The ideology of Republicanism spurred a series of land policies during the first half of the 19th century. Republicanism was based on the spread of virtue, and this belief caused the federal government to search for ways to extend virtue to as many people as possible. The solution it devised was the sale of the newly acquired lands in the West. Since owning land equated virtue, selling as much land as possible to as many people as possible as quickly as possible would be an efficient spread of virtue. The Land Act of 1820 is one of the federal land policies used to achieve this spread of virtue. Passed on March 9, 1820 in response to the War of 1812, the act reduced the price of land from $2 per acre to $1.25 per acre. The minimum purchase was also reduced to 80 acres.1 It also eliminated the credit system to prevent the federal government from having to pay for losses from unprofitable lands.2 In addition, it stipulated that lands that were not paid for would go back up for public sale.3 As a result of the elimination of the credit system, many settlers could not afford to buy land. This led to the growing problem of squatters—individuals who had no title to the land but resided on it anyway.4 Measures would be taken to remedy this growing problem through the Land Acts of 1830 and 1841. The act was an important stepping stone between expediting land sales and the new policies of 1830 and 1841.
1812: War of 1812 1800: Land Act of 1800 1830: Land Act of 1830 1841: Land Act 1841
1 Paul Finkelman, ed., Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century, s.v. "Federal Land Policy," (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001), 458.
2 Ralph Berens, ed., Chronicle of America, (Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publishers), 271.
3 James Monroe, "An Act making further provision for the sale of Public Lands," The National Register, 29 April 1820; 9, 18, APS Online.
4 Finkelman, ed., Encyclopedia, 458-459.
As the United States expanded, southern politicians became greatly concerned with making sure that the representation of slave states in Congress remained equal with that of free states. One of the first states to cause a serious debate over this issue was Missouri. The solution to the Missouri problem was the famous Missouri Compromise, passed on March 15, 1820. Henry Clay, then Speaker of the House and a slave owner himself, stated that Maine would not be allowed to become a state unless Missouri entered as a slave state.1 Illinois senator Jesse B. Thomas devised the compromise in February 1820. Under the compromise, Missouri entered as a slave state, Maine entered as a free state, and slavery was prohibited in new states above the 36˚30’ line.2 The House and Senate debated about which version of the compromise would be accepted. Ultimately, the Senate version won out. The House then voted 90 to 87 to make Missouri a slave state and 134 to 42 to make the Louisiana Territory free.3
1820: Maine becomes 23rd state 1821: Missouri becomes 24th state 1822: Denmark Vesey conspiracy 1850: Compromise of 1850 1854: Kansas-Nebraska Act
1 Paul Finkelman, ed., Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century, s.v. "Missouri Compromise," (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001), 352.
2 Ibid.
3 Library of Congress, "Missouri Compromise," http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Missouri.html#American [accessed 20 November 2006].
4 Finkelman, 353.
"Compromise on the 'Missouri Question,' Niles' Weekly Register (1814-1837), 26 February 1820; 17, 442, APS Online.
In 1820, Maine became the 23rd state in the Union. Its fight for statehood had been long fought. Maine had been a part of Massachusetts since the 1650s. An independence movement began in 1800.1 The movement was led by William King, John Holmes, and William Pitt Preble. These men were Jefferson Republicans who were angered by absentee landowners, most of whom were Federalists from Massachusetts.2 Chief among the causes for the fight for separation was the fact that the government in Boston did not share the same concerns as the citizens of Maine. It did not sympathize with their requests for internal improvements and low tariffs.3 The vote for independence occurred in 1819, but the issue of statehood became part of a larger problem—that of Missouri.4 Southern politicians became increasingly concerned with maintaining a balance of slave and free states in Congress. Because of this concern, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820. Maine became a state through this act. Maine entered as a free state in 1820, and Missouri followed in 1821 as a slave state. Congressmen debated about determining Maine’s representation. They discussed the constitutionality of subtracting representatives from Massachusetts to represent the new state. Ultimately, the decision was left up to Massachusetts and Maine.5 The timing of Maine’s vote for statehood is crucial. It was a perfectly timed solution to a hotly debated problem. The need for a free state to balance Missouri’s slave status was an advantage in Maine request for admission.
1820: Missouri Compromise 1821: Missouri becomes 24th state 1822: Denmark Vesey Conspiracy
1 Paul Finkelman, ed., Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century, s.v. "Maine," (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001), 247.
2 Ibid.
3 James Truslow Adams and Coleman, R.V., eds., Dictionary of American History, Vol. III, s.v. "Maine," (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940), 326.
4 Finkelman, Encyclopedia, 248.
5 "Admission of Maine to the Union," The National Register, 22 January 1820, p. 9, 4, APS Online.
In 1820, Maine became the 23rd state in the Union. Its fight for statehood had been long fought. Maine had been a part of Massachusetts since the 1650s. An independence movement began in 1800.1 The movement was led by William King, John Holmes, and William Pitt Preble. These men were Jefferson Republicans who were angered by absentee landowners, most of whom were Federalists from Massachusetts.2 Chief among the causes for the fight for separation was the fact that the government in Boston did not share the same concerns as the citizens of Maine. It did not sympathize with their requests for internal improvements and low tariffs.3 The vote for independence occurred in 1819, but the issue of statehood became part of a larger problem—that of Missouri.4 Southern politicians became increasingly concerned with maintaining a balance of slave and free states in Congress. Because of this concern, the Missouri Compromise was passed in 1820. Maine became a state through this act. Maine entered as a free state in 1820, and Missouri followed in 1821 as a slave state. Congressmen debated about determining Maine’s representation. They discussed the constitutionality of subtracting representatives from Massachusetts to represent the new state. Ultimately, the decision was left up to Massachusetts and Maine.5 The timing of Maine’s vote for statehood is crucial. It was a perfectly timed solution to a hotly debated problem. The need for a free state to balance Missouri’s slave status was an advantage in Maine request for admission.
1820: Missouri Compromise 1821: Missouri becomes 24th state 1822: Denmark Vesey Conspiracy
1 Paul Finkelman, ed., Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century, s.v. "Maine," (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001), 247.
2 Ibid.
3 James Truslow Adams and Coleman, R.V., eds., Dictionary of American History, Vol. III, s.v. "Maine," (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940), 326.
4 Finkelman, Encyclopedia, 248.
5 "Admission of Maine to the Union," The National Register, 22 January 1820, p. 9, 4, APS Online.
Joseph Smith Jr. was born in Vermont in 1805. He and his family moved to Palmyra, New York in 1816 and lived amidst the religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening.1 Smith was conflicted about religion throughout his teens. In the spring of 1820 (sometime around April), Smith, then fourteen years old, experienced a vision while praying.2 In his vision, he was forgiven of his sins and told not to join any other churches and to await further instructions. Between 1823 and 1827, Smith was visited by Moroni, an angel. It was Moroni who told Smith where to find the golden plates that contained what was to become the Book of Mormon.3 Smith founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on April 6, 1830. Eventually, Smith and his followers began to travel in search of a permanent settlement. One place they tried to settle was Missouri. They were not, however, welcomed with open arms. The governor of Missouri, Lilburn Boggs, ordered them "to leave the state or face expulsion," inciting the Mormon War of 1838-1839.4 Smith surrendered, and was sent to jail along with other leaders, paving the way for Brigham Young to take over leadership duties.5 They eventually settled in Utah.
1830: Publication of the Book of Mormon 1844: Joseph Smith murdered 1847: Salt Lake City settled
1 Paul Finkelman, ed., Encyclopedia of the United States in the nineteenth century, s.v. "Mormonism," (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2001), 363.
2 Ibid.
3 Ibid, 364.
4 Malcolm J. Rohrbough and Nash, Gary B., eds., Encyclopedia of American History: Expansion and Reform 1813 to 1855, Vol IV, s.v. "Smith, Joseph, Jr.," (New York: Facts on File, 2003), 323.
5 Ibid.
"Mormonism," Christian Advocate and Journal and Zion's Herald, 22 March 1833; 7, 30 APS Online.
The treaty of Doak’s Stand, signed on October 18, 1820, was a treaty concerning the removal of the Choctaw from Mississippi. Inspired by pro-removal letters, Jackson and Calhoun sought to obtain Choctaw lands in Mississippi and relocate the tribe to the Arkansas Territory.1 The treaty was negotiated by, among others, Andrew Jackson, General Thomas Hinds, and Choctaw chiefs Mushulatubbee and Pushmataha at a tavern owned by Josiah Doak.2 The treaty outlined the new borders between the Choctaw and the United States. In addition, it provided that each Choctaw warrior that left be given "a blanket, kettle, rifle gun, bullet moulds and nippers, and ammunition sufficient for hunting and defence, for one year."3 It also reflected the ideology of Republicanism. The treaty stated that the newly defined borders would remain in effect until the Choctaw were deemed civilized enough to become United States citizens.4 Accordingly, it outlined provisions for selling land to the Choctaw to be used for schools.
This important removal treaty is typically overlooked in favor of the court cases involving the Cherokee. Perhaps this occurs because the issue of removal was much more contested by the Cherokee than the Choctaw. Regardless, the Treaty of Doak’s Stand is an important milestone in the process of Indian removal and an overlooked precursor to the Trail of Tears.
The treaty was the result of a pro-removal government and a growing desire to expand westward. The Choctaw chiefs were eager to sign the treaty, making them a likely candidate for removal.
1830: Indian Removal Act 1831: Cherokee Nation v. Georgia 1832: Worchester v. Georgia 1836: Treaty of New Echota 1838: Trail of Tears
1 James Masterson Brown, Searching for the Bright Path: The Mississippi Choctaws from Prehistory to Removal, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 89.
2 Ibid, 90.
3 Clive Parry, LL.D., ed., The Consolidated Treaty Series, Vol. LXXI: 1820-1821, (Dobbs Ferry, New York: Oceana Publications, Inc., 1969), 271.
4 Brown, Searching, 90.
In 1821 Denmark Vesey began organizing a large-scale insurrection of slaves and free blacks in and around Charleston, South Carolina. Forty years earlier a fourteen-year-old Vesey was bought in St. Thomas by a slave trader named Captain Joseph Vesey. His epilepsy made him unfit for plantation work so he became the captain’s personal servant. He remained a slave until 1800 when he won a lottery and bought his freedom. With the remainder of his winnings he set up a carpentry shop and became a successful and respected free blackman in Charleston. Having been the personal servant of a slave trader Vesey was well acquainted with the horrors of slavery. As a minister of a black Methodist Church in Charleston, Denmark began preaching against slavery. Whites closed the church in 1820. In 1821 Vesey’s home on Bull Street became a meeting place where plans were made for a large-scale revolt involving upwards of 9000 slaves.
1822: Denmark Vesey Plot Uncovered, 1831: Nat Turner Rebellion
Richard L. Paquette, “Jacobins of the Lowcountry: The Vessey Plot on Trial” (The William and Mary Quarterly 59, no. 1 January 2002, accessed 3 November 2006); available from http://www.historycooperative.org/cgi-bin/justtop.cgi?act=justtop&url=http://www.hitorycooperative.org/journals/wm/59; Internet.
Robert Starobin, Denmark Vesey: Slave Conspiracy of 1822 (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall), 1970.
In 1815 African American Paul Cuffee helped a group of African American freed slaves return to Sierra Leone in Western Africa. This small but successful venture led white leaders to form the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1817. In 1820 and in 1821 the ACS sent its first groups of freed slaves to Sherbro Isiland in Sierra Leone. The area was swampy and many colonists died from disease. Realizing that the colony must be moved the ACS sent Dr. Eli Ayres along with U.S. Naval Lieutenant Robert Stockton to purchase new land around Cape Mesurado north of Sierra Leone. In 1821 a tract of land 36 miles long by 3 miles wide was acquired from local chiefs for what amounted to $300 worth of goods. The remnants of the Sherbro Island colony moved here and started the settlement Christopolis which was later renamed Monrovia. The colonization of early Liberia was a Christian venture as can be seen in this quote from an evangelist colonizer, “Yea, may your colony grow and blossom like a garden of God, and continue to prove a useful instrument in the hand of Providence, to beat the path for the kingdom of our adorable Redeemer, amongst the benighted and wretched population of Africa.” 1 The entire area was named Liberia. Later that decade more and more Southern States started their own colonization societies in an attempt to reduce their population of freed slaves.
1
THEOPHILUS BLUMHARDT, "Letter from the Rev. Dr. Blumhardt," African Repository and Colonial Journal (1825-1849), Washington: Feb 1828. Vol. 3, Iss. 12; pg. 361, 4 pgs, 4. [1] (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=429809571&sid=8&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP)
1831: Nat Turner Rebellion , 1841: Amistad Decision , 1841: Anti-Slavery Lecture Frederick Douglass , 1845: Frederick Douglass Publishes his Autobiography
J. ASHMUN, "Concise History; Of Establishments recently made by the Colonial Government of Liberia, on the Coast of Africa," African Repository and Colonial Journal (1825-1849), Washington: Jul 1827. Vol.3, Iss. 5; pg. 143, 7 pgs, 1-7. [2] (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=429808651&sid=8&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP)
Elwood D. Dunn, Historical Dictionary of Liberia (Metuchen: Scarecrow Press, 1985)
J. Gus Liebenow, Liberia: the Quest for Democracy (Bloomington: Indian University Press, 1987), 1-30.
Alex S. Wadsworth, “Captain Wadsworth’s Letter” [letter on-line] (1820, accessed 6 November 2006); available from http://memory.loc.gov./cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/murray:@field (DOC…; Internet.
In February, 1819 the Adams-Onis Treaty was agreed to in Washington D.C. The Adams-Onis Treaty gave control of Florida to the U.S. and established a boundary between U.S. land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase and Spanish lands in Texas. U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and foreign minister Luis de Onis foreign Minister of Spain negotiated the Treaty. The United States received very favorable terms in this treaty because Spain realized that it did not have the resources to maintain its control of Florida and was going to lose control of it anyway. In 1818 this reality was made evident when Andrew Jackson in his fight with Indians in Southern Georgia crossed into Florida and captured a number of Spanish forts. During May of 1818 Jackson captured Pensacola the capital of Spanish Florida causing the Spanish to flee.1 Monroe was looking to expand into Florida and Oregon and knew he could put the Spanish at a diplomatic disadvantage by exposing their vulnerability.2 The Spanish sacrificed Florida for five million dollars in order to prolong their grasp on Texas.3 The Treaty was ratified in Washington in 1821 and the U.S. troops took control of Florida July 10, 1821.
1
Charles E. Hill, Leading American Treaties (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1922), 162.
2
Ibid, 152.
3
Ibid, 172.
Charles Bevans, ed. “Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819,” Treaties and other International Agreements of the United States of America, 1776-1949 (Washington: U.S. Government Print Office), 1976.
Charles E. Hill, Leading American Treaties (New York: The Macmillan Company), 1922.
John Marshall was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by John Adams in 1800 and became Chief Justice in 1801. During his tenure on the Supreme Court there was a battle for judiciary power between the U.S. Supreme Court and the state supreme courts. Federalists like Marshall believed there needed to be a strong central judiciary. He felt that in matters involving the constitution the federal judiciary had to have the last word. Chief among Marshall’s opponents was Spencer Roane, Chief Justice of the Virginia Court of Appeals from 1803 until 1822. 1 In 1821 with Cohen vs Virginia the conflict between Roane and Marshall reached its peak. The state of Virginia convicted the Cohen brothers of illegally selling lottery tickets. The brothers appealed the decision to the U.S. Supreme Court. Marshall did not overturn the state ruling, but aggressively defended the right to review the case. Marshall and Roane argued their opposing opinions in a series of published articles. Roane argued that, “The judgment now before us [ Cohen v. the State of Virginia] completely negatives the idea, that the American States have a real existence, or are to be considered in any sense sovereign and independent states” 2. Marshall insisted on the right to review such cases and the end result of the Marshall era was an increase in power of the Federal Judiciary.
1
Leonard Baker, John Marshall: A Life in Law ( New York: Macmillan, 1974), 107.
2
Ibid,108.
Stanley Kutler, John Marshall (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall Inc., 1972).
Benjamin Lundy was born a Quaker in 1789 in New Jersey. His Quaker upbringing made him a strong opponent of slavery. His political, social and religious views were also formed during a period of strong controversy involving slavery. Lundy could see there was a battle for the social consciousness of America. He entered the battle with the publishing of the abolitionist newspaper, The Genius of Universal Emancipation. The first issue was published in the Quaker community of Mount Pleasant, Ohio in June of 1821. 1 Lundy described his paper as, “…an active instrument in the attempt to abolish that cruel and disgraceful system [slavery] in the American Republic.” 2 By 1824 the paper had moved to Baltimore Maryland where the paper became renowned. In 1829 William Lloyd Garrison joined Lundy at The Genius. 3 Garrison was very aggressive in his condemnation of slavery, much more so than Lundy of The Genius. Garrison from 1831-1865 published The Liberator, the most famous abolitionist newspaper of the day.
1
Merton L. Dillon, Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966), 45.
2
Ibid, 46.
3
John Jay Chapman, William Lloyd Garrison (Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1921), 36.
1831: Garrisons Liberator, 1845: Cassius M. Clay’s The True American
Merton L. Dillon, Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966)
John Jay Chapman, William Lloyd Garrison (Boston: The Atlantic Monthly Press, 1921)
With Westward expansion on the rise in the 1820s, Moses Austin, of the Arkansas territory, saw an opportunity in the Mexican territory of Texas. In 1821, he was given permission by the Mexican Governor to settle three hundred families in Texas. However, Moses Austin died before he could see his dream fulfilled. His son, Stephen Austin, continued the work of his father, and in 1821 December, he and a group of settlers crossed over the Brazos River into Texas. At the beginning of 1822, the colony was established and continued to flourish as news of the settlement circulated. Though Governor Martinez had approved the settlement in a letter to Austin in 1821 August, it became evident that to receive official authorization, Austin would have to travel to Mexico City. On 29 April 1822, he arrived in Mexico City where the political climate was largely unstable. While his colony continued to attract more settlers, external occurrences and turnovers in leadership resulted in the delay of his colonization approval by the Mexican Congress. On 26 November, the Congress finally passed a bill granting Austin permission to settle in Texas. However, the bill was not signed by the Mexican Minister of Relations until the following February. 1
1 Eugene C. Barker, "Stephen F. Austin," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 5, no. 1 (June 1918), 20-23. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-391X%28191806%295%3A1%3C20%3ASFA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9, Accessed 2 November 2006]; Eugene C. Barber, "Notes on the Colonization of Texas," The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 10, no. 2 (September 1923), 143-147. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2992%28200121%2986%3A2%3C132%3A%22WGANR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B, Accessed 2 November 2006], Gregg Cantrell, Stephen F. Austin, Empresario of Texas,(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 109-125.
1830: Mexico Outlaws American Immigrants, 1836: Texas Convention of 1836 and the Declaration of Independence, 1836: Battle of the Alamo, 1836: Goliad Massacre, 1836: Battle of San Jacinto, 1845: Texas Becomes the 28th State
On 30 March 1822, Congress passed an act establishing the Territory of Florida. Though Florida was officially ceded to the United States by the Spanish government in the Adams-Onis Treaty on 2 February 1819, the treaty was not ratified by the American Government until 22 February 1821. After the treat was ratified by Spain and the United States, Florida was occupied by American military forces under the command of General Andrew Jackson, and was divided into two sections, East Florida and West Florida. [1] By autumn 1821, Jackson was ready to return to his home state of Tennessee. On 13 November, he requested that President Monroe relieve him of his duties as Commissioner of Florida and assured him that an acting government had been established. [2] The following spring, Congress passed an act establishing the Territory of Florida under the provisions that it establish a Governor, a Secretary, and a Legislative Council of thirteen men. [3] It was not until June 1822 that the first official territorial Governor, William P. DuVal, was appointed. The following month, Governor DuVal and his legislative council convened in Pensacola. [4] For the next twenty-three years, Florida remained under territorial status until it was finally introduced into the Union as the 27th state of the United States of America.
[1] Brian W. Beltman, "Territorial Commands of the Army: The System Redefined but Not Perfected. 1815-1821," Journal of the Early Republic, 11, no. 2 (Summer 1991), 201-202. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0275-1275%28199122%2911%3A2%3C185%3ATCOTAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K, Accessed 4 November 2006]
[2] "Governor Jackson to the President," The Territorial Papers of the United States. Volume XXII, The Territory of Florida, 1821-1824, (Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1956), 274-275.
[3] "An Act Establishing the Territory of Florida," The Territorial Papers of the United States. Volume XXII, The Territory of Florida, 1821-1824, (Washington, United States Government Printing Office, 1956), 389-399.
[4] "Florida," Nile's Weekly Register, 23, no. 574 (14 September 1822), 23. [American Periodical Series: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=811837962&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 4 November 2006]
1821: Adams-Onis Treaty Ratified; 1845: Florida Becomes 27th State
On 25 May 1822, the Denmark Vesey rebellion was uncovered after Devany, a house slave, revealed the plot to his master. Within six days, three slaves were arrested regarding the alleged plot, one of whom conceded plans to the authorities. [1] When the instigator of the rebellion, Denmark Vesey, learned of this, he moved the date of the insurrection from 14 June to 16 June. [2] Charleston city Intendant James Hamilton presented plans of the insurrection to Governor Thomas Bennett who quickly commissioned five military companies to protect the city and its white’s citizens. [3] On 16 June, Vesey sent for a courier to bring the Goose Creek slaves into Charleston, but the courier would never reach them. [4] The arrests began on 18 June and Vesey was eventually arrested on 22 June. Of the 6,000 to 9,000 slaves that had been a part of the plot, only 135 men were arrested. Of the arrested, 53 were acquitted, 32 were banished, and 35 were executed, including Denmark Vesey. [5]
Though unsuccessful, Vesey had organized the largest slave conspiracy in North American history and its repercussions were widespread. He had formed a Pan-African alliance of men and women who shared a common oppression in the South. The largely collaborative effort was fearsome to all who owned slaves. [6] As a result of his plot, the South Carolina legislature passed the Negro Seaman’s Act in December 1822, which forced free black seamen into confinement when their ships docked at Charleston. In a letter regarding the insurrection, Governor Bennett stated, “Suspicion and anxiety will long mar the public tranquility.” [7]
[1] John M. Lofton, Jr., "Denmark Vesey's Call to Arms," The Journal of Negro History 33, no. 4 (October 1948), 412-413 [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2992%28194810%2933%3A4%3C395%3ADVCTA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-C, Accessed 20 October 2006]; Walter C. Rucker, "'I Will Gather All Nations': Resistance, Culture, and Pan-African Collaboration in Demark Vesey's South Carolina," The Journal of Negro History 86, no. 2 (Spring 2001), 133. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-2992%28200121%2986%3A2%3C132%3A%22WGANR%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B, Accessed 20 October 2006]
[2] Lofton, "Demark Vesey's Call to Arms," 409.
[3] Rucker, "'I Will Gather All Nations,'" 134.
[4] Lofton, "Demark Vesey's Call to Arms," 416.
[5] H. Niles, ed., "Servile Conspiracy in South Carolina, Niles' Weekley Register XXIII, (18 September 1822 - 3 September 1822), 10-11.
[6] Rucker, "'I Will Gather All Nations,'" 139-141.
[7] Niles, "Servile Conspiracy in South Carolina," 11.
1820: Missouri Compromise, 1821: Denmark Vesey Begins Organizing Slave Revolt, 1822: SC Negro Seaman's Act, 1831: Nat Turner Rebellion
In the summer of 1822, the Tennessee state legislature did something no state had done prior; it nominated a candidate for President of the United States. On 27 July, the Tennessee House unanimously passed a consensus for the nomination of Andrew Jackson, and on 3 August, the Senate did the same. Jackson, though grateful to his admirers, had no original intensions of seeking such a high position, which he adamantly expressed in letters to family and friends regarding the legislature’s recent actions. [1] In a letter to Andrew Donaldson on 6 August, Jackson stated, “Believe me my Dr. Andrew that I never had a wish to be elevated to that station if I could, my sole ambition is to pass to my grave in retirement.” [2] Even though Jackson never intended to be a Presidential candidate, he made it clear that he would follow the will of the people, and if they wanted him to be their candidate, then he would have no other choice. [3] This is one of the first examples of Jacksonian Democracy and the significance he placed on the will of the common people. In the following year, the Tennessee legislature elected Jackson as a U.S. Senator in order to prove that he was qualified and capable of being an elected official. [4] Tennessee’s avid interest in Andrew Jackson represented the West’s growing role in national politics during the 19th century.
[1] Andrew Jackson, "To James Craine Bronaugh" (1 August 1822) in Nashville, et al. eds., The Papers of Andrew Jackson (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press: 1996), V, 210-211; Samuel Houston, "From Samuel Houston" (3 August 1822) in Murfreesboro, et al. eds., The Papers of Andrew Jackson (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press: 1996), V, 211-212; Andrew Jackson, "To Andrew Jackson Donaldson" (6 August 1822) in Nashville, et al. eds., The Papers of Andrew Jackson (Knoxville, University of Tennessee Press: 1996), V, 212-214.
[2] Andrew Jackson, "To Andrew Jackson Donaldson," 213.
[3] Ibid, 213-214.
[4] H.W. Brands, Andrew Jackson, His Life and Times, (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 376-382.
