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13 Notes
The Rise of a Mass Democracy
I. Opening
1. So called Era of Good Feelings was never entirely tranquil, but even the illusion of
national consensus was shattered by panic of 1819 and Missouri Compromise of 1820.
2. When the Federalists had dominated, democracy was not respected, but by the 1820s,
it was widely appealing.
a. Politicians now had to bend to appease and appeal to the masses, and the
popular ones were the ones who claimed to be born in log cabins and had
humble backgrounds.
b. Those who were aristocratic (too clean, too well dressed, too grammatical, to
highly intellectual) were scorned.
3. The deference, apathy, and virtually nonexistence party organizations of the good era
of feelings yielded to boisterous democracy.
4. Jacksonian Democracy said that whatever governing that was to be done should be
done directly to the people.
5. Called the New Democracy, it was based on universal manhood suffrage.
a. In 1791, Vermont became the first state admitted to the union to allow all
white males to vote in the elections.
6. While the old bigwigs who used to have power sneered at the “coonskin congressmen”
and the “bipeds of the forest,” the new democrats argued that if they messed up, they
messed up together and were not victims of aristocratic domination.
II. The “Corrupt Bargain” of 1828
1. In the election of 1824, there were four towering candidates: Andrew Jackson of
Tennessee, Henry Clay of Kentucky, William H. Crawford of Georgia, and John Q.
Adams of Mass.
a. All four called themselves Republicans.
2. In the results, Jackson got the most popular votes and the most electoral votes, but he
failed to get the majority in the Electoral College. Adams came in second in both,
while Crawford was fourth in the popular vote but third in the electoral votes. Clay
was 4th in the electoral vote.
3. By the 12th Amendment, the top three Electoral vote getters would be voted upon in
the House of Reps. and the majority (over 50%) would be elected president.
4. Clay was eliminated, but he was the Speaker of the House, and since Crawford has
recently suffered a paralytic stroke and Clay hated Jackson, he threw his support
behind John Q. Adams, helping him become president.
a. When Clay was appointed Secretary of the State, traditional stepping-stone
to the presidency, Jacksonians cried foul play.
b. John Randolph publicly assailed the alliance between Adams and Clay.
5. Evidence against any possible deal has never been found, but both men flawed their
reputations.
III. A Yankee Misfit in the White House
1. John Quincy Adams was a man of puritanical honor, and he had achieved high office
by commanding respect rather than by boasting great popularity.
2. During his administration, he only removed 12 public servants from the federal
payroll, thus refusing to kick out efficient officeholders in favor of his own, possibly
less efficient, supporters.
3. In his first annual message, Adams urged Congress on the construction of roads and
canals, proposed for a national university, and advocated support for an astronomical
observatory.
a. Public reaction was mixed: roads were good, but observatories weren’t
important, and Southerners knew that if the government did anything, it
would have to continue collecting tariffs.
4. With land, Adams tried to curb overspeculation on land, much to Westerners’ anger,
even though he was doing it for their own good, and with the Cherokee Indians, he
tried to deal fairly with them and the state of Georgia successfully resisted federal
attempts to help the Cherokees.
IV. Going “Whole Hog” for Jackson in 1828”
1. Jacksonians argued, “Should the people rule?” and said that the Adams-Clay
bargaining four years before had cheated the people out of the rightful victor.
a. They successfully turned public opinion against an honest and honorable
prez.
2. However, Adams’ supporters also hit below the belt, even though Adams himself
wouldn’t stoop to that level.
a. The called his mom a prostitute, called him an adulterer (he had married his
wife thinking that her divorce had been granted, only to discover two years
later that it hadn’t been), and after he got elected, his wife died, and Jackson
blamed Adams’ men who had slandered Andrew Jackson on Rachel
Jackson’s death; he never forgave them.
3. John Q. Adams had purchased, with his own money and for his own use, a billiard
table and a set of chessmen, but the Jacksonians had seized, criticizing Adams’
incessant spending.
