Diplomacy in The New Nation

Accomplishments of Early Diplomats

 Revolutionary War
 Jay Treaty 1795
Expansionist Dreams
 Jedidiah Morse
 Thomas Jefferson
o Louisiana Purchase
 Coveting Canada
 Florida
o Acquired from Spain, Transcontinental Treaty- 1819
John Quincy Adams
 James Monroe’s Secretary of State
 Accomplishments: nurtured better relations with England
o Rush-Bagot Treaty-1817
o Convention of 1818
o Transcontinental treaty (Adams-Onis) 1819
o Monroe Doctrine
Monroe Doctrine 1823
 Four Central Tenets
o American continents not to be subject to further colonization
o Any attempt by European countries to do so will be viewed by us as threat to us
o America will not interfere with existing colonies
o America will not interfere in affairs of Europe
Panic of 1819
 Great era of economic growth after 1815
o Cotton prices very high
o Europe still not recovered from Napoleonic wars needed American food
 Wild land speculation in south and west because of
o High ag. Prices
o Easy credit
o Classic land bubble
 But world cotton prices fall drastically
 2nd BUS (chartered 1815) should have reined in speculation
o But it is inevitable for bubbles to burst
McCullough vs. Maryland (1819)
 John Marshall, Chief justice of Supreme Court, Last remaining Federalist in Power
 State of Maryland attempts to tax BUS branch in Baltimore; Bank cashier refuses to pay
 Marshall decides in favor of BUS
 Congress has power to create a bank
 Under “necessary and proper” clause
 States cannot tax branch of Federal Government
 Power to tax is power to destroy
Transformation of Politics
 Demise of deferential politics
 o Celebration of the common man
o Rotation of office
 Revival of the two-party system
o Death of federalist party and “era of good feelings”
 Split in party of Jefferson-JQ Adams and national republicans (soon the anti-Jackson Whigs)
vs. Jacksonian Democrats
Sectional Politics
 South
o Staple economy
o Rural (little industry)
o Reliance on slavery
o Low levels of education
o John Calhoun
 North East
o Industry and Commerce
o Urban
o Wealth
o Stress on Education
o J.Q. Adams, Daniel Webster
 West
o Mixed Agricultural & Extractive Economy
o Widespread Land Ownership
o Balance of Urban and Rural
o Thomas Hart Benton, Henry Clay
 Missouri Compromise 1820
o Debate Over Admission of Missouri: Slave or Free
o Early Focus on Sectional Differences
o Missouri admitted as slave state;
o Maine as Free State
o 36’30” parallel to be northern limit to slavery
 Sectional Political Issues
o Indian Policy West & South
 Indian Removal
 Worcester v. Georgia, 1832
o Tariff: Northeast vs South
o Land Policy: West vs. Northeast & South
o Slavery: South
Innovations in Politics
1. Political Campaigns invigorated
2. Spoils system
3. National nominating convention replace party caucuses
4. Universal white male suffrage
Whigs vs. Democrats
 Represent nationalizing tendency;
 Speak for internal improvement
 Tariffs;
  Change
 Hamiltonian (Belief in need for National Bank)

 States’ Rights
 Geographic Expansion & Indian Removal
 Ambivalence about Economic Changes
 Jeffersonian appeal to rural values & confidence in common man
 Anti- Bank and Low Tariff
Jackson vs The Bank
 Bank of the United States- Charted in 1816; would expire in 1836
 BUS a private bank given a monopoly of the government’s banking
 Jackson hates the Bank and Nicholas Biddle
 Jackson vetoes rechartering
 Moves Federal funds to State Banks
Nullification Controversy, 1832-33
 Calhoun’s Doctrine of Nullification
 “Tariffs of Abominations” 1828
 Webster-Hayne debate 1830
o “Liberty and Union”
Calhoun’s Moment
 South Carolina’s Nullification attempt, 1832
o Followed Worcester v Georgia decision
 Jackson’s response to nullification
o Decisive yet politic
 Compromise Reached
 SC ensures future loyalty to state
 “Gag Rule” 1836-44
Tocqueville’s America
• Visit to America 1831-32
• Wrote democracy in America upon return to France