1824: Andrew Jackson Runs for President, 1828: Election of Andrew Jackson
In August 1823, Alexander Campbell began printing a religious periodical called The Christian Baptist in Brooke County, Virginia (presently West Virginia). Campbell announced: “The Christian Baptist shall espouse the cause of no religious sect . . . Its sole object shall be the eviction of truth, and the exposure of error in doctrine and in practice.” [1] However, The Christian Baptist, along with its successor, The Millennial Harbinger, fueled the formation of a brand new Christian denomination: The Disciples of Christ. More importantly, Campbell and his publications—which were primarily publications of his own essays—also aided the formation of the Restoration Movement. The Restoration Movement sought a return to “primitive Christianity,” with a particular scorn for clerics, creeds, and ecclesiastical societies.[2]
Restoration Christianity was popular among Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, and early Methodists. However, it had a particularly significant following in the Jacksonian South, where followers despised Northern and Eastern missionary societies for their condescension and power. Rural regionalists, especially in Kentucky and Tennessee, “resented the efforts of the eastern missionaries and 'dandies' to save the frontier from barbarism.”[3]
Southern Christians were especially receptive to the Campbell’s The Christian Baptist and The Millennial Harbinger, and the Restorationist messages they both espoused, because the most prevalent denominations in the South, Methodists and Baptists, already emphasized deference to Scriptures and Christian antiquity; and the southern frontier remained resistant to modernity and embraced primitivism in many forms[4].
1821: Joseph Smith Vision, 1827: Freedom's Journal Published
[1] Stroupe, Henry Smith, The Religious Press in the South Atlantic States, 1802-1865, (Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 1956), 57.
[2]Encyclopedia of Southern Culture, 1989 ed., "Restoration," 1303.
[3] Ibid, 1303.
[4]Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century, 2001 ed., "Restorationist," 323, and Southern Culture, 1303.
On December 2, 1823, President James Monroe announced a new foreign policy doctrine designed by his Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, via a letter to Congress. In what became known as the Monroe Doctrine, the president’s announcement essentially asserted three ideas: there would be no further European colonization in the New World; the US would henceforth remain isolated from European politics and wars; and any attempt to colonize in North America would be seen as a threat to United States’ national security.[1]
The impact of the Monroe Doctrine was delayed. European powers continued to colonize throughout Latin America for the next several decades. Finally, in the 1840s, expansionist President James K. Polk transformed the latent doctrine into “an aggressive assertion of U.S. power.”[2] As the United States quibbled over annexing Texas, Britain was also trying to strike a deal with the region.[3] England would have assuredly emancipated Texas’s slaves, threatening southern slave owners in the states bordering Texas. Indeed, the Southwest would be subjected to the problems of runaway slaves and slave smugglers that had long afflicted Southern border states.[4]
After Britain offered to colonize Texas in return for the freeing of its slaves, Polk reissued the Monroe Doctrine “as a warning to the ‘Old Powers’ to stay out of the North American continent.”[5] Senator Francis W. Pickens assured Polk that “Mr. Monroe’s message . . . furnishes a precedent a noble model.” [6] Texas’s admission into the Union via the Monroe Doctrine was an assertion of U.S. dominance in North America.
1845: James K. Polk Wins Election, 1845: Texas Becomes 28th State, 1846: Oregon Treaty, 1846: Annexation of California
[1]Encyclopedia of the United States in the Nineteenth Century, 2001 ed., 358-9.
[2] Ibid, 359.
[3] Perkins, Dexter, A History of the Monroe Doctrine, (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1973), 77.
[4] Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 386.
[5] Perkins, 75.
[6] Pickens, Francis W., 11 Oct. 1844, found in Weaver, Herbert, ed., Correspondence of James K. Polk, Volume VII: 1844, (Nashville, Vanderbilt University Press, 1969), 174.
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On 2 March 1824, Chief Justice John Marshall handed down a ruling in the Gibbons v. Ogden Supreme Court case that would set a precedent with regards to how much Congress might influence the way a state could or could not control interstate commerce and thus also setting the precedent of federal trumping state authority. [1]
The case itself originated in 1818 when Thomas Gibbons, began running his own steamboats, the Stoudinger and the Bellona, on the waterways connecting New Jersey and New York. In New York though, there was a state sanctioned monopoly on all steamboats operating within the state, owned by a Livingston-Fulton group of which Aaron Ogden had purchased a license from to run his own steamships. Thus in 1818, the state cited an injunction against Thomas Gibbons in support of Aaron Ogden. Gibbons attempted to override the injunction, but in 1819, Chancellor Kent of New York granted a permanent injunction against him that was held up by the New York Court of Errors in 1820. Gibbons then appealed his case before the Supreme Court. [2]
The case itself dealt with the issue of whether or not Congressional law superseded state law in the regulation of commerce. The Supreme Court ended ruling in favor of Thomas Gibbons stating that a state can regulate trade within itself, but that the Constitution allows Congress to control interstate trade. [3] This was significant because it hurt what were “unpopular” state funded monopolies and it gave federal authority more weight than state. [4]
[1] Charles F. Hobson, ed., The Papers of John Marshall: Volume X 1824-1827, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 7; Saturday Evening Post, (13 March 1824), 3. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=206316181&sid=9&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[2] Charles F. Hobson, ed., The Papers of John Marshall: Volume X 1824-1827, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2000), 9-13.
[3] Wallace Mendelson, "New Light on Fletcher v. Peck and Gibbons v. Ogden," The Yale Law Journal, 58 (March, 1949), 572. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0044-0094%28194903%2958%3A4%3C567%3ANLOFVP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-3, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[4] Ibid., 568.
On 22 May 1824, Congress passed a bill that approved a protective tariff on certain goods in hopes of guarding American industry from cheap foreign imports, mainly coming from Great Britain. The bill was meant to serve as, “the American answer to the courtship of British industry,” by placing duties on such products as hemp, wool, iron, wheat, and glass, all of which could be produced in the United States. [1]
The bill was first proposed by Henry Clay in January 1824 as a part of Clay’s “American System.” [2] The hope was that through such protective measures, the United States would be able not only to utilize its own industries in order to sustain itself, but that it would also encourage westward expansion in search of valuable new resources. [3]
However, despite Clay’s best efforts to raise the tariff issue as one of national importance, Southerners such as John C. Calhoun worried that such tariffs would only hurt their industry by blocking importation of cheap foreign goods, and some Northerners like Daniel Webster were opposed to it because they thought that Congress imposing tariffs was unconstitutional. Yet despite the differences, the bill passed in the House by a margin of 107 to 102 in favor, was approved by the Senate, and signed by President James Monroe. [4]
1823: Monroe Doctrine, 1824: Presidential Election, 1828: Tariff of 1828, 1832: Ordinance of Nullification, 1833: The "Force" Bill, 1833: The Compromise Tariff
[1] George Dangerfield, The Era of Good Feelings, (New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, Inc., 1952), 308; James F. Hopkins ed., The Papers of Henry Clay: Volume 3 Presidential Candidate 1821-1824, (Lexington: The University of Kentucky Press, 1963), 756.
[2] Charles E. McFarland and Nevin E. Neal, "The Nascence of Protectionism: American Tariff Policies, 1816-1824," Land Economics, 45 (February, 1969), 27. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0023-7639%28196902%2945%3A1%3C22%3ATNOPAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[3] The Atlantic, (1 October 1824), 422. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=736467682&sid=4&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[4] Charles E. McFarland and Nevin E. Neal, "The Nascence of Protectionism: American Tariff Policies, 1816-1824," Land Economics, 45 (February, 1969), 27-29. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0023-7639%28196902%2945%3A1%3C22%3ATNOPAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-5, Accessed 30 October 2006].
On 14 February 1824, a Congressional Nominating Caucus was held in Washington D.C. to nominate William H. Crawford of Georgia for President. [1] The significance of this event is not in what happened during it, but rather that it was the last one of its kind to occur.
By the time the election of 1824 came about, opponents abounded for what had been dubbed, “King Caucus.” [2] The main oppositions to the caucus system stemmed from the fact that many believed it did not portray public opinion accurately and forced the American people to vote for a candidate chosen by bureaucrats rather than one who represented issues pertinent to them. [3] Even the other candidates in the 1824 election were opposed to the caucus. Andrew Jackson believed that it “politically put down the individual,” by not allowing his voice to be heard. [4]
For this final caucus only 66 of 261 congressmen showed up, all of whom were political allies of Crawford. In fact, the voters did not even use ballots, because all but two were there to vote for the same man. During the meeting many spectators gathered in the House to watch the meeting unfold. [5] So ridiculous was this event viewed by the public that at one point, onlookers began to stamp the ground as if they were watching a “farce,” while hissing at the group of voters. [6] In the end, Crawford was nominated, but the absurdity of the caucus and the ensuing election of 1824 proved to be the end of the caucus system.
[1] Charles S. Sydnor, "The One-Party Period of American History," The American Historical Review, 51 (April, 1946), 440. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28194604%2951%3A3%3C439%3ATOPOAH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[2] "The Caucus of Sixty-Six," Niles' Weekly Register, (28 February 1824), 401. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=811845742&sid=1&Fmt=1&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[3] Charles S. Sydnor, "The One-Party Period of American History," The American Historical Review, 51 (April, 1946), 444. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28194604%2951%3A3%3C439%3ATOPOAH%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[4] William G. Morgan, "The Origin and Development of the Congressional Nominating Caucus," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 113 (17 April 1969), 195. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-049X%2819690417%29113%3A2%3C184%3ATOADOT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[5] "The Caucus of Sixty-Six," Niles' Weekly Register, (28 February 1824), 401. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=811845742&sid=1&Fmt=1&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 30 October 2006].
[6] Ibid., 401.
On 11 March 1824, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun created what would later become known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs when he hired longtime proponent of Indians’ rights Thomas L. McKenney and subsequently allocated him to the area of Indian affairs. [1]
In the past all Indian affairs had been handled directly by the Department of War; however, as the 19th Century progressed, Calhoun believed that that the Indians were no longer a “threat to national security,” and thus were not in need of his direct supervision. [2] Therefore, on March 16, 1824, under the direction of McKenney and his assistants Samuel Hamilton and Hezekiah Miller, the Office of Indian Affairs first opened its doors. [3]
The main function of the Bureau was to “administer the fund(s) for the civilization of the Indians,” as well as making sure all treaties and laws that dealt with particular Indian tribes with regards to territorial rights and boundaries were being followed, and then making suggestions to the War Department as to how situations ought to be handled. [4] Essentially, the Bureau would correspond with Indians and their territorial governors, and then try to decide how was best to handle situations that would arise. [5]
The Bureau also allocated money that was used to provide schooling for Indian children. It provided schools for both boys and girls in hopes of “civilizing” them by teaching the boys “husbandry” and the girls “domestic duties.” [6] The Bureau still exists today, and it works with the Indians to provide education and protect their rights.
1817: John C. Calhoun Appointed Secretary of War, 1825: Creek Indian Treaty, 1826: Treaty of Washington signed by Indian tribes in Georgia, 1830: Indian Removal Act, 1831 Cherokee vs Georgia
[1] W. Edwin Hemphill, ed., The Papers of John C. Calhoun: Volume VIII, 1823-1824, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1975), xxii.
[2] Herman J. Viola, Thomas L. McKenney: Architect of America's Early Indian Policy: 1816-1830, (Chicago: The Swallo Press Inc., 1974), 93.
[3] W. Edwin Hemphill, ed., The Papers of John C. Calhoun: Volume VIII, 1823-1824, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1975), 575; Herman J. Viola, Thomas L. McKenney: Architect of America's Early Indian Policy: 1816-1830, (Chicago: The Swallo Press Inc., 1974), 95.
[4] W. Edwin Hemphill, ed., The Papers of John C. Calhoun: Volume VIII, 1823-1824, (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1975), 576.
[5] Ibid., 576.
[6] "Report of the Committee on Indian Affairs," The Western New York Baptist, (August, 1824), 200. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=72497849&sid=2&Fmt=1&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 31 October 2006].
On 25 May 1824 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the American Sunday School Union was established by Alexander Henry and several other “leaders from Philadelphia’s commercial and financial networks.” [1] Their basic intent was, “to concentrate and strengthen the efforts of Sabbath School societies around the country and strengthen the pious instruction on the Lord’s Day.” [2] Their hope was to strengthen America’s religiosity by placing Sunday schools wherever there was a need. [3] They also hoped to make existing Sunday schools better through a monthly publication that would be distributed nationwide and would deal with ways at making Sunday schools stronger and more prolific. [4]
The Union came about from the combination of the Philadelphia Sunday and Adult School Union with other smaller societies of the same token. [5] The men who began the Union were not religious leaders, but rather businessmen who hoped to use religion as a mode of “social discipline” that would help to calm “the volatile seas of antebellum urban life.” [6] They believed that the key to “community harmony” lay in the ability to influence children at an early age through their missions and Sunday schools. [7] These men were primarily Presbyterian and Episcopalian, and as a result, most of the Union’s dealings were restricted to within the two denominations. [8]
Within its first year, the Union had established 723 schools around the country and was quickly expanding into other areas of the South and the West through its extensive missions work. The Union quickly became a truly national organization with its influence being felt all over the United States. [9]
Early 1800s: Second Great Awakening, 1826: American Temperance Society Founded, 1837: Split in Presbyterian Church, 1861: Split in Old School Presbyterian Church
[1] Anne M. Boylan, Sunday School: The Formation of an American Institution 1790-1880, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 61.
[2] "American Sunday School Union; Constitution," The American Sunday School Magazine, (July, 1824), 28. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=775957302&sid=3&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 31 October 2006].
[3] Ibid., 28.
[4] "Intelligence; Philadelphia Sunday and Adult School Union," The American Sunday School Magaznie, (July, 1824), 27. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=775957312&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 31 October 2006]; Christian Watchman, (19 June 1824), 111. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=836500012&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 31 October 2006].
[5] "American Sunday School Union; Constitution," The American Sunday School Magazine, (July, 1824), 28. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=775957302&sid=3&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 31 October 2006].
[6] Anne M. Boylan, Sunday School: The Formation of an American Institution 1790-1880, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 68.
[7] Ibid., 68.
[8] Ibid., 63.
[9] Christian Watchman, (19 June 1824), 111. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=836500012&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 31 October 2006]; Anne M. Boylan, Sunday School: The Formation of an American Institution 1790-1880, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988), 69.
In November 1824, the United States Presidential election was at a standstill. Andrew Jackson had received the most popular votes, but not a single one of the candidates had achieved the number of electoral votes necessary to win the election. Therefore, the election moved to the House of Representatives in order to decide the winner out of the top three vote getters: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and William H. Crawford. [1]
On December 1, 1824 the election officially moved to the House of Representatives. There were whisperings of an alliance being made between Henry Clay’s and John Quincy Adams’s political associates in order to secure Adams the victor; however, most of the allegations seemed conflicting and unclear. [2] Despite the rumors though, on February 9, 1825, the House cast its official vote on the matter with John Quincy Adams receiving 13 votes, Jackson getting 7 votes, and Crawford attaining 4 votes. Thus, Adams was announced as the victor amidst a mix of applause and hissing from the crowd seated in the House gallery. [3]
The election marked the end of the Era of Good Feelings when “old political associations had been founded on personal loyalties,” and the nation’s politics were dominated by a one-party system. [4] It also marked the end of the Virginian presidents and the caucus system since many states had chosen their electors by popular vote. Yet despite the move away from caucuses towards popular sovereignty, only 25% of eligible voters cast ballots in the election. [5]
1824: Last Congressional Nominating Caucus, 1825: Corrupt Bargain, 1828: Election of Andrew Jackson
[1] Saturday Evening Post, (5 February 1825), 3. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=206398371&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 1 November 2006]; "Election of President and Vice President of the U.S.," Boston Recorder, (18 December 1824), 203. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=804936502&sid=4&Fmt=1&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 31 October 2006].
[2] Saturday Evening Post, (5 February 1825), 3. [APS Online: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=206398371&sid=2&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP, Accessed 1 November 2006].
[3] The Library of Congress, "Register of Debates, 18th Congress, 2nd Session," <http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llrd&fileName=001/llrd001.db&recNum=266> [accessed 7 November 2006].
[4] Mary W. M. Hargreaves, The Presidency of John Quincy Adams, (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1985), 18.
[5] Ibid., 19.
The Presidential election of 1824 was marked by controversy over the Electoral College. All four candidates, John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, William H. Crawford, and Andrew Jackson, ran under the Democratic-Republican Party[1]. The election was decided by the House of Representatives under the 12th amendment with Henry Clay making the deciding vote between Adams and Jackson. Clay, with firm conviction, cast his vote to Adams, and on February 9, 1825 Adams was elected President of the United States[2]. Shortly after winning, Adams appointed Clay Secretary of State[3]. Jackson and his supporters called this political move a “corrupt bargain”[4], claiming that the appointment confirmed suspicions of a secret alliance and warned against further corruption in office[5]. They claimed that desire for personal success triumphed over upholding the principles of democracy and the will of the people[6] because Jackson had won both the Electorate and popular vote.
The Election ended the one party system of the Era of Good Feelings and marked the reemergence of the two-party system in American politics [7] and the emergence of the Democratic and Whig Parties. Political campaigning strategies became more aggressive as parties organized to garner mass support for the candidate[8] and as a result, more people voted in the Presidential Election of 1828 as Jackson defeated Adams by twelve percent[9] and used the “corrupt bargain” as propaganda.
1804: The Twelfth Amendment; 1824: Presidential Election; 1828: Election of Andrew Jackson; 1828: Emergence of Democratic Party; 1834: Emergence of Whig Party
[1]Robert V. Remini, The Election of Andrew Jackson, <Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1963), 17. [2]Baltimore, Maryland, Niles Weekly Register, 19 February 1825. [3]The Reader's Companion to American History, s.v. "Election of 1824." [4]Remini, Election, 25. [5]Andrew Jackson to William Berkeley Lewis, 20 February 1825, in The Papers of Andrew Jackson: 1825-1828, eds. J. Clint Clift and Harold D. Moser (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 37. [6]Baltimore, Niles, 19 February 1825. [7]Remini, Election, 203. [8]Ibid., 7. [9]Reader's Guide, s.v. "The Election of 1828."
On February 12, 1825, William McIntosh and other Creek leaders signed a treaty with the United States at Indian Springs, GA ceding all of their land in Georgia and half of their land in Alabama[1], totaling almost 5 million acres[2]. In return, the United States granted the Creeks $400,000 and tracts of land west of the Mississippi River equal to that of the land ceded[3]. Under the provisions of the treaty, the Creeks were required to leave by September 1, 1826[4] and had been promised that no United States citizens would encroach upon their land until then. The acquisition of Creek land provided lower taxes and better state services and internal improvements for Georgia[5]. The Senate ratified the treaty March 3, 1825[6].
But the treaty was signed under false pretenses as McIntosh did not have the authority or consent of the Creeks to sign the treaty. Creek leaders were outraged at McIntosh’s betrayal and the United States’ confiscating more of their land. They immediately petitioned the government requesting the disposal of the treaty, organized under Chief Opothle Yoholo [7], and murdered McIntosh for violating tribal law[8]. To calm Georgian fears of Creek rebellion, Adams sent General Gaines to persuade the Indians to acquiesce, but Governor Troup provoked fear among Georgians for political gain[9]. The treaty contributed to the American fear of Indian rebellion and continued Indian removal policies that would occur during the Jacksonian era.
1790: Treaty of New York; 1802: Georgia Compact; 1814: Treaty of Fort Jackson; 1821:Treaty of 1821 at Indian Springs; 1823: Cherokee Council; 1824: Council at Tuckabatchee; 1826: The Washington Treaty
[1]Michael D. Green, The Creeks: A Critical Bibliography, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979), 42. [2]Baltimore, Maryland, Niles Weekly Register, 12 March 1825 [3]Register, 26 March 1825 [4]Register, 27 August 1825 [5]Michael D. Green, The Politics of Indian Removal, (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1982), 102. [6]Ibid., 91. [7]Digital Library of Georgia Database Southeastern Native American Documents, 1730-1842, "[Talk] 1825, Dec. 16, Washington [D.C. to the] Secretary of War/Creek Delegation," http://neptune3.galib.uga.edu/ssp/cgi-bin/tei-natamer-idx.pl?sessionid=7f000001&type=doc&tei2id=tcc009 [accessed 24 October 2006]. [8] Green, Politics, 96. [9]Green, Politics, 114.
In early autumn of 1825 Frances Wright, with the support of President Monroe and Andrew Jackson, purchased 320 acres of land for $480 on the Wolf River near Memphis, TN[1]. Under the influence of Robert Owen and his recently formed New Harmony Society[2], Wright named her utopian community Nashoba, the Chickasaw word for “wolf”[3]. She purchased 20 slaves and planned to educate them as they worked to pay for both the experiment and their eventual colonization in another country[4]. The object was to demonstrate a successful method of ending slavery by presenting an alternative to the South’s agricultural economy based on slave labor [5]. In creating a peaceful environment that promoted equality amongst whites and blacks, Nashoba would prepare slaves to enter the world as virtuous and capable citizens[6].
By 1826, the atmosphere and conditions of Nashoba was miserable and repressive[7]. Reports of sexual misconduct, floggings, and parental discontent over losing control of raising their children added to the decline of support[8]. The experiment was never fully realized, as Wright did not attract enough interest in settlement [9], and ended in 1829 when she took the remaining slaves to Haiti[10]. Failure occurred due to lack of financial support from the United States and European countries[11], sickness, outside criticism, internal conflict [12], and idealism. Nashoba exemplifies the combination of the premature abolition movement and the response to corruption of virtue through forming utopian societies during the 19th century.
1825: Founding of New Harmony Society
[1]Celia Morris Eckhardt, Fanny Wright: Rebel in America, (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1984), 109. [2]Ibid., 115. [3]The Tennessee Encyclopedia of History and Culture, "Nashoba,"
<http://tennesseeencyclopedia.net/imagegallery.php?EntryID=N004> [accessed 31 October 2006]. [4]Helen L. Heineman, "'Starving in that Land of Plenty': New Backgrounds to Frances' Trollope's Domestic Manners of the Americans," American Quarterly, 24 (December 1972), 645. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0678%28197212%2924%3A5%3C643%3A%22ITLOP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-R, accessed 31 October 2006] [5]Tennessee, "Nashoba" [6] New Harmony, Indiana, New Harmony Gazette, 30 January 1828 <http://jmisc.net/jm970325.htm> [accessed 31 October 2006] [7]Heineman, "Starving," 650. [8]Tennessee, "Nashoba" [9]Eckhardt, Fanny, 112. [10]Tennessee, "Nashoba" [11]Echhardt, Fanny, 111. [12]Tennessee, "Nashoba"
In April 1817, after years of consideration and the urging of De Witt Clinton, the New York Legislature authorized the construction of the Erie Canal. Work began symbolically on July 4, 1817[1]. As America’s first extensive artificial waterway, 364 miles in length connecting Albany, NY on the Hudson River to Buffalo, NY on Lake Erie[2], the canal opened on October, 1825. Funding by the state of New York, the canal was an immediate success and earned over $500,000 in 1825[3]. Freight costs dropped significantly as trade was cheaper, faster and more accessible[4], but overcrowding was an immediate problem[5]. Debates over enlargement ensued[6]. Thousands of men, especially immigrants, found low-skilled and low-wage jobs strenuously working on the canal[7]. The canal eventually connected the east and the west for the first time[8] and encouraged westward expansion[9].
The success of the canal jumpstarted the revitalization of old possible canal project[10] as states began transportation expansion with a sense of urgency[11]. By 1828, over eight million dollars had been spent building canals[12], though not all canals were as successful[13]. The James River Canal, the first canal in the south, was completed in 1835[14]. The south suffered from poor transportation and though displayed interest in building canals early on[15], rejected the idea of federal aid for internal improvements because it promoted the tariff[16] and excessive spending[17]. The canal also served as a forerunner for the railroad boom that quickly followed and more directly affected southern transportation.
1828: Chesapeake and Ohio Canal began construction; 1829: New York State Temperance Society; 1834: Main Line of Public Works opened; 1835: James River Canal completed; 1837: Panic of 1837
[1]George Rogers Taylor, The Transportation Revolution, (New York: Rinehart and Company, Inc., 1951), 33. [2]Roger E. Carp, "The Limits of Reform: Labor and Discipline on the Erie Canal," Journal of the Early Republic,10 (Summer 1990), 194. [JSOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0275-1275%28199022%2910%3A2%3C191%3ATLORLA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D, Accessed 31 October 2006] [3]Taylor, Transportation, 34. [4]The Reader's Companion to American History, s.v. "Erie Canal Results." [5]Taylor, Transportation, 34. [6]Companion, "Erie Canal Results." [7]Carp, "Limits," 200. [8]Carter Goodrich, Canals and American Economic Development, (Port Washington: Kennikat Press, 1972), 68. [9]Carol Sheriff, The Artificial River, (New York: Hill and Wang, 1996), 68. [10]Thomas, Transportation, 36 . [11]Goodrich, Canals, 69. [12]Ibid., 173. [13]Companion, s.v. "Erie Canal." [14]Goodrich, Canals, 194. [15]Governor Moore to John C. Calhoun, 30 December 1829, in The Papers of John C. Calhoun, ed. Clyde N. Wilson (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 92. [16]Taylor, Transportation, 21. [17]"Rough Draft of an Address to the People of South Carolina by John C. Calhoun," 1 December 1830, in Papers, 272.
The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper's most famous novel was published to great popular acclaim in 1826 and has never been out of print since. Telling the tale of several European-Americans and Indians caught up in the wilderness during the French and Indian War, the Mohicans along with the rest of Cooper's "Leatherstocking Tales" were the archetypes for romantic literature of the mid-nineteenth century. Cooper's book eventually sold millions of copies. Although a romantic novel, the book was also important for the questions it raised concerning feminity, the frontier, Indian removal, and race relations, questions extremely important to a nation celebrating its 50th anniversary in the year of "Jubilee" of 1826 and facing a transition to a much different era. Although not the first great American novel, the Last of the Mohicans helped strengthen America's artistic reputation and served as an inspiration for later American frontier symbols. Shortly after his death, he was praised by both Herman Melville and Washington Irving as "our national novelist."