4. On voting day, the electorate spilt on largely sectional lines.
5. Jackson’s strongest support came from the West and South.
6. The middle states and Old Northwest were divided, while Adams won the backing of
his own New England and propertied “better elements” of the Northeast.
7. Although a considerate amount of Jackson’s support was lined up by machine
politicians in eastern cities, particulary in New York and Pennslyvania.
V. “Old Hickory” as president
1. When he became president, Andrew Jackson had already battled dysentery, malaria,
tuberculosis, and lead poisoning from two bullets lodged somewhere in his body.
2. He personified the new West: rough, jack-of-all-trades, a genuine folk hero.
3. Jackson had been early orphaned, was interested in cockfighting as a kid, and wasn’t
really good with reading and writing, sometimes misspelling the same word twice in
one letter.
4. He went to Tennessee, where he became a judge and a Congressman, and his passions
were so profound that he could choke up on the floor.
5. A man with a violent temper, he got into many duels, fights, stabbings, etc…
6. He was a Western aristocrat, having owned many slaves, and lived in a fine mansion,
the Hermitage, and he shared many of the prejudices of the masses.
7. He was called “Old Hickory” by his troops because of his toughness.
8. He was anti-federalist, believing that it was for the privileged only, but maintained the
sacredness of the Union and the federal power over the states, but he welcomed the
western democracy.
VI. The Spoils System
1. The spoils system: rewarding supporters with good positions in office.
2. Jackson believed that experience counted, but that young blood and sharp eyes
counted more, and thus, he went to work on overhauling positions and erasing the old.
3. Not since the election of 1800 had a new party been voted into the presidency, and
even then, many positions had stayed and not changed.
4. Though he wanted to “wipe the slate clean,” only 1/5 of the men were sent home, and
clean sweeps would come later, but there was always people hounding Jackson for
positions, and those who were discharged often went mad, killed themselves, or had a
tough time with it.
5. The spoils system denied many able people a chance to contribute.
6. Samuel Swartwout was awarded the lucrative post of collector of the customs of the
port of New York, and nearly nine years later, he fled for England, leaving his
accounts more than a million dollars short, becoming the first person to steal a million
dollars from the government.
7. The spoils system was built up by gifts from expectant party members, and the system
secured such a tenacious hold that it took more than 50 years before its grip was even
loosened.
VII. The Tricky “Tariff of Abominations”
1. In 1824, Congress had increased the general tariff from 23% to 37%, but wool
manufactures still wanted higher tariffs.
2. In the Tariff of 1828, the Jacksonians schemed to drive up duties to as high as 45%
while imposing heavy tariffs on raw materials like wool, so that even New England,
where it was needed, would vote the bill down and give Adams another political black
eye.
a. However, the New Englanders spoiled the plan and passed the law
(amended).
b. Daniel Webster and John C. Calhoun reversed their positions from 1816,
with Webster supporting the tariff and Calhoun being against it.
c. The Southerners immediately branded it as the “Tariff of Abominations.”
3. In 1822, Denmark Vesey, a free Black, had led an ominous slave rebellion in
Charleston.
4. The South mostly complained because it was now the least expanding of the sections.
5. Cotton prices were falling and land was growing scarce.
6. Southerners sold their cotton and other products without tariffs, while the products that
they bought were heavily tariffed.
7. Tariffs led the U.S. to buy less British products and vice versa, but it did help the
Northeast prosper so that it could be more of the South’s products.
8. John C. Calhoun secretly wrote “The South Carolina Exposition” in 1828, boldly
denouncing the recent tariff and calling for nullification of the tariff by all states.
9. However, South Carolina was alone in this nullification threat, since Andrew Jackson
had been elected two weeks earlier, and was expected to sympathize with the South.
VIII. Bank war
1. President Jackson did not hate all banks and all businesses, but he distrusted
monopolistic banking and overtime big businesses, as did his followers.
2. The flowering the political democracy was in part caused the logical outgrowth of the
egalitarian ideas that had taken root in colonial times.
a. The steady growth of the market economy also nourished it.
b. More and more people understood how banks, tariffs, and internal
improvements affected the quality of their lives.
