are prone to think of images culled from the novel and film Gone with the Wind, which portrayed the lei- surely lifestyle of a landed and cultured white elite being served by willing and subservient black slaves. But three facts are vital in understanding how the actual prewar South contrasted with this image (see “The reasons why . . .” box on the next page).

12-2a Southern White Society While the North was notable for distinctions between the countryside and the city, there were no similar complexities in southern society, because there were so few cities. White southern society was stratified between yeoman farmers and wealthy planters. A group of landless white people ranked below the farmers (but above slaves), mostly work- ing as laborers on farms or as frontiersmen settling the Southwest. But most white southerners were either wealthy planters or yeoman farmers.

The Planters The planters viewed themselves as paternalistic aris- tocrats managing preindustrial fiefdoms. They were

deeply involved in national and inter- national markets (for instance, the development of the telegraph in 1845 allowed them to monitor cotton prices in England). But they usually preferred to keep the marketplace at a distance. They spent their summers abroad and sent their children to be educated in Europe and at the Ivy League colleges in the North. The planters also often entered politics, considering them-

>> Content with the society they had created, southern planters resisted change unless it could earn them greater profits.A

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>> The vision of the antebellum South presented in Gone with the Wind (1939) correctly identifies only a tiny percentage of southerners living during the era.

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Social Life in the Cotton South 213

selves the natural leaders of society. Financially and politically powerful, they fought all attempts to make their society more democratic. They resisted fund- ing public education through taxation and defeated similar attempts to create internal improvements that would have invited more commerce and indus- try to the South. Content with the society they had created, southern planters resisted change unless it could earn them greater profits.

Yeoman Farmers Only a tiny minority of white southerners were planters; the majority were yeoman farmers. Yeoman farmers were largely self-sufficient, living with their families on remote farms or in small towns, and missing out on much of the Market Revolution. They were usually forced onto less desirable plots of land, and, most of the time, these farmers used most of their land to plant cotton and the rest to grow crops needed by the household. They used the money earned from cotton to pur- chase items that could not be grown in southern soil, such as coffee.

Most yeoman farmers remained largely isolated from markets. A few acquired large plots, bought slaves, and became wealthy, but this was rare. Social mobility was limited in the antebellum South, and when it did occur, it mostly pushed people down- ward. At some point during their lives, nearly one- quarter of white southerners were landless and thus forced to search for work on someone else’s farm or push west in search of work. With few public schools, most yeoman farmers were also unedu- cated. (At least 20 percent of white adult southern- ers could not read.) Consumed by the work of their

farms, they remained isolated in their culture, which was centered on family, church, and region.

12-2b The Defense of Slavery No matter what their station in society, nearly all white southerners were advocates of slavery. For the planters, this was an easy decision: slavery, while expensive to maintain, was profitable, and profits and social norms overcame any moral difficulties. For yeoman farmers and landless white people, the existence of slavery ensured that there was always a class of people below them socially, that there was always one rung farther down the lad- der. The presence of slaves kept alive their hopes that maybe one day they too might own slaves and become wealthy.

Nat Turner In the 1830s and 1840s, white southerners devel- oped a more militant defense of slavery. In doing so, they were responding to both the growth of the abolitionist movement in the North and to one of the most violent slave revolts in American his- tory. In 1831, Nat Turner, a Christian preacher, led a group of slaves through the Virginia countryside, bru- tally murdering sixty white people of both sexes and all ages during a two-day stretch. Turner’s plan was to raise an army of freed slaves and lead an insurrection against the southern white planters.

Most white Southerners did not own slaves. First, of the 8 million southern white people, only 338,000 owned slaves, mean- ing that a huge majority of southern white people had no direct connection to slavery. Most were isolated yeoman farmers seeking self-sufficiency.

Most slave owners had only a few slaves. Second, of those 338,000 slave owners, most owned very few slaves. More than 60 percent of slave owners owned five or fewer slaves, and only 3 per- cent owned twenty or more slaves.