1820: Land Act of 1820, 1825: Creek Indian Treaty
John McWilliams, The Last of the Mohicans: Civil Savagery and Savage Civility, (New York: Twayne Publishers, 1995)
Martin Barker and Roger Sabin, The Lasting of the Mohicans: History of an American Myth (Jackson, Miss: University Press of Mississippi, 1996)
On 8 April, 1826 Senator John Randolph of Virginia and Secretary of State Henry Clay met at Little Falls, Virginia to duel. Although several parties, including Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri and General Thomas Jessup attempted to stop the duel, it continued as planned. Secretary Clay, who had dueled once before against Humphrey Marshall in 1809 over textile imports, had asked for the duel as a result of Senator Randolph's criticism. Henry Clay had become Secretary of State after the election of John Quincy Adams. Because no man received the necessary votes in the electoral college in the Presidential Election, the decision was given to the House of Representatives. Henry Clay gave his strong support to John Quincy Adams and when Adams won the vote, he appointed Clay Secretary of State. The quick-tongued, eccentric John Randolph was upset at Secretary Clay for what he believed to be an apparent act of corruption between the executive and legislative branches, and in a lengthy, diatribe he personally insulted Clay and the Secretary "demanded personal satisfaction". The duel itself was anti-climatic, Clay fired into the ground and Randolph into the air and exchanged handshakes afterwards. The duel, although ending amicably, exemplifies the deep division in Congress after the election of 1824 and helped set up increased voter turn-out in 1828. It also is a fine example of the permeation of dueling in American life in the 19th century, especially in the elite classes.
1824: Presidential Election 1825: Corrupt Bargain1828: Election of Andrew Jackson
Robert Dawidoff, The Education of John Randolph, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1979)
Robert Reid Howison, "Dueling in Virginia", William and Mary College Quarterly Historical Magazine, 2nd Ser., Vol. 4, No. 4. (Oct., 1924), pp. 217-244. JSTOR Accessed 14 November 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-5597%28192410%292%3A4%3A4%3C217%3ADIV%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2)
Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union, (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1991)
Warren F. Schwartz et. al. "The Duel: Can these Gentlemen Be Acting Efficiently?", The Journal of Legal Studies Vol. 13, No. 2 (Jun., 1984), pp. 321-355. Accessed 14 November 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0047-2530%28198406%2913%3A2%3C321%3ATDCTGB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-H)
On 13 February 1826, the first American Temperance Society was founded in Boston, Massachusetts. Although the Society sought to become a national clearinghouse for all temperance related information nationally, the organization and its descendants struggled with this goal of a nationally unified movement, especially in the southern United States. That is not to say that temperance did not have its advocates in the southern United States, the "Virginia Temperance Society", the first such organization in the Southern states was organized just a few months after the American Temperance Society in Boston on October 27 (its founders had no knowledge of the American Temperance Society's founding though). While it has been argued that the ratio of participants in Temperance Societies in the North and South remained roughly equal for much of the history of the antebellum Temperance movement, a key difference between the Northern and the Southern Temperance movements were the inability of temperance organizations in the South to expand to broader social reforms. While Northern movements became associated with the Womens' Suffrage Movement and Abolitionism, these aspects of reform did not result from Temperance movements in the South. Instead they remained largely religious (heavily reliant on evangelicals)in nature and in the rural, hierarchal South, in the hands of men.
American Temperance Society, Permanent Temperance Documents of the American Temperance Society, (New York, Arno Press, 1972)
Douglas W. Carlson, "Drinks He to His Own Undoing": Temperance Ideology in the Deep South", Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 18, No. 4. (Winter, 1998), pp. 659-691. [JSTOR Accessed November 18, 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0275-1275%28199824%2918%3A4%3C659%3A%22HTHOU%3E2.0.CO%3B2-D)]
John L. Merrill, "The Bible and the American Temperance Movement: Text, Context, and Pretext", The Harvard Theological Review, Vol. 81, No. 2. (Apr., 1988), pp. 145-170. [JSTOR Accessed November 18, 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0017-8160%28198804%2981%3A2%3C145%3ATBATAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z)]
C.C. Pearson and J. Edwin Hendricks, Liquor and Anti-Liquor in Virginia: (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1967), 58-59.
Ian R. Tyrrell, "Drink and Temperance in the Antebellum South: An Overview and Interpretation", The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 48, No. 4. (Nov., 1982), pp. 485-510. [JSTOR Accessed November 18, 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4642%28198211%2948%3A4%3C485%3ADATITA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Y)]
Donald Yacovone, The Transformation of the Black Temperance Movement,: An Interpretation, Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 8, No. 3. (Autumn, 1988), pp. 281-297.
[JSTOR Accessed November 18, 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0275-1275%28198823%298%3A3%3C281%3ATTOTBT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-2)]
On 4 July 1826, the two former Presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams died within hours of each other on the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence. Already a day marked by large celebrations, the death of both former Presidents gave, what many newspapers referred to as "divine providence" to the proceedings. While politically at odds for most of their life and having never encountered each other face-to-face after the election of 1800, Jefferson and Adams had enjoyed a hearty correspondence between themselves in the last years of their life. It is even rumored (and with some documented support) that John Adams's last words were, "Thomas Jefferson, survives". While both men were old in age, (only one other signer of the Declaration of Independence was still alive after their death), the United States was undergoing dramatic changes during this era (for example, the opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 and the construction of the first American railroad in Massachusetts in 1826) so the coincidental death of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson marked a very symbolic turning point that could be used to explain a whole host of unquantifiable real turning points. Publications in the United States lectured on the importance of these two men and their deaths and the event became a national cause for thought and celebration.
Andrew Burstein, America's Jubilee: How in 1826 A Generation Remembered Fifty Years of Independence (New York: Knopf, 2001)
Robert P. Hay, "The Glorious Departure of the American Patriarchs: Contemporary Reactions to the Deaths of Jefferson and Adams",The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 35, No. 4. (Nov., 1969), pp. 543-555. [JSTOR Accessed November 15, 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4642%28196911%2935%3A4%3C543%3ATGDOTA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z)]
Robert M. S. McDonald, "Thomas Jefferson's Changing Reputation as Author of the Declaration of Independence: The First Fifty Years", Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 19, No. 2. (Summer, 1999), pp. 169-195. [JSTOR Accessed November 15, 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0275-1275%28199922%2919%3A2%3C169%3ATJCRAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-7)]
NILES' WEEKLY REGISTER, Baltimore, July 15, 1826
Charles Warren, "Fourth of July Myths", The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 2, No. 3. (Jul., 1945), pp. 237-272. [JSTOR Accessed November 15, 2006 (http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-5597%28194507%293%3A2%3A3%3C237%3AFOJM%3E2.0.CO%3B2-V)]
In 1827, almost all of the South, other than the Planter and Slave classes, were against the “Woolens bill,”1and the politics of the tariff revealed the ugly class struggles in South Carolina. Even though the Planter class remained quiet from 1824-1827, the cities, lowlands, and back country regions all had grievances against the new tariff. Much of the grievance was caused by the fear that depleted revenue (caused by raising the protectionist tariff) would cause higher taxation and increase the cost of manufactured goods.2Fortunately for the South, the bill was rejected when Vice President John C. Calhoun voted down the protectionist tariff when he cast the tie-breaking vote in the Senate.3
The debate over the bill highlighted the economic regionalism of tariff policy as the North favored protectionist tariffs for its fledging industries, whereas the South favored low, revenue building tariffs which would create capital for internal improvements. The sectional divide prompted the president of South Carolina University to remark “Is it worth our while to continue this union of States, where the North demands to be our master and we are required to be their tributaries?”4
1 John L. Conger, The Mississippi Valley Historical Review: South Carolina and the Early Tariffs [book on-line] (March., 1919 accessed 14 November 2006) available from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161391X%28191903%295%3A4%3C415%3ASCATET%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F; Internet.
2 Ibid, 285.
3 Ralph Berens, ed., Chronicle of America, (Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publishers), 284.
4 Ibid, 285.
One of the most important cultural festivals of New Orleans, The Mari Gras Festival, had its beginnings in masked balls celebrating the pre-Lenten season beginning in colonial times. However the first carnival parade was introduced to the city in 1827 by some students returning home from Paris.1 Following a custom in Paris known as Shrove Tuesday, the students donned costumes and threw flowers in the streets. Before the carnival parades in 1827, the masked balls were started during the governorship of Pierre-Cavagnal de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil in 1743.2 Vaudruil was from elite nobility in Paris, and was known for his state dinners, card parties, and balls.3
In Paris the tradition which originated the celebration of Mardi Gras was held in the festival which was held before the 40-day fast of Easter. Shrove Tuesday, the day of the festival, is the last day before the period of self-denial that begins on Ash Wednesday.4
1853: New Orleans Yellow Fever Epidemic
1 George Lipsitz, “Mardi Gras Indians: Carnival and Counter-Narrative in Black New Orleans” (Cultural Critique, No. 10, Popular Narrative, Popular Images,), pp. 99-121. accessed 13 November 2006); available from http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0882-4371%28198823%290%3A10%3C99%3AMGICAC%3E2.0.CO%3B2-8; Internet.
2 Ralph Berens, ed., Chronicle of America, (Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publishers), 285.
3 Ibid.
4 Ibid.
A number of states objected to the Calling Forth Act of 1795. This act included the clause that “that whenever the United States shall be invaded, or be in imminent danger of invasion from any foreign nation or Indian tribe, it shall be lawful for the President of the United States to call forth such number of the militia of the State or States most convenient to the place of danger, or scene of action, as he may judge necessary to repel such invasion, and to issue his order for that purpose to such officer or officers of the militia as he shall think proper."1 The states objected to the Calling Forth Act because it gave the president almost tyrannical powers; however in the Supreme Court Case Martin v. Mott the court unanimously upheld the act. Martin v. Mott effectively denied the state the right to with hold its militia from service. As for the state’s concerns over presidential power, Justice Joseph Storey stated that Congressional oversight and frequent elections of the legislature and executive branches would guard against the predations of presidential power.2
This sweeping affirmation of Presidential power would directly affect the American South in the decades following the 1827 decision. Martin v. Mott supported Andrew Jackson’s military power in the Nullification Crisis versus South Carolina, as well as Abraham Lincoln’s call for volunteers in 1861, again for the use of force against South Carolina. Several Southern states, especially Virginia, would rather join the Confederacy rather then have Virginian Militia fight fellow Southern states.
1832: Ordinance of Nullification
1833: Nullification of the "Force" Bill
1Story, Joseph. "Martin V. Mott, 1827." The Potowmack Institute. Jan. 1827. Potowmack Institute. 16 Nov. 2006 <http://www.potowmack.org/martmott.html>.
2Don Higginbotham, “The Federalized Militia Debate: A Neglected Aspect of Second Amendment Scholarship,” The William and Mary Quarterly, 3rd Ser., Vol. 55, No. 1. (Jan., 1998), 55. JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-5597%28199801%293%3A55%3A1%3C39%3ATFMDAN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T, Accessed 13 November 2006]
In the late 1820’s, political and social changes were seeking to remove some of the rights of the African-American Freedman, and realizing something must be done to support their rights, two young editors Samuel E. Cornish, and John Russwurm (the first African American to earn a college education) decided to publish a newspaper as a “weapon of defense” and way to express universe truths to America.1 The first published edition of the newspaper, called Freedom’s Journal, was issued on March 16, 1827, with an introduction stating the editor’s devotion to the U.S Constitution as well as a claim to “never court controversy.”2 However, ever since its first publication, Freedom’s Journal immediately issued a very radical anti-slavery objective, demanding for immediate emancipation even before William Lloyd Garrison of Liberator fame.3 In fact the Cornish and Russwurm called the members of the African Colonization Society the “enemies of the colored people.” Although Freedom’s Journal drew strong criticism from New York Publishers and the more moderate wings of the anti-slavery establishment4 , its uncompromising push for complete and immediate emancipation for all slaves lent greater attention to the position, eventually the position of the majority of the anti-slavery movement.
1833: American Anti-Slavery Society
1Bella Gross, “Freedom's Journal and the Rights of All,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 17, No. 3. (Jul., 1932), pp. 241. JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0043-5597%28199801%293%3A55%3A1%3C39%3ATFMDAN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T, Accessed 16 November 2006]
2Ibid, 242.
3Ibid, 243.
4Ibid, 244.
Sarah Hale’s Northwood (1827) was first published a quarter of a century before the much more famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) by Harriet Beecher Stowe. And yet Sarah Hale set the precedent, for she had published the first anti-slavery novel in America. However Sarah Hale never became as famous as Harriet Beecher Stowe, and her works have been shunned by modern American historians because of their blatant portrayals of white supremacists, her own pro-colonization appeals, and to most academics view, her works do not make “good read.”1 However Hale was able to capitalize financially on the success of Uncle Tom’s Cabin when she republished Northwood in 1852. Hale offered her novel as a peaceful if long range alternative to the war talk which Stowe’s book had fomented; in fact Hale feared such a possibility. 2 Hale’s statement at the end of the 1852 rendition of Northwood illustrated her faith in fiction’s ability to foment change “Let us trust that the pen and no the sword will decide the controversy now going on in our land; and that any part woman may take in the former mode will be promotive of peace, and not suggestive of discord.”3
1833: American Anti-Slavery Society
1851: Anti-Slavery Paper Serializes Stowe's Famous Novel
1 Susan M. Ryan, “Errand into Africa: Colonization and Nation Building in Sarah J. Hale's Liberia” The New England Quarterly, Vol. 68, No. 4. (Dec., 1995), pp. 564. JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=00284866%28199512%2968%3A4%3C558%3AEIACAN%3E2.0.CO%3B2-J , Accessed 15 November 2006]
2Ibid, pp. 565.
3Ibid, pp. 564.
On June 13, 1828, Congress approved a protectionist tariff.[1] The tariff was crafted by New York Senator Martin Van Buren, a Jacksonian democrat. When Van Buren and his fellow democrats wrote the bill for the proposed tariff, they had one objective in mind, the election of Andrew Jackson to the presidency in the election of 1828. The tariff blatantly favored certain areas of the country, specifically the states of Kentucky, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New York. These protective measures for the industries of those states were aimed at essentially bribing these states into voting for Andrew Jackson in the election. [2] Van Buren and other democrats knew that in order for Jackson to win the election, the Democratic party needed to take these states. The Democrats felt that although this tariff would anger some of the Southern states, it would not anger them to the point that they would change their vote to John Quincy Adams. Everyone suspected that the bill would be defeated because it was such a high tariff, but it managed to pass. The passage of this bill was met with great outrage in the south, especially in South Carolina, which saw the measure as ruinous to its economic system.[3]. In South Carolina, the Tariff of 1828 was referred to as the Tariff of Abominations.
1824: Tariff Act of 1824
1828: Election of Andrew Jackson
1828: South Carolina declares right to nullify
1832: Ordinance of Nullification
1833: The Compromise Tariff
[1] Robert R. Remini, The Election of Andrew Jackson, (Philadelphia: J.B.Lippincott and Company, 1993), 171.
[2] Ibid., 172.
[3] Ibid., 171.
On December 3, 1828 Andrew Jackson defeated incumbent John Quincy Adams for the presidency of the United States. Jackson received 647,231 popular votes and 178 electoral votes while Adams received 509,097 popular votes and 83 electoral votes.[1] Jackson’s victory was very satisfying for him because he had previously lost in the election of 1824, an election that was highly contested and Jackson felt he had been cheated out of it by Henry Clay. For four years, Jackson and his newly formed political party, the Democratic Party, strategized how they would win the election of 1828. Many Americans were unhappy with the job that John Quincy Adams had done and they viewed him as “an Eastern aristocrat completely indifferent to their needs or hopes”.[2] The American people felt that it was time for a change. Many Americans were naturally drawn to the character of Andrew Jackson. He was viewed as a national hero for his role in the War of 1812 and the Seminole War. Americans felt that they could relate with him better than with previous presidential candidates. Jackson was very much a candidate of the people.[3] Jackson’s election was significant because it symbolized a changing of the guard and it changed the course of American politics with the introduction of the era of Jacksonian democracy.
1824: Presidential Election 1825: Corrupt Bargain 1828: Tariff of 1828
[1] Richard B. Morris, Encyclopedia of American History, (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1953), 167.
[2] Robert V. Remini, The Election of Andrew Jackson, (New York: J.B. Lippincott and Company, 1953), 191.
[3] Ibid., 67.
On December 19, 1828, the pamphlet The South Carolina Exposition and Protest on the Subject of the Tariff was presented to the South Carolina state government.[1] It was drafted by John C. Calhoun in response to the Tariff of 1828, although he elected to remain anonymous as its author for political purposes.[2] The Tariff of 1828 increased the prices of nearly all manufactured articles that South Carolinians bought and did nothing to increase their buying power to purchase those goods. Calhoun declared that the Tariff of 1828 or the “Tariff of Abominations” was “unconstitutional, unequal and oppressive, and calculated to corrupt the public virtue and destroy the liberty of the country”.[3] Because of this, Calhoun believed that the state had the constitutional privilege to void or nullify the tariff if it was not repealed by the federal government. [4] This declaration by the state of South Carolina showed that they would not back down from what they viewed as blatant sectional favoritism on the part of the Federal government. South Carolinians were distrustful of the Federal Government and felt that what was in the best interest of the federal government went against what was in the best interest of the state of South Carolina. Calhoun’s message was important because up until 1828, South Carolina had viewed protective tariffs as unjust, but beginning with the Tariff of Abominations in 1828, they began to view them as unconstitutional.[5]
1828: Tariff of 1828 1832: Ordinance of Nullification 1833: The Force Bill 1833: The Compromise Tariff 1833: Nullification of the Force Bill
[1] Frederic Bancroft, Calhoun and the South Carolina Nullification Movement, (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1928), 40.
[2] Ibid., 38.
[3] Ibid., 41.
[4] Robert R. Remini, The Election of Andrew Jackson, (Philadelphia: J.B.Lippincott and Company, 1993), 178.
[5] Bancroft, Calhoun, 18.
On April 21, 1828, Noah Webster published the American Dictionary of the English Language. Webster worked for more than a quarter century on his dictionary.[1] It was a monumental project that contained over 70,000 entries, which were all written by Webster.[2] It was also the last major dictionary ever compiled by a single individual.[3] Webster undertook this massive project because he believed in the power of words. He felt that language was important because it had the power to influence opinion and behavior. Webster also believed that the misunderstanding of words could lead to social and political upheaval. There were certain words that Webster took great time in defining. Words such as “republicanism”, “liberty”, and other words with possible political implications received more attention because he felt that these had the potential to be dangerous.[4]
Many people regarded Webster’s dictionary as a work of patriotism. After all, it was the American Dictionary of the English Language, not just a dictionary of the English language.[5] Patriotism aside, Noah Webster’s dictionary was a monumental achievement. To this day, the name Webster is inseparable with the word “dictionary” to most people in the United States.
[1] Richard M. Rollins, The Long Journey of Noah Webster, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980), 125.
[2] Ibid., 123.
[3] Ibid., 124.
[4] Ibid., 131.
[5] Ibid., 126.
On July 4, 1828, construction began on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first railway projected westward over the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio Valley.[1] The railroad was created so that the city of Baltimore could compete with the booming business that New York City was experiencing as a result of the construction of the Erie Canal.[2] Businessman on the East coast wanted to find a faster, more efficient way of transporting goods from the Midwest.[3] The construction of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad resulted in the emergence of Baltimore as one of the major cities in the United States. Between the years 1830 and 1860, the population of Baltimore nearly tripled.[4] The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad also played a very important role during the Civil War, as it served as the only rail line leading to Washington, D.C.[5] The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, like the Erie Canal, helped to strengthen the American economy as it improved transportation efficiency. It was one of the first major railroads in an era when the railroad would reign supreme.
1830: First Steam Engine in America 1877: B/O Railroad Strike
[1] Malcolm J Rohrbough, ed., Encyclopedia of American History, (New York: Facts on File, Inc. 2003), 40.
[2] Ibid., 39.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid., 40.
[5] Ibid., 39.
1838:Cherokee Trail of Tears, 1831:Cherokee Nation v. Georgia, 1832:Worchester v. Georgia, 1830:Treaty of Dancing Rabbit, 1830:Treaty of Praire du Chien
[1]. Mary Hershberger, “Mobilizing Women, Anticipating Abolition: The Struggle against Indian Removal in the 1830s,”The Journal of American History, Vol. 86, No.1. (June 1999), pp.15-40.[Jstor:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0021-8723%28199906%3A1%3C15%3AMWAATS%3E2.0.CO%3B2-P accessed 4 November 2006].
[2]Ibid.,15-40.
[3]Ibid.,15-40.
[4]Encyclopedia of American History: Expansion and Reformation 1813 to 1855, 2003 ed., “Indian Removal Act,”181-183.
[5] Baltimore, Maryland,Niles Weekly Register , May 1830.
[6]Encyclopedia of American History, 181-183.
This toast marked the official beginning of the rift between President Jackson and his Vice President Calhoun which ultimately led to Calhoun’s resignation as vice president. Before the dinner Jackson’s position on the tariff had been somewhat unknown but Jackson’s declaration of loyalty to the preservation of the Union revealed that Southern states’ righter supporters would not find a friend in Jackson. This hatred of Jackson would ultimately help lead to the creation of the anti-Jackson party, the Whigs, in 1883[4].
1828:Tariff of 1828, 1830:Peggy Eaton Affair, 1832:Nullification Crisis, 1832:Olive Branch Treaty,1833:Creation of Whig Party, 1833:Force Bill
[1]Harry L. Watson,Liberty and Power: (Farrar: Noonday Press, 1990),120-121.
[2]“Extract of a Letter to the Editor,”The Banner of the Constitution, 22 May 1830, p. 355.
[3]Watson,Liberty,120-121[accessed by American Periodical Series].
[4]Claude G. Bowers,The Party Battles of the Jackson Period: (New York:Octagon Books Inc., 1965), 103.
On April 10, 1830 a wagon train led by Jedediah Smith and Rocky Mountain Fur Company partner William Sublette began its 500 miles trip from the Missouri River to the Pacific coast, making it the first wagon train to successfully travel through the Rockies. The wagon train used the newly rediscovered South Pass to get to the coast. The discovery of the South Pass, the best passable and shortest route through the mountains, was extremely important to West coast settlement and is considered the “universal route to the west,”of the time, by modern scholars[1]. This trip also proved that families could make the journey safely with wagons and livestock. “Heavily loaded wagons and even milk cows can safely and rather easily cross the praries and the Rockies (through the South Pass) and go on to the Pacific Ocean.”[2] The discovery of the South Pass saw a huge increase in traffic on the Oregon, California, and Mormon Trails and as result more conflict with Indian tribes living along the trails[3].
1849: California Gold Rush, 1850: California gains statehood, 1859: Oregon gains statehood
[1]Encyclopedia of American History: Expansion and Reformation 1813 to 1855, 2003 ed.,322.
[2]Chronicle of America,(Mount Kisco, NY: Chronicle Publications, 1989),290.
[3]Encyclopedia,255.
1835:Texas Revolution,1846:Mexican-American War
[1]Encyclopedia of American History: Expansion and Reformation 1813 to 1855, 2003 ed., “Texas,”338.
[2]Eugene C. Barker, “The Influence of Slavery in the Colonization of Texas,” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol. 11, No.1 (June 1924), pp. 3-36.[Jstor:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-391X%28192406%2911%3A1%3C3%3ATIOSIT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-6 accessed 4 November 2006]
[3]Encyclopedia.
[4]Neil Wenborn,The U.S.A.: A Chronicle in Pictures,(New York: Reed International Books Limited, 1991), 93
[5]Barker,Influence,3-36.
[6]Ibid,3-36.
[7]Encyclopedia.
[8]Ibid.
1830:Jefferson Birthday dinner, 1831:Resignation of Jackson’s cabinet
[1]Harry L. Watson,Liberty and Power: (Farrar: Noonday Press, 1990),100.
[2]Ibid.,100.
[3]Kirsten E. Wood,“One Woman so Dangerous to Public Morals”: Gender and Power in the Eaton Affair,”,Journal of the Early Republic, Vol.17, No. 2 (Summer 1997), pp. 237-275[accessed through JSTOR, http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0275-1275%28199722%2917%3A2%3C237%3A%22WSDTP%3E2.0.CO%3B2-F].
[4]Ibid.,246.
[5]Queena Pollack,Peggy Eaton: Democracy’s Mistress: (New York: Minton, Balch & Co.,1931),118.
[6]Watson,Liberty,104.
[7]Ibid.,124-126.
On August 28, 1830 the first American made steam engine, Tom Thumb, engineered by Peter Cooper, made its first run from Baltimore to Endicott’s Mill Maryland on the Baltimore &Ohio Railroad[1]. Around the same time the South Carolina Canal & Railroad asked the House of Representatives to grant them the rights to sell stock in their railroad and, in turn, with that capital build a railroad that would run from Charleston to the Savannah River and other parts of the state[2]. With governmental permission construction of the railway began. The original railways were constructed by the use of wooden rails with iron capped tops. Many railroads in the North still relied on animal power to pull the cars, but the engineers of South-Carolina Rail Road Company insisted upon the use of the revolutionary steam engine[3]. On December 25th the first steam powered passenger train made its first run in Charleston. It was the first full time passenger train and the first train to offer regular U.S. mail carrying services[4].The use of railroads revolutionized passenger travel and the transportation of resources and consumer goods throughout the South.