3. In the panic of 1819, overextended banks had called back their debts, and often,
farmers unable to pay up lost their farms while the bankers didn’t have to lose their
property because they simply suspended their own payments, and the apparent
favoritism caused outcry.
4. But the Bank of the United States was a private institution, accountable not to the
people, but to its elite circle of moneyed investors
5. To some the bank’s very existence seemed to sin against the egalitarian credo of
American democracy.
6. Clay’s scheme was to ram a recharter bill through Congress and then send it to the
white House.
7. If Jackson signed it, he would alienate his worshipful western followers. If he vetoed
it he would presumably lose the presidency.
8. Jackson’s veto message reverberated with constitutional consequences. It not only
squash the bank bill but vastly amplified the power of the presidency
IX. “Old Hickory Wallops Clay in 1832
1. Clay and Jackson were chief gladiators in the looming electoral combat.
2. Ensuing campaign was raucous
a. Jackson: “Jackson forever: Go the Whole Hog”
b. Clay: “Freedom and Clay
3. Jackson commanded fear and respect from his subordinates, and ignored the Supreme
Court on several occasions; he also used the veto 12 times (compared to a combined
10 times by his predecessors) and on his inauguration, he let commoners come into the
White House.
a. They wrecked the china and caused chaos until they heard that there was
spiked punch on the White House front lawn; thus was the “inaugural bowl.”
b. Conservatives condemned Jackson as “King Mob” and berated him greatly.
4. Henry Clay and his overconfident National Republicans enjoyed impressive
advantages. Ample funds flowed into their campaign chest, including $50,000 in “life
insurance” from the Bank of the United States.
5. Most of the newspaper editors dipped their pens in acid when they wrote of Jackson.
6. The popular vote stood at 687,502 to 530,189 for Jackson; the electoral count was a
lopsided 219 to 49.
X. Burying Biddle’s Bank
1. After the denial of the charter for the Bank of the United States, the bank was fated to
expire in 1836.
2. Jackson was convinced that his voters now wanted to exterminate the Bank, and he
was personally afraid that Nicholas Biddle would try to manipulate the bank and force
it to recharter.
3. So Jackson decided in 1833 to “busy” the bank forever by removing federal deposits
in it.
4. He proposed not depositing any more funds with Bidddle and slowly shrinking
existing deposits by using them to pay off the day-to-day expenses of the government.
By slowly draining off the government’s funds, he would bleed the bank dry and
ensure its extermination.
5. Many of Jackson’s supporters opposed his unconstitutional policy. Jackson had to
reshuffle his cabinet twice before he found a Secretary of State that would agree with
his policies. Biddle created a minor financial crisis, by calling in his bank’s loans, in
order to show the bank’s importance.
6. Weaker banks were influenced by “Biddle’s Panic” but Jackson’s resolution was firm.
7. The death of the United States Bank created a financial vacuum and started a cycle of
booms and busts. Extra funds were placed in dozens of state institutions-called as “pet
banks”- that were pro- Jackson.
8. With no central bank in control, the pet banks and smaller “wildcat” banks(nightly
operations that consisted of only a few chairs and a suitcase full of printed notes)
flooded the country with paper money
9. In 1836, the year Biddle’s bank finally collapsed, Jackson tried to rebuild the
economy. “Wildcat” money was very unreliable, especially in the West, and Jackson
authorize a Specie Circular (a decree that required all public lands to be purchased
with hard or metallic money.
10. This move contributed to a panic and crash in 1837.
XI. The Birth of the Whigs
1. In 1828- the Democratic Republicans of Jackson adopted ‘once-tainted’ the name of
“Democrats”
2. Jackson’s opponents called themselves the Whigs
3. The Whig Party was much diversified and called “an organized incompatibility”. The
only cement in the party at first was the hatred of Jackson.
4. Whigs emerged as group in Senate where Clay, Webster, and Calhoun in 1834 that
criticized Jackson for removing federal deposits from the Bank of the United States.