Separate Spheres
Catherine Beecher and the Cult of True Womanhood
Rise of Urban Values
• Unsettling of lines of authority
• Males find work outside home
o Husband-wife partnership of farming or artisan life no longer as true
• Middle-class women seek new sense of their place in society
o Subordination no longer as acceptable

Catherine Beecher
• Daughter of Lyman Beecher; sister of Harriet Beecher and Henry Ward
• Personal tragedy leads to decision for a career in women’s education and writing
• She helped define a respected role for middle-class women

Elements of Mental and Moral Philosophy

1. Taught women’s self-sacrifice and submission.
 a. These would be signs of moral superiority and strength
• Men naturally rule in workplace and government (essentialistic psychology)
• Within realm of home women would reign
o This task crucial for America’s future; wives shape children and husband, instilling values.
Self-sacrifice critical in a democracy where competition so great

Beecher accepted a hierarchical social order. But women would have influence in their own
sphere.
o Grimke sisters (Angelina and Sarah) challenge her assumptions

Domesticity
• Beecher provided practical help for wives in running households

Conclusion
• Beecher helped define the culturally expected role of women that persisted for decades; not
a view forced upon women by men
• Modern Feminism would react against this “separate spheres” ideal

Revivalism and Second Great Awakening

Democratization of Christianity
• Numbers of preachers and members increase dramatically
o Colonial age ration of ministers to population 1/1500; in 1845 1/500
• Character of religion more democratic
o Denominations proliferate
o Greater “enthusiasm”
o Little sense of limitations among leaders

Beginnings of Revival
• Yale revival 1802—Timothy Dwight, Lyman Beecher
• Frontier revival
o –camp meetings—James McGready

Urban Revivalism
• Charles Finney—Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835)
o Anxious bench
o Protracted meeting
o Female participation

Theology of Revivals
• 1st Great Awakening
o Calvinistic
o predestinarian
o fatalistic
• 2nd Great Awakening
o Arminian
o Activist
o Optimistic
1830
• Finney’s Rochester revival opens
• Alexander Campbell leaves Baptist Church to found Disciples of Christ
• High point of Shaker membership
• Joseph Smith publishes Book of Mormon

Millennialism
• A belief in the soon arrival of God’s kingdom
• Powerful notion in early Republic
• But would Millennium arrive before or after Christ’s second coming

Perfectionism
• Key element of revivalism
• Post-millennial
• Nurtured social reform
o “benevolent empire” e.g. Anti-dueling Society (1809); American Bible Society

Early Anti-Slavery
 18th century
 Quakers at the forefront
 Enlightenment ideology
 Free market beliefs
 Trans-Atlantic revolutions
American Colonization society 1817
 Four principles of antislavery
o Gradualism
o Con-condemnatory
o Compensation
o Colonization
Abolitionism
 William Lloyd Garrison
 1831, American Anti-Slavery Society
 Principles of Abolitionism
o Immediate abolition
o Slavery a sin
o No Compensation
o No colonization
 Abolitionism highly Controversial
 Liberty Party- 1840
Free Soil
 Increased politicization of anti-slavery
 Free Soil beliefs:
o Less moralistic than abolitionism
o Free labor superior to slavery
o Contain expansion of slavery
o Preserve western lands for white men
 1848 Free Soil Party
  1854 Republican Party