1833:Charleston and Hamburg Railroad completed, 1843:Louisville, Cincinnati,and Charleston Railroads merge to become South Carolina Rail Road, 1881: reorganized as South Carolina Railway Co.
[1]Neil Wenborn,The U.S.A.: A Chronicle in Pictures,(New York,SMITHMARK Publishers Inc.,1991),93.
[2]Balitmore, Maryland,Niles' Weekly Register,27 March 1830,97.
[3]Robert E. Carlson, “British Railroads and Engineers and the Beginings of American Railroad Development,” The Business History Review, Vol. 34, No.2 ( Summer, 1960),147[ Jstor: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0007-6805%28196022%2934%3A2%3C137%3BRAEAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-W, accessed 4 November 2006].
[4]Aiken County Historical Markers,<http://www.abgs.org/markers/aiken/AikenM.htm> [accessed 5 November 2006].
1785:Land Ordinance of 1785, 1787:The Northwest Ordinance of 1787, 1800: Land Act of 1800, 1819:Panic of 1819, 1820:Land Act of 1820
[1]Roy M. Robbins, “Preemption-A Frontier Triumph,”The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Vol.18, No.3.(December,1931),337. [Jstor:http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-391X%28193112%2918%3A3%3C331%3APFT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-T accessed 4 November 2006].
[2]Encyclopedia of American History: Expansion and Reformation 1813 to 1855 , 2003 ed., “Agriculture",12.
[3]Robbins,Preemption,339.
[4]Baltimore, Maryland,Niles’ Weekly Register, 10 April 1830,10-18.
[5]Robbins,Preemption,342.
[6]Robbins,Preemption,343.
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The Election of 1832 featured many interesting issues and new traditions. In this election Andrew Jackson defeated Henry Clay with an electoral count of 219 to 49, with William Wirt winning 7 electoral votes and John Floyd capturing South Carolinas 11 electoral votes. In this campaign there were clearly defined party platforms, and political cartoons played a role, as well as the public’s focus on parades. [1] The main issue in this campaign was the Bank War. The bill to re-charter the national bank was vetoed by Jackson on July 10th; he viewed the bank as a monopoly controlled by foreigners owning eight million dollars of bonds. This issue was the one that really differentiated Clay and Jackson; Clay supported the bank and saw it necessary to the American system. [2]
National Party Nomination conventions were also used in this election for the first time. The Democratic Party has held these conventions for every election since 1832, and have been standard practice in every election since, with the exception of the Whigs in 1836. These conventions highlight the national unity of a political party, and the national platforms that the candidates ran with, seem to be another indicating of national party unity. This election signaled a change in politics, the national party strategy and the use of print played a huge role in this election and continue to be important in elections today. [3]
Second National Bank,
[1] Adams, James Truslow. Dictionary of American History (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1940), 282-283
[2] Carruth, Gorton and Associates, Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates(Thomas Cromwell and Company, 1966), 178
[3] Jameson, J. Franklin and J. W. Buel, Encyclopedic Dictionary of American Reference, (Graham and Co., 1901
The Worcester v. Georgia case was argued before the Supreme Court during the January Term in 1832. This case is prefaced by an 1830 law that the state of Georgia passed that required anyone not an Indian to have a license to be on the Cherokee territory in Georgia. This law was passed in December 1830, and required the licensing to come into effect the following February. [1] The law was passed to primarily focus on a limitation of missionaries to the Cherokee territory, as the state thought that this limitation would allow for an expedited removal process. The Cherokee Territory was rich in gold and the state wanted access to this resource. [2]
The state was confronted with a problem when Samuel Worcester and Elizur Butler remained in the Cherokee Territory and refused to obtain the required license. They also refused to accept pardons, and the state tried them for residing on the nation without a license. The defendants were found guilty in Georgia and appealed the case through the Supreme Court. William Wirt argued the case for Worcester, and his argument was that the Georgia state law was not applicable on the Cherokee Nation. [3] Worcester stated, “the accused crimes had been committed at the town of New Echota in the said Cherokee nation and not in the county Gwinnett or elsewhere, within the jurisdiction of this court.” [4] The Supreme Court agreed with Worcester and stated that the state could extend its jurisdiction over the Cherokee nation, and ordered the release of Worcester and Butler. [5]
1831: Cherokee vs Georgia , Indian Removal
[1] Worcester v. State of GA., 31 U.S. 515 (1832). <http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=31&invol=515> accessed Nov. 9, 2006
[2] Satz, Ronald N. American Indian Policy in the Jacksonian Era (University of Nebraska Press, 1975), 48-50
[3] Ibid. 47-49
[4] Worcester v. State of GA
[5] Satz, American Indian, 49
The Black Hawk War began on April 6 after Black Hawk and the Sac cross the Mississippi River and begin to plant in what was formerly Sac land (given up in the treaty on 1804). This land was settled at the time by white settlers and upon seeing the Indians there was a panic. The settlers mistakenly killed an Indian that was holding a truce flag, and Black Hawk, the chief of the Sac became enraged. Black Hawk then began killing the white settlers. [1]
After this first conflict troops were sent to stop the Sac from further massacres. General Atkinson led the troops and on August second there is a huge killing of the Sac Indians. [2] General Atkinson had a clear advantage against the Sac in sheer numbers; he had over 900 troops to Black Hawk’s 300. The Sac warriors were seen as weak and the Sac tribe is starting to starve in late July, and the federal forces take advantage of the weakness. There is also speculation by the troops that Black Hawk is planning to flee, with the intent to cross the Mississippi River. [3] Black Hawk surrenders on August 27 and the war is concluded at this point. [4]
The Black Hawk War is also interesting as both Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln fought against Black Hawk. They were both occupying minor officer roles, Davis of commissioned troops and Lincoln of volunteer troops. [5]
Treaty of 1804
[1] Carruth, Gorton and Associates. Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates, (Thomas Cromwell and Co., 1966), 176
[2] Ibid., 178
[3] “The Indian War”, The Christian Intelligencer and Eastern Chronicle (1827-1836): August 17, 1832. APS Online: [1] (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=792445352&SrchMode=1&sid=2&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1163619118&clientId=43093)
[4] Carruth, Encyclopedia, 178
[5] Johnson, Allen and Dumas Malone. Dictionary of American Biography Vol. 5, (Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930), 123.
Phrenology was developed by François Joseph Gall and John Gasper Spurzheim. [1] Phrenology is the idea that someone’s moral and intellectual character can be determined based on the shape of their cranium. This premise was supported by Andrew Jackson and Daniel Webster, especially after phrenologists had concluded extremely favorable readings for them. John Quincy Adams looked at phrenology very skeptically. [2]
Phrenology was introduced to the United States in 1832 by Dr. Spurzheim. Contrary to what we believe today, phrenology was based on the best of the scientific method at the time. This was truly treated as a science at this point in time. There have been some long term applications of ideas that grew out of the introduction of phrenology in the Unites States. The belief that, “mental and emotional defects could be better overcome by cultivating proper attitudes and organs rather than by punishing or suppressing the undesired trait.” [3] The belief has shaped the way that education and penology are today. [4]
In 1832 phrenology was seen as the “chart of the mind.”[5] This was a map of the mind that allowed insight about a person. It was also said at the time on introduction, “phrenology treat of the facilities of the human mind and of the organs by means of which they manifest themselves, but it dos not allow us t predict actions.” [6]
[1] Riegel, Robert E. “The Introduction of Phrenology to the United States” The American Historical Review, Vol. 39, No. 1 (October 1933) 73-78 [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28193310%2939%3A1%3C73%3ATIOPT T%3E2.0.CO%3B2-9 accessed 13 November 2006]
[2] Carruth, Gorton and Associates. Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates, (Thomas Cromwell and Co., 1966) 177
[3] Riegal, “The Introduction”
[4] Ibid, 73-78
[5] “Thoughts on Phrenology” The Ariel. A Semimonthly Literary and Miscellaneous Gazette (1827-1832); March 31, 1832. APS Online. P. 388
[6] “Desultory Selections” The New York Mirror, a Weekly Gazette of Literature and the Fine Arts. September 22, 1832, APS Online p. 91
The ideas behind the Ordinance of Nullification were developed by John C. Calhoun in response to the skyscraper Tariff of 1828. The grossly exaggerated duties of the 1828 tariff and subsequent tariffs were hurting the economy of South Carolina. The Nullification was a protest to the grossly exaggerates tariffs. [1] The Ordinance of Nullification was passed in the state of South Carolina on November 24, and it also stated that there could be no appeal of the ordinance outside of the South Carolina Supreme Court. [2] The goal of the Nullification convention was to “suspend the operation of the tariff laws within the state as of the following February 1.”[3]
Nullification brought the issue of states rights to the national stage. [4] South Carolinians also argued that the nullification was simply another form of check and balance in the federal government. There is also a debate over the legality of nullification, and Calhoun argues the idea that, “the advocates of state rights, many of whom have accepted the right of secession must logically accept nullification.” [5] The issue of nullification was concluded in the Compromise of 1833, where the tariff was reduced gradually. South Carolina received much of what it wanted in the compromise. [6]
1833: The Compromise Tariff,
1828: Tariff of 1828
[1] Jameson, Franklin and J. W. Buel, Encyclopedia Dictionary of American Reference Vol. 2, (Graham, 1901), 46.
[2] Carruth, Gorton and Associates. Encyclopedia of American Facts and Dates, (Thomas Cromwell and Co., 1966)177
[3]Wilson, Clyde N. The papers of John C Calhoun Vol. XI (University of South Carolina Press, 1978), xxxix
[4] Jameson, Encyclopedic, 46
[5]Ibid, xxxviii
[6] Morris, Richard B. Encyclopedia of American History, (Harper Brothers Publishers, 1953), 491.
John C Calhoun was the Vice President of the United States from 1825 until he resigned in December of 1832. Calhoun was elected with President Andrew Jackson in 1828, and tensions began to form and intensify after the election. Calhoun breaks ideologically with Jackson in 1830. Nullification was a big issue the Calhoun, and after the passing of the Tariff of 1828, a grossly exaggerated tariff, Calhoun began to develop the idea of nullification. [1] Calhoun shifts his position from a nationalist to a state nationalist with the issue on nullification, and this issue is what ultimately leads to his resignation of the Vice Presidency. [2]
Calhoun officially resigned on December 28, 1832. His letter of resignation to the Secretary of State reads, “Having concluded to accept of a sea in the senate, to which I have been elected to by the legislature of this state, I herewith resign the office of Vice-President of the Unites States.” [3] Calhoun took Hayne’s seat in the US Senate; Hayne was promoted the governorship of South Carolina. [4] The timing on Calhoun’s resignation is also interesting, the South Carolina legislature elected Calhoun to the Senate only two days after Jackson responded to Nullification. [5] Calhoun’s Senate seat was on opportunity to lobby for South Carolina’s interests, as Calhoun’s shift to state nationalist was completed at this shift.
1828: Tariff of 1828,
1832: Ordinance of Nullification,
1832: Election of 1832,
[1] Jameson, Franklin and J. W. Buel, Encyclopedia Dictionary of American Reference Vol. 2, (Graham, 1901), 46
[2] Bartlett, Irving H. John C Calhoun, A Biography (WW Norton and Company, 1993)
[3] Wilson, Clyde N. The papers of John C Calhoun Vol. XI (University of South Carolina Press, 1978), 685
[4] Thatcher, Oliver J. The Library of Original Sources (University Extension Research 1907)
[5] Bartlett, John C Calhoun
On March 2, 1833 The Revenue Collection Bill or “Force Bill” was passed by Andrew Jackson authorizing the use of Federal Powers to enforce the Compromise Tariff. This Bill was passed in response to South Carolina’s threat of nullification of the Tariff of 1828 and 1832. The Bill was approved overwhelmingly by the House 149-48 and again overwhelmingly in the Senate 32-1. It was Andrew Jackson’s desire to quash forever more the threats of nullification that had been rumbling in South Carolina. The Force Bill can actually be seen as a two-pronged fork (along with the Compromise Tariff) produced by President Andrew Jackson to reconcile the problems caused by the Tariff of 1828, or the Tariff of Abominations and the subsequent Tariff of 1832. There had been rumblings in South Carolina for a few years as to how to respond to the Tariff and the Fire Eaters prevailing in South Carolina threatened at first nullification and when nullification was disallowed secession soon followed. In order to prevent the Union from being torn apart Henry Clay produced the Compromise Tariff of 1833 significantly lowering the duties imposed by the earlier Tariffs and at the same time Jackson pioneered the Force Bill, which was intended to enforce the collection of duties that the Tariff called for. The response to the Force Bill was South Carolina nullifying it but with the Compromise of 1833 passed and a general Southern dislike for Secession the crisis of nullification and Secession was avoided.1
1828: Tariff of 1828 1832: Tariff of Abominations 1832: Nullification Ordinance 1833: Olive branch Tariff 1833: Force Bill Nullification
1 Isaac Hayne, "A Report" (18 March, 1833)in Massachusetts General Court State Papers on Nullification (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970) 363-375; William W Frehling, Prelude to Civil War the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina 1816-1836, (New York and London: Harper and Rowe Publishers, 1965) 260-264
The Compromise Tariff was passed by Andrew Jackson March 2, 1833 the same day as the Force Bill. It was designed to appease the Nullificationists in South Carolina while at the same time protecting the interests of burgeoning Industry. It was architected by Henry Clay with the aid of John Calhoun, unlikely compatriots, and was hotly contested in the Senate and House. It passed the House 119 to 85 on February 26 and subsequently passed the Senate with a vote of 29 to 16. This tariff was a response to the earlier tariffs of 1828 and 1832 designed to pacify the tensions growing in South Carolina over the issue of nullification. It advocated a final reduction of duties to a flat 20% y 1842, a much lower number than the South Carolinian legislature called for and was seen as a particularly low design for Henry Clay to produce being that his party affiliation was stoutly Whig. Calhoun, staunchly Democratic and lauded opposition of Henry Clay on many measures was convinced to vote for this measure and in so doing, by virtue of his influence, allowed for the quick remediation of the South Carolina crisis and the ultimate result was the repealment of the nullification ordinance. It is also important to note that Clay’s compromise tariff is an adaptation of an earlier proposal put forth by Verplanck but the earlier bill did not carry the weight of Clay and Calhoun’s influence so it was unsuccessful.1
1828:Tariff of 1828 1832 Tariff of Abominations 1833 The Force Bill
1 Isaac Hayne, "A Report" (18 March, 1833)in Massachusetts General Court State Papers on Nullification (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970) 363-375; William W Frehling, Prelude to Civil War the Nullification Crisis in South Carolina 1816-1836, (New York and London: Harper and Rowe Publishers, 1965) 260-264; Carl Schurz, Henry Clay, (Boston and New York Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1899) 8-20
On December 4, 1833 the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) released its Declaration of sentiments thus becoming an organization devoted to the principle “that the slaves ought instantly to be set free, and brought under the protection of the law.”1 The AASS was founded by 62 members running the gamut of parties invested in the abolition issue. The founding membership included 21 Quakers, 4 of whom were women and 3 black men along with the rest being spearheaded by wealthy New York businessmen Arthur and Lewis Tappan who represented influential evangelical businessmen taking an ever increasing interest in the abolitionist agenda. William Lloyd Garrison, the editor of the abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, was the founder of the AASS an ardent supporter and arguably the founder of the immediatist school of abolition. The ultimate foundation of the AASS lay in the first Black National Convention held in Philadelphia to which Garrison was an attendee. At this convention it was determined that an immediatist organization be established but furor surrounding the Nat Turner rebellion prevented its creation in 1831. The stance of the AASS was a thoroughly radical one bent on immediate abolition without compensation, and for equal protection and appreciation under the law. This stance creates an uproar in Southern constituencies and the societies dissemination of abolitionist sentiment spurs the blockade of mail by Southern postmasters and ultimately the gag rule. It is finally dissolved with the ratification of the 15th amendment in 1870.2
1841: Anti-Slavery Lecture Frederick Douglass
1833: British Emancipation
1862: Emancipation Procalamation
1865: Thirteenth Ammendment Passed
1. William Lloyd Garrison "Declaration of Sentiments" (4 December, 1833) eds. Lawrence B. Goodheart, Hugh Hawkins The Abolitionists Means Ends and Motivations, (Lexington: D.C. Heath and Company, 1995) 46
2. Stanley Harold, American Abolitionists, (Essex, Pearson Education Limited, 2001) 32-35
The Bill for British Emancipation was introduced into the House of Commons on July 5 and passed on August 29. This abolition and its aftermath in England left a great amount of supporters loyal to the cause of international abolition without anything to do. So an influential minority of English abolitionists, deprived of a cause at home, migrate to the United States with the express cause of advocating immediate abolition. Also, the abolitionist climate in England surrounding abolition deeply influences many abolition leaders, Garrison most notably. In fact, Garrison had significant contact with English abolitionists both by correspondence and also during his journeys to England. In fact, Just before the creation of the America Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia Garrison had spent a time in England, discussing the impetus of abolition in America and overseas. With British Emancipation ratified and the radical abolitionist coming from England to America with radical notions of equality and freedom the push for American abolition becomes very strong indeed. In fact it is during this period of the early to mid 1830s that the notions of emancipation are at their most radical, advocating equality, immediate abolition and arguing that there should be no compensation thus incensing the South and creating an atmosphere of tension. This tension leads to such things as the gag rule and other motions in the South to prevent the abolitionist message from reaching slaves, especially with the recent Turner rebellion which had inflamed Southern sensibilities over slavery into a frenzy.1
1833:American Anti-Slavery Society 1834:British Abolish Slavery 1838: End of Mandatory Apprenticeships in British Empire 1862: Emancipation Proclamation 186:5 13th Amendment
William Law Mathieson, British Slavery and its Abolition, (New York, Otagon Books Inc, 1967) 240-242
The nullification of the Force Bill and the acceptance of the Compromise Tariff in South Carolina March 18th and 15th 1833 respectively, can be understood as a twofold measure to at both times acquiesce to the demands of the federal government and almost in the same breath defy it. By nullifying the Force Bill South Carolina presumed to nullify the Federal Army, which was seen as ludicrous by one of nullifications strong supporters Sen. McDuffie. The discrepancy made by this nullification was that allegiance and obedience was due to the state but only obedience not necessarily allegiance was due the federal government. This argument between Unionist supporters and champions of Nullification bleeds over into the concept and eventual creation of the “ironclad oath” which was an oath to be sworn by all South Carolinian officials and more importantly militia commanders that asked for allegiance to the state of South Carolina and to uphold the Constitution of the state and Federal government. This oath was used as a litmus test by Unionists for supporters of Nullification in South Carolina and ferreted out the issue of slavery as it pertained to State Rights. Finally the militia oath which, asked commanders to bear allegiance to South Carolina, was appealed and in succeeding cases all vestiges of the support for nullification were appealed. The Nullification of the Force Bill, then, is interpreted as a last ditch effort for South Carolina to preserve its states rights in the shadow of an ever growing Federal power.1
1832: Nullification Ordinance 1833: Force Bill
1. David Duncan Wallace, The History of South Carolina II, (New York, The American Historical Society, 1934) 445-452; Isaac Hayne, "A Report" (18 March, 1833)in Massachusetts General Court State Papers on Nullification (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970) 363-375
On March 28, 1834, a motion of censure passed the Senate which reprimanded President Jackson for allegedly assuming unconstitutional power by vetoing the National Bank’s re-chartering and ordering its deposits to be removed to state pet banks. The motion for the censure resolution was conceived of by leading Anti-Jacksonian Henry Clay in a December 1833 speech. The passage of the censure resolution was remarkable in that it represented the highest form of a direct political attack on the president. Clay and his colleagues even suspected that they would then be in a position to restore the nation according to their own design because Jackson’s career would be ruined. Despite the grave charge, Jackson managed to retain his dignity and strong political support. Jackson was understandably furious and in his defense, he revolutionized the notion of the presidency irrevocably: he drastically broke from classical republican ideals and claimed that the president should exercise power in conjunction with the public will. He believed that the veto of the National Bank was simply an extension of popular opinion. On April 15, Jackson requested that the censure be removed from the Senate record; however, the Senate did not relent. Despite this failure, Jackson’s new conception of the presidency and its implicit reflection of the nature of the Democratic Party clearly prevailed as Democrats handily won the midterm elections in 1834.1
1832 Jackson Veto of National Bank 1833 Jackson Removal of Deposits to Pet Banks 1833 Clay's Speech Against Jackson 1834 Democrats Dominate Whigs in Elections
1
H.W. Brands, Andrew Jackson: His Life and Times, (New York: Doubleday, 2005), 498-502; Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy Vol. III, (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 124-127, 153-159; Robert Seager II, ed., The Papers of Henry Clay, Vol. VIII, (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1984), 685.
The Anti-Jacksonian political alliance was formally named the Whig Party in a Henry Clay speech on April 14, 1834 in a reaction to President Andrew Jackson’s perceived overextension of executive power by vetoing the National Bank, withdrawing funds into “pet” state banks, and to a lesser degree, his handling of the Nullification Crisis. The party borrowed its name from the homonymous anti-monarchy party of England; the name also carried with it a potent connotation of colonial patriotism during the American Revolution. The Whigs initially were a heterogeneous mix of middle and upper class businessmen, industrialists, abolitionists, Evangelical Christians, Anti-Masons, opponents of Indian removal, supporters of the state right of nullification, and any other federalist remnants of the temporary National Republican Party formed in the mid 1820s. Despite these sometimes conflicting interests among Whigs, at the center of Whig ideology was Henry Clay’s American System to provide for national growth through protective tariffs, construction of internal improvements such as roads and canals, and a national bank to establish a uniform currency and credit for industrial investment.1
This political system became known as the Second United States’ Party System. For the first time since the absolution of the Federalist Party in the 1810s there was a political party strong enough to counter Democratic power. The Whigs were oddly conservative on social issues but progressive concerning the economy; they encouraged modernity in industry, technology, and work ethic while they cowered from social changes such as racial tolerance and the possibility of socioeconomic equality.2
1832 National Bank Veto 1833 National Bank Fund Transfers 1833 Nullification Crisis 1840 Whig William Henry Harrison Wins Presidency 1854 Creation of Republican Party
1
Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of American Democracy, Vol. III, (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 136-140; Daniel Walker Howe, "The Evangelical Movement and Political Culture in the North During the Second Party System," The Journal of American History, 77,4 (March, 1991), 1223-1226. [JSTOR: http://www.jstor.org/view/00218723/di975295/97p00042/0?currentResult=00218723%2bdi975295%2b97p00042%2b0%2cFFFFFF01&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26Query%3Devangelical%2Bmovement%2BAND%2Bhowe Accessed 2 October 2005]; Arthur Charles Cole, The Whig Party in the South, (Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1962), 15-17, 30-31; Louis P. Masur, 1831, (New York: Hill and Wang, 2001), 96-98; Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 362-363.
2
Remini, Andrew Jackson, 140; Daniel Walker Howe, The Political Culture of the American Whigs, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979) 12, 301-302.
Stephen F. Austin, who was widely recognized as the Father of Texas, was arrested in Saltillo, Mexico on January 3, 1834 on charges of sedition against the Mexican government. Following a convention of Texans at San Felipe in October 1832 in which an extralegal constitution claiming separation from the province of Coahuila was adopted, Austin was chosen to go to Mexico City to appeal to Mexican president/dictator Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna on behalf of Texas. When he was ignored, Austin angrily wrote a letter, which he believed represented the interests of all Anglo Texans, to the town of San Antonio on October 2, 1833, urging it to create its own local government independent of Coahuila. For these words Austin was jailed from February until Christmas Day, 1834 for plotting to overthrow the Mexican government.1
Even though early in Austin’s imprisonment Mexico relaxed some restrictions on Texas, in May, Santa Anna abandoned his liberal reforms to become a dictatorial conservative Centrist. Considering this fact in light of his imprisonment, Austin became convinced in 1834 to abandon his longstanding moderate and pacifistic views of gradual Texas liberty. Even after he was released from prison, he remained in the capital to continue arguing for Texas independence. Austin’s imprisonment therefore inalterably emboldened him to the cause of Texas independence of which he would assume prominent positions as commander-in-chief of Texas volunteer troops and diplomat to the United States in 1835.2
1832 Convention of San Felipe 1833 Austin Appointed to Negotiate with Mexico on Behalf of Texas 1833 Austin's Letter to San Antonio 1835 Austin Appointed Commander-in-Chief of Texas Volunteers 1835 Austin Appointed Diplomat to US 1836 Texas Revolution 1836 Austin's death
1
Gregg Cantrell, Stephen F. Austin: Empresario of Texas, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 269-271, 296; A Gentleman of Philadelphia, "Texas and Its Revolution," Southern Literary Messenger, 7,6 (June, 1841), 412. [MOA: http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moajrnl;cc=moajrnl;q1=stephen%20austin;rgn=full%20text;view=image;seq=0410;idno=acf2679.0007.006;node=acf2679.0007.006%3A17, Accessed 14 November 2006]
2
Cantrell, Austin, 300, 303, 307, 316, 326; Eugene Barker, Mexico and Texas, (New York: Russell & Russell, 1965), 132-134; Andres Tijerina, Tejanos and Texas Under the Mexican Flag, (College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1994), 134-135; J.D.B. Debow, "Texas-A Province, Republic, and State," Debow's Review 23,3 (September, 1857), 247-249. [MOA: http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moajrnl;cc=moajrnl;q1=stephen%20austin;rgn=full%20text;view=image;seq=0243;idno=acg1336.1-23.003;node=acg1336.1-23.003%3A2, Accessed 14 November 2006]
The Second Coinage Act, passed on June 28, 1834 and effective from July 31, readjusted the silver to gold ratio in the United States from 15:1 set by the First Coinage Act of 1792 to 16:1. This act was precipitated by a widespread fear among hard-money advocates like Senator Thomas Hart Benton, Representative James K. Polk, and Secretary of the Treasury Roger Taney that the undervaluation of gold from the 15:1 ratio was causing it to go out of circulation. To remedy this, the 16:1 ratio was established to create the overvaluation of gold. Since he was known as a champion of specie, President Jackson praised this legislation for increasing the feelings of wealth among common Americans since many farmers despised and distrusted paper currency because it did not represent the true value of a day’s work. Jackson’s obsession with hard money would eventually lead to the Specie Circular of 1836 which would in turn play a large role in exacerbating the Panic of 1837.1
1792 First Coinage Act 1836 Specie Circular 1837 Panic of 1837
1
Charles Sellers, The Market Revolution: Jacksonian America, 1815-1846 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 337; William N. Chambers, Old Bullion Benton: Senator from the New West, (Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1956), 201-202; Robert V. Remini, Andrew Jackson and the Course of Democracy in America Vol. III, (New York: Harper and Row, 1984), 168-169, 327-329.