But most slaves lived on plantations. Finally, while a vast major- ity of southern white people had no connection to a plantation, the majority of slaves did. Indeed, the few massive plantations housed as many as half of all the slaves in the region. As such, plantations were vital in the development of a unique slave culture. On the other hand, the wealthy plantation life of Gone with the Wind was lived by only a very small minority of white southerners.

There are three main reasons why popular images of the antebellum South as portrayed in venues like Gone with the Wind are misleading:

the reasons why . . .}{

Read Harriet Ann Jacobs’s account of life

in the South after Nat Turner’s rebellion.

Read more about The Confessions of Nat Turner.

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214 C h a p t e r 12 A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

The white response was overwhelming and harsh. White militiamen attacked the group associ- ated with Turner, but they also indiscriminately killed slaves not involved in the insurrection. Perhaps more than two hundred slaves were killed in retali- ation. Turner was eventu- ally captured and hanged, but not before being inter- viewed by southern physi- cian Thomas R. Gray, who published the interview as The Confessions of Nat Turner. The book sold well from its first publica- tion, and it is one of the most haunting tales of American slavery.

Legal Restrictions Besides the violent dam- age done to black bodies, Nat Turner’s insurrec- tion also caused white southerners to pass further

laws restricting black freedoms. Many states prohibited slave literacy. Others required all slave meetings to be super- vised by whites. Slave behavior was monitored. In 1832, the Virginia leg- islature developed a plan that would simul- taneously emancipate its slaves gradually and then deport them all to Africa. The plan did not pass, and no other open discussion of emancipa- tion ever occurred in the South until the Civil War.

Proslavery Ideology Beyond punitive and legal ramifications, the reaction to Nat Turner and the growth of aboli- tionist sentiment in the

North stimulated a change in the way slavery was understood in the South. In this period, south- ern writers developed a defense of slavery that suggested that slavery was good for both races, because black people were not equipped to take care of themselves and needed white, paternal- istic masters to protect them. White slaveholders began to cite biblical references to slavery, suggest- ing that the institution was somehow sanctioned by God. Thomas R. Dew, George Fitzhugh, and J. D. B. DuBow all advocated the benefits of slavery in widely read publications. Through them, the South’s understanding of slavery transitioned from being a “necessary evil” (as it was conceived during the revolutionary period) to being a “positive good.” Paralleling the “free labor” ideology of the North, the development of a proslavery ideology in the South grounded many southerners’ sense of who they were as a people and how they were different from those living just north of them.

12-2c Slave Society Certainly no slave would agree with the notion that slavery was a positive good. Life for slaves was ardu- ous, a relentless grind of forced labor in uncertain social conditions, shadowed by the constant threat of abuse. Most slaves were field hands growing sugar, rice, tobacco, and especially cotton. Some

“The calm, deliberate composure with which he spoke of his late

deeds and intentions, the expression of his fiend-like face when excited by enthusiasm; still bearing the stains of the blood of helpless

innocence about him; clothed with rags and covered with chains, yet

daring to raise his manacled hands to heaven; with a spirit soaring above the attributes of man, I looked on him and my blood

curdled in my veins.” —Thomas R. Gray, The Confessions of Nat Turner

Nat Turner, Christian preacher, leader of a murder- ous 1831 slave rebellion, and martyr for the cause

of abolition..

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Social Life in the Cotton South 215

were house servants who cooked and cleaned for their masters and helped take care of their children. Some were skilled artisans, such as blacksmiths, carpenters, or ironworkers. A few worked as long- shoremen or shipbuilders in port cities such as New Orleans, Louisiana, and Charleston, South Carolina. Yet all were regarded as property, to be bought, sold, or bartered at the whim of their owners.

The law did not protect slave families. Husbands and wives, as well as parents and children, could be separated from each other permanently, without notice. Although there were official limits on the treat- ment of slaves (the murder or unjustifiable mutilation of slaves was illegal in most states, and state laws set minimum standards for the amount of food, clothing, and shelter that must be provided for slaves), such laws were unenforceable because slaves were prohib- ited from taking their masters to court.

