Democratic Politics, Religious Revival, and Reform

1
Chapter 10

• Democratic Politics, Religious Revival, and
  Reform
• 1824-1840

2
Introduction

• 1.) How was American politics democratized
  between 1800 and 1840?
• 2.) Why was Andrew Jackson so popular with
  voters?
• 3.) How and why did the Democratic and Whig
  parties emerge?
• 4.) What new assumptions about human nature did
  religious reform leaders of the 1830s make?

3
The Rise of Democratic Politics, 1824-1832

• Introduction
• In 1824, only one political party existed
• Republican
• It was fragmenting
• Pressures produced by the industrialization of
  the Northeast
• The spread of cotton growing in the South
• Westward expansion
• 2 new political parties developed
• Democrats
• Whigs

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Introduction (cont.)

• Democrats
• Retained Jeffersons distrust of strong federal
  government
• Preferred states rights
• Whigs
• Favored an active federal govt.
• Encourage economic development
• Both Democratic and Whig politicians had to adapt
  to the democratic idea of politics as the
  expression of the will of the common man
• Rather than an activity that gentlemen conducted
  for the people

5
Democratic Ferment

• Politics became more democratic
• property qualifications for voting were
  eliminated
• Written ballots replaced voting aloud
• Appointive offices became elective
• Presidential electors were chosen by the people

6
Democratic Ferment (cont.)

• This broadening of suffrage was often brought
  about by competition between Republicans and
  Federalists in the 1790s and early 1800s
• Each party sought to increase its voter base
• Increasing the number of eligible voters in the
  process

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The Election of 1824

• 4 Republicans ran for office
• Each represented a faction of the Republican
  Party
• Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, William
  Crawford, Henry Clay

8
The Election of 1824 (cont.)
9
The Election of 1824 (cont.)

• Jackson received the most popular and electoral
  votes but not a majority
• Therefore, as the Constitution requires, the
  House of Representatives had to choose among the
  three top candidates (Jackson, Adams, Crawford)
• Clay (who was 4th) used his considerable
  influence with Congress to gain the selection of
  Adams

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The Election of 1824 (cont.)

• President Adams in turn appointed Clay as his
  secretary of state
• Jackson supporters charged that a corrupt
  bargain had been made
• That charge hung like a cloud over the Adams
  administration

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The Election of 1824 (cont.)
13
John Quincy Adams as President

• President Adams tried to encourage economic
  growth through federal internal improvement
  projects
• He remained aloof to the political games of the
  age
• His programs suffered a lack of support
• Idealistic view
• Single-term presidency

14
The Rise of Andrew Jackson

• Andrew Jacksons victory over the British in the
  Battle of New Orleans in 1815 made him a popular
  hero
• It was a time of vague but widespread
  discontent with Washington
• In part because of the Panic of 1819

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The Rise of Andrew Jackson (cont.)

• Jacksons position as a political outsider
  endeared him to the public and supporters
• Began to build a strong political organization
• Called themselves the Democratic Party
• Also led by Martin Van Buren
• In 1828
• the Democrats nominated Jackson for president
• Those who remained loyal to Adams called
  themselves National Republicans and renominated
  Adams

16
The election of 1828

• Democrats portrayed Jackson as a man of the
  people (even though he was a wealthy farmer)
• And they portrayed Adams as the aristocrat
• Jackson won the election with the common-man
  appeal
• His victory also showed a clear sectional split
• South and Southwest for Jackson
• New England mostly for Adams

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The election of 1828 (cont.)
18
Jackson in Office

• Spoils system
• Jackson immediately fired 1/2 of the civil
  servants on the federal payroll
• Most in the Northeast
• Replaced them with supporters
• Jackson did not initiate the spoils system
• He defended it and practiced it
• Frequent rotation in office gave more people a
  chance to serve

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Jackson in Office (cont.)

• He also opposed federal support for internal
  improvements
• Maysville Road veto
• Veto of providing federal govt. to build and
  expand state roads
• 1st of 8 vetoes by Jackson on public works
  projects
• Indian Removal Act of 1830
• Southerners liked the Maysville Road veto and the
  Indian Removal Act

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Jackson in Office (cont.)

• Southerners though resented his lack of action
  against the 1828 Tariff of Abominations
• Protected northern manufacturers and western
  farmers from foreign competition
• But raised the price that southerners had to pay
  for finished products

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Nullification

• That tariff issue prepared the way for a break
  between Jackson and his VP John C. Calhoun
• Calhoun was becoming the chief spokesman for the
  southern planter class

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Nullification (cont.)

• Calhoun wrote and circulated the South Carolina
  Exposition and Protest
• In opposition to the Tariff of 1828
• Argued protective tariffs were unconstitutional
• States had the right to nullify federal laws that
  violated the U.S. Constitution

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Nullification (cont.)

• Nov. 1832, South Carolina nullified the Tariff of
  1828 and the Tariff of 1832
• SC forbade the collection of customs duties at
  its ports
• Acted on Calhouns doctrine
• Jackson denounced the states defiance
• threatened to use the army and navy to enforce
  federal laws

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Nullification (cont.)

