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Andrew Jackson and Jacksonian Democracy

Andrew Jackson, the dominant political figure of the mid 1800s who was elected President 1829, helped institute the national political nominating convention; defended the spoils system; opened millions of acres of Indian lands to white settlement; and vetoed the re-charter of the second Bank of the United States.  When South Carolina asserted the right of a state to nullify the federal tariff, Jackson made it clear that he would not tolerate any attempt to resist federal authority.

Jacksonian Democracy showed its face on inauguration day when crowds of celebrating supporters stormed the White House. Muddy boots trampled the fine carpeting, crystal and china were shattered, and all the food and drink were quickly consumed. Disapproving National Republicans spoke fearfully about the accession of “King Mob.”

Many inauguration-day revelers were in Washington hoping to find government jobs. The term “spoils system” refers to the assignment of political office on people based upon political concerns rather than fitness for office. Viewed in its best light, it was a further expression of increased democratization in American politics—one need not be a member of the elite in order to govern.

Upon assuming office, Jackson was intent upon punishing his opponents and ridding the government of the services of those who represented the financial interests of New England. Martin Van Buren was named secretary of state and John H. Eaton as secretary of war; both were strong political allies of the president.

During his two administrations, Jackson replaced less than twenty percent of federal office holders. That percentage was in line with his predecessors, but differed in that Jackson's dismissals were clearly more politically motivated.

A Jackson supporter, Sen. William L. Marcy, was responsible for providing a name for this practice when he declared, “To the victor belong the spoils.”

The spoils system remained an important part of the political landscape until the civil service reforms toward the end of the century.

In actual practice, Jackson often avoided drawing upon the wisdom of his formal cabinet officials, preferring to confer frequently with an informal group of friends dubbed the “kitchen cabinet.”

“Ours is a country, where men start from a humble origin, and from small beginnings rise gradually in the world, as the reward of merit and industry, and where they attain to the most elevated positions, or acquire a large amount of wealth, according to the pursuits they elect for themselves. No exclusive privileges of birth, no entailment of estates, no civil or political disqualifications, stand in their path; but one has as good a chance as another, according to his talents, prudence, and personal exertions. This is a country of self-made men, than which nothing better could be said of any state of society.”

- Calvin Colton, a Whig

Indian Removal Act

On May 26, 1830, the Indian Removal Act of 1830 was passed by the Twenty-First Congress of the United States of America. After four months of strong debate, Andrew Jackson signed the bill into law. Land greed was a big reason for the federal government's position on Indian removal. This desire for Indian lands was also encouraged by the Indian hating mentality that was peculiar to some American frontiersman.

This period of forcible removal first started with the Cherokee Indians in the state of Georgia. In 1802, the Georgia legislature signed a compact giving the federal government all of her claims to western lands in exchange for the government's pledge to extinguish all Indian titles to land within the state. But by the mid-1820's Georgians began to doubt that the government would withhold its part of the bargain. The Cherokee Indian tribes had a substantial part of land in Georgia that they had had for many generations though. They were worried about losing their land so they forced the issue by adopting a written constitution. This document proclaimed that the Cherokee nation had complete jurisdiction over its own territory.

But by now Indian removal had become entwined with the state of Georgia's rights and the Cherokee tribes had to make their claims in court. When the Cherokee nation sought aid from newly elected president Andrew Jackson, he informed them that he would not interfere with the lawful prerogatives of the state of Georgia. Jackson saw the solution of the problem with the removal of the Cherokee tribes to lands west. This would keep contact between Indians and colonists rare. He suggested that laws be past so that the Indians would have to move west of the Mississippi river.

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Questions:

1. Who was Andrew Jackson?

2. What was the Spoils System?

3. According to the quote from Calvin Colton, who can hold public office?

4. When was the Indian Removal Act passed?

5. In what state did forcible Indian Removal begin?

6. Looking at the map, where did were most Indians relocated to?

2. The Trail of Tears

The term "Trails of Tears" was given to the period of ten years in which over 70,000 Indians had to give up their homes and move to certain areas assigned to tribes in Oklahoma. The tribes were given a right to all of Oklahoma except the Panhandle. The government promised this land to them "as long as grass shall grow and rivers run." Unfortunately, the land that they were given only lasted until about 1906 and then they were forced to move to other reservations.

The Trails of Tears were several trails that the Indian tribes traveled on their way to their new lands. Many Indians died along the way because of famine or disease. Sometimes a person would die because of the harsh living conditions. The tribes had to walk all day long and got very little rest. All this was in order to free more land for white settlers. The period of forcible removal started when Andrew Jackson became President in 1829. At that time there, reports of gold sightings in the Cherokee territory in Georgia caused prospectors to rush in, tear down fences and destroy crops. 

When President Jackson began to negotiate with the Indians, he gave them a guarantee of permanent independence in the West as the strongest incentive to relocate.

Besides the land that the tribes obtained, they also received a large sum of money from the sale of their Eastern territories. This money was a considerable part of the revenue for the tribes and was used by their legislatures for the support of schools and their governments.