Despite severely restrict- ing the rights of slaves, many slave masters believed it was in their best interest to treat slaves decently—as long as the slaves remained obedi- ent. Masters were generally profit-minded men who understood that healthy laborers were more produc- tive than those who were sick or abused.

Owners also recog- nized that healthy slaves were more likely to produce healthy offspring. Slave reproduction mattered to plantation owners because the United States had out- lawed participation in the international slave trade in 1808. While Caribbean slaveholders frequently worked slaves to death only to replace them with new imports, this was impossible in the United States. Nevertheless, the fact that slaveholders had an interest in keeping their slaves alive did not mean that slaves were treated humanely in the antebellum South.

Work The work conditions endured by slaves were as var- ied as the tasks they performed, but plantation labor was usually organized in one of two ways. The first was the gang system. Under this system, masters organized slaves into groups of twenty to twenty- five workers, supervised by a white overseer or a black slavedriver. This method of organizing labor was most commonly used on cotton plantations. During the major seasons of cotton cultivation, slaves labored in the fields for up to sixteen hours a day. Although most masters, in keeping with their Christian beliefs, gave their slaves Sundays off and required only a half-day of work on Saturday, work- ing under the gang system was backbreaking.

The second major labor system was the task system. As the name suggests, this system assigned each slave a specific set of tasks to accomplish each day. Once slaves had accomplished these tasks, their time was largely their own. The task system was common on rice plantations, because rice did not require the constant care and toil that cotton did. Slaves working as domestic servants also commonly labored under the task system. Although the task system often gave slaves more freedom, slavehold- ers frequently set unrealistic expectations for slaves

>> A cartoon image revealing the idealized view of slavery that developed in the 1830s and 1840s. The caption reads:

Slaves: God bless you massa! you feed and clothe us. When we are sick you nurse us, and when too old to work, you provide for us!

Master: These poor creatures are a sacred legacy from my ancestors and while a dollar is left me, nothing shall be spared to increase their comfort and happiness.

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gang system Work arrangement under which slaves were organized into groups of twenty to twenty-five workers, supervised by an overseer

slavedriver Supervisor or overseer of slave labor, usually employed on a cotton plantation

task system Work arrangement under which slaves were assigned a specific set of tasks to accomplish each day; often employed on rice plantations and in domestic service situations

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216 C h a p t e r 12 A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

and then punished them for failing to finish their work.

Some slaves did not work in either of these two systems. Instead, they had special arrangements that allowed them an unusual amount of freedom. This was especially common among slaves living in the cities. Although urban- ization did not occur as quickly as it had in the North, slave states had a small number of cities, including Baltimore, Richmond, Charleston, Mobile, and New Orleans. Each city housed large slave populations, and, even though urban slaves remained the property of their masters, owners could not exercise complete author- ity over their slaves in the city. For instance, a skilled slave carpenter needed the freedom to move about the city to reach job sites. Craftsmen, such as black- smiths or jewelers, often worked independently, sharing a portion of their earnings with their mas- ter. As these slaves’ experiences attest, slavery was

an adaptable economic institution, working in a variety of agrarian and urban settings.

Quarters Despite the wide variety of possible slaving condi- tions, most slaves were owned by planters who lived on large plantations. In these conditions, most slaves lived in slave quar- ters, defined as a group of cabins set away from the

master’s home. The cabins were usually organized around families, who tended personal gardens and raised their own animals. On the largest plantations, slave quarters were significant-sized communities with ample freedom away from the watchful eye of the master.

Community In slave quarters, slaves created a culture far removed from that dictated by white southerners. From the beginning, Africans came to America with their own cultures, and the experience of slavery did not com- pletely obliterate those cultures. The influence of African cultures was especially strong in the music, dancing, and verbal expressions that slaves used in their everyday lives and religious ceremonies.