• Compromise of 1833
• Prevented a military fight between the federal
  govt. and SC
• Proposed by Henry Clay
• SC rescinded it nullification
• Congress passed a new tariff law that gradually
  lowered duties over the next 9 years

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The Bank Veto and the election of 1832

• Jackson disliked all banks and the issuance of
  paper money
• He particularly hated the Second Bank of the
  Untied States
• Controlled the nations credit
• Depository for federal govt. monies
• Run by its private stockholders
• Monied Capitalist
• Little control from the federal govt.
• Jackson regarded it as a privileged monopoly

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The Bank Veto and the election of 1832 (cont.)

• In 1832, Nicholas Biddle (pres. of the Second
  Bank) applied for its recharter
• The recharter bill passed Congress
• Jackson vetoed it
• Denouncing the bank for making the rich richer
  and the potent more powerful

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The Bank Veto and the election of 1832 (cont.)

• 1832 election
• Democrats nominated Jackson and Van Buren for
  president and VP
• National Republicans nominated Henry Clay
• Clay opposed Jacksons record
• Clay advocated instead his American System of
  protective tariffs, recharting of the national
  bank, and federally supported internal
  improvements
• Jackson won easily
• Jackson was ready to complete his destruction of
  the Second Bank

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the election of 1832 (cont.)
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The Bank Controversy and the Second Party System,
1833-1840

• The War on the Bank
• Jackson quickly tried to bankrupt the Second Bank
  by removing govt. deposits
• He distributed them to accounts in
  state-chartered banks
• The pet banks that received the deposits
  extended much more credit and issued many more
  bank notes (paper money)
• They had no restraints on them from the defunct
  national bank

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The War on the Bank (cont.)

• Soon the number of state depositories ballooned
  beyond Jacksons expectations
• This loosening of credit touched off a period of
  headlong economic expansion, reckless
  speculation, and rapid inflation

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The Rise of Whig Opposition

• During Jacksons 2nd term, the National
  Republicans changed their name to Whigs
• Began to attract broader support
• Southerners angry over Jacksons denunciation of
  nullification
• Temperance reformers
• Public-school reformers
• Anti-immigrant and anti-Catholic Protestants
• Followers of the Anti-Masonry movement
• The commercial community of merchants,
  manufactures, and bankers

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The Election of 1836

• Democrats nominated Martin Van Buren
• Whigs ran 4 candidates (unable to agree on a
  single nominee)
• The Democrats claimed the Whigs did this so that
  no man would receive a majority of the electoral
  votes
• Putting the choice into the House of Rep.
• Where one of the Whigs nominees may win
• Van Buren won a clear majority

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The Election of 1836 (cont.)
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The Panic of 1837

• Just as Van Buren was inaugurated, the countrys
  economy went into a serve depression
• Causes were international and national
• Jacksons bank policies had produced a wave of
  speculation and inflation
• In July 1836, Jackson issued the Specie Circular
  that barred the purchase of govt.-owned land with
  anything but gold
• This move burst the speculative bubble
• Contributed to the panic and depression of 1837

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The Panic of 1837 (cont.)

• President Van Buren dealt with the depression by
  divorcing the federal govt. from banking
• Antibank, hard-money stand
• In 1840, he signed the Independent Treasury Bill
• Provided that federal govt. money would be kept
  in its own treasury instead of being deposited in
  banks

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The Election of 1840

• Democrats renominated Van Buren
• Whigs chose William Henry Harrison (hero of
  Tippecanoe) as president and John Tyler as VP
• Whigs used the appeal-to-the-common-man campaign
• Van Buren was unpopular because of the depression
• Harrison won the election

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1840 Election
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The Second Party System Matures

• Between 1836 and 1840, the number of people who
  voted increased by 60
• This rapid increase in voter interest was caused
  by
• Popular campaign techniques
• Strong contrast and competition between rival
  parties
• Controversial issues like tariffs and banking
• All of which characterized the mature second
  party system

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The Rise of Popular Religion

• Introduction
• In the 1820s and 1830s, Americans turned to
  preachers who rejected Calvinist beliefs in
  predestination
• Just as politics was becoming more democratic, so
  was religious doctrine
• The primary message was that any individual could
  be saved through his or her own efforts and faith
• This democratic transformation was produced in
  part by a series of religious revivals known as
  the Second Great Awakening

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The Second Great Awakening

• From New England, the Second Great Awakening
  moved rapidly to frontier areas
• Thousands gathered at religious camp meetings
• These frontier revivals helped to promote law and
  order
• Diminished the violence prevalent in new western
  areas
• The Methodists were the largest, most successful
  denomination on the frontier
• Early 1800s to 1840s

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Eastern Revivals

• By the 1820s, the center of religious revivals
  had moved east again
• It was particularly strong in an area of western
  New York known as the Burned-Over District
• Mostly along Erie Canal

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Eastern Revivals (cont.)