By the terms of the 1833 Abolition Act passed in London, England, on August 1, 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were freed and a sum of 20 million pounds was allotted to compensate slaveholders. Emancipation was the result of an extensive abolitionist campaign which had been growing in England for over half a century. Former slaves were not yet entirely freed by this act; instead, those over the age of six were relegated to the status of unpaid apprentice for six years. While this condition of labor was occasionally as cruel and unpleasant as slavery, the die had been cast that would soon produce complete emancipation in 1838. July 31, 1834 found slaves celebrating in churches throughout the Empire their last day of slavery. The transition from slavery to apprenticeship was largely peaceful and quashed any hopes of Southerners in the United States that former slaves would exhibit any type of disorderly conduct that could be used as a weapon to perpetuate black slavery in the United States. Also contrary to Southerners’ wishes, agricultural production in the colonies seemed to actually increase significantly in some places with emancipation. Thus Southern claims that slavery was the most productive form of black labor were unsubstantiated. Perhaps most importantly to the South, British emancipation resulted in many dedicated British abolitionists turning their gaze toward slavery in the United States. It was largely through their instruction that many Northerners came to champion the cause of abolition beginning in the 1830s.1
1831 Jamaica Slave Rebellion 1833 Abolition Act of 1833 1838 End of Mandatory Apprenticeships in British Empire 1862 Emancipation Proclamation 1865 13th Amendment
1
James Walvin, Black Ivory: A History of British Slavery, (Washington D.C.: Howard University Press, 1994), 304-310; Reginald Coupland, The British Anti-Slavery Movement, (London, ENG: Thornton, Butterworth, Ltd, 1933), 143; Philip D. Morgan and Sean Hawkins, eds., Black Experience and the Empire, (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 147-148; "British Emancipation," American Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1,8 (August, 1834), 123. [APS: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=1&did=336348901&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1163614057&clientId=43093, Accessed 14 November 2006]; "Effects of Emancipation in the West Indies," Niles' Weekly Register, 1,1 (September 3, 1836), 10. [APS: http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?index=4&did=776105212&SrchMode=1&sid=5&Fmt=10&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=HNP&TS=1163614407&clientId=43093, Accessed 14 November 2006].
On January 30, 1835, Andrew Jackson, having just attended the funeral of one Warren Davis, passed from the Capital building towards his awaiting carriage. [1] It was in this moment that the aging Jackson, aided by his secretary of the treasury, was confronted by Richard Lawrence. [2] At a range of eight feet, Lawrence aimed and pulled two pre-loaded pistols upon the president, yet the devices did not yield the result that Lawrence had intended; both misfired. Upon failure of the second pistol, Jackson raised his cane and advanced the would be assassin, who, taking flight, was caught moments later.[3] Concerning the assassination attempt, the Democrats supported the notion of a Whig orchestrated conspiracy, whilst the political opposition claimed the whole event was devised by Jackson’s Kitchen Cabinet. This difference in opinion highlights the glaring partisanship that was prevalent during Jackson’s administration. [4] Jackson became convinced that the attack was devised by his political enemy, Whig Senator George Poindexter. Though Jackson organized a specialized senate committee to investigate Poindexter, the committee quickly conceded that Poindexter had no connection to the attack.[5] General opinion held that Lawrence was neither a co-conspirator with Poindexter, nor a pawn of the Kitchen Cabinet, but merely an out of work painter, who acted out of insanity. When Lawrence accused Jackson of killing his father, and then claimed himself to be Richard III of England, the courts quickly declared Lawrence insane. This marked the first assassination attempt upon the President of the United States.[6]
1828: Election of Andrew Jackson
[1] Atlanta, Georgia, The Atlanta Constitution, 15 September 1901. Online.
[2] New York, New York, New York Evangelist, 7 February 1835. Online.
[3] Glyndon G. Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era: 1828-1848, (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 99-100.
[4] Richard C. Rohrs, “Partisan Politics and the Attempted Assassination of Andrew Jackson”, Journal of the Early Republic > Vol. 1, No. 2 (Summer, 1981), 149-163. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0275-1275%28198122%291%3A2%3C149%3APPATAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-0, Accessed 18 October 2006]
[5] Cole, Donald B. Cole, The Presidency of Andrew Jackson, (Lawrence, Kansas: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 221-222.
[6] New York, New York, New York Times, 21 May 1972. Online.
It was in late December, 1835, that the Second Seminole War broke out in Florida. Caused primarily by misinformation from the federal government regarding westward emigration, the Seminole Indians retaliated with force against those who sought to remove them. A key part of Jacksonian Democracy, Indian Removal was a priority for white settlers looking to expand to the south and west. [1] The Seminoles sought justice after the American Government did not adhere to the Moultrie Creek treaty which gave them a prolonged period of time for which they could reside in central Florida. Instead, a treaty of Payne’s Landing had been issued, one that was contradictory to Moultrie Creek and claimed that the Seminoles must vacate the land by 1837, though the government sought to remove them quicker.[2] Under the young and brash war chief, Osceola, the Seminoles sparked the war by attacking a column of U.S. soldiers heading to Fort King. When the skirmish ceased, not a white man was left alive. [3] The Seminole war party celebrated with drunken revelry that night, confident in their victory over the white man. On New Years Eve, 1835, a more serious engagement involving Osceola and General Clinch involved close to 1,000 combatants. This second battle elevated the conflict, gave the Seminoles confidence in Osceola, and this war would disrupt trade, communication and plantations in Florida. [4]
1824: Bureau of Indian Affairs Created
[1] Glyndon G. Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era: 1828-1848, (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 50.
[3] George E. Buker, Swamp Sailors : Riverine Warfare in the Everglades, 1835-1842, (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1975), 9; John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842, (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1967), 103-106.
[4] John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842, (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1967), 108-113.
It was in late December, 1835, that the Second Seminole War broke out in Florida. Caused primarily by misinformation from the federal government regarding westward emigration, the Seminole Indians retaliated with force against those who sought to remove them. A key part of Jacksonian Democracy, Indian Removal was a priority for white settlers looking to expand to the south and west. [1] The Seminoles sought justice after the American Government did not adhere to the Moultrie Creek treaty which gave them a prolonged period of time for which they could reside in central Florida. Instead, a treaty of Payne’s Landing had been issued, one that was contradictory to Moultrie Creek and claimed that the Seminoles must vacate the land by 1837, though the government sought to remove them quicker.[2] Under the young and brash war chief, Osceola, the Seminoles sparked the war by attacking a column of U.S. soldiers heading to Fort King. When the skirmish ceased, not a white man was left alive. [3] The Seminole war party celebrated with drunken revelry that night, confident in their victory over the white man. On New Years Eve, 1835, a more serious engagement involving Osceola and General Clinch involved close to 1,000 combatants. This second battle elevated the conflict, gave the Seminoles confidence in Osceola, and this war would disrupt trade, communication and plantations in Florida. [4]
1824: Bureau of Indian Affairs Created
[1] Glyndon G. Van Deusen, The Jacksonian Era: 1828-1848, (New York: Harper & Row, 1959), 50.
[3] George E. Buker, Swamp Sailors : Riverine Warfare in the Everglades, 1835-1842, (Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1975), 9; John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842, (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1967), 103-106.
[4] John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842, (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1967), 108-113.
From August 25 to August 31, 1835, the New York Sun published six articles detailing the discovery of intelligent life on the moon in what has come to be known as the Great Moon Hoax. The six articles attributed the discoveries to preeminent astronomer Sir John Herschel, but was in fact written under a pseudonym by Cambridge scholar and Sun writer, Richard Adams Locke. [1] The articles attributed the breakthrough to a telescope of epic capabilities, one whose lens was able to traverse the gulf of space and pick up the tiniest of details. [2] Locke presented readers with a vivid word-picture of the life that was teeming on the moon. The Sun amazed its readers with accounts of animal life including goats, bison, cranes, unicorns and a lunar geography littered with oceans, beaches, lush vegetation and quartz pyramids.[3] The most fantastic claim made by the Sun was the discovery of man-bats (dubbed Vespertilio-homo by Locke) seen frolicking around a golden temple. [4] When the Journal of Commerce sought permission to republish the articles, Locke came forward and claimed the articles to be a product of his imagination. On the whole, people were amused by this clever charade, however the ruse was clever to dupe even the most learned of men, including the student body of Yale. [5] Locke’s primary reason for the hoax was to create a fantastic story that would up the sales of the Sun, also to satire the contemporary claims made by other scientists of life on the moon.[6]
1833: Publication of the New York Sun
[1] Wikipedia, “The Great Moon Hoax,” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Moon_Hoax> [Accessed 11 November 2006].
[2] HistoryBuff.com, “The Great Moon Hoax of 1835,” http://www.historybuff.com/library/refmoon.html [Accessed November 11 2006].
[3] New York, New York, New York Sun, 26 August 1835. Online.
[4] New York, New York, New York Sun, 28 August 1835. Online.
[5] Wikipedia, “The Great Moon Hoax,” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Moon_Hoax> [Accessed 11 November 2006; Museum of Hoaxes, “The Great Moon Hoax,” http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/moonhoax.html [13 November 2006].
[6] Wikipedia, “The Great Moon Hoax,” <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Moon_Hoax> [Accessed 11 November 2006].
It was in 1835 that Stephen Austin, in reaction to Santa Anna’s dictatorship, urged all Texans take up arms and defend their country. [1] Angered that Santa Anna had thrown out the Constitution of 1824 which had established Mexico as a federalist republic and that Mexican troops were returning to Texas, Austin rallied colonists to the cause of an independent Texas. [2] The situation escalated in October of 1835, when Mexican troops under General Martin Perfecto de Cos, went to seize a cannon from the colonists in Gonzales. Though the cannon was fairly worthless, it became a symbol for the colonists, who protected it, held off a barrage from the Mexican Dragoons, and were the victors of a small engagement that left one Mexican dead. In this moment, the war began. [3] The Army of the People was quickly established under Austin, and the Texans had a string of military victories against the Mexican Army, holding Gonzales and capturing San Antonio in a 5-day long engagement. [4] It was in November that a committee of delegates created a provisional government, issued a Declaration of Causes for their insurrection, and appointed Henry Smith as governor, Sam Houston to Major General and Stephen Austin as commissioners to the United States.[5] By Christmas all of General Cos’ troops had been expelled from Texas, and the second phase of the Revolution was underway. [6]
1822: Austin Establishes Settlement in Texas
1830: Mexico Outlaws American Immigrants
1824: The Constitution of 1824
1833: Santa Anna Assumes Dictatorship
1836: Texas Convention of 1836 and the Declaration of Independence
1837: United States recognizes Texas independence
[1] Richard Bruce Winders, Crisis in the Southwest : The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle Over Texas, (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 2002), 18.
[2] Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, Texas: Turner, 1935), 147.
[3] Ibid. , 152.
[4] Richard Bruce Winders, Crisis in the Southwest : The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle Over Texas, (Wilmington, Delaware: SR Books, 2002), 18.
[5] Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, Texas: Turner, 1935), 160.
[6] Ibid., 157.
The Second Seminole War was a conflict lasting from 1835 to 1842 spurned by the Seminoles’ refusal to move Westward at the command of the United States government. During 1836, several significant events happened in the course of the war, such as General Gaines’ Expedition. On February 15, General Edmund Pendleton Gaines led an expedition of 980 soldiers from Fort Brooke towards Fort King [1]. Along the way, they happened upon the site of the Dade Massacre which had occurred December 28 of 1835 [2]. After finding Fort King lacking of nearly all supplies on February 22, Gaines and his men marched onward, ending up cornered by the Seminoles on the banks of the Withlacoochee. The soldiers constructed a temporary fortress, which they deemed Camp Izard after Lt. James Izard, the first of their number to fall to the Seminoles [3]. Although Gaines wrote to General Clinch requesting help, Clinch was delayed by General Winfield Scott from coming to Gaines’ aid. Eventually, on March 5, after Gaines and his men had been reduced to slaughtering their horses for food, Clinch disobeyed orders and rushed to Gaines, who was still surrounded by Seminoles. On March 6, Clinch’s troops fired upon the Seminoles, sending them fleeing into the forrest [4]. Two days later, Generals Clinch and Gaines and their troops reached Fort Drane [5].
[1] John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War. (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1967), pg. 146.
[2] George E. Buker, Swamp Sailors: Riverine Warfare in the Everglades 1835-1842. (Gainesville, FL: The University Presses of Florida, 1975), pg.16.
[3] John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War. (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1967), pg. 147.
[4] John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War. (Gainesville, FL: University of Florida Press, 1967), pg. 149, 150.
[5] "Article 4-No Title.," Army and Navy Chronicle, 31 March, 1836, APS Online, pg. 196
1823: Treaty of Moultrie Creek
1832: Treaty of Payne's Landing
On March 16, 1836, John C. Calhoun attempted to introduce a measure in the Senate that would silence opposition to slavery. This bill, which came to be known as the “gag rule” declared that it was illegal for a postmaster to distribute abolitionist information in any State where such actions were prohibited [1]. Calhoun feared that the institution of slavery was being threatened and that this would lead to further conflict and possibly even the destruction of the Union [2]. The measure nearly passed, despite the fact that it had the support of only three Northern Senators [3]. Calhoun’s attempt to prevent the distribution of abolitionist material sparked outrage by many who felt it was an infringement on the freedom of the press. As stated by a writer for the Boston Daily Advocate, “the bill itself is an absurdity. Espionage is unconstitutional, except under martial law. It is as abhorrent to our free notions, as a censorship of the press” [4]. The Advocate goes on to argue that “under this law, if any paper contains the word slavery, or an advertisement of a runaway slave, it may be interdicted” [5].
[1] Arthur, Styron, The Cast Iron Man: John C. Calhoun and American Democracy, (NY: Longmans, Green and Co., 1935), 210.
[2] Charles M. Wiltse, John C. Calhoun: Nullifier, 1829-1839, (Indianapolis: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1949), 369.
[3] Arthur Styron, The Cast Iron Man: John C. Calhoun and American Democracy, (NY: Longmans, Green and Co., 1935), 210.
[4] "Slavery: Calhoun's Gag Law." Liberator, 2 April 1836, p.0_1.
[5] "Slavery: Calhoun's Gag Law." Liberator, 2 April 1836, p.0_1.
1831/1832-1842: Abolitionist Propoganda
1831/1832-1837: Cent and Mite Donations
On June 15, 1836, the territory of Arkansas officially gained statehood, becoming the 25th state in the Union. This was largely due to the effort of Jacksonian Democrats in Washington, who after an all night negotiation of the state constitution, finally succeeded in getting it admitted as a slave state [1]. According to the constitution, “every free white male citizen of the United States, who shall have been a citizen of the state for six months, shall be deemed a qualified elector” [2]. On the eve of the Civil War, Arkansas refused to secede from the Union until President Lincoln authorized the attack of Ft. Sumter in Charleston, SC. On May 6, 1861, Arkansas seceded from the Union, not being readmitted until June of 1868 [3].
[1] Charles S. Bolton, Arkansas, 1800-1860: Remote and Restless, (Fayetteville, AK: The University of Arkansas Press, 1998), 47.
[2] "Constitution of Arkansas," Niles' Weekly Register, 26 March 1836, 58, APS Online.
[3] John Gould Fletcher, Arkansas, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1947), 145, 146.
1836: Jacksonian Democrats win the free/slave debate for AK
On June 15, 1836, the territory of Arkansas officially gained statehood, becoming the 25th state in the Union. This was largely due to the effort of Jacksonian Democrats in Washington, who after an all night negotiation of the state constitution, finally succeeded in getting it admitted as a slave state [1]. According to the constitution, “every free white male citizen of the United States, who shall have been a citizen of the state for six months, shall be deemed a qualified elector” [2]. On the eve of the Civil War, Arkansas refused to secede from the Union until President Lincoln authorized the attack of Ft. Sumter in Charleston, SC. On May 6, 1861, Arkansas seceded from the Union, not being readmitted until June of 1868 [3].
[1] Charles S. Bolton, Arkansas, 1800-1860: Remote and Restless, (Fayetteville, AK: The University of Arkansas Press, 1998), 47.
[2] "Constitution of Arkansas," Niles' Weekly Register, 26 March 1836, 58, APS Online.
[3] John Gould Fletcher, Arkansas, (Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 1947), 145, 146.
1836: Jacksonian Democrats win the free/slave debate for AK
On June 28, 1836, James Madison, the last of the Founding Fathers, died [1] [2]. Madison was known as the Father of the Constitution due to the contributions of his Virginia Plan in the framing of the Constitution. The Virginia Plan, presented at the Constitutional Convention in 1787, favored large states in regards to electoral power as opposed to the New Jersey Plan, which favored smaller states. As outlined in the Virginia Plan, representation in both Houses of Congress would be contingent upon population. While the conflict was eventually resolved in the Connecticut Compromise, it was Madison’s Virginia Plan that made up the majority of the Constitution [3]. Madison also was a major contributor to the Federalist Papers, which offered clarity and insight into the purpose of the Constitution. James Madison served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817, and, along with Thomas Jefferson, formed the Republican Party [4].
[1] "Death of James Madison," The New-Yorker, 2 July 1836, 237, APS Online.
[2] "Death of Mr. Madison," The American Historical Magazine, (June 1836): 239, APS Online.
[3] Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography, (NY: The Macmillan Company, 1971), 204, 188.
[4] Ralph Ketcham, James Madison: A Biography, (NY: The Macmillan Company, 1971), 331.
1787: Constitutional Convention
On March 1, 1836, delegates to the Convention of 1836 met in Washington-on-the-Brazos to decide the future of Texas. The 41 delegates had been chosen on February 1 of that year in an election where the citizens of Texas voted primarily for young men who favored action over discussion [1] [2]. While in session, the Convention focused on writing a Declaration of Independence, creating an army, and establishing a government. On March 2, they issued their Declaration of Independence from Mexico, which they modeled after the U.S. Declaration of Independence [3]. Included in the Declaration was a list of grievances with Mexico, much like the colonies’ grievances with Britain [4]. According to the Declaration, Mexico had “ceased to protect the lives, liberty, and property of the people from whom its legitimate powers are derived” [5]. The Convention also wrote a Constitution for the newly formed republic of Texas, in which slavery was accepted as a legal institution. [6]. Interestingly, this Constitution applied to much of the same land that was emancipated by Mexico from 1824-1829 [7]. On March 4, the Convention declared Sam Houston the chief of the Texas army [8]. The Convention came to a close on March 17, 1836, having declared independence from Mexico and established a government.
[1] Randolph B. Campbell, Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State, (NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), 147.
[2] Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 174.
[3] Travis W. Barnet, "Texas Declaration of Independence," The Albion, A Journal of News, Politics, and Literature, 9 April 1836, 118, APS Online.
[4] Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 175.
[5] Travis W. Barnet, "Texas Declaration of Independence," The Albion, A Journal of News, Politics, and Literature, 9 April 1836, 118, APS Online.
[6] Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 177.
[7] C. Reginald Enock, Mexico: Its Ancient and Modern Civilisation History and Political Conditions Topography and Natural Resources Industries and General Development, (London: Adelphi Terrace, 1909), 119, 120.
[8] Randolph B. Campbell, Gone to Texas: A History of the Lone Star State, (NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), 148.
1835: The Texas Revolution Begins
1824-1829: Mexican Emancipation
As perhaps the most decisive and memorable event during the Texas struggle for independence, the Battle of the Alamo lasted for thirteen days [1]. From February 24 to March 6, Mexican forces led by Santa Anna laid siege to 150 Texans, among which was legendary frontiersman, David Crockett, barricaded in the Alamo, an old Spanish mission [2]. The Texans were led by Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis, who sent the appeal “To the People of Texas and all Americans in the World” [3]. On the South side of the mission, the Mexican forces built a battery against which Travis had only 14 artillery pieces to defend with. On March 2, the remainder of Santa Anna’s force arrived. On March 5, Travis issued one final appeal to the Convention of 1836 asking for help. However, at 4 a.m. on the morning of March 6, Santa Anna ordered his final attack, which only 6 Texans survived. During the course of the siege, between 500 and 600 Mexicans were killed [4].
[1] Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 171, 172.
[2] Richard Bruce Winders, Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle over Texas, (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2002), 23, 24.
[3] Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 172.
[4] Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 172, 173.
1835: The Texas Revolution Begins
On the evening of March 26, 1836, Colonel Portilla, who was in charge of the Mexican force at Goliad received orders from General Santa Anna regarding the prisoners being held there. Santa Anna’s orders instructed Portilla to kill every prisoner that had been taken by force 1. According to The Christian Intelligencer and Eastern Chronicle, Texans had blown up the fort at Goliad on March 23 2. However, that same night, Portilla received word from General Urrea ordering him to take good care of the prisoners and keep them working 3. After debating whose orders to follow, Portilla, decided early on the morning of March 27 to follow those of Santa Anna, who was of superior rank. From Goliad, Portilla divided the prisoners into three separate groups, telling them that they were going to march to Matamoros. During the journey, the prisoners were stopped and executed. While some were spared (such as physicians) and some managed to escape, almost 350 prisoners were shot and killed 4. This brutal massacre coupled with the dramatic defeat at the Alamo served to strengthen the resolve of the Texans 5.
1 Gambrell, Herbert P. and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 170.
2 "Latest News From Texas," The Christian Intelligencer and Eastern Chronicle, 29 April 1836, 59, APS Online.
3 Gambrell, Herbert P. and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 170.
4 Campbell, Randolph C. Gone to Texas: a History of the Lone Star State, (NY: Oxford University Press, 2003), 152.
5 Winders, Richard Bruce. Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle over Texas, (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc., 2002), 25.
1835: The Texas Revolution Begins
1836: Texan destruction of Goliad fort
At 4 p.m. during the afternoon of April 21, 1836, as the unexpecting Mexican soldiers rested on the banks of the San Jacinto River (near present day Houston), Texan troops under the command of Sam Houston commenced their attack. Santa Anna, who was in the midst of his siesta was caught unprepared, and after a brief and feeble attempt to repel the attack, the Mexican troops fled. For the Texans, this was a revenge-fueled attack, evidenced by their shouting “Remember the Alamo; remember Goliad!” [1]. The Texans got their revenge, killing 630 Mexicans and capturing 730 others while only losing 9 of their own number [2]. In the words of a correspondent of the New Orleans Bee who witnessed the battle, “the sight was horrible…the ground was strewed with dead men, dead horses, guns, bayonets, swords, drums, trumpets; some shattered and broken books, papers, shoes, sandals, caps, the chaos of a routed army” [3]. The battle lasted until the end of the day, when Colonel Almonte offered the official surrender of his troops to the Texans [4]. The battle is seen by many as the decisive point where the Texans won their independence, however, the struggle continued for another decade [5].
[1] Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 185.
[2] Richard Bruce Winders, Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle over Texas, (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc, 2002), 27.
[3] "The Battle and the Captives," Atkinson's Saturday Evening Post, XV, no. 777, 18 June 1836, 0_002, APS Online.
[4] Herbert P. Gambrell and Lewis W. Newton, A Social and Political History of Texas, (Dallas, TX: Turner Company, 1935), 185.
[5] Richard Bruce Winders, Crisis in the Southwest: The United States, Mexico, and the Struggle over Texas, (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly Resources Inc, 2002), 28.
1835: The Texas Revolution Begins
On May 10, 1837, banks in New York suspended the redemption of bank notes for specie (gold and silver), and other banks around the nation quickly followed suit. This suspension led to an immediate economic crisis, and a more lasting political upheaval.[1] This crisis was brought on by a number of preceding events, including the destruction of the United States National Bank and the subsequent transfer of deposits to numerous smaller banks, many of which responded to this windfall by overextending credit on shaky investments.[2] Many banks actually went into debt by financing too many internal improvement projects, especially in the Eastern and Southern states. This problem was compounded by the passage of the specie circular in 1836, which restricted land purchases to specie payments only. This resulted in a great deal of specie moving west across the country, causing many Eastern banks to become under-funded and hastening their collapse.[3] The emergence of a large trade deficit in the years leading up to the panic only served to worsen the problem.[4]
In the South, the impacts were felt the worst in the western cotton belt states. Internal improvement and industrialization projects were quickly scrapped, leaving their investors in debt. Cotton prices fell sharply, and many areas began to diversify agriculturally.[5] Politically, the innate problems resulting from entrusting the national treasury to independently owned and operated banks showed the need for the creation of an Independent Treasury, proposed by President Van Buren in September 1837. However, a majority of the American public blamed the Democratic policies of Andrew Jackson for the economic collapse, and as a result the Whigs were able to capture control of the Presidency in the 1840 elections.[6]
Specie Circular, 1836
1837: Inauguration of Martin Van Buren
1840: Presidential Election of 1840
[1]Wilson, Major L. The Presidency of Martin Van Buren Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1984. p.43
[2]McGrane, Reginald Charles. The Panic of 1837. New York: Russell & Russell, 1965. p.24-25
[3]Ibid., 92.