Quote:

"It gives me great pleasure to announce to Congress that the benevolent policy of the government, steady pursued for nearly thirty years, in relation with the removal of the Indians beyond the white settlements is approaching to a happy consummation." - Andrew Jackson, 1830

"[Relocation] will separate the Indians from immediate contact with settlements of whites; enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions; will retard the progress of decay, which is lessening their numbers, and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the government and through the influences of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community."

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Questions:

1. What was the Trail of Tears?

2. What was life like for Indians traveling along the Trail of Tears?

3. Who issued the Indian Removal Act of 1830?

4. What were Indians given in exchange for their land in the South?

5. Why did some Americans, like Andrew Jackson, believe the Indians should be relocated?

3. Abolitionism

From the beginning of America’s fight for freedom, slavery caused division, especially between the North and South. Abolition, or the end of slavery, was a topic of debate between George Washington and Marquis de Lafayette. The young Lafayette questioned how a man of George Washington’s integrity could also be the owner of slaves.

A religious revival called the Second Great Awakening occurred in the 1820s. That became a spark for a major abolitionist movement that grew more intense in the 1830s. In 1831, William Lloyd Garrison began to publish the Liberator from Boston. Many others papered the North with antislavery legislature. The American Anti-Slavery Society, formed in 1833, denounced slavery as a sin and was instrumental in the movement to abolish slavery. In addition, speakers such as Frederick Douglass, Wendell Phillips, and Lucy Stone helped further the cause in the North. Abolitionists also helped the enslaved after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1850. However, it was not until after the Civil War that slavery was abolished, with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.

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Frederick Douglass was born in a slave cabin, in February, 1818, near the town of Easton, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Separated from his mother when only a few weeks old he was raised by his grandparents. At about the age of six, his grandmother took him to the plantation of his master and left him there. Not being told by her that she was going to leave him, Douglass never recovered from the betrayal of the abandonment. When he was about eight he was sent to Baltimore to live as a houseboy with Hugh and Sophia Auld, relatives of his master. It was shortly after his arrival that his new mistress taught him the alphabet. When her husband forbade her to continue her instruction, because it was unlawful to teach slaves how to read, Frederick took it upon himself to learn. He made the neighborhood boys his teachers, by giving away his food in exchange for lessons in reading and writing. At about the age of twelve or thirteen Douglass purchased a copy of The Columbian Orator, a popular schoolbook of the time, which helped him to gain an understanding and appreciation of the power of the spoken and the written word, as two of the most effective means by which to bring about permanent, positive change.

Returning to the Eastern Shore, at approximately the age of fifteen, Douglass became a field hand, and experienced most of the horrifying conditions that plagued slaves during the 270 years of legalized slavery in America. But it was during this time that he had an encounter with the slavebreaker Edward Covey. Their fight ended in a draw, but the victory was Douglass', as his challenge to the slavebreaker restored his sense of self-worth. After an aborted escape attempt when he was about eighteen, he was sent back to Baltimore to live with the Auld family, and in early September, 1838, at the age of twenty, Douglass succeeded in escaping from slavery by impersonating a sailor.

He went first to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he and his new wife Anna Murray began to raise a family. Whenever he could he attended abolitionist meetings, and, in October, 1841, after attending an anti-slavery convention on Nantucket Island, Douglass became a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and a colleague of William Lloyd Garrison. This work led him into public speaking and writing. He published his own newspaper, The North Star, participated in the first women's rights convention at Seneca Falls, in 1848, and wrote three autobiographies. He was internationally recognized as an uncompromising abolitionist, indefatigable worker for justice and equal opportunity, and an unyielding defender of women's rights. He became a trusted advisor to Abraham Lincoln, United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, Recorder of Deeds for Washington, D.C., and Minister-General to the Republic of Haiti.

Questions:

1. Define Abolition.

2. What was the spark for the major Abolitionist Movement that began in the 1830s? Why do you think this event was important in starting the push for the end of American slavery? (Hint: think about the purpose of a religious revival)

3. Who was Frederick Douglass?

4. Temperance

A temperance movement attempts to reduce the amount of alcohol consumed within a community or society in general -- and even to prohibit its production and consumption entirely.

Between 1830 and 1840, most American temperance organizations began to argue that the only way to prevent drunkenness was to eliminate the consumption of alcohol. The Temperance Society became the Abstinence Society. The Independent Order of Good Templars, the Sons of Temperance, the Templars of Honor and Temperance, the Anti-Saloon League, the National Prohibition Party and other groups were formed and grew rapidly. With the passage of time, the temperance societies became more and more extreme in the measures they championed.

While it began by advocating the temperate or moderate use of alcohol, the movement now insisted that no one should be permitted to drink any alcohol in any quantity. It did so with religious fervor and increasing convictions. Many people, especially women, felt that the excessive use of alcohol was partly to blame for family violence, crime and poverty. By the 1850s, approximately twelve states had passed Prohibition laws. By 1917, when the United States entered World War I, most Americans favored Prohibition. By 1919, Congress passed the Volstead Act and then ratified the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which prohibited people from manufacturing, selling, transporting, and importing or exporting “intoxicating liquors.” The Eighteenth Amendment was overturned by the Twenty-first Amendment, which ended national Prohibition. The last state to repeal its own Prohibition law was Mississippi, in 1966.