• Charles G. Finney
• Revivalist leader
• Preached humans were capable of living without
  sin
• Humans needed to experience an emotional
  religious conversion

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Critics of Revivals The Unitarians

• In New England, the educated and wealthy were
  often repelled by the emotional excesses of
  revivalism and turned instead to Unitarianism
• This denomination preached that goodness should
  be cultivated by a gradual process of character
  building
• Emulate the life and teachings of Jesus
• Believed humans could shape their own destiny and
  improve their behavior

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The Rise of Mormonism

• Joseph Smith
• Started Mormonism in 1820s
• In the Burned-Over District
• Moved to Nauvoo, IL to start a model city
• Began practice of polygamy
• Prosecuted by authorities and attacked by mobs
  (murdered Smith in 1844)

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The Rise of Mormonism (cont.)

• The hostility that the Mormons encountered from
  others convinced Mormon leaders that they must
  separate themselves from American society
• Brigham Young moved Mormons to the Great Salt
  Lake region in 1846

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The Shakers

• Started by Mother Ann Lee in the U.S.A. in 1774
• Founded separate religious communities
• The Shakers rejected economic individualism and
  tried to withdraw from American society
• They separated men and women
• Banned marriage
• Relied on converts and adoption to keep their
  numbers up
• They pooled their land and tools and labor in the
  process of creating remarkably prosperous villages

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The Age of Reform

• Introduction
• The reform movements were strongest in New
  England and in areas of the Midwest settled by
  New Englanders

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The War on Liquor

• The temperance movement began by preaching
  moderation in the use of liquor
• American Temperance Society
• Movement began to demand total abstinence and
  prohibition laws
• Most members were middle class
• 1840s Washington Temperance Societies attracted
  workers though
• The movement was successful in cutting per capita
  consumption of alcohol in half between the 1820s
  and 1840s

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Public School Reform

• Horace Mann
• Secretary of the MA Board of Education

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Public School Reform (cont.)

• Advocated many educational innovations
• State tax support of schools
• Grouping pupils into classes by age and level of
  competence
• Longer school terms
• Use of standardized textbooks
• Compulsory attendance laws

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Public School Reform (cont.)

• Despite opposition from various groups, many
  northern states adopted these reforms
• Backed by important constituencies
• Businesses
• needed disciplined, literate workers
• Workingmens groups
• Saw education as a road to social mobility
• Reform-minded women
• realized school reform would open teaching
  careers to women
• By 1900, 70 of public school teachers were female

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Abolition

• Opposition to slavery in the 1820s came mostly
  from black Americans
• 1831
• Militant white abolitionist movement began
• Led by William Lloyd Garrison
• The Liberator
• http//www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2928t.html

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Abolition (cont.)

• Most northern whites in the 1830s and 1840s
  were hostile to the abolitionists
• American Anti-Slavery Society
• Founded in 1833
• Suffered from internal quarrels between its
  Garrisonian wing and its New York and western
  wings
• 2 main points of dispute
• Whether to support rights for women as well as
  black
• Whether to take abolitionism into politics

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Abolition (cont.)

• http//www.ohiohistorycentral.org/entry.php?rec83
  2
• http//usa.usembassy.de/etexts/democrac/18.htm

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Womens Rights

• Many of the womens rights leaders began their
  reform careers in the abolitionist movement
• Seneca Falls, NY
• 1848
• Womens rights convention
• Elizabeth Cady Stanton
• Lucretia Mott
• Declaration of Sentiments

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Womens Rights (cont.)

• http//www.nps.gov/archive/wori/declaration.htm
• Launch of the feminist movement
• Women gained a few rights
• They did not get to vote fully until 1920

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Penitentiaries and Asylums

• In the 1820s and 1830s, religious revivalists
  and reformers came to believe that crime,
  poverty, and deviancy were caused by failures of
  parental guidance that could be mended by
  institutions providing the proper discipline and
  environment
• Following that belief, reformers created
  penitentiaries and workhouses for criminals and
  the indigent

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Penitentiaries and Asylums (cont.)

• Dorothea Dix fought for the establishment of
  insane asylums to treat the mentally ill
• These programs were tied to the belief that
  deviancy could be erased by settling the deviants
  in the right environment

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Utopian Communities

• A few reformers founded ideal or utopian
  communities
• Demonstrate ways of life that they thought were
  superior to those prevailing in antebellum
  American
• New Harmony, IN
• Hopedale, MA
• Brook Farm, MA
• Most utopian communities were short lived

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New Harmony, IN
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Conclusion

• In the 1820s and 1830s, politics and religion
  responded increasingly to the common man
• Andrew Jackson represented the common man of
  the enlarged electorate and was swept into the
  presidency
• Jacksons stands on federally financed internal
  improvements, protective tariffs, nullification,
  and the national bank divided citizens
• Led to the rise of the second party system
• Democrats vs. Whigs

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Conclusion (cont.)

• The Panic of 1837, furthered the partisan split
• Reformers offered a variety of proposals to
  unleash the basic goodness of humans and perfect
  society
• Though initially avoiding corrupt politics,
  reformers by the 1840s were starting to enter
  the political arena to advance their particular
  aims