[4]Wilson, 44.
[5]McGrane, 112-114
[6]Ibid., 175.
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Michigan joined the union as a free state in January 1837, shortly following the admission of the slave state of Arkansas.[1] Admitted together to retain a semblance of representative balance in the Senate between slaveholding and free states, these were the first states admitted under the provisions of the Missouri Compromise of 1820.[2] Because the groundwork for admitting new states had already been agreed upon, Michigan’s admission was one of the few antebellum entries that failed to evoke sectionally-based controversy.[3]
The primary controversies regarding Michigan’s entry were therefore boundary disputes with Illinois and Constitutional naturalization inconsistencies.[4] Michigan was clearly located above the 36 30 and had little utility for slavery to begin with; the simultaneous admission of Arkansas only helped to further diminish sectional conflict. This lack of hostility is significant considering the sectional conflicts prevalent throughout this time, especially between slaveholders and abolitionist groups, many of which were already under formation in Michigan prior to its entry into the union.[5]
1836: Arkansas Gains Statehood
1836: Introduction of the Gag Rule
[1]”Michigan—Official.” ‘’Niles Weekly Register.’’ October 15 1836 p. 101 (Proquest->APS Online)
[2]”Michigan and Arkansas.” ‘’The New Yorker.’’ July 23 1836 p. 281 (Proquest->APS Online)
[3]”Debate on the Admission of Michigan.”(transcript) ‘’Niles Weekly Register.’’ January 7 1837 p. 298 (Proquest->APS Online)
[4]”Michigan and Arkansas” 281.
[5]”Progress of Abolition.” ‘’Liberator.’’ December 10 1836 p. 198. (Proquest->APS Online)
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Martin Van Buren himself described his presidency as the "third term of the Jackson administration." [1] Indeed, his success in the election of 1836 was in large part due to Andrew Jackson selecting him as the "heir apparent" to the Democratic party, having served as Jackson’s second term Vice President. Although groomed in his predecessor’s image, Van Buren’s views often varied drastically from Jackson’s.[2] However, because he remained in solidarity with the president on the Bank issue and Nullification crisis, Jackson rewarded his loyalty by selecting Van Buren as his successor.[3]
As President, Van Buren tried to remain inoffensive to all, toeing the line between upholding his own values and those of Jackson and the Democrats. In order to become elected, Van Buren publicly proclaimed little about his planned policies, even convincing Andrew Jackson not to act on the Texas situation until after the election was over. He mostly avoided confrontation on the slavery issue, and rarely fought with Congress, unlike his predecessor.[4] In fact, his inoffensiveness ultimately proved to be offensive, as many on both sides of the slavery issue were dissatisfied by his unwillingness to address the issue. While those in the North were upset that he would take no steps to curtail slavery or its expansion, those in the South were displeased in his acceptance of Northern abolitionism.[5] His biggest crisis while in office was certainly the economic depression resulting from the Panic of 1837, which he was both unable and unwilling to alleviate. His biggest reaction, the introduction of bill that would create an Independent sub-Treasury system, was met with much controversy in Congress.[6] It was his unwillingness to act that in part led to the Whig victory in the Election of 1840.
1837: Panic of 1837
1840: Election of 1840
[1]Curtis, James C. “In the Shadow of Old Hickory: The Political Travail of Martin Van Buren.” Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 1, No. 3 (JSTOR), p. 249.
[2]Ibid., 253.
[3]Ibid., 255.
[4]Ibid., 257.
[5]"Mr Van Buren's Pledge", Philanthropist, Apr 21 1837, Page 02 (Proquest, APS Online)
[6]Wilson, Major L. The Presidency of Martin Van Buren Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1984. p.43
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Elijah Lovejoy was a prominent Presbyterian minister, abolitionist, and journalist from Alton, Illinois. As an abolitionist editor for the ‘’Alton Observer,’’ Rev. Lovejoy sent out numerous religiously-rooted attacks on the institution of slavery, going so far as to claim it would provoke God’s wrath against it’s perpetrators.[1] Lovejoy also spoke out against the poor treatment of slaves, and the unchristian educations many were receiving.[2] By 1837, the political turmoil between abolitionists and the supporters of slavery was becoming heated. While President Van Buren hoped to mostly sidestep the issue, abolitionists were attempting to spread anti-slavery propaganda, angering Southern slave owners enough to pass statewide “gag rules” preventing the distribution of antislavery propaganda in 1836.[3] One of the most heated points of contention was the issue of banning slavery in the District of Columbia, for which Rev. Lovejoy distributed petitions throughout Alton.[4]
Despite the fact that Illinois was a free state, many of Lovejoy’s radical articles angered the local populace. On the night of November 7, 1837, a mob of angry anti-abolitionists gathered to destroy Rev. Lovejoy’s printing press to silence his propaganda campaign. Although Lovejoy was murdered in the resulting standoff, his death made him into a martyr for the abolitionist cause. Following his death, the abolitionist movement underwent a drastic transformation.[5] The combined experiences of mob violence and gag rules convinced them that public propaganda was an ineffective method of persuasion, and so the movement focused instead on political activism. His brother, Owen Lovejoy, a prominent abolitionist senator who devoted his career to Elijah’s memory, was one embodiment of this new form of abolitionism.[6]
1836: Introduction of the Gag Rule
[1]Dillon, Merton L. "The Failure of the American Abolitionists." The Journal of Southern History. Vol. 25, No. 2 (May 1959) p.163 (JSTOR): references a quoted speech by Elijah Lovejoy
[2]Lovejoy, Elijah. "Observer and Christian Mirror." Philanthropist, May 5, 1837 p. 0_2. (Proquest->APS Online)
[3]Dillon 168.
[4]Lovejoy, Owen. His Brother's Blood: Speeches and Writings, 1838-1864. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2004. p. 391.
[5]Dillon 174.
[6]Lovejoy, Owen p. xix
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The success of the Texas Revolution left the United States in an awkward political situation. Many of those that fought against Mexican rule had been American emigrants with American ideals who wished for Texas to be annexed by the United States.[1] While the United States and Andrew Jackson in particular had voiced claims on the Texan territory, interfering in the Revolution would antagonize Mexico as well as interfere with stated American foreign policy.[2] By late 1836, while Santa Anna had surrendered at the Battle of San Jacinto, Mexico City was refusing to recognize the treaty, and it appeared that the war might not be entirely over.[3] Given United States’ regional claims to the territory as well as Texan eagerness for annexation, any hasty recognition of Texan Independence could provoke a war with Mexico.
There were domestic reasons for the United States’ hesitation as well. The Texas Constitution allowed for both slavery and the slave trade, which would provide for partisan and sectional division concerning Texas’ annexation.[4] As November 1836 was a Presidential election year, Andrew Jackson was careful not to take a strong stance either way for fear of hurting Martin Van Buren’s chances of reelection.[5] Although both houses of Congress passed resolutions supporting the recognition of Texas, Jackson stalled until March 3, his last day in office, before acceding. Texas would not be annexed, however, until 1845.[6]
1837: Inauguration of Martin Van Buren
1836: Battle of San Jacinto
[1]Reichstein, Andreas V. Rise of the Lone Star. College Station: Texas A&M Press, 1989. p. 172.
[2]"United States Senate." Liberator Jan. 2 1837 p. 2. (Proquest->APS Online)
[3]Reichstein 170.
[4]"Texas and the Slave Question." Liberator Jan. 2 1837 p. 2. (Proquest->APS Online)
[5]Reichstein 176.
[6]Ibid. 177.
Return to SHDB
Return to 1830-1839 Events
On June 28, 1839, the Spanish schooner, the Amistad, set sail from Havana, Cuba destined for Puerto Príncipe, Cuba with 53 Mendian “slaves” from Africa. Others on board included a Spanish captain, a cook and cabin boy, the two “African slave” owners—Don José Ruiz and Don Pedro Montes—along with two other Spanish crewmembers. [1] On the fifth day of the passage, the Africans, led by Joseph Cinque, and the 48 African men, revolted against the crew and Spaniards, resulting in the deaths of the captain and cook. The two Spanish owners survived and were forced to steer the schooner back to Africa. Throughout the days, Montes sailed toward the east, but at night, he attempted to head north and west, following the stars.
It took the Amistad two months to navigate their way up the American coastline. Finally, on the morning of August 26th, the Amistad anchored off of Montauk Point, Long Island. Soon after, Lieutenant Commander Thomas Gedney took control of the schooner and arrested the Africans, taking them into New London, Connecticut’s port where they would be tried in a local court. [2]
The Amistad case allowed anti-slavery politicians to bring the issue of abolition to the American forefront; it was “heaven-sent to Northern abolitionists who were interested in having moral rectitude influence legal justice.” [3] Eventually this case made it to the Supreme Court and a decision was made on March 9, 1841 claiming that the Africans were indeed free men, not chattle nor fugitives.
Related Events:
1817-Britain/Spain slavetrade treaty; 1841- Amistad decision
Footnotes:
[1] Gordon E. Finnie, "The Amistad Affair," The Journal of Southern History, 59 (August 1971), 471-472. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4642%28197108%2937%3A3%3C471%3ATAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K , Accessed 4 November 2006]
[2] Ibid., 471-472.
[3] Iyunolou Folayan Osagie, The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000); 8
Sources:
[1] Gordon E. Finnie, "The Amistad Affair," The Journal of Southern History, 59 (August 1971), 471-472. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-4642%28197108%2937%3A3%3C471%3ATAA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-K , Accessed 4 November 2006]
[2] New York, The New York Evangelist (1830-1902), 7 September 1839.
[3] Howard Jones, Mutiny on the Amistad: the Saga of A Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy, (New York: Oxford University Press,1987); 3-62
[4] William A. Owens, Black Mutiny-The Revolt on the Schooner Amistad, (Philadelphia: Pilgrim Press, 1953)
[5] Iyunolou Folayan Osagie, The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone, (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000 xi-52
On November 11, 1839, the Virginia Military Institute was founded at the state arsenal in Lexington, Virgnia. The public arsenal was converted into a state owned military academy of engineering and science for young men. Francis H. Smith, a graduate of West Point, was given the position of superintendent of the Virginia Military Institute, serving there for fifty years. Smith believed in the concept of citizen soldier claiming that “it was important to have young men who as citizen soldiers could rally to the Commonwealth’s defense in time of peril.” [1] Even though the concept of citizen soldier played a large role in the ideology of the institute, the United States Military Academy also had an enormous influence as well. In the earlier days of its establishment, most all of the professors had attended the USMA. [2]
Even at the very beginning of the schools’ foundation, promises were made to “unite the strength” [3] of the Virginia Military Institute and Washington College by engaging and participating in one another’s programs and classes. In the present day, the Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee University conveniently maintain their close ties, since they are located across the street from one another. Yet, the Virginia Military Institute has made quite a name for itself; it is well known as the nation’s oldest public military school and is revered for its respected and admirable officers and citizen soldiers. [4]
Related Events:
1861-1865: Civil War
Footnotes:
[1] quoted from John M. Brooke, Jr., Naval Scientist and Educator, (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1980), 293-295; New York, New York, The New - Yorker (1836-1841), 29 June 1839 (American Periodical Series Online)
[2] Ibid., 293-295
[3] quoted from Washington, D.C., Army and Navy Chronicle (1835-18420, 20 June 1839 (American Periodical Series Online)
[4] Ibid., 396
On November 13, 1839, an antislavery convention met in Warsaw, New York to form an independent abolition party. At the meeting, James Birney was nominated as Presidential candidate and Francis LeMoyne, Vice President. Both Birney and LeMoyne declined the nominations, but at the 1840 convention in Albany, Birney accepted his nomination as president and offered a new Vice Presidential nomination to Thomas Morris. [1] The Liberty Party was officially formed at this convention even though its roots go back to the 1839 Warsaw convention.
The Liberty Party was an anti-Garrison abolition party that had one platform—the immediate abolition of slavery. [2] It was unique because it was not able to relate to North or the South since they neither approved of the South’s slavery system nor the North’s modern society. (Forlorn Hope of Freedom-p. xiii) Therefore, only a small majority of Liberty voters in the ‘40’s for the Whigs and Democrats gained votes in elections.
Yet, Salmon P. Chase, a Liberty member, began to grow discontented with the party’s strict religious and one-minded persepective on the issue of slavery. In 1848, just before the Presidential election, the Liberty party fell and soon after it merged with the Free Soil party thus leading to the formation of the Republican party. Even though the Free Soil party members were not advocates of immediate abolition, the Liberty party would not reach its goals in politics if it remained prisoner to staunchly one platform religious beliefs. It’s merging with the Free Soil party allowed Liberty members to still support abolition while broadening their appeal to potential voters. [3]
Related Events:
1840: Presidential Election of 1840; 1841: Albany convention
Footnotes:
[1] Vernon L. Volpe, Forlorn Hope of Freedom-The Liberty Party in the Old Northwest, 1838-1848, (Kent: Kent State University Press, 1990)xi-xxii
[2] Gerald Sorin, Abolitionism-A New Perspective, (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1972), 80
[3] Ibid., 88-94
Sources:
[1] Ibid., Volpe Forlorn Hope xi-55
[2] Ibid., Sorin, "Abolitionism," 56-98
[3] Julian P. Bretz, "The Economic Background of the Liberty Party," The American Historical Review, 34, (January 1929), 250-264. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0002-8762%28192901%2934%3A2%3C250%3ATEBOTL%3E2.0.CO%3B2-4, Accessed 6 November 2006]
[4] Boston, Massachusetts, Christian Reflector, 26 March 1841 (American Periodical Series Online)
It was a commonly known fact throughout most of the nineteenth century that in 1839 a man by the name of Abner Doubleday created the game of baseball in Cooperstown, New York. Yet in 1860, Henry Chadwick, an Englishman, claimed baseball got its origins from a game called “rounders” or town ball, and that it originated in Britain even though many people argued that the idea of baseball was first formed in Cooperstown, New York.
Previously a believer in Chadwick’s theory, in 1889, a man by the name of Albert G. Spalding, a wealthy sporting goods owner, championed the struggle to identify baseball as of American origin. He led a commission that was begun in 1904 to discover baseball’s origins, even going so far as asking for information in newspapers. Abner Graves sent a letter to Spalding explaining that he was with Doubleday when he invented the game of baseball in Cooperstown, New York in 1839. Spalding, eager to end the ongoing debate, accepted Graves’ testimony and in 1907, the Mills Commission claimed that baseball originated from Doubleday.
Although there has been much controversy since, and many baseball historians have claimed that baseball was seen in earlier forms of croquet or even Medieval ball games, most affirm the fact that Cooperstown, New York is the rightful place of The National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Baseball has affectionately become known as America’s “national pastime.” [1] for it appeals to any American citizen: “it is gregarious in its nature and delights in crowds.” [2]
Related Events:
1907-Mills Commission
Footnotes:
[1] quoted an actual quote within: Paul J. Zingg, "Diamond in the Rough: Baseball and the Study of American Sports History," The History Teacher, 19, (May 1986), 385-403. [JSTOR:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-2745%28198605%2919%3A3%3C385%3ADITRBA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A
, Accessed 13 November 2006]
[2] William R. Hooper, "Our National Pastime," Appletons' Journal, 5 (February 1871), 225-226. [Making of America: http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moajrnl;g=moagrp;xc=1;q1=our%20national%20game;rgn=full%20text;view=image;cc=moajrnl;seq=0229;idno=acw8433.1-05.100;node=acw8433.1-05.100%3A7, Accessed 13 November 2006]
Sources:
[1] "Diamond in the Rough: Baseball and the Study of American Sports History," The History Teacher, 19, (May 1986), 385-403. [JSTOR:
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0018-2745%28198605%2919%3A3%3C385%3ADITRBA%3E2.0.CO%3B2-A
, Accessed 13 November 2006]
[2] William R. Hooper, "Our National Pastime," Appletons' Journal, 5 (February 1871), 225-226. [Making of America: http://www.hti.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moajrnl;g=moagrp;xc=1;q1=our%20national%20game;rgn=full%20text;view=image;cc=moajrnl;seq=0229;idno=acw8433.1-05.100;node=acw8433.1-05.100%3A7, Accessed 13 November 2006]
[3] David Quentin Voight, American Baseball, University Park : Pennsylvania State University Press, 1983)
[4]David Block; Baseball Before We Knew It : a search for the roots of the game, (Lincoln : University of Nebraska Press, 2005)
In 1839, a state law was passed giving Mississippi women the right to control their own property. Previously, "under the nineteenth-century common law,a married woman was bound by the rules of coverture, which vested her legal rights to her husband." [1] By giving women in Mississippi the right to control their own property, it would allow for women to be more secure in case they were were widowed by the deaths of their husbands. Of course, the process of women gaining fair property rights was not instantaneous--in 1830, women got control of their separate estates, in the '60's and '70's, "laws granted married women the right to keep their earnings" [2], and finally further legislation allowed them to work in a business as a independent woman. Yet, even though women's property laws were passed,it didn't directly change the status of women in society. [3]
Even though this law may seem insignificant, it actually created a huge precedent for the women's property laws under the state. Women during this time period were largely controlled by their husbands--they made all of the decisions of the home and women did not have much of a voice. Soon afterward, other states like Michigan, Maine, Texas, Louisiana, Maryland, and Tennessee debated on whether or not to pass property laws as well. [4]
It's interesting that of all the places in the United States, Mississippi was the first state to pass property laws. Even though the state did feel strongly about the rights of women to own their own property, other issues, such as slavery, remained untouched. This law was one of the earliest advances in the women's movement for it gave women a defined social status, and the right to control property which ultimately led to their independence.
Related Events:
Abolition and Women's rights movement
Footnotes:
[1] B. Zorina Khan, "Married Women's Property Laws and Female Commercial Activity: Evidence from United States Patent Records, 1790-1895," The Journal of Economic History, 56, (June 1996), 356-388. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0507%28199606%2956%3A2%3C356%3AMWPLAF%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z, Accessed 13 November 2006]
[2] Ibid., 356-388.
[3] Ibid., 356-388.; Mississippi History Now, "Betsy Love and the Mississippi Married Women's Property Act of 1839," <http://mshistory.k12.ms.us/features/feature67/Betsy_Love_Property%20Act.htm> [accessed 16 November 2006]
[4] Khan, "Married Women's Property," 356-368
Auburn University was first chartered as the East Alabama Male College in February of 1856 with an affiliation to the Slaton Male Academy preparatory school and the Methodist Episcopal Church of Auburn, Alabama. The college opened its doors to students on October 1, 1859 as a private liberal arts college. During the Civil War, the college closed to serve as a military hospital, while the preparatory school remained open. The school had high aspirations to further the education offered to Alabamians, but it lacked the funds to continue its operations. In December 1871, the Methodist church decided to donate the college to the state of Alabama. the legislature in Alabama was searching for a site for the new land-grant university under the Morill Act of 1862 which provided for a state school for each senator and representative specializing in agriculture, engineering and military training. The donation caused the state to favor Auburn as the site. The state legislature passed a bill on February 24, 1872 officially making the college the state land-grant university. It soon reopened as the Agricultural and Mechanical Institute of Alabama. It was later renamed the Alabama Polytechnic Institute before reaching its current name of Auburn University, named after the town in which it resides. While the school was chartered as a male college, it became coeducational in 1892, making it Alabama’s oldest coeducational school. Today, the university is the largest university in Alabama with an estimated student body of 23,000 students. [1] [2]
[1] http://diglib.auburn.edu/auburnhistory/oldsouth.htm;
[2] http://www.ocm.auburn.edu/welcome/aboutauburn.html; Klein, Arthur J. “Survey of Land-Grant Colleges.” The Journal of Higher Education. Vol. 2, No. 4, (Apr, 1931), pp. 169-176.
1862: Morill Act
Prior to the election of 1840, the Whigs and Democrats gathered at their prospective conventions to nominate a candidate for the president of the United States. The Democrats chose to continue their support for the incumbent president, Martin Van Buren; however, the party was divided over this decision and did not fully support him. [1] His presidency had been plagued by an economic depression, the financial panic of 1837. The panic resulted in the foreclosure of many farms and a decrease in the prices of agricultural goods. This depression affected thousands of American farmers who would look for new leadership. [2] Also Van Buren was a quiet man and a lifetime politician. His opponent, on the other hand, the Whig’s candidate, William Henry Harrison, was a famous general from the War of 1812 and an esteemed Indian fighter. He ran under the “Log Cabin and Hard Cider” campaign which compared him the beloved Ex-president Andrew Jackson and gave him the “common man” image that so appealed to Americans of the day. The American people turned out to vote in record numbers, over 80%, to elect William Henry Harrison as President of the United States. The outcome of the election resulted from the “critical voter realignments”[3] that occurred between 1836 and 1840 due to the hard times of the depression and the failure of the Democratic party to appeal to the common man.[4]
[1]“The Late Election.” The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. Vol. 8, No. 35 & 36 (Nov/Dec, 1840), pp. 390 (385-398).; [2]Ibid 393; [3] Formisano, Ronald P. “The New Political History and the Election of 1840.” Journal of Interdisciplinary History. Vol. 23, No. 4 (Spring, 1993), pp. 665 (661-682). [JSTOR http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-1953%28199321%2923%3A4%3C661%3ATNPHAT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-1 Accessed November 2006] [4] Ibid 670; “The History and Moral Relations of Political Economy.” The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. Vol. 8, No. 34 (Oct, 1840), pp. 289-310.; Carey, Charles W. “Presidency.” The Encyclopedia of the United States in the 19th Century. Vol. 2, Ed. Paul Finkelman. New York: Charles Schribner’s sons, 2001. pp. 559-561.
1812: War of 1812, 1837: Panic of 1837, 1840: Independent Treasury Reform
The banking system in America faced a great deal of controversy in the nineteenth century. In 1836, Andrew Jackson vetoed the second charter of the National Bank of the United States because he saw it as a monopoly that benefited the already wealthy aristocracy and put too much power in their hands. This action led to the Panic of 1837, an economic depression that resulted in the foreclosure of many American farms and the drop in agricultural prices. The government saw the need for a reform to stabilize the national currency. President Martin Van Buren worked through the entirety of his term in office pushing for the Independent Treasury Reform, heavily supported by the Democratic Party. The Democrats believed that Congress’ passing of this bill in 1840 was the “leading epoch of our history” [1] and called it a “Second Declaration of Independence.”[2] The bill provided for a national banking system that did not place control of the system in the hands of the “financial elite.”[3] The Democrats argued that the problem in American at the time was the “excessive eagerness in the pursuit of rapid gain [of wealth]”[4] and found that placing control of the new system in new hands would regulate the currency and provide much needed stabilization of the American economy to pull them out of an economic depression. This proved to be the highlight of Van Buren’s presidency but was not enough to carry him to victory through the 1840 election. [5]
[1] “The Independent Treasury Reform.” The United States Magazine and Democratic Review. Vol. 8, No. 32 (Aug, 1840), pp. 97 (97-108).; [2] Ibid 97 [3] Carey, Charles W. “Presidency.” The Encyclopedia of the United States in the 19th Century. Vol. 2, Ed. Paul Finkelman. New York: Charles Schribner’s sons, 2001. pp. 560 (559-561). [4] Ibid 105 [5] Ibid 559-561
National Bank, 1837: Panic of 1837, 1840: Presidential Election of 1840
Englishman Joseph Sturge found the institution of slavery abhorrent and in 1837 began to devise a plan to end slavery altogether. In 1839, the New York Emancipator called for an international convention to discuss the abolition of slavery worldwide. Sturge immediately jumped on this idea and organized the “General Anti-Slavery Convention” to meet in London in June of 1884. He invited abolitionist parties and organizations from around the world, though primarily from Great Britain and the United States. Each organization invited selected delegates to attend the convention. The American invitees chose several women delegates to represent their organizations. Upon the commencement of the convention, the women were excluded from the meeting, causing quite a controversy. Some of the women attending, including Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, would soon begin a women’s suffrage campaign in the United States partially as a result of the unfair exclusion in London. [1] After the expulsion incident, the convention discussed free labor versus slave labor and also expressed sympathies for the slaves on board the Amistad and the Creolefacing trial in the United States. [2] The delegates discussed methods of abolition, putting special focus on the American slavery issue. The convention further pressed the British perception of the injustice of slavery onto the Americans and gave the abolition movement more media attention. This convention was the first international organization to meet and discuss international issues and aid, an example that would be followed in the future. [3]
[1] Maynard, Douglas H. “The World’s Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840.” The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. Vol. 47, No. 3 (Dec, 1960), pp. 452 (452-471). [JSTOR http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0161-391X%28196012%2947%3A3%3C452%3ATWACOI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-E Accessed November 2006]; [2] Van Broekhoven, Deborah. “Abolition and Antislavery.” The Encyclopedia of the United States in the 19th Century. Vol. 1, Ed. Paul Finkelman. New York: Charles Schribner’s sons, 2001. pp 4. [3] Maynard, Douglas H. “The World’s Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840.” 452.