5. Whigs evolved when they adopted supporters of Clay’s American System, southern
states’ activists offended by Jackson’s stand on nullification, the larger northern
industrialists and merchants, and eventually many evangelical Protestants associated
with anti-Masonic party.
6. Whigs were conservatives (that’s how they thought of themselves), yet they were
progressive in their support of active government programs and reforms.
7. Instead of focus on acquiring territory, Whigs were more concerned with internal
improvements like canals, railroads, telegraph lines, and institutions like prisons,
asylums, and public schools.
8. Whigs welcomed market economy, drawing support from manufacturers in North,
planters in South, and merchants and bankers in all sections.
9. Whigs actually represented common man now, rather than aristocrats, as Democrats
had portrayed them. They declared Democrats as party of cronyism and corruption.
XII. The Election of 1836
1. Jackson was too old to run for a 3rd term, so he appointed Martin Van Buren of NY as his
successor in 1836. He basically forced the delegates to choose Van Buren and rigged the
convention.
2. Whigs, disorganized as they were, nominated several different men to spread out the votes
so that no candidate would have a majority. The deadlock would then have to be broken
by the House of Reps., where the Whigs could have a chance.
3. The leading Whig “favorite son” was General William Henry Harrison of Ohio, her of the
Battle of Tippecanoe.
4. Van Buren one with a popular vote very close to the Whigs by a comfortable margin to of
all the Whigs combined (170 to 124) in the Electoral votes.
XIII.Big Woes for the “Little Magician”
1. Martin Van Buren was above the average of presidents since Jackson in intelligence,
education and training.
2. He was resented by many Democrats because he was a machine-made candidate
3. He lacked the powerful, dynamic attitude of Jackson and was mild-mannered. He
inherited Jackson’s enemies.
4. A rebellion in Canada in 1837 stirred up ugly incidents on northern frontier and threatened
to trigger war with Britain.
5. He attempted to be neutral but was criticized for it.
6. Anti-slavery agitators in the North were crying out, and were condemning the possible
annexation of Texas.
XIV. Depression Doldrums and the Independent Treasury
1. The Panic of 1837 was brought on by the financial sickness of the times. It was caused by
speculation from the mania of get-rich-quickism. Gamblers in the west were doing “land
office business” on the unreliable money of the “wildcat banks”.
a.) Speculation spread to canals, roads, railroads, and slaves.
2. Jackson’s Bank War and Specie Circular further weakened the teetering economy
3. Grain prices soared, and NY mobs stormed warehouses and broke open barrels of flour.
4. Panic began before Van Buren took office, but he had to deal with most of it.
5. Financial issues abroad also endangered America’s economy. Late in 1836, the failure of
2 prominent British banks created tremors, which caused British investors to call in
foreign loans from America.
6. Europe’s economic distresses have often become America’s distresses.
7. In the panic, hundreds of American banks collapsed, including some “pet banks” which
brought down with them millions in government funds.
8. Commodity prices fell, sales of public lands fell off, and customs revenues dried to a
rivulet. Factories closed their doors, and unemployed workers milled in the streets.
9. Whigs had proposals for active government remedies for the economy’s ills. They called
for the expansion of bank credit, higher tariffs, and subsidies for internal improvements.
But Van Buren refused their ideas
10. Van Buren set up the controversial “Divorce Bill”- it would divorce the government from
banking altogether. He was convinced that some of the financial problem was that federal
funds were injected into private banks.
11. By establishing an independent treasury, the government could lock its surplus money in
vaults in several of the larger cities. Government funds would be safe, but they would
also be denied to the banking system as reserves, thereby shriveling available credit
resources.
12. In 1840, the Independent Treasure Bill passed Congress. It was repealed the next year by
victorious Whigs, and then the scheme was reenacted by triumphant Democrats in 1846
and then continued until merged with the Federal Reserve System in the next century.
XV. Gone to Texas
1. Americans liked the vast expanse of Texas, which the US had abandoned to Spain when
acquiring Florida in 1819. The Spanish authorities wanted to populate Texas but before
they could make plans, the Mexicans won their independence.
