Politics and society in the early nineteenth century

 

Answer the following questions based on the information watched or read.

The answer to each question should be 1-2 pages. Use examples and specifics.

You can answer each question individually or write the responses as one essay.

1. What was the significance of the Louisiana Purchase?
2. How did Jefferson view the future of the American Economy?
3. What was the relevance of John Marshall as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court?
4. What were the Lowell factories and what were their impact on the country?
5. What was the pluses and minuses of the invention of the Cotton Gin?
6. What was the Monroe Doctrine and how did it affect the United States?

resources: 

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/us-history/the-early-republic

Era of Good Feelings

American Nationalist Spirit

·

Begins after Battle of New Orleans

· Includes American System

· Americans see themselves as new chosen people

Patriotic culture

· Fourth of July became popular

· Folk art, songs, verses

· Americanization of language

Inspirational Reading

· Biographies of early patriots exploded

· Mason Weem’s biography of George Washington

· Created a national hero although not all true

· Noah Webster 1783 American Spelling Book

· Created an American language

· Dictionary 1828

· James Fenimore Cooper one of first American writers and used American themes

Henry Clay

· Lawyer, planter, speculator, politician

· Westerner with a national perspective

· Speaker of the House (1810-1821)

· Worked to create compromise

· Most everyone liked him

· Called for internal improvements

· Wanted to create system to bind all sections of nation together

· Make him indispensable man

American System

· Starts with a Bank of the US (BUS)

· Holds government deposits from sell of western lands

· Original BUS had died in 1811

· 1816 another Bank was chartered

· Internal improvements in west help everyone

· Industrials have greater demand for goods

· Westerners have greater demand for food

· Southerners have greater demand for cotton

· Wants to pay with a high tariff

· This was least popular part of the system

Transportation Revolution

· Roads

· Most became impassable in rain

· John McAdam developed an all-weather road

· National Road

· Government funded

· Cumberland, Maryland to Wheeling, Ohio

· Made Henry Clay popular with many small farmers

Erie Canal

· Slashed transportation costs

· Paid for by New York state

· Hudson River to Lake Erie

· Expensive

but paid for itself in first year

· Navigators guided flatboats

· Pulled by mules

· Erie Canal success leads to canal building boom

· Mainline canal in Pennsylvania

· Over 4,000 miles of canals

· Economic bust left states with debts from public projects

River traffic

· Old man river – Mississippi River

· Drained central U.S.

· But hard to bring cargo upriver

· Queens of the Mississippi

· Flat bottomed steamboats

· 1807 Robert Fulton’s Clermont

· Built a paddle wheeler for Mississippi

· Paddleboat operations grew

· Frequent boiler explosions

· Very shallow drafts were needed

·

Early Railroads

· 1825 first railroads

· Could be built more places, cheaper to operate and hardly ever stopped running
1827 first two U.S. railroads

· Built by mining companies

· Other railroads built by entrepreneurs

· Could be expensive to build

· Best for long hauls

· Baltimore & Ohio RR

James Monroe

· Virginia disciple of Jefferson

· Good diplomat and administrator

· Presided during political calm

· Federalists rapidly dying out

· Monroe easily wins in 1816

· Monroe faces no opposition in 1820

· “Era of good feeling”

Politics of Calm

· Little interest in national politics

· People focus on expansion, economics

· Secretary of State John Quincy Adams

· Monroe, Adams focus on foreign affairs

Foreign Affairs

· Oregon

· Rush Bagot Agreement 1817

· Demilitarized Great Lakes

· Set boundary between Canada-US at 49th parallel

· Join occupation of Oregon Territory

Florida

· Spain losing New World empire

· Jackson invades Florida

· Jackson ignores Spanish authority

· Adams buys Florida in Adams-Oñis Treaty

· Pays $5 million

· Set western boundary

Monroe Doctrine

· J. Quincy Adams main author

· U.S. would not intervene in Europe

· Ends colonization in Western Hemisphere

· U.S. not intervene in existing colonies

· European intervention deemed act of war

Why the Monroe Doctrine?

· Spain wants to regain colonies

· Britain wants them independent for trade

· Britain wants alliance with U.S.