1833: American Anti-Slavery Society, 1833: British Emancipation, 1834: British Abolish Slavery, 1872: Susan B. Anthony votes 1841: Amistad Decision
On April 10, 1840, President Martin Van Buren issued an executive order regulating the length of the workday of federal employees to ten hours. The movement to shorten the workday began in the 1830s. In fact, a law was passed in 1836 that limited the hours of government office employees to eight to ten hours a day. The order for a ten hour workday, given by Van Buren, also only affected certain government employees; however, the exact extent of employees affected by the order is still in much debate today. [1] Some say the order applied only to navy yard employees, while others argue that the order was much more general and did not specifically name those to be affected. The exact wording is unknown because executive orders were not kept on file until 1905, when President Theodore Roosevelt called for all executive orders to be filed with the Department of State. It is known, however, that the ten hour rule included breaks and meal times and was not meant to induce a reduction of the wages of government employees. This order would lead to the implementation of similar laws in other sectors of the economy such as in women’s labor and child labor later in the nineteenth century. [2]
[1] Kelly, Matthew A. “Early Federal Regulation of Hours of Labor in the United States.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review. Vol. 3, No. 3, (Apr, 1950), pp. 364-365 (362-374).[JSTOR http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0019-7939%28195004%293%3A3%3C362%3AEFROHO%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I Accessed November 2006]; [2] Goldmark, Josephine. “The Illinois Ten Hour Decision.” Proceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York. Vol. 1, No. 1, The Economic Position of Women. (Oct, 1910), pp. 185-187. [JSTOR http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=1548-7237%28191010%291%3A1%3C185%3ATITD%3E2.0.CO%3B2-O Accessed November 2006]
1840: Presidential Election of 1840
On March 9, 1941 the Supreme Court, in the person of Mr Justice Story, ruled that the Africans aboard the slave ship Amistad were "legally free persons under the suppression of the African Slave Trade Act"1; In other words, the Africans were now declared free persons. The principal question in this case was whether the Africans were legal property of the Spanish, because of the treaty between the United States and Spain in 1785. This was however dismissed, on the grounds that "the negroes in question are not property, not slaves, but free men, under the laws of Spain and under the treaty between Great Britain and Spain."2This decision was considered to be a victory for the anti-slavery advocates and was widely publicized throughout the United States.3
The Negroes of the Amistad had already been declared free before justice Judson of the Conneticut district but President Martin van Buren, who was concerned about relations with Spain and his possible re-election, was advised to bring the case for the Supreme Court, which he did. There former President John Quincy Adams became the defendant of the Africans: by using his persuasive oratory skills he became victorious in defending the Africans case: they were now allowed to go back to their native land, Sierra Leone. After money was brought together to finance the journey to Africa in 1842, most of the negroes took the opportunity to go back, although some remained in the U.S.4
1839: Spanish vessel Amistad arrives in the US 1840: US District Court for the Connecticut District ruled in favor of Africans of the Amistad 1840: World Anti-slavery Convention
1 Iyunolu Folayan Osagie, The Amistad Revolt,(Athens and London: University of Georgia Press, 2000), 3.
2 "The Amistad Captives Set Free," New York Observer and Chronicle 13 March 1841; in American Periodical Series Online, 1740-1900, [Accessed 11 November 2006]
3 Ibid.; "The Amistad Captives Set Free;" Osagie, The Amistad Revolt, 3-18; "Decision of the Amistad Case," The New-Yorker 13 March 1841; in American Periodical Series Online, 1740-1900, [Accessed 3 November 2006]
4Ibid.; Osagie, The Amistad Revolt, 3-18.
On September 4, 1841, federal legislation was enacted that permitted American settlers to claim up to 160 acres of public land from the government if they could prove that they had lived there for a certain period. Settlers then would have to buy that land from the U.S government at a minimum prize of $1.25 per acre, which was substantially less than ruled in the land Act of 1800, where the prize per acre was accounted for $2 and the minimum amount of land 320 acres, compared to 80 acres in the Land Act of 1820 and beyond. Furthermore, the Land Act of 1841, also called the Pre-Emption Act of 1841, allowed prospective preemption to take place: from now on people could now just jump on the land and violate land claims: these people were the so-called squatters.1
The Act was favored by States in the Western part because they wanted to encourage settlement there, not because it brought land speculation. However, it was opposed by the Eastern states since they feared a loss of labor and depopulation. Calhoun was typical example of this sentiment: he was not really in favor of this decision, although he thought that preemption was good since the eastern states would get an alliance with the mid-west and the economy would grow, but was against it because he also feared depopulation. Other senators, like Mr. Benton, denounced the distribution of the proceeds of the sales of the public lands among the several states as "unreasonable and corrupt." 2 Nevertheless, the Act passed and more people moved to the Western states.3
1800: Land Act of 1800 1820: Land Act of 1820 1830: Pre-emption Act of 1830
1 Twenty-sixth Congress: Second session. The Pre-emption Bill. Oregon, New York Evangelist 16 January 1841; in American Periodical Series Online, 1740-1900, [Accessed 3 November 2006].
2 Twenty-sixth Congress: Second session. Prospective Pre-emption Bill. New York Evangelist 23 January 1841. in American Periodical Series Online, 1740-1900, [Accessed 3 November 2006].
3 Ibid.; "Twenty-sixth Congress: Second session. The Pre-emption Bill"; "Twenty-sixth Congress: Second session. Prospective Pre-emption Bill"
On August 11, 1841, Frederick Douglass delivered his first speech for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Convention in Nantucket. Douglass, an escaped slave from Talbot County, Maryland and son of an unknown white man and black woman, was already delivering speeches before anti-slavery gatherings as early as 1839. He had been asked to speak in Nantucket by Mr William C. Coffin, a New Bedford abolitionist. At the Convention, Douglass apologized for his ignorance, reminding the audience that "slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and heart"1 and proceeded to tell something about his own experiences while being a slave.2
Afterwards, Frederick Douglass was described by many people as a born orator: he made the listeners hate slavery and spoke with great power: Garrison even said:"I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment."3 Douglass however, found himself at first not adequate enough when William Lloyd Garrison asked him to keep on lecturing for the Anti-Slavery lecture. Nevertheless, he managed to persuade Douglass to make a trial and ever since he acted as a lecturing agent for the society giving hundreds of speeches, thereby lecturing people about the horror of slavery, which also contributed to the abolishment of slavery by President Lincoln. In 1845, he became well known for the publication of his autobiography The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, which sold more than 30.000 copies.4
1833: American Anti-Slavery Society
1838: Frederick Douglass' Escape from Slavery
1845: Frederick Douglass Publishes his Autobiography
1Frederick Douglass, The Frederick Douglass Papers: Series two, Autobiographical Writings, John W. Blassingame ed., (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1999), 4.
2Ibid., Frederick Douglass, The Frederick Douglass Papers, 3-13;
William S. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, (New York: Norton and Company, 1991), 86-91.
3 David D. Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery, (Conneticut and London: Greenwood Press, 1998), 17.
4Ibid.; Chesebrough, Frederick Douglass: Oratory from Slavery, 17-18; Frederick Douglass, The Frederick Douglass Papers, 3-13.
The Oregon Trail, named after the fact it began as road to Oregon, became the primary route westwards from 1840 to 1869: by following the trail people could reach states like California, Utah and Nevada; over the years, thousands of people would use this road. Possibly the first significant group of people who went on the Oregon Trail gathered at Independence, Missouri and went westwards in May 1841; Before this, missionaries had already been sent to Oregon, but never a substantial party of people. The party that left Independence in 1841 consisted of 125 people (all white, a majority of them males) and 18 wagons and was under the leadership of Dr. White. In mid August they reached Fort Hall and arrived at Willamette Valley in October 1842, where they decided to settle.
The first large group, over 100 people, mostly families, left in the spring of 1842. Both this group of people and the emigration group that left in 1843, were publicized in Fremont's report, which made the Oregon Trail more well known: by reading the reports, thousands of people became now convinced that the trip was "little else that a pleasure excursion, requiring scarcely as much preperation as a journey from St. Louis to Philadelphia thirty-five years ago."1 The emigration to the Pacific now really got underway and continued until 1869: over the years a huge flow of people would migrate and leave the midwest. However, the road lost it's value in 1869: the transcontinental railroad that was completed in that year proved to be much more efficient: travelling by train was much faster and less hazardous, which made the Oregon Trail superfluous.2
1843: Pioneers set forth on Oregon Trail 1846: Oregon Treaty 1869: The First Transcontinental Railroad
1John David Unruh, The Plains Across: the Overland Emigrants and the trans-Mississippi West, 1840-60, (Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 1979), 99.
2John Mack Faragher, Women and Men on the Overland Trail, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2001), 6-7.
On March 4, 1841, an inaugural parade of the president-elect William Henry Harrison, ninth president of the United States, took place. William Henry Harrison, a member of the Whig party, was already 68 years old when he was elected, which made him the oldest man ever to hold the presidency. (until the election of Ronald Raegan.) During his presidency, Mr. Harrison had many pressures and was constantly on the move, dropping by at departments and visiting outgoing democrats. One night he ignored the elements and was drenched to the bone. On March 27, his sickness was diagnosed as "bilious pleurisy, with symptoms of pneumonia and intestinal inflammation".1 On april 4, at almost noon, less than a month after his inauguration, he died. Upon his death, his last words were, probably meant for vice-president Tyler: "I wish you to understand the true prinicples of government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more." 2
After his death, Congress did not know what to do since they had no precedents to guide them: William Henry Harrison was namely the first President of the United States ever to die in office. However, vice president John Tyler took control claiming he was the person entitled to replace the president: he was now considered to be the acting president and took the oath prescribed by the Constitution for office. But Tyler was a state rights whig, different from Harrison: he abandoned the Whig agenda, thereby vetoeing the proposal for tariffs and a new bank, leaving himself without a party. 3
1773: Birth of William Henry Harrison 1841: inauguration of William Henry Harrison 1841: Tyler becomes the 10th President of the United States
1 Norma Lois Peterson, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989), 31-41.
2 Ibid.; "National Affairs: Death of the President of the United States," Baltimore Niles' National Register 10 April 1841; in American Periodical Series Online, 1740-1900, [Accessed 3 November 2006]; Philip Weeks, Buckeye Presidents: Ohians in the White House, (Kent and London: Kent State University Press, 2003), 9-38.
3 Norma Lois Peterson, The Presidencies of William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1989), 31-41.
This treaty, signed August 9, 1842 addressed and settled the dispute over the Maine-New Brunswick border between the United States and Canada. This ended up giving the United States considerably more land than was agreed upon in the treaty of 1818 by moving the border a mile north of the 45th parallel. This created the shared use of the Great Lakes as well as reaffirmed the location of the border on the 49th parallel in the westward frontier, which had been defined within the treaty of 1818. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty also called for a final end to the slave trade on the high seas. The United States Secretary of State Daniel Webster and United Kingdom Privy Counselor, Alexander Baring, Lord Ashburton, signed the treaty. This Treaty also marked the end of the unofficial fighting of the Aroostook or Lumberjack’s War, which was a dispute over the border. Because of this treaty, which Webster was working on, he decided to not resign at the same time as the rest of President Tyler’s Cabinet during the Texas crisis. An unexpected benefit of this land gain by the United States was the iron ore that was mined there.
1818:Treaty of 1818
1841:Creole Affair
Webster- Ashburton treaty found at http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/diplomacy/britain/br-1842.htm
Anesthesia is the product used to anesthetize or an induced loss of sensitivity so as not to experience pain associated with a medical procedure. The tradition of anesthesia began in ancient times with opium and various wines but the modern era of anesthesia began in 1772 when nitrous oxide was discovered and was extended in 1800 when the inhalation of ether was found to have a similar affect to nitrous oxide in allowing the patient to be desensitized. These gases were first used in surgery in 1842. There were two instances of the use of anesthesia in a surgical sense in 1842. William E. Clarke performed an extraction of a tooth aided by the use of ether in January. In March Dr. Crawford Williamson Long used anesthesia during an operation for the first time when it was given to a boy before a cyst was excised from his neck. Using anesthesia became popular during the Civil War since it allowed battlefield surgeons to perfect their techniques when they had ether available.
The Unusual History of Ether
http://www.anesthesia-nursing.com/ether.html
Conquering surgical pain: Four men stake their claim
http://neurosurgery.mgh.harvard.edu/History/ether3.htm
This treaty, signed August 29th 1842, ended the First Opium War between the British Empire and the Emperor of China. It was signed aboard the HMS Cornwallis at the city of Nanjing. The terms of this treaty were very favorable to the British. The treaty ceded Hong Kong to the British as well as allowed the British access to the ports of Canton, Amoy, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai, which marked a change in the Chinese idea of foreigners. These ports had not been previously open to any foreign trading and now they are exclusively open to the British. The British also received 21 million ounces of silver in compensation for the war, fixed tariffs, extraterritoriality for British citizens on Chinese soil and gave the British most favored nation status. This treaty did not however address the opium trade, which had been the reason that the war had started in the first place. This was very profitable to the British Empire who had been importing opium to china through the east India tea company.
Treaty of Nanking found at http://www.isop.ucla.edu/eas/documents/nanjing.htm
The purpose of this act was to encourage settlers to penetrate the Indian zones of the Florida territory with the assistance of the federal government. This Act was finally passed in August 1842 after two years of deliberation because of the hostility of the Seminole inhabitants. Thomas Hart Benton was the driving force behind this bill, and was the reason this act made it into law. The land would be granted as long as the applicant obtained a permit from the register and the receiver in one of the local land offices, resided on the land for 5 years, built a house and cultivated at least five acres of land and the settlement must take place within one year of the grant. This land was available to any person who was the head of a household, or over 18 years of age, able to bear arms and would make settlement within the part of Florida described within this act. These settlers were armed with the equipment of soldiers and enough seeds to allow them to begin cultivating a small farm. This act was very beneficial to Eastern Florida where the Indians were the most prevalent.
Sidney Walter Martin,"The Public Domain in Territorial Florida," The Journal of Southern History, Vol. 10, No. 2. (May, 1944), pp. 174-187.
On May 19, 1842 Thomas Dorr led a raid on an arsenal in Providence, RI to oppose the original Rhode Island charter, which did not include broad voting rights. This came after Dorr and his supporters drafted their own state constitution at the Peoples Convention. This rebellion was supported by most of the state militia since they were Irishmen who were enfranchised by this referendum. The Dorrites were defeated at the arsenal and retreated to Chepachet in an attempt to reconvene the Peoples Convention. Opposition forces known as the Charterites were sent to defend a village and cut of the Dorrite retreat but a Dorrite attack never came. The Dorr Rebellion fell apart after this but the Governor still offered a reward for Thomas Dorr’s arrest. The Rhode Island General Assembly was called into session in September and put together a new constitution, which was voted on by the old limited electorate. This new constitution extended suffrage to any free white man who could pay $1 as a poll tax.
George M. Dennison, "The Dorr War: Republicanism on Trial, 1831-1861," The American Historical Review, Vol. 81, No. 5. (Dec., 1976), pp. 1241-1242.[Jstor: http://www.jstor.org/view/00028762/di951398/95p0324f/0,Accessed 1 November 2006]
Marvin E. Gettleman, "The Dorr Rebellion: A Study in American Radicalism, 1833-1849" The Journal of American History, Vol. 60, No. 4. (Mar., 1974), p. 1114. [jstor: http://www.jstor.org/view/00218723/di952375/95p0043p/0 Accessed 1 November 2006]
The Boston Boot makers Journeyman Society was established in 1835. This organization had previously gone on strike in order to raise the wage for boot makers. This group was local to the Boston area and its members made a specific sort of high-grade boot. John Hunt, Patrick Hayes, Daniel O’Neal, Sapplier Woods, Michael O’Conner and Edward Farrington were charged by the state of Massachusetts with intending to form themselves into an unlawful club and to make unlawful by-laws, and unlawfully to extort money. They conspired together and agreed that none of them would work for any master or person, in their art, as boot makers who should employ any other person who was not a member of their club. The state stated that this was an unlawful conspiracy as this had been labeled in many previous court cases. This court case establishes strikes and unions as legal within the United States. This case may have originated in Boston but it affected the growth of labor unions throughout the north, which translates into the comparison between free labor and slavery for the nation.
1835: Boston Bootmakers Journeyman Society
Recent American Decisions, Law Reporter (1838-1848); Dec 1840,3,8; APS Online pg. 290
Walter Nelles, "Commonwealth v. Hunt," Columbia Law Review, Vol. 32, No. 7. (Nov., 1932), pp. 1128-1169.[jstor:http://www.jstor.org/view/00101958/ap030254/03a00020/0?currentResult=00101958%2bap030254%2b03a00020%2b0%2cFFD77DDFDF07&searchUrl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.jstor.org%2Fsearch%2FBasicResults%3Fhp%3D25%26si%3D1%26Query%3DWalter%2BNelles%2Bcommonwealth%2Bv%2Bhunt Accessed October 30 2006]
On March 3rd of 1843, the Senate approved the appropriations bill request of thirty thousand dollars to construct a telegraph line stretching from Washington D.C. up to Baltimore, Maryland along the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, a distance of forty-four miles. The project would be supervised and led by Samuel Morse. “ The object of this arrangement is to prove..... that the length of the line of communication presents no obstacle whatever to the instant transmission of intelligence between the two extremes either by day or night.” 1 The bill barely passed the House on February 21st with a vote of 89 to 83. The bill received virtually no support from the South, composed of mainly Democrats, where as it had garnered most of its support from Northern Whigs who supported the federal government’s efforts for internal development. The telegraph line would be the first project of electrical engineering in the United States. The “Lightning Line” 2 would revolutionize communication in the 19th century. Where it once took days to deliver a message or news, it now conceivably would take a “blink of the eye”. “In its more practical effects, the telegraph would whet the appetite for news, strengthen national defense, and boost the country’s go-ahead businessmen, transforming the press, the military, and the marketplace.” 3 Morse’s line would not be finished until 1844, but not long after other companies began to erect telegraph lines rapidly, eventually linking the entire country. This invention helped put to rest fears that westward expansion would lead to the decline of American values in the frontier due to the distance of separation.
1844:Morse Sends First Telegraph
"Electro-Magnetic Telegraph", Boston Cultivator, 17 June 1843 (189). "Electro Magnetic Telegraph", Brooklyn Eagle, 9 December 1843. Kenneth Silverman, Lightning Man, (New York City: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003), 220-222, 240-242. Carleton Mabee, American Leonardo: The Life of Samuel F.B. Morse, (New York City: Alfred A. Knopf, 1943), 252-261. "Utility of Professor Morse's Telegraph", Brooklyn Eagle, 11 July 1844.
1 "Electro-Magnetic", Boston Cultivator, 189
2 Silverman, Lightning, 240
3 Silverman, Lightning, 242
In February of 1843 the Virginia Minstrels performed the first public presentation of the blackface minstrel quartet show at the Bowery Amphitheatre in New York City. The Minstrels were comprised of Daniel Decatur Emmett, an early minstrel star, along with Frank Brower, “Billy” Whitlock and “Dick” Pelham. Emmett played violin, Whitlock the banjo, Brower the castanets, and Pelham the tambourine. Audiences had already become accustomed to single blackface performers such as Thomas Rice of “Jim Crow” fame. Unaccustomed to a quartet of blackface minstrels, there were initially mixed reactions to the Virginia Minstrels’ performances, but their popularity and the popularity of other similar minstrels soon soared. Minstrel shows appeared in an age where Americans were not prone to attend the theater but rather museums, lectures, circuses or fairs. These blackface performers, including the Virginia Minstrels, were normally white Northern males with basically no experience or knowledge of Southern plantation life who tried to emulate the lives of slaves on the plantation through their songs and dances. Yet, these shows were written by white men and did not portray the true ideas or feelings of blacks. “Minstrel shows expressed class identification and hostility; they conveyed ethnic satire as well as social and political commentary of wide-ranging, sometimes radical character.” 1 Thus, in hindsight, these songs can be seen as a mockery to the black race and extremely racist. “Blackface minstrelry’s dominance of popular entertainment amounted to half a century of inurement to the uses of white supremacy.” 2
1859: 'Dixie' song was written
Carl Wittke, Tambo and Bones, (Durham: Duke University Press, 1930), 20-60. Alexander Saxton,
“Blackface Minstrelsy and Jacksonian Ideology” American Quarterly,( March, 1975), 3-28. [JSTOR: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0003-0678%28197503%2927%3A1%3C3%3ABMAJI%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z, Accessed 9 November 2006]. "Reproof From A Crazy Man", Brooklyn Eagle, 10 August 1843.
1 Saxton, "Blackface", 4
2 Wittke, Tambo, 27
“Millerism”, Brooklyn Eagle, 18 March 1843. “The Excitement of Millerism”, Christian Observer, 18 October 1844, 166. Everett N. Dick, William Miller and the Advent Crisis, (Berrien Springs, MI: Andrews University Press, 1994), 83-99. David L. Rowe. Wayne R. Judd. The Disappointed (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1987), 1-35. David Arthur, The Rise of Adventism, (New York City: Harper & Row, 1974),154-172.
1 "Excitement", Christian Observer, 166
2 Rowe, Disappointed, 17
Born into slavery, Isabella Baumfree was set free when the state of New York abolished slavery in 1827. Shortly after, she converted to Christianity and began work as a domestic servant. On June 1, 1843, inspired by God, Isabella changed her name to “Sojourner Truth” and left her life in New York to preach the word of God. “Sojourner” because God called her to travel and “Truth” because God called her to proclaim the truth to His people. While initially focusing on the gospel, Sojourner eventually began to speak for abolition and women’s rights. One observer remarked, “ It is truly wonderful with what power this unlettered slave mother makes her appeals to the hearts and consciences of the people.”1 Remaining relatively obscure until the 1850s, Truth spent the years in between living at a utopian community of abolitionists, feminists, and pacifists. Truth also got involved briefly in the Millerite movement of the early 1840s before publishing her Narrative in William Lloyd Garrison’s Liberator. Yet she did not gain notoriety until her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech at the Woman’s Rights Convention in Ohio in 1854. “At a time when most Americans thought of slaves as male and women as white, Truth embodied a fact that still bears repeating: Among the blacks are women; among the women there are blacks.”2 Other than Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth is arguably the most famous African-American woman of the nineteenth century. She was a trailblazer in the areas of abolition and women’s rights, in that case not only for blacks but for white women as well.
1843: Millerism; 1851: "Ain't I a Woman" Speech Given by Sojourner Truth
Joseph Merrill, " Sojourner Truth", Liberator, (October 1854), 159. Nell Irvin Painter, Sojourner Truth: A Life, A Symbol, (New York City: W.W. Norton & Company, 1996), 3-4, 73-76.
Carleton Mabee, Sojourner Truth: Slave, Prophet, Legend (New York City: New York University Press: 1993), 43-59. “Sojourner Truth Dead”, New York Times, 27 November 1883.
1 Merrill, "Sojourner", 159
2 Painter, Sojourner, 4
On June 27, 1844, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Joseph Smith and his brother, Hyrum, were both gunned down outside of the jail in Carthage, Illinois. The two brothers had turned themselves in, under a false sense of security, when they destroyed a printing press two weeks earlier. The printing press belonged to the rival Mormon newspaper in Carthage, the Nauvoo Express, and it had printed several articles that criticized Smith’s practices and his beliefs. Therefore, using his power as mayor and lieutenant general, Smith ordered the printing press destroyed. After the press was destroyed, he was arrested under the impression that he would only spend a few weeks in jail. However, on June 27, an angry mob of over 200 people had gathered in Carthage and began discussing the idea of murdering Smith. That same afternoon they barged into the jail and dragged Joseph and his brother into the street where they were gunned down by a firing squad. With there deaths comes the end of over two decades of persecution by other religions and communities who were opposed to Smith’s practices. Joseph Smith left behind a wife, Emma Hale, and five children along with 27 other children through polygamous marriages.
1820: Joseph Smith Vision 1830: Book of Mormon Published 1847: Salt Lake City Settled 1847: Brigham Young Becomes 2nd Mormon President 1850: University of Utah Founded
Johnson, DAB: Volume XVIII, (NY: Schribner's Sons, 1935), 310-311. Beard, The History of the United States, (New York: Doubleday, Doran and Company, 1944), ?. Clifton Daniel, Chronicle of America, (Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications Inc., 1990), 328.
On May 24, 1844, while sitting in the United States Supreme Courtroom, with such worthy spectators as Dolly Madison and Senator Henry Clay, Samuel F. B. Morse tapped out the first ever telegraph message. He wrote, “What hath God wrought” (A verse from Numbers XXIII, verse 23 of the Bible) to his friend, Alfred Vail, forty miles away at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Station. This is the first time that a message had ever been transmitted between two cities. Morse invented the telegraph and its corresponding code in 1838 and he had been working on a way to send its signal over long distances as well as its language ever since. The code consisted of a series of dots and dashes with a variance of pauses between dots or dashes to represent certain letters of the alphabet. Spaces between words were six times the length of a single dot. Until recently, Morse had lacked the proper funding to see his vision completed, but during March of 1843, he received a $30000 grant from Congress to lay the line wire from Washington D.C. to Baltimore. This invention, with all of its capabilities, would revolutionize the world of communication by allowing information to travel from city to city at an amazing rate compared to the current speed of the postal service.
1838: Morse Invents Telegraph 1843: $30,000 for Morse's Telegraph 1848: First Telegraph sent through Raleigh, NC
Clifton Daniel, Chronicle of America, (Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications Inc., 1990), 327. Linda Rosenkrantz, Telegram: Modern History As Told Through More Than 400 Witty, Poignant & Revealing Telegrams, (New York: Holt Publishing, 2003), ?. J. Franklin Jameson, Encyclopedic Dictionary of American Reference, (C.R. Graham, 1901), 466.