2. A new regime in Mexico City ended arrangements in 1823 for granting a huge tract of
land to Stephen Austin, with the understanding that he could bring into Texas three
hundred American families.
3. Immigrants were to be Roman Catholic and to become mexicanized.
4. However, Americans moved to Texas were still American at heart. They ignored the
stipulations (above).
5. Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie were famous adventurers that lived in Texas
6. A latecomer and leader was ex-governor of Tennessee, Sam Houston. He resided with the
Arkansas Indians after being left by his wife. He drank heavily but later took an oath of
temperance.
7. Friction increased between Mexicans and Texans over issues such as slavery,
immigration, and local rights. Mexico emancipated its slaves in 1830 and did not allow
Americans to import slaves into Texas. The Texans refused to honor the Mexican
prohibition and kept their slaves in bondage, and new American settlers brought more
slaves into Texas.
8. Stephen Austin went to Mexico City to discuss American differences with the Mexican
government, but Dictator Santa Anna he put him in jail for 8 months. In 1835, Santa
Anna erased all local rights and started raising an army to suppress the upstart Texans.
XVI. The Lone Star Rebellion
1. In 1836, Texans declared their independence, unfurled their Lone Star flag and named
Sam Houston commander in chief.
2. Santa Anna swept into Texas with 6,000 men.
3. He trapped nearly 200 Texans at the Alamo in San Antonio and in a 13-day siege he killed
all but one. Later a band of 400 American volunteers were butchered.
4. Americans in US remembered cries like “Death to Santa Anna” and “Remember the
Alamo”.
5. Many Americans ran to the aid of the relatives, friends, and compatriots.
6. General Sam Houston’s army went to the East, luring Santa Anna to San Jacinto.
Suddenly on April 21, 1836, Houston turned. The Texans wiped out the pursuing force
and captured Santa Anna. The dictator was forced to sign 2 treaties. In the terms, he
agreed to withdraw Mexican troops and to recognize the Rio Grande as the extreme
southwestern boundary of Texas. When released he said the agreement was illegal
because he was extorted.
7. Under international law, the US Government was obligated to remain neutral in the Texas
situation, but American public opinion nullified existing legislation.
8. Texans wanted not only recognition of independence, but wanted to be in union with US
9. Antislavery crusaders in the North opposed annexation for they believed that the whole
scheme was a conspiracy of the south to bring new slave pens, in Texas, into the Union.
10. In reality, Texas was merely party of the Westward movement. However many
southerners migrated there and there were many Texan slaveholders.
XVII. Log Cabins and Hard Cider of 1840
1. Martin Van Buren was renominated in 1840 by Democrats. The Whigs united behind
William Henry Harrison.
a.) John Tyler of Virginia was his vice-presidential running mate)
13. Hard Cider and Log Cabins were mentioned in a Democratic criticism of Harrison, but the
Whigs adopted them as campaign symbols. In actuality, Harrison lived in a mansion.
14. Harrison won by a close margin of popular votes, but an overwhelming electoral margin.
XVIII. Politics for the People
1. Now, in the 1840s, democracy was respectable while aristocracy was the taint.
Candidates that appeared too clean, too well dressed, too grammatical, too intellectual
now had the handicap.
a.) Daniel Webster even publicly apologized in 1840 for not being born in a humble
place.
15. However, most offices were still held by “leading citizens” though they had to represent
the common man to win elections.
XIX. The Two-Party System
1. The Jeffersonians of the past had absorbed so many programs of their Federalist
opponents that a full party system had never emerged.
2. But in 1840, two national parties the Democrats and Whigs were defined.
a.)Both parties had grown out of the soil of Jeffersonian republicanism, and each laid
claim to different aspects of it.
3. Jacksonian Democrats glorified freedom of the individual and were on guard against
“privilege” into government.
a.)They hung to states’ rights and federal restraint in social and economic affairs as
their basic doctrines.