Utopianism and Communication

Utopianism
 Belief in human perfectibility
 Remaking of society
 Communal societies a model of what all of society might become
o Reject competition and individualism
o Affirm cooperation and social good
Shakers
 Ann lee, (from England; a “shaking Quaker”)
 Perfect the flesh through chastity and abolition of marriage; live communally, separated from
the world
Brooke Farm 1841
 Unitarian/transcendentalist experiment
o George Ripley
 sought full human development of intellectual and vocational
 implicit individualism at odds with community needs
 no lasting economic basis found
 Orestes Brownsons observations
Oneida 1848
 John Humphrey Noyes: an extreme perfectionist
 Complex Marriage
 Eugenics (stirpicultural)
 Mutual Criticism
New Harmony 1825
 Robert Owen, English industrialist
 Took over Rappite community in Indiana
 Secular Commune; anti-religious
 800 settlers gather in 1826-27
o Lack of discipline, lack of clarity about organization; splintering of group
Neshoba
 Anti-slave community in Tennessee, founded in 1825
 Founded by France Wright
o Scottish-born free-thinking radical; active in early labor reform
 Rumors of free love and anti-religious sentiment drove away backers
o Experiment ends in 1828; 30 slaves freed and taken to Haiti
Meaning of communitarianism
 Reflect a desire to counter prevailing individualism
 Seek to control the course of economic progress
 Defeated by human nature and opportunities of American life
Asylums
 Heightened concern about care for criminals, insane, poor, orphans, handicapped
 Sense that deviance was a social problem with environmental roots
Penitentiaries
 Concern about perceived increase in delinquency-attributed to inadequate family training
 Auburn penitentiary-NY
 Pennsylvania Penitentiary- Philadelphia
 Isolation of prisoners combines with work program
Insane Asylums
 Belief that mental instability on rise due to social mobility and religious enthusiasm
 State asylums built that combined discipline with routine in quite rural setting
 As with penitentiaries, overcrowding soon made asylums places to warehouse deviants

Slavery the American dilemma

Two approaches
 Slavery as economic institution
 Slavery as social institution
Economic institution
 A system of labor to produce staple crop
 Slave versus free labor
o Which more efficient?
 1790- 700,000
 1825- 1,750,000 slaves
 1860- Nearly 4,000,000 (mainly by natural increase)
 Over half of slaves live on plantations of over 20
o Large plantations more numerous in the deep south
 As cotton kingdom spread west, price of slaves rose
Paradox of 19th century slavery
 4th &5th generation slaves now being born (no more importations from abroad)
 Slave owners exhibiting increasing concern for slaves well-being.
 Yet slave owners also increasing efforts to makes slaves dependent and docile
o Less freedom for whites to criticize slavery
 Antebellum slavery both more ridged and more paternalistic
Domestic Slave Trade
 Slaves sold from upper south to lower
 Source of interregional unity
Urban Slavery
 Freer Environment
 Chance for independent work
 Urban life incompatible with slavery
Plantation Life
 Work day sunup to sundown
 Gang system versus task system
 All work, children to “retirees”
 Testimony of slaves
 Life bette for slave owners
 Largest plantations in deep south
  Aspiration of southern farmers
 Mitigated social class division
Slavery as Social Institution
 Dual definition of Slaves:
o Property
o Humans
 As Property- “Chattel”
o Could be bought & sold, could not own property nor ne party to contract
o Mothers status determined the child’s
 As Humans
o State required humane treatment, e.g. food clothing, shelter, medical care, old age
Control of Slaves
 Ideal of “paternalism”
 Slave patrols
 Limits on manumission
 Strict control of free blacks
 Few slave revolts
o Nat Turner’s Revolt in 1831
o Slaves a minority in most states
o Owners lived among their slaves
o Family ties domesticated slaves
o Slave resistance seen in other ways, e.g. running away, malingering, theft
Running Away
 Escape to north very difficult
 Solomon Northrop example
 Most runaways intended to
Defenses for slavery
 Slavery is constitutional
 Slavery is the natural order of things
 Slavery is necessary
 Slavery is biblical
 Slaves are Content
Slave Religion
 Religion used in part as means of social control
 Slaves appropriate Christianity to their own purposes
 Importance of Moses and Christ
o Religion as important source of dignity and self-worth
 Expressive nature of slave Christianity
 Moses and Jesus the key figures
 Common themes:
o Equality
o Deliverance
o Gospel discipline
African-American Culture
  Folk Remedies
 Folk tales- trickster rabbit
 Music
o Spirituals
o Blues

Mexican-American War: Completing a ContinenqIOUUtal Empire

(Maps)

Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men

Compromise of 1850
 California enters as free state
 New Mexico and Utah territories organized without mention of slavery
 Texas’s Borders reduced; debt covered
 Slave trade in District of Colombia ended
 Fugitive Slave bill enacted
 Established issues that would dominate decade
 Did not end desire of south to extend slavery to new territories.
 Fugitive slave law particularly controversial
Fugitive Slave Act
 Personal liberty laws - state nullification
 Devastating impact on northern black communities
 Slave catchers & commissioners
 Northern Resistance
o Burns incident
o New personal liberty laws
o 90% of 322 fugitives sent south
Uncle Tom’s Cabin, 1852
Expansionism
 Relatively little done in New Mexico or Utah
 Attention focused on Caribbean and Central America
o Knights of Golden Circle
o Cuba, Narcisco Lopez
o Ostend Manifesto – 1854
o William Walker
Nativism (lol)
Kansas
 Desire for settlements in early 1850s
o Need to organize in order to build railroad
 Missouri Compromise would prohibit slavery
o No longer acceptable to South
 Douglas—Popular Sovereignty
o But at what point do people decide?
Kansas Nebraska Act, 1854
 Highly Divisive
  Free soil and slave advocates compete for Kansas
 Bleeding Kansas
o John Brown and Pottawatomie massacre
 Caning of Charles Sumner

Election of 1856
Dread Scott decision, 1857
 Did residence in a free state bestow freedom? Were black’s citizens? Could slavery be
excluded from a territory? Five of nine supreme court justices were southerners (including
Roger Taney, chief justice)
Decision:
a. Scott not free—only a “sojourner” in free state
b. Blacks (even free) not citizens
c. Congress cannot prevent slavery in the territories: Kansas-Nebraska are unconstitutional
Lincoln-Douglas Debates, 1858
 For senate seat from Illinois
 Series of seven debates around the state
 Centered almost entirely on the Kansas issue and extension of slavery
 Made Lincoln a national figure, even though Douglas carries the election
John Browns Raid, 1859
 Plot to begin great slave insurgency
 October uprising bungled, Brown captured
 South sees event through lens of paranoia i.e. abolitionism taking over north
 Republicans repudiate brown
Division of Democratic Party
 Issue of slavery rending party in two
 Charleston convention: southern delegates walk out over lack of territorial slave protection
plank. (Douglas committed to popular sovereignty)
 Baltimore convention no better
 Douglas: northern democratic candidate
 John Breckenridge: southern democratic candidate
Nomination of Lincoln
 Lincoln a dark horse: Seward and chase better known figures
 Lincoln a political moderate; not an abolitionist
1860 Election
 Four candidates: Lincoln, Douglas, Breckenridge, Bell (Constitutional Union)
 Lincoln wins with 39% of vote
o Carries no southern state (no votes)
o Wins majority of northern states
o Comfortable majority of electoral votes
His Election Prompts South Carolina to secede in December, 1860
Tradition of Compromise
 1820-Missouri Compromise
 1832-33-Nullification Controversy
  1850-Compromise of 1850
 1860- no compromise
 Alternative? Secession
Lincolns Dilemma
 Deep South states secede before he takes office
 First Inaugural address an appeal for union
 Ft. Sumter decision
 Call for 75,000 volunteers
 Secession of Upper South

War of the Rebellion

Causes
 Disunion?
 Determination of Lincoln to preserve Union
 Determination of seceded states to not be coerced
 Spiral of suspicion that had built for decades
Purposes
 North
o Maintain authority in federal institutions
o Restore the union
o Accomplish Broader economic agenda
 Transcontinental railroad
 National banking act
 Homestead and land-grant colleges
 South
o Preserve its recently declared independence
Means
 North
o Takes initiative;
o Anaconda Plan
 Constrict southern commerce and force surrender
 Blockade Atlantic coast
 Control Mississippi river and cut off west
o More aggressive posture soon required
 Invasion of Virginia
 Invasion of Western Tennessee
 South
o Repel invader by establishing defensive perimeter
o Win diplomatic recognition from Europe and even get military support, esp. from
England
 King Cotton diplomacy
o Strategy of the underdog—“win by not loosing”