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Questions:

1. What is temperance?

2. Why did many Americans, especially women, want to ban alcohol?

3. What Amendment prohibited people from manufacturing, selling, transporting, and importing or exporting “intoxicating liquors.”

4. What did the 21st Amendment do?

5. Horace Mann and Education Reform

Horace Mann was a 19th Century reformer who believed in temperance, abolition, women’s rights, and reform of mental health institutions. His particular focus, however was public education. Horace Mann was largely responsible for public schools as we know them today.

Mann created public schools that were state funded and mandatory. He believed that too much local control of the schools meant unsatisfactory education, especially in rural areas. Mann also helped establish the first state-run teacher training school

Some Achievements of Horace Mann, nicknamed “father of the American public school”:

a. Campaigned for Education. Realizing the need for public support and public awareness of the educational problems of poor teaching, substandard materials, inferior school committees and pupil absences, Mann campaigned throughout the State. This campaign was eminently successful. The schools were improved everywhere in the State.

b. Established Schools For Teacher Training. The first Normal School for Teachers was established in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1839 through the efforts of Mann.

c. Established School District Libraries. Horace Mann improved education by advocating successfully the establishment of free libraries.

d. Won Financial Backing for Public Education. Mann knew the importance of money in making educational progress. Through his efforts, the wages of teachers were more than doubled, supervision of teaching improved with compensated school committees, fifty new secondary schools were built, State aid to education doubled, and textbooks and educational equipment improved.

e. Extended His Influence Beyond Massachusetts. Horace Mann edited the "Common School Journal" and wrote twelve Annual Reports which became famous. Some important Annual Reports were;

 

(1) Fifth Annual Report (1841). Mann argued successfully that economic wealth would increase through an educated public. It was therefore in the self-interest of business to pay the taxation for public education.

(2) Seventh Annual Report (1843). Horace Mann inspected and appraised favorably the Prussian school system. This report led to widespread improvement .of education through the educational theories of Pestalozzi, Herbart and eventually Froebel.

(3) Tenth Annual Report (1846). Mann asserted that education was a natural right for every child. It is a necessary responsibility of the State to insure that education was provided for every child. This report led to the adoption of the first State law requiring compulsory attendance in school in 1852.

(4) Twelfth Annual Report (1848). He presented a rationale for the support of public education through taxation. Society improves as a result of an educated public. He argued for non-sectarian schools, so the taxpayer would not be in the position of supporting any established religion with which he might disagree in conscience.

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A Normal School: established by Horace Mann as schools

where teachers were trained

Questions:

1. Who was Horace Mann?

2. What was Horace Mann’s nickname?

3. List some achievements of Horace Mann and educational reform.

4. Why do you think we learn about Horace Mann in school today?

6. Women’s Suffrage: the Seneca Falls Convention

The seed for the first Woman's Rights Convention was planted in 1840, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton met Lucretia Mott at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, the conference that refused to seat Mott and other women delegates from America because of their sex. Stanton, the young bride of an antislavery agent, and Mott, a Quaker preacher and veteran of reform, talked then of calling a convention to address the condition of women. Eight years later, it came about as a spontaneous event.

In July 1848, Mott was visiting her sister, Martha C. Wright, in Waterloo, New York. Stanton, now the restless mother of three small sons, was living in nearby Seneca Falls. A social visit brought together Mott, Stanton, Wright, Mary Ann McClintock, and Jane Hunt. All except Stanton were Quakers, a sect that afforded women some measure of equality, and all five were well acquainted with antislavery and temperance meetings. The time had come, Stanton argued, for women's wrongs to be laid before the public, and women themselves must shoulder the responsibility. Before the afternoon was out, the women decided on a call for a convention "to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman."

To Stanton fell the task of drawing up the Declaration of Sentiments that would define the meeting. Taking the Declaration of Independence as her guide, Stanton submitted that "all men and women had been created equal" and went on to list eighteen "injuries and usurpations" -the same number of charges leveled against the King of England-"on the part of man toward woman."

The convention, to take place in five days' time, on July 19 and 20 at the Wesleyan Methodist Church in Seneca Falls, was publicized only by a small, unsigned notice placed in the Seneca County Courier. "The convention will not be so large as it otherwise might be, owing to the busy time with the farmers," Mott told Stanton, "but it will be a beginning."

Stanton, thirty-two years old at the time of the Seneca Falls Convention, grew gray in the cause. In 1851, she met temperance worker Susan B. Anthony, and shortly the two would be joined in the long struggle to secure the vote for women. When national victory came in 1920, seventy-two years after the first organized demand in 1848, only one signer of the Seneca Falls Declaration, Charlotte Woodward, a young worker in a glove manufactory -had lived long enough to cast her ballot.

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Questions:

1. Who was Elizabeth Cady Stanton? Why is she important to the history of the United States?

2. Why did Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organize the Seneca Falls Convention?

3. What did the Seneca Falls Convention accomplish?

4. List some of the complaints women made in the Declaration of Sentiments.

5. When did women gain the right to vote?

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