Bridging the Gap

1
Bridging the Gap

• Testing and Defining the New United States,
  1789-1850s

2
Preamble to the US Constitution

• We the people of the United States, in order to
• form a more perfect union,
• establish justice,
• insure domestic tranquility,
• provide for the common defense,
• promote the general welfare,
• and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves
  and our posterity,
• do ordain and establish this Constitution for the
  United States of America.
•  

3
form a more perfect union

• Idea of perfectibility and perfection A city
  upon a hill Puritan society
• Appearance of utopian societies, 1830s-50s in
  reaction to industrialization and urbanization
• Belief in a UNION of states, not a CONFEDERATION
  of states
• Slavery and disunion the Missouri Compromise,
  1820

4
establish justice

• Creation of a Bill of Rights to insure
  protection of the people from its own government
• Civil liberties right to bear arms freedom
  from housing troops criminal rights
• BUT
• Use of federal courts to punish dissent
• Alien Sedition Acts under John Adams, 1790s
•  

5
insure domestic tranquility

• Avoidance of inter-state conflict, especially
  over slavery
• Missouri Compromise, again
• Settlement of inter-state commerce disputes
• Gibbons vs. Ogden court case, 1817
• BUT
• North South disputes over slavery -gt Civil War

6
provide for the common defense

• War of 1812 (against Britain), 1812-1815
• Demilitarization of Great Lakes, 1817

7
promote the general welfare

• Territorial Expansion
• Louisiana purchase, 1803
• Acquisition of Florida from Spain, 1817
• Indian Removal, 1830s
• Invasion of Mexico, 1840s, to obtain
  south-western states
• Treaty with Britain to obtain Oregon (Washington)
• Promotion of transportation (commerce) canals,
  railroads, industrialization

8
secure the blessings of liberty

• Expansion of the Franchise
• Election of Andrew Jackson, the peoples
  choice, 1832
• Popular politics of 1840s
• Economic Freedom
• Protection of contracts
• Industrial Revolution and Lowell Mill Girls

9
secure the blessings of liberty

• Religious Freedom
• 2nd Great Awakening
• Religious utopian societies
• Reform movements schools, insane asylums,
  health (Graham)
• Intellectual Freedom
• Common school systems, literacy, development of a
  reading public
• Transcendentalists
• Nathaniel Hawthorne, Melville, Emily Dickinson
• Abolitionist Movement

10
secure the blessings of liberty

• BUT
• Continuation of Slavery?
• Womens Rights?
• Seneca Falls, 1848