4. Whigs trumpeted the national harmony of society and the community, using government
to realize objectives.
a.)They favored a renewed national bank, protective tariffs, internal improvements,
public schools, and moral reforms.
5. Parties still had much in common. Both were “catchall” parties that tried to mobilize as
many voters as possible for their cause. Although Democrats were more humble and
Whigs more prosperous, both parties commanded the support of all kinds of Americans.
6. The Social diversity in each party prevented each party from assuming extreme or radical
positions. The geographical diversity of the 2 parties halted the emergence of purely
sectional political parties. This temporarily suppressed, through compromise, the
ultimately uncompromisable issue of slavery.
7. When the 2-party system began to open in the 1850s, the Union was put into danger.
Chapter 14 Notes
Forging the National Economy
b). Charles Grandison Finney- greatest revival preacher. Devised the "anxious
bench" where repentant sinners could sit in full view of the congregation, encouraged
women to pray aloud, and denounced both alcohol and slavery
6. Feminization of religion
a) middle class women enthusiastic or religious revivalism and made up the
majority of new church members
II. Denominational Diversity
A. Western New York was so blistered by sermonizers preaching "hellfire and damnation"
that it became known as the "Burned-Over
B. Millerites (Adventists)
1. Rose from the Burned-Over region in the 1830s
2. Named after William Miller
3. Interpreted the Bible to mean that Christ would return to Earth on October 22, 1844,
but when Jesus did not descend, their movement was dampened, however, not destroyed
C. Diversity
1. Methodists and Baptists split with northern brethren over slaves
2. 1857- the Presbyterians, North and South, parted company
III. A Desert Zion in Utah
A. Mormons
1. Joseph Smith constituted the Book of Mormon, and the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-Day Saints was launched
2. Disliked because voted as a unit, drilled their militia for defensive purposes, and
were accused of polygamy
3. Moved from Ohio, to Missouri, and then Illinois
4. 1844- Smith and his brother were murdered by a mob
5. Brigham Young stepped up as the Mormon leader and led them to Utah
6. Utah flourished as men married as many as 27 women and had up to 56 children
7. After Young was made territorial governor, a federal army marched against the
Mormons in 1857- quarrel adjusted without too much bloodshed
IV. Free Schools for a Free People
A. Tax-supported public education, though lagging in the South, triumphed between 1825 and
1850
1. Laborers demanded education for their children
B. Schools
1. Teachers, most men, were often ill trained, ill tempered, and ill paid.
2. Usually only taught as much as the three R's: readin', ‘ritin', and ‘rithmetic
C. Horace Mann
1. Secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education
2. Campaigned for more and better schoolhouses, longer school terms, higher pay for
teachers, and an expanded curriculum
I. “Cotton is King!”
A. Cotton Gin
1. Invented by Eli Whitney and introduced in 1793. Because of it, cotton
quickly became the dominant Southern crop. With the increased cotton
cultivation, slave labor was demanded.
2. Northern shippers reaped a portion of the profits. They loaded the bales of
cotton at the Southern ports, transported them to England, sold them, and
bought goods for sale in the U.S.
3. After 1840, cotton accounted for half the value of all American exports. The
South produced more than half the entire world’s supply of cotton. About
75% of Britain’s cotton came from the South.
II. The Planter Aristocracy
A. The gap between rich and poor
1. In 1850, 1,733 families owned more than 100 slaves each. These families
provided political and social leadership for the South. These people enjoyed
a great portion of Southern Wealth.
2. The aristocracy widened the gap between rich and poor. It stressed public
education because the rich planters sent their children to private institutions.
B. Plantation Women
1. The plantation system shaped the lives of Southern women. They
commanded the household staff of mostly female slaves. Virtually none of
the slaveholding women believed in abolition.
III. Slaves of the Slave System
A. “Land Butchery”
1. Cotton was destroying the earth. Quick profits led to “land butchery” which
caused a heavy leakage of population to the West and Northwest.
B. Economy in the South
1. The economy of the South was becoming more and more monopolistic.
Small farmers sold their land to more prosperous neighbors. The rich got
richer and the poor got poorer.