Advantages: North
  Quantitative Advantages
 Already established national government
 Determined and wise president
 Republican party support for president
 Patriotic groundswell of support
Disadvantages: North
 Burden of taking initiative
 Delicacy of defeating seceded states without alienating border slave states
 How to handle issue of slavery
o Whether to use black soldiers
 Much leadership talent of military went to confederacy
Advantages: South
 Moral advantage of defending homeland
 Tactical home field advantage
 Martial tradition
 Corps of capable officers, (Lee, A.S. Johnston, PGT Beauregard, Jackson)
Disadvantages: South
 Lack of central government
 Financial Shortfall
o Unwise reliance on paper money
 Relative manpower shortage
o Reliance on draft
 Industrial incapacity
 Transportation deficiencies, esp. RR’s
 Lack of a navy
 Failure of international recognition
 Jefferson Davis & Confederate Congress

American Civil War

Northern Strategy
 Blockade Capture Richmond
 Assume Control of western rivers
 Diagonal
Lincoln Seeks a General
 Halleck
 McClellan
 McDowell
 Pope
 Burnside
 Hooker
 Grant
First Modern War?
 Jomini and traditional war
  Impact of technology
o Rifle
o Railroad
o Iron-clad ships & submarine
 Total War
o Sherman “war is hell”

Stalemate in East; Victory in West

 In Virginia theatre lee holds off a series of union generals
 In west union armies come through back door
 Grant makes his reputation in west: Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg; Chattanooga
 Brought east in 1864 and given overall command; wears down Lee
Emancipation
 What to do with runaway slaves- contraband of war?
 Lincoln’s Caution
 Sept. 1862- preliminary emancipation proclamation following Antietam
 Jan. 1 1863- goes into effect
 Use of black troops
Victory
 Lincoln nurtures Northern support for war
 Confederacy worn down
o Attrition of army
o Shortage of civilian
 Complete military triumph
o Lees call for men to lay down their arms
 What would be shape of peace?