· U.S. decides to act alone

Missouri

Missouri Crisis

· 11 slave states, 11 free states

· Missouri asks to become a state

· Proposal made to require abolition in Missouri

· South wants to keep balance of states

Missouri Compromise

· Brainchild of Henry Clay

· Missouri slave; Maine free

· No slavery in rest of Louisiana Purchase north of 36º 30’

· Congress admit states in pairs for 30 years

2nd Missouri Compromise

· State prohibited free blacks from emigrating in

· Violates U.S. Constitution

· Clay convinced Missouri to state did not override Constitution

Industrial Revolution

· Most people live on farms

· Produce goods and food themselves

· Purchase very little

· Small businesses

· Mechanization changes lifestyles

Industrialization

Textiles

· Basic necessity

· Time-consuming and difficult to make

· Expensive

· Most people had few clothes

How cloth was made

· Wool was king in Britain

· Sheep sheared

· Wool cleaned

· Wood was carded or combed

· Spin into yarn

· Yarn woven on looms into cloth

· Woolens versus cotton

· Woolen interests were powerful

· Imported cotton cloth from India competed

Individuals contract with cloth dealer

· Produce at home; work at own pace

· Does not alter social structure

England develops textile machines

· Produces cloth at fraction of cost

· Britain enjoys monopoly

· Cloth better than homespun

· Cloth cheaper than homespun

Machines

· Spinning jenny

Richard Arkwright’s water frame in 1768

· Increased volume of spun thread

· Powered by water

· Changes production as ends cottage industry

· Creates factories where workers come to work

Textile factories

· Machines need power

· Use water, later steam

· Creates need for factories

· Creates industrial working class

U.S. capital for industry

· Northeast merchants, shippers invest

· Convert wealth from ships into mills

· Encouraged by trade restraints during Napoleonic Wars

· Americans quickly industrialize

Inventors

· Oliver Evans: continuous-operation flour mill

· Eli Whitney: interchangeable parts

· Inventors become heroes

· U.S. offers technical education

First Factory Workers

First workers were children

· Cheap

· Climbed onto textile machines

Then Fall River used whole families

· But failed

· Turned to women and children

Lowell Girls

· Francis Cabot Lowell

· Hires young daughters of farmers

· Provides room, board, enrichment activities

· Girls save for dowry

· Most laborers women and children

· But over time became less paternalistic

John C. Calhoun

· “War Hawk” early in career

· First pushes for Southern industry

· Becomes defender of South

· Defends plantation system, slavery

Slavery declining in 1788

· Northern states abolishing slavery

· Southerners apologetic about slavery

· Tobacco production falling

· Congress outlaws importation of Africans

Revival of Slavery in the South

· Cotton gin revives one-crop economy

· Fertile “Old Southwest” ready to settle

· Rapid growth in southern territories

· Slaves now in big demand

Cotton Gin

· South can only grow short staple cotton

· Separating seeds too labor intensive

· Eli Whitney invents cotton gin and interchangeable parts

· Growing cotton now profitable

Western Population Explosion

· Land cheap and plentiful

· Lands equal opportunity

· Mississippi River no longer frontier

· People seem to have no roots

Population

· By 1820, Alabama at 75,000

· States north of Ohio River grew even faster

People who moved west

· Americans free to move around

· Some anti-social

· Some want to build better life

· Some are developers

· Some are town boosters

Cities in West

· Often develop around military fort

· Sometimes develop on rivers

· Cities include industry

Federal Land Policy

Rapid development leads to speculation

· Speculators hope to buy land cheap and sell it higher

· Some responsible developers

Land policy

· 1790s: must buy tracts of 640 acres

· 1800: can buy 320 acres at $2 acre and on credit

· Land Act of 1804 favors small farmers

· Land Act also favors speculators

Leads to wild speculation

· Drives up cost of land

· Paid for with paper money

· inflation

Panic of 1819

· Bank of U.S. calls in loans to wildcat banks

· Wildcat banks call in loans to speculators

· Speculators cannot pay, banks close

· Closed banks trigger Panic of 1819