Family lay at the center of slave culture. Although masters retained the right to separate spouses, sib- lings, parents, and children from each other, slaves remained determined to preserve a sense of family. Slave marriages were not legally recognized, but slaves entered marital unions with great joy and celebration. Some marriages were made by obtain- ing the master’s verbal consent.

When possible, slaves maintained traditional nuclear families with a father, a mother, and chil- dren living together. Within this family unit, men and women followed traditional gender roles, although they worked side-by-side, doing the same work in the fields. At home, women usually did the indoor work, such as cooking, cleaning, sewing, and raising children, while men did chores outside the home, like hauling water and gathering wood. Although premarital sex was common in slave quarters, at some point every slave was expected to choose a mate and settle down. Maintaining a two-parent family was not within their control, however. Whenever it was convenient or profit- able, many masters sold off married slaves, leaving

>> An unusual sight—five generations of a slave family, together, on Smith’s Plantation, Beaufort, South Carolina, 1862.

“I heard them [slaves] get up with a powerful force of spirit, clapping

they hands and walking around the place. They’d shout, ‘I got the glory.

I got the old time religion in my heart.”

—Mose Hursey, former slave from Red River County, Texas

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Social Life in the Cotton South 217

mates behind. One estimate suggests that, in the four decades preceding the Civil War, around 600,000 slave husbands and wives were separated from each other in this way.

Religion served as another pillar of slave cul- ture. Most slaves arrived in America holding some form of West African religious belief. They usually

believed in a Supreme God or Creator, as well as in the exis- tence of a number of lesser gods. During the colonial period most slaves continued to practice their native reli- gions, and slave owners did

little to introduce their slaves to Christianity, fearing that if slaves became Christians they would have to be freed.

During the Second Great Awakening, however, most slaves became Christians. And despite the con- trolling efforts of the masters, slaves formed their own ideas about Christianity, melding their native practices with Christian beliefs. Many slaves also maintained belief in benevolent spirits and in the practice of conjuring or foreseeing the future. Theirs was a jubilant faith, promising deliverance. Religious services in slave quarters included dancing, singing, and clapping. Spirituals were the most significant form of African American music developed during this period. For obvious reasons, the biblical lessons slaves emphasized were not those that commanded obedience and docility, but those that inspired hope for the future. The God they worshiped was one who would redeem the downtrodden and lift them up to heaven on Judgment Day. The master might be rich and powerful in this life, but many slaves took

solace in the conviction that they would attain glory in the next one.

Resistance and Revolt Although several slave revolts are well remembered today, it is worth wonder- ing why there were not more of them. Partly the answer has to do with the harsh reaction southern whites had after slave revolts. Still, the low number of slave revolts in American history should not be interpreted as a lack of resistance on the part of American slaves. Most slaves who wanted to buck the system simply found less overt ways of insult- ing or irritating their masters, especially consider- ing that punishments for revolt were so severe. Slaves broke tools and machinery in order to slow production. Some feigned illness and injury to avoid work. Still others stole goods from their master to sell or trade for other goods. Even in their everyday demeanor, slaves occasion- ally outsmarted their own- ers. They could pretend to be ignorant and happy, as whites believed them to be, and use white stereo- types of them as a way to escape work. For example, intelligent slaves often faked confusion to avoid being assigned certain tasks or to explain why work was not completed. They were resisting their condi- tion in a subtle, undetectable manner.

Those who wanted to resist white authority in more dramatic fashion, but did not want to take the chance of organizing widespread revolts, had another option. They could run away. However, few slaves found permanent freedom in this way, especially if they were trying to flee states in the Deep South, defined as Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Southerners orga- nized slave patrols to watch for runaways and used hunting dogs to track escaped slaves. Slave owners also used newspapers to alert whites across the South to be on the lookout for certain runaways. Because so few southern blacks were free (only about 8 percent), slaves on the run were easily sighted.