2. The plantation system suffered from financial instability. Many planters felt
the temptation to over speculate in land and slaves.
3. Cotton’s price level was at the mercy of world conditions.
C. North vs. South
1. The North was resented by the South because they were growing at the
South’s expense. The Cotton Kingdom repelled large scale European
immigration (this added to wealth of the North). The South became the most
Anglo-Saxon section of the nation.
IV. The White Majority
A. Slave-owners & Non Slave-owners
1. Only ¼ of white southerners owned slaves or belonged to a slave-owning
family.
2. The smaller slave-owners made up a majority of the masters. They were
generally small farmers who toiled in the fields right next to the slaves.
3. Beneath the slave-owners were the whites who didn’t own any slaves. By
1860 they represented ¾ of all Southern whites. They were red-necked
farmers who raised corn and hogs in the backcountry and the mountain
valleys. They were even scorned by blacks. Many of these farmers suffered
from malnutrition and parasites. Were among the stoutest defenders of the
slave system.
4. The mountain whites were more or less isolated in the valleys of the
Appalachian range. They still lived under Spartan frontier conditions, and
kept some habits that had died out it Britain. They helped cripple the
confederacy. Andrew Jackson was a mountain white.
V. Free Blacks: Slaves Without Masters
A. Unwelcome blacks in the South
1. By 1860, there were about 250,000 free blacks in the South. Free blacks were
either emancipated mulattoes or blacks who had purchased their freedom.
2. The free blacks could only do certain jobs and they weren’t allowed to testify
against whites in court. They were constantly at risk of being taken back into
slavery.
B. Unwelcome blacks in the North
1. Free blacks were even more unwelcome in the North. About 250,000 of them
lived there. They were prohibited from entering some states, most of them
could not vote, and some states forbade blacks from going to public schools.
2. They were hated especially by Irish immigrants because they competed for
the same jobs.
C. Frederick Douglass
1. He was an abolitionist, former slave, and self-educated orator. He was often
mobbed and beaten by Northerners.
VI. Plantation Slavery
A. Slave importation is banned
1. Legal importation of African slaves into America was ended in 1808 by
Congress. Despite this, thousands of blacks were smuggled into the South.
There was a death penalty for slave traders but most were acquitted. N.P.
Gordon was the only slave trader ever executed (New York, 1862).
B. Slaves are investments
1. Slaves were regarded as investments. Since they were so valuable, they were
often spared dangerous work, like putting a roof on a house. A prime field
hand was worth $1,800 by 1860. Great planters profited from slavery, but the
region as a whole did not.
C. Slaves in the Deep South
1. By 1860, the Deep South states: South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi,
Alabama, and Louisiana each had a near majority of blacks, and accounted
for about half of all slaves in the South.
2. Thousands of blacks from the slave states were “sold down the river” to
work as field-gang laborers on the cotton frontier of the lower Mississippi
River valley. Women who bore thirteen babies were good breeders, and
some were promised their freedom after ten babies.
3. Slave auctions were brutal. They were sometimes sold with livestock and
families were separated. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin
focused on these auctions.
VII. Life Under the Lash
A. Slave Rights and Treatment
1. Slaves had no civil or political rights except for protection from arbitrary
murder and unusually cruel punishment. Their marriages were not
recognized.
2. Whips were frequently used on slaves. Breakers were used on strong-willed
slaves. Their technique consisted mostly in lavish whipping. (lash marks hurt
resale values)
B. The Black Belt
1. Most slaves were in the black belt by 1860. It stretched from South Carolina
and Georgia into Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana. Life there was rough
and raw. The lot of the slave was harder here than in other areas.
C. Slaves and Religion
1. Blacks in slavery molded their own distinctive religious forms from
Christian and African elements. They persisted in the “responsorial” style of
preaching-the congregation frequently punctuates the minister’s remarks
with assents and amens.