Reconstruction: Americas unfinished revolution

Changing interpretations
 A troubled period of American history
 Was reconstruction essentially vindictive and wrong-headed? (Gone with the Wind)
 Was it a noble experiment?
 Was it ultimately a tragic era of American history?
Major Issues
 Who should direct reconstruction, President or Congress?
 No Clear constitutional mandate (problem not anticipated)
 Lincoln and Johnson took strong presidential view
 Radical republicans felt congress should be in charge (don’t trust Johnson)
 What should be the primary goals of reconstruction?
 Democrats/ Conservative Republicans
 Quick reestablishment of nation? (political reconstruction)
 Minimal interference with southern institutions (e.g. freedmen left
unprotected and essentially cheap agricultural labor)
  Radicals
 Confederate states took themselves out of the union/ must start over in
becoming states again
 Treason must be punished; tone of vindictiveness
 Confiscation of rebel property and distribution of income
 Justice for freemen?
 Need for land and for legal and political rights
 Homestead act 1866 (minimal impact)
 Physical and economic recovery of South
 Devastation of equipment and animals
 Desire to recover land abandoned during the war
Presidential Reconstruction
 President takes lead (Lincoln and Johnson)
 Moderate, quick, neither intrusive nor punitive
 Lincoln 10% Plan-Dec. 1863
o Congress refuses to accept it
o Wade-Davis Bill-1864
 Thirteenth amendment passage, Dec 1865
 Andrew Johnson initially closer to radicals than was Lincoln
o Ex-confederates worth more than $20,000 exempt from pardon
Johnson’s Reconstruction
 Similar to Lincoln’s- even more sympathetic to south
 Johnson a southern democrat
 Desire to punish the planter class
o Those with wealth over $20,000 exempt from pardon
o Johnson personally bestowed pardons on many
 Johnson exercises power through most of 1865
 Former confederate states reorganize under his provisions; seek reentry to union in later
1865
o Black codes
o Apparent southern intransigence, e.g. reelecting former confederate leaders
o Congress refuses to accept state application
Congressional (radical) Reconstruction
 Congress (under Republican control) takes initiative
o Joint committee on Reconstruction (moderates initially dominate)
 Leading radicals: Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, ben wade
 Seek a reconstruction that:
o Punishes
Radical Program
 Freedmen’s Bureau
o Charged with overseeing treatment of newly freed southern black
o Headed by O.O. Howard
o Reauthorized spring 1866 (over Johnson’s veto)
 Civil right act 1866 (Johnson vetoes)
 o Fourteenth Amendment
 Alienation of Congress and President
 Riots: Memphis & New Orleans
 Fall Elections 1866
o Referendum on reconstruction
Fourteenth Amendment
 Congress authorities June 1866, ratified, July 1868
 Guarantees citizenship
 States forbidden to abridge “privileges or immunities” of citizens or deprive “any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”
 Or deny “equal protection of the laws”
 Along with First Amendment, the most constitutionally important amendment.
Congressional/ Military Control
 First Military Act of Reconstruction, spring 1867
o South divided into five military districts
o Generals oversee steps necessary for political reconstruction
o Three further military acts follow, giving more powers to military commanders
o Johnson seeks to negate their effect; what were the limits of military rule?
Impeachment
 Johnson opposes radical agenda
o Formally in charge of military forces South
o Attempt to replace Edwin Stanton as Secretary of War
 Impeachment: Feb 1868
o Based on his violation of tenure of office act
o Underlying reason: Johnson was an obstacle to congressional program
o Concern of moderates about undermining balance of power
 Conviction fails by one vote
Goals of Freedmen
 Established new lives- often away from previous location
 Legalize marriages/ find lost family members
 Gain economic viability
 Win the vote
 For a few- go north
Republican State Governments
 Controlled southern states between 1868 and 1877 for varying lengths of time
 Unstable coalition of power
o Carpetbaggers
o Scalawags
o Freedmen
 Accomplishments
o Rebuild south
o Establish Public Schools for all
o Modernize economy
o Bi-Racial Society
Fifteenth Amendment
 Restrictions on black voting (and other civil rights) in the north
 South could Legitimately claim hypocrisy in republican demands for freedmen rights
 Fifteenth amendment makes explicit that race cannot be a basis for denial of voting rights
Freedmen’s Schools
 Cooperative endeavor of government (freedmen’s Bureau) and northern missionary societies
 Segregation not seriously challenged
Economic Reconstruction
 What will be relationship between former slave and former master?
 Freedmen’s need for land and capital (and political/ legal rights)
 Initial years after reconstruction witnessed rise in freedmen’s wealth (ransom & sutch)
o Black and white income gap narrows (through wealth of region declines)
o Many freedmen (esp. women) leave labor market
o Rise of tenant farming (share renting and share cropping)
o Lack of sufficient coin or capital in south (leads to crop-lien system)
o Subservience to one crop agriculture (cotton)
o Still a significant number of freedoms gained for freedmen
Redemption, 1869-77
 Republican governments resented
o Controversy, debt, corruption, alien power
 Northern retreat
o Increasing public apathy
o Desire for national unity
o Splits in republican party
o Other issues of concern to north (e.g. recession of 1873)
o Amnesty extended to virtually all ex confederates, 1872
o Supreme court rulings that restricted
Southern Determination
 Political Violence, Ku Klux Klan
 Ku Klux Act (1871) temporarily suppressed violence
 Louisiana war over control of state government
 Colfax riot 1872
 Mississippi plan (1875 election)
 Draw all whites into democratic party
 Intimidate potential black voters
 Carpetbaggers
Compromise of 1877
 Disputed Hayes Tilden election
 Returns from Louisiana , South Carolina, Florida contested
 Democratic intimidation versus republican control of election returns
 Election commisision appointed
 Accept returns favoring hayes
 Democratic party/south outraged
 Compromise
 Remove all troops from the south
 Southern cabinet member appointed and more patronage (David Key postmaster
general)
 Southern transcontinental railroad
 Hand back to old guard the “keys” to the south
 Peace returns-at what cost?