Despite the odds, many slaves did flee, and a few found permanent freedom. Some runaways found help from the Underground Railroad, defined as a network of men and women (white and black) who opposed slavery, sheltered runaway slaves, and expedited their journey to freedom. One slave who successfully escaped bondage and settled in the North was Frederick Douglass. After his escape,

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>> Runaways were told that they could recognize a “safe house,” a stop on the Underground Railroad, by a lantern hung on its hitching post.

Underground railroad Network of men and women, both white and black, who were opposed to slavery, sheltered runaway slaves, and expedited their journey to freedom

Learn more about slave religion.

Research slave religion further.

Read narratives from former slaves.

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218 C h a p t e r 12 A Regionalized America, 1830–1860

Douglass became one of the foremost figures in the abolition movement. He wrote about his experiences in his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), which traces his personal journey from slavery to freedom.

essential to the protection and improvement of the black race. The region remained a predominantly agrarian society that depended on slave labor for the cultivation of its most profitable crop, cotton. Many in the South viewed the growth of cities and commerce in the North as a move away from the values on which the country had been founded and toward materialism and greed. Northerners, in turn, tended to view the South as a region stuck in the past, venerating the kind of class system and aris- tocracy against which the revolutionary patriots had rebelled decades earlier.

In addition, the two regions had widely differ- ing attitudes toward the role of the federal govern- ment. The North depended on the high tariffs of the American System to protect its growing manu- facturing concerns, and the government used the income from the tariffs to finance the roads, canals, and other internal improvements that northern- ers needed to bring goods to market. Southerners opposed high tariffs. They did not need tariffs to protect their cotton production, so tariffs accom- plished nothing for southerners beyond raising the cost of the imported goods they wanted to purchase. This distinction too would shape opinions for a long time to come.

Until the 1830s, most northerners had been content to tolerate slavery outside their own state borders, but, as the nation expanded geographically, Americans were repeatedly forced to confront the issue. Should slavery be allowed to move west? Over the next few decades, the question of whether or not slavery would be allowed into new western territo- ries reappeared continually, and conflict over this question would lead to sectional tensions, political conflicts, and eventually, a civil war. What made the issue so pervasive was the continued move to the West, which had a culture and society all its own. This continued move westward is the subject of the next chapter.

What else was happening . . . 1848 Revolutions occur throughout Europe protesting

industrial disorder and aristocratic rule. Most fail.

1848 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels publish The Communist Manifesto.

1849 The first safety pin is patented.

1850 Beer is first sold in glass bottles. Before that, patrons had their beer poured into a bucket or cup that they brought with them.

1857 The words and music to “Jingle Bells” are regis- tered, under the title “One Horse Open Sleigh”— which didn’t stick.

1857 Elisha Graves Otis demonstrates his passenger safety elevator at the Crystal Palace Exposition in New York by cutting the elevator’s cables as it ascends a 300-foot tower.

Visit the CourseMate website at www.cengagebrain.com for additional study tools and review materials for this chapter.

Looking Ahead . . . By the 1830s, the North and the South had begun to develop divergent societies. The Market Revolution and slavery served as obvious battle lines. And indeed, these two societies were growing increas- ingly at odds with one another, both politically and culturally. For instance, although most northerners did not favor abolition, they generally agreed that slavery contradicted the way of life that the Market Revolution was bringing about, one that under- scored the presence and importance of labor that was free to choose its manner and place of employ- ment. The North was also becoming increasingly urbanized and industrialized, with a large popula- tion of landless (often immigrant) workers. And it was sewn together by its general embrace of the communication and transportation revolutions of the previous decades.

Southerners, meanwhile, had begun to articu- late the concept that slavery was not shameful, but

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Ch 10: The Market Revolution��

10-1: Economic Nationalism��
10-2: The Market Revolution��
10-3: Reformers��

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Ch 11: Politics of the Market Revolution��

11-1: Politics in the Age of Jackson��
11-2: Jackson as President��
11-3: The Development of the Second Two-Party System��

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Ch 12: A Regionalized America, 1830-1860��

12-1: Social Life in the Commercial North��
12-2: Social Life in the Cotton South��