VIII. The Burdens of Bondage
A. Revenge on the masters
1. Slaves slowed the pace of their work intentionally, stole goods that had been
purchased by their labor, sabotaged expensive equipment, and sometimes
poisoned their master’s food.
B. Slave revolts
1. 1800- a slave named Gabriel in Richmond, Virginia led an armed
insurrection. It was foiled by informers and its leaders were hanged.
2. A free black named Denmark Vesey led a rebellion in Charleston in 1822. It
was also foiled by informers, and Vesey (plus 30 other followers) was
publicly hanged.
3. Nat Turner, a black preacher, led an uprising in 1831. They slaughtered
about 60 Virginians, mostly women and children. Reprisals were swift and
bloody. The counterstrike was swift.
4. White Southerners lived in a state of imagined siege, surrounded by
potentially rebellious blacks.
IX. Early Abolitionism
A. Efforts made
1. Abolitionists wanted to transfer blacks back to Africa. The American
Colonization Society was founded for this in 1917.
2. 1822- The Republic of Liberia was established for former slaves. The capital,
Monrovia, was named after President Monroe. 15,000 free blacks were
transported there over the next 40yrs.
3. 1833- British abolitionists freed slaves in the West Indies. American
abolitionists were inspired by this.
4. Theodore Dwight Weld- merchant brothers, Arthur and Lewis Tappan,
financed Weld’s trip to Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Weld and many others were expelled in 1834 for organizing a debate on
slavery. He and the “Lane rebels” went across the old northwest, preaching
against slavery. Weld put a propaganda pamphlet together called American
Slavery As It Is in 1839.
X. Radical Abolitionism
A. William Lloyd Garrison
1. an abolitionist who on New Year’s Day 1831, published the antislavery
newspaper the Liberator in Boston. With this, Garrison triggered a 30yr. war
of words.
B. The American Anti- Slavery Society
1. Founded by abolitionists after Garrison put out his newspaper. Among them
was Wendell Phillips, a Boston patrician. He would not eat cane sugar or
wear cotton clothing because they were produced by slaves.
C. David Walker
1. Wrote the Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829. This
advocated a bloody end to white supremacy.
D. Sojourner Truth
1. A freed black woman in New York who fought for black emancipation and
women’s rights.
E. Martin Delaney
1. One of the few black leaders to take the notion of mass recolonization of
Africa seriously. In 1859, he visited West Africa’s Niger Valley looking for a
site for relocation.
F. Frederick Douglass
1. he escaped from slavery in 1838, and was discovered by the abolitionists in
1841.
2. In 1845 he published his autobiography, narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass.
XI. The South Lashes Back
A. Virginia legislature debates
1. 1831-1832 the Virginia legislature debated and defeated various
emancipation proposals.
2. After this, all the slave states tightened their slave codes and moved to
prohibit emancipation.
B. Nullification crisis
1. 1832- put fear in the minds of white southerners. They responded by
launching a defense of slavery as a positive defense. They said it was
supported by the bible.
C. Gag resolution
1. 1836- driven through by the south. It required that all antislavery appeals be
tabled without debate. Ex-president John Quincy Adams waged a successful
8 yr. fight for its repeal.
D. Pro slavery
1. In 1835, a mob in Charleston, South Carolina burned a pile of abolitionist
propaganda in a post office. In response to this, the Washington government
ordered that all southern postmasters destroy all abolitionist material.
XII. The Abolitionist Impact in the North
A. The South
1. By the late 1850s, the southern planters owed northern bankers and other
creditors about $300 million.
2. Since the nation’s wealth depended on the slaves and their producing cotton,
the North developed hostilities against the radical antislaveryites.
B. The North
1. In 1834, a gang of men broke into Lewis Tappan’s house in New York and
destroyed his interior.
2. In 1835, Garrison was dragged through the streets of Boston by the
Broadcloth Mob, but escaped.
3. Reverend Elijah P. Lovejoy of Alton, Illinois impugned the chastity of
Catholic women. His printing press was destroyed 4 times. In 1837, he was
killed by a mob. He was then called “the martyr abolitionist.”