On February 28, 1844, an explosion occurred along the Potomac River near New York City aboard the USS Princeton that killing two of President Tyler’s cabinet men and several others; luckily, the President was not near the spot where blast when blast occurred. The President and several of his party members were aboard the new steam-powered battleship enjoying the demonstration of several new guns when the explosion occurred. The explosion occurred when the demonstration of one of the new 12-inch guns went terribly wrong. The explosion sent shrapnel in to the crowd, killing several of the seamen and several members of the President’s party. Most notably were two of Tyler’s cabinet members, Secretary of State Abel Upshur, and Secretary of Navy, Thomas Gilmer. Secretary Gilmer had only been appointed to this new position less then two weeks ago, on February 15, and he was considered a big supporter of the annexation of Texas. Abel Upshur became Secretary of State in 1843. The death of Upshur is of special importance because he was currently involved with negotiations with Texas to set up its annexation by the United States. President Tyler would be pressured into choosing John C. Calhoun to take his place, which would greatly affect the nation’s future because Calhoun was a huge supporter for expansion.
1844: James K. Polk Wins Election 1845: Texas Becomes the 28th State 1846:Mexican American War 1847: Battle of Mexico City 1840: Presidential Election of 1840
Clifton Daniel, Chronicle of America, (Mount Kisco, New York: Chronicle Publications Inc., 1990), 321. Johnson, Dictionary of American Biographies: Volume VII, (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1936), 308-309. DAB: Volume XIX, (1931), 127.
On November 5, 1844, James K. Polk of Tennessee became the eleventh President of the United States by defeating Whig candidate, Henry Clay of Kentucky. Until the election, Polk was not well known in the political world. In 1823, he became the Secretary of the State Senate at the age of 27. Two years later he was elected to serve of the House of Representatives for Tennessee, and he became Speaker of the House from 1835-1839. Therefore, little was known about Polk on a national scope compared to Henry Clay, “the great compromiser,” who was widely known for his great work with keeping the nation at peace. There are two particular factors that led to Polk’s victory. One factor was Polk’s stance on supporting American expansion in regards to the Texas and Oregon territories, and the other was the role that third candidate, James Birney, would play in the election,. The majority of Americans were in favor of expansion and Clay’s unwillingness to support it would sway many voters. Third party candidate, James Birney, would take away just enough votes from Clay to secure the victory for Polk. This election would, however, be met with lots of controversy. The accusations would be made that thousands of aliens would be naturalized, illegally, weeks before the election if they would promise to vote Democrat. In New York alone, 23,000 aliens were naturalized just a few days before the election.
1844: Tragedy Aboard the USS Princeton 1845: Texas Becomes the 28th State 1845: James K. Polk Inaugurated 1846:Annexation of California 1846: Texas State Government Formed 1846:Mexican American War 1848: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
Several Authors, American Political Leaders: 1789-2005, (Washington D.C.: CQ Press, 2005), 7 & 14. Arthur M. Schlesinger, jr., History of American Presidential Elections:1789-1968, (New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1971), 747-854.
On June 15, 1844, Charles Goodyear received Patent Number 3,633, giving his exclusive rights to the vulcanization process of rubber. This process consisted of combining a mixture of sulfur and rubber and then heating it for a number of hours. His road to this discovery was a long and tedious process that would leave him in debt for the majority of his life. Goodyear first became interested in the rubber process almost twenty years earlier, when he began working with the Indian rubber, which worked terrible in the warm conditions of the summer. In 1836, he discovered a process of treating the surface of rubber, by mixing certain ingredients to reduce the sticky feature of rubber. Throughout the next 13 years of his life, he would desperately try to figure out the exact balance of chemicals in order to improve the quality of rubber. This would drive him deeper and deeper into debt with every failing experiment. Then one faithful day he accidentally knocked a mixture of sodium and rubber onto a hot stove and it surprisingly did not melt. Over the next few months, Goodyear would enthusiastically continue his experiments, while having to be funded $50,000 by his brother-in-law and the Ridder brothers from New York. He would never be able to financially reap the benefits of his hard work because all of the profit he made on his patent was used to his repay outstanding debts.
1826: Goodyear Moves to Philadelphia 1837: Goodyear Obtains Patent No. 240 1839: Goodyear Made Assignor to Hayward's Patent 1908: Henry Ford's Model T
Benson John Lossing, Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History, Volume 1, (NY & London: Harper & Brothers Publishiing, 1915), (No Page # Given). Purvis, A Dictionary of American History, (Cambrige, MA: Blackwell Reference, 1995), 161. Johnson, DAB, Volume VII, (NY & London: Scribner's Son, 1931), 414. Lossing, Harper's Encyclopedia of United States History, (No Page # Given).
In 1845 Frederick Douglass published his autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The book was a huge success and sold over 30,000 copies during its first five years. In the book Douglass recounts the horrors of slavery. He contradicts the pro-slavery argument that slavery was a Christianizing institution, arguing that slavery kept slaves from learning to read or learning about the bible. 1 He also described how slave life ruined the possibility for saves to have families that could stick together. 2 In publishing the book Douglass took a big risk because he was a runaway slave from Maryland and his new found celebrity could lead to his capture and return to the South. Douglass had to leave the country for Ireland where he lectured on abolitionist themes for two years. Before the release of his autobiography Douglass became good friends with the famous abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. 3 Garrison hired him to lecture with him around the United States. In these lectures he attacked the hypocrisy of the United States saying that no country had laws that were as, “cruel, malicious, and infernal as the United States... Every page [of American Law] is red with the blood of the American slave.” 4 From 1851-1860 Douglass published the abolitionist paper the Frederick Douglass paper in Rochester, New York. His abolitionist speeches made Frederick Douglass famous and after the Civil War he held numerous prominent political positions.
1
Nathan Irvin Huggins, Slave and Citizen: the Life of Frederick Douglass (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1980), 21.
2
Ibid, 21-22.
3
Ibid, 17.
4
Ibid, 37.
1866: Passage of the Civil Rights Act, 1841: Anti-Slavery Lecture Frederick Douglass
Nathan Irvin Huggins, Slave and Citizen: the Life of Frederick Douglass (Boston: Little Brown and Company, 1980)
Gregory P. Lampe, Frederick Douglass: Freedom’s Voice, 1818-1845 (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1998)
Cassius M. Clay was an abolitionist from Madison County, Kentucky and was born October 19, 1810. On June 3, 1845 Clay created the first issue of The True American, and antislavery paper in the city of Lexington Kentucky. 1 He set up shop on Mill Street, in a big brick building, which e transformed into a fortress. He stocked his building with a cannon, guns, and pikes, anticipating trouble.2 The goals of The True American was to get constitutional emancipation for slaves and to defend white liberties.3 His strategy was to drive a wedge between slaveholders and non slaveholders in Kentucky. He also desired to create an independent emancipation party in Kentucky.4 He posed the question to Kentuckians, “Where is the man who will sacrifice present power to the contingency of hereafter rising with the swelling tide of freedom?”5 It was not long before his paper was perceived as a nuisance. Some suggested that the paper was insurrectionary. During this controversy Clay published a comment that actually appeared to be a revolutionary threat to slave-owners. Since he was known to have weapons the Kentuckians interpreted it as a threat. Clay was brought to trial and Judge Thomas Marshall declared Clay a trespasser in Lexington and order that his paper equipment be shipped to Cincinnati, Ohio and clay e removed by force. Essentially, Clay was run out of own for his beliefs.6
1
David L. Smiley, Lion of White Hall, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1962), 83.
2
Ibid, 82.
3
Ibid, 83.
4
Ibid, 88.
5
Ibid, 89.
6
Ibid, 98.
1821: 1821 Benjamin Lundy Publishes First Issue of the Genius of Universal Emancipation ,1831: Garrisons Liberator
Cassius M. Clay, “Address of Cassius M. Clay; to the People of Kentucky,” Boston Recorder (1830-1849). Boston: Feb 20, 1845. Vol. 30, Iss. 8; pg. 30, 2 pgs accessed 14 November2006 (http://proquest.umi.com/pqdweb?did=809169412&sid=1&Fmt=2&clientId=43093&RQT=309&VName=HNP;)
David L. Smiley, Lion of White Hall, (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1962)
On March 4, 1845 James Polk was inaugurated as the eleventh president of the United States. In his inauguration speech Polk laid out goals of his presidency. He stated in his speech he felt tariffs should be for revenue not for protection. He spoke at length about the importance of bringing Texas into the Union along with the Oregon Territories. 1 In his one term as President Polk achieved almost all of his goals. Texas joined the union in 1845. Oregon became a territory of the U.S. in the 1846 Oregon Treaty with England. 2 He wanted to buy California and ended up getting it after a very successful war with Mexico in 1946 and 1947. 3 The Treaty of Guadeloupe gave the U.S. California, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona. Polk was able to turn back most of the tariffs passed in 1942 and formed a central treasury. 4 One of the few failures of the Polk era was the unsuccessful attempt to purchase Cuba from Spain. Polk entered his presidency when the feeling of Manifest Destiny was at its Zenith and he took the opportunity to expand U.S. Territory more than any other president.
1
“Inaugural Address of James K. Polk,” (accessed 8 November 2006); available at http://ww.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/polk.htm.
2
Charles A. McCoy, Polk and the Presidency (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1960), 92.
3
Ibid, 93-120.
4
Ibid, 148.
1845: Texas Becomes the 28th State, 1846:Mexican American War, 1846: Oregon Treaty, 1846:Annexation of California, 1844: James K. Polk Wins Election
Paul H. Bergeron, The Presidency of James K. Polk (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1987)
“Inaugural Address of James K. Polk,” (accessed 8 November 2006); available at http://ww.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/presiden/inaug/polk.htm
Charles A. McCoy, Polk and the Presidency (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1960)
John L. O’Sullivan popularized the phrase Manifest Destiny in 1845. Sullivan was a publisher and supporter of the Democratic Party. He first used the term in 1845 in The Democratic Review. This article largely went unnoticed. It was his article in The New York Morning News February 27, 1845 that made these two words the catch phrase to justify U.S. expansionism. He wrote, “…It is by the right of our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty…” 1 Manifest Destiny implied a God given right and duty for Americans to spread their version of democracy across the continent. The use of this phrase came to the forefront just as the U.S. was thinking about annexing the Texas Republic in 1845 and Oregon Territories in 1846. 2 During this time the U.S. expanded from Florida on the Atlantic to California and the Oregon Territories on the Pacific. Many believers of Manifest Destiny thought the whole Continent of North America should fall under the umbrella of Republican Democracy. Canada, Mexico and Cuba were candidates for expansionism, which never materialized because of racial, slave and other issues.
1
Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Incorporated, 1963), 31-32.
2
Ibid, 33.
1845: Texas Becomes the 28th State, 1846:Mexican American War , 1846:Annexation of California , 1849: Year of the Gold Rush
Charles A. McCoy, Polk and the Presidency (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1960)
Frederick Merk, Manifest Destiny and Mission in American History (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Incorporated, 1963)
After years of on and off negotiations Texas officially became a state December 28 1845. Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836 forming the Republic of Texas. Texans most of whom were American settlers were eager to join the Union and voted for annexation that same year. Texans were eager for annexation and thus sent an envoy to Washington to hammer out the details. Andrew Jackson and later Martin Van Buren did not endorse annexation for fear of a war with Mexico. Van Buren also had concerns about adopting another slave state into the United States. In 1938 Texas got tired of waiting for an answer and withdrew their offer. John Tyler worried about England’s relationship with Texas and reopened annexation discussions with Sam Houston. Mexico threatened war if annexation occurred and offered to recognize Texas as an independent nation if they would agree not to become annexed. The election of Polk, an avid expansionist, gave Tyler the mandate to rush annexation through before he left office. The annexation deal passed the U.S. Congress just before Polk was sworn in and was finalized ten months later.
1823: Monroe Doctrine, 1845: James K. Polk Inaugurated, 1845: The Phrase Manifest Destiny Popularized by John L O’Sullivan
Linda S. Hudson, Mistress of Manifest Destiny (Austin: Teas State Historical Association, 2001)
Charles A. McCoy, Polk and the Presidency (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1960), 93-120.
Mr. Ingram invented the Rotary Printing Press in 1846. The printing and impression cylinders are of equal size, which enables three whole sheets to be printed at each revolution or two copies of the half sheet. Attached to this printing machine is the folding machine, which can be worked in company or separately from the printing machine to cut and fold the sheets as fast as they are printed. The size of the cylinder has been increased so that multiple engraving plates can be placed on the same printing cylinder. The impression cylinder is the piece, which brings the paper into contact with the inked type of the printing cylinder, which rotates at the same speed. The Ingram machine was able deliver 6,500 perfect copies an hour of the illustrated London news with its supplements. The modern printing press is able to mass-produce newspapers and other printed literature with great accuracy. Mr. Ingram entrusted Messrs Middleton and Company engineers from Southwark to engineer his machine. This machine is the modern printing press which is able to mass-produce newspapers and other printed literature with such accuracy.
Ingram rotary press at the Paris Exhibition, Scientific American (1845-1908); No 9, 1878; Vol XXXIX, Nov 19 APS Online Pg. 291
Hoe’s Fast Press, Scientific American (1845-1908); May 1, 1847; Vol. 2., no 32.; APS Online pg. 252
1820: Land Act of 1820
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1820: Missouri Compromise
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The Missouri Compromise is significant as a precedent in the debate over slavery in new states. It influenced insurrectionists such as Denmark Vesey, causing slaveholders to seek gag rules and other forms of control. The same debate would also spark such legislation as the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act.4
Its timing was key. Without the urgency of solving the problem of slavery extension, the compromise might not have existed, and Maine and Missouri’s statehoods might have been further delayed.
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1820: Maine Becomes 23rd State
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1820: Maine Becomes 23rd State
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1820: Joseph Smith Vision
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1820: Treaty of Doaks Stand
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1821: Denmark Vesey Begins Organizing Slave Revolt
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1821: ACS Purchases Land in Western Africa for African Americans
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1821: 1821 Adams–Onis Treaty Ratified
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1821: 1821 John Marshall Reinforces Power of Federal Courts in Cohen v. Virginia
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1821: 1821 Benjamin Lundy Publishes First Issue of the Genius of Universal Emancipation
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1822: Austin Establishes Settlement in Texas
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1822: Florida Becomes a U.S. Territory
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1822: Denmark Vesey Plot Uncovered
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1822: TN Legislature Nominates Jackson for President
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1823: The Christian Baptist
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1823: Monroe Doctrine
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1824: Gibbons v. Ogden
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1824: Tariff Act of 1824
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1824: Last Congressional Nominating Caucus
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1824: Bureau of Indian Affairs Created
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1824: American Sunday School Union Established
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1824: Presidential Election
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1825: Corrupt Bargain
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1825: Creek Indian Treaty
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1825: Nashoba Founded
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1825: Opening of the Erie Canal
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1826: Publication of the Last of the Mohicans
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1826: Senator John Randolph and Secretary of State Henry Clay duel
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1826: American Temperance Society Founded
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1826: Death of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams
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1827: Rejection of Wool Tariff
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1827: New Orleans Has First Mardi Gras
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1827: Martin v Mott
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1827: Freedom's Journal Published
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1827: Northwood Published
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1828: Tariff of 1828
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1828: Election of Andrew Jackson
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1828: South Carolina Declares Right to Nullify
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1828: Webster Publishes American Dictionary
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1828: Construction Begins on Baltimore and Ohio Railroad
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1830: Indian Removal Act
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Long before 1830 southern Indian tribes had ceded over 20 million acres of their land through federal treaties to white settlers, but continued expansionism convinced settlers that they needed more land that the Indians occupied[1]. Until the election of 1828 the government had been successful in pacifying Indian-settler tensions but the election of Andrew Jackson brought about major changes in governmental Indian policy[2]. Jackson was a firm believer that Indians were incapable of adapting to American society, and for their own preservation and protection, they should move “away from white encroachment”[3]. Jackson also felt incredible pressure from the American people who desired the lands owned by the Indians, and who feared Indian attacks as they surged westward[4]. Jackson pushed for Indian removal and despite much objection from many that considered it morally unforgivable, on May 28, 1830 the Indian Removal Act passed by a slim majority in the Senate. The bill allows the President the right to remove any Indian tribe from their lands east of the Mississippi River, provided that the tribe was given lands of equal value in the West. Furthermore, the President was restricted from selling or giving any of the new lands to anyone other than the specified Indian tribes. The government also guaranteed the Indians protection and promised to provide aid to furnish necessary protection during relocation process[5]. While this bill looked fair on paper the execution of this policy was chaotic, corrupt, and heart wrenching and resulted in the loss of thousands of Indian lives along the trail to the west. This removal process is often referred to as the Trail of Tears[6].
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1830: Jefferson Birthday Dinner
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On April 13th, 1830 a group of the leading politicians in Washington, including the president and the vice president, congregated for a banquet celebrating Thomas Jefferson’s birthday. Tensions were high among those in attendance due to controversial passing of the tariff of 1828 and South Carolina’s nullification of the tariff they considered “abominable.” States rights supporters believed that South Carolina had every right to choose to nullify the tariff, while non states rights supporters believed that states had no right to nullify a government-implemented policy. States’ rights supporter Robert Y. Hayne gave the dinner speech which was followed by several toasts that included a mixture of states’ rights and non-states’ rights sentiment[1][2]. After several minutes the talk and toasts subsided and all eyes turned to President Andrew Jackson to make a toast. Most of the audience anticipated thatJackson would toast to states rights because he was historically known to be in favor of states’ rights principles, but instead Jackson lifted his glass and uttered “Our Federal Union. It must be preserved.” After several seconds of silence Vice President John C. Calhoun raised his glass and spoke in opposition to Jackson’s toast, “The Union, next to our liberties, the most dear.”[3].
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1830: 1st Wagon to Cross Rocky Mountains
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1830: Mexico Outlaws American Immigrants
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In 1821 Mexico declared its independence from Spain. Before granting Mexico its independence Spain, in an effort to colonize settlers in the Tejas territory, who were predominately American, hired “empresarios,” individuals from America, to serve as middlemen between the Spanish government and the American settlers[1][2]. After the transfer of governmental power from the hands of the Spanish to the Mexicans, there was much concern from the empresarios that the contract between the government and the settlers would be annulled. Between 1820 and 1830 empresarios advertised and successfully moved hundreds of American families to Tejas[3]. Initially the Mexican government allowed for the continuation of this immigration policy, but by the end of 1829 there were 20,000 American settlers in Tejas, and Americans outnumbered Mexicans 4 to 1. Mexicans feared that the continued allowance of this trend in Mexico would yield a Tejas that was no longer Mexican but American[4]. Disagreement on the issue of slavery fueled by Mexico’s decision to abolish slavery in its 1826 constitution, and the continued loyalty of the settlers to America only served to further the conflict between Mexico and its American settlers[5]. On April 6, 1830, Mexican president Vincente Guerrero, declared the importation of blacks in to Mexico illegal and prohibited further settlement of immigrants from the United States to Tejas.[6]. This policy created outrage among Tejans against the Mexican government, who they felt were “[infringing] on their liberties,”[7] and it was this discontent with the government that helped spur support for the independence movement of the territory manifested in the Texas Revolution 1835[8].
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1830: Petticoat Affair
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In 1829, just before being inaugurated Secretary of War John Henry Eaton married the beautiful widow Margaret “Peggy” Timberland. Peggy Eaton was the well known daughter of a prominent tavern owner in Washington who was known for being unconventional “frivolous, wayward [and] passionate” woman[1]. The socialites of Washington accused Peggy of being “intimate” with John Eaton before they were married and even while her husband was still alive. Their marriage was under constant scrutiny from Andrew Jackson’s cabinet and their wives[2]. The “petticoat war” as it was termed involved cutting Peggy Eaton out of all social gatherings and ignoring her at all functions that she did attend[3]. Jackson appalled by the actions of his cabinet, sympathized with the Eatons. Having delt with similar criticism regarding his wife Rachel Donelson, who was at the time she married Jackson still married to her first husband[4], Jackson understood the horrors of being snubbed by one’s contemporaries, and fought hard to force the ladies of Washington, including John. C Calhoun’s wife, and his own niece Emily Donelson, to include Peggy in society. However, all of Jacksons attempts proved futile and the Eatons remained detested throughout John Eaton’s term as Secretary of War[5].
The “ostracism” of John Eaton and his wife thwarted the Cabinet’s “harmony” and crippled Jackson’s government from the start. There is little actual reason as to why the Petticoat affair became so important to the socialites of Washington but it may have been due to an increasingly widespread panic in Washington, that “America was losing its republican virtue.”[6]. It also intensified the hostility between Jackson, Vice President Calhoun, and the cabinet which eventually led to the resignation of Jackson’s cabinet in 1831[7].
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1830: First Steam Engine in America
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1830: Pre-emption Act of 1830
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With increased westward expansion during the 19th century the United States federal government found itself in continued conflict with the sale of public lands. In 1800 a credit system was set up to help farmers and westward settlers with the unaffordable costs of the lands they sought[1]. However the financial Panic of 1819, made it impossible for many farmers to ever be capable of paying for lands they had purchased on government credit[2]. In response to this inability to pay for lands purchased, the government passed the Land Act of 1820. This act ended the government credit system and reduced the minimum amount of land that could be purchased to 160 acres and lowered the price to $1.25 per acre[3].By 1830, 22,500,000 acres of government land had been sold to land thirsty settlers[4], however Americans were not satisfied with how much land they had claimed. Pressure for more lenient land policies led to Congress passing the Pre-emption Act in 1830.This act granted all settlers that had moved to the “public domain” or government land, and had plowed and planted a piece of land in 1829, without paying the $1.25 per acre cost, a one years grace period to pay off their debts to the government[5]. Before 1830, these “squatters,” settlers illegally on government land, would have been removed or heavily fined for trespassing on public domain; however this policy gave these settlers a chance to claim land they might not have previously been able to claim. However a major problem that arose from this pre-emption was a huge increase in the amount of speculation. Speculators in an effort to make huge profits would hire blacks and Indians to live on their lands and eventually sell the cultivated land to the highest bidder[6].
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1831: Joseph Henry and Electromagnetic Induction
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1831: Garrisons Liberator
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1831: Cherokee vs Georgia
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1831: McCormick Reaper
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1831: Calhouns Fort Hill Address
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1831: Nat Turner Rebellion
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1832: Election of 1832
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1832: Worcester v. Georgia
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1832: Black Hawk War
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1832: Phrenology Introduced in United States
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1832: Ordinance of Nullification
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1832: Resignation of Calhoun
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1833: The Force Bill
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1833: The Compromise Tariff
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1833: American Anti-Slavery Society
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1833: British Emancipation
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1833: Nullification of the Force Bill
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1834: Senate Censure of Jackson
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1834: Creation of Whig Party
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1834: Austin Arrested
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1834: 2nd Coinage Act
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1834: British Abolish Slavery
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1835: Andrew Jackson Assassination Attempt
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1835: The Second Seminole War
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[2] John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842, (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1967), 85.
1835: The Second Seminole War
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[2] John K. Mahon, History of the Second Seminole War, 1835-1842, (Gainesville, University of Florida Press, 1967), 85.
1835: The Great Moon Hoax
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1835: The Texas Revolution Begins
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1836: General Gaines' Expedition
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1836: Introduction of the Gag Rule
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1836: Arkansas Gains Statehood
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1836: Arkansas Gains Statehood
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1836: Death of James Madison
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1836: Texas Convention of 1836 and the Declaration of Independence
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1836: Battle of the Alamo
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1836: Goliad Massacre
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1836: Battle of San Jacinto
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1837: Panic of 1837
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1837: Michigan gains statehood
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1837: Inauguration of Martin Van Buren
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1837: Abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy is murdered by angry mob
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1837: United States recognizes Texas independence
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1839: Amistad Revolt
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1839: Virginia Military Institute founded
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1839: Liberty Party formed
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1839: Roots of baseball
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1839: Mississippi Married Women's first Property Law
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1840: Chartering of Auburn University
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1840: Presidential Election of 1840
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1840: Independent Treasury Reform
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1840: World Anti-slavery Convention
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1840: Ten Hour Work Day
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1841: Amistad Decision
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1841: Land Act of 1841
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1841: Anti-Slavery Lecture Frederick Douglass
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1841: Opening Oregon Trail
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1841: Death of President William Henry Harrison
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1842:Webster-Ashburton Treaty
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1842: anesthesia
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1842:Treaty of Nanking
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1842:Armed Occupation Act
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1842: Dorr Rebellion
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1842:Commonwealth vs. Hunt
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1843: $30,000 for Morse's Telegraph
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1843: First Blackface Minstrel Quartet
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1843: Millerism
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Revivalist movements, such as those encompassing the Second Great Awakening, occurred throughout the 19th century. One of the most dramatic, if not the most extreme, was the Millerite movement led by William Miller, a Baptist minister from Massachusetts. Miller, through his own deciphering of biblical prophecies within the Book of Daniel, declared that the Second Coming of Jesus Christ to set up His millennial kingdom would happen at some point between March 21, 1843 through March 21, 1844. Miller had remained a rather obscure preacher announcing this message of doom while traveling throughout the small towns of New England until convert Joseph Himes brought Millerism into the limelight. Through aggressive promoting the Millerite movement spread throughout the Northeastern cities. What had once been a localized sect became a national religious phenomenon. In regards to this phenomenon Christian Observer remarked, “Several in our city closed their stores and shops some weeks since, in order to be in readiness for the coming of the Saviour.” 1Millerites came from all social classes and from numerous Protestant denominations. While principally a Northern movement, the Millerite movement emerged during a time when society was optimistic about progress but also wary of threats to the traditional American values of republicanism. These transitional years from federalism to jacksonianism were years of uncertainty. “Miller introduced a precisely defined cataclysm that promised to transcend both the old and the new orders, and thousands of Americans gladly heard his radical message.” 2 The “Adventist” movement would live on after the “Great Disappointment” in 1844 to become the Adventist churches of today that have thousands of members across the country.
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1843: Sojourner Truth
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1844: Joseph Smith Murdered
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1844: Morse Sends First Telegraph
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1844: Tragedy Aboard the USS Princeton
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1844: James K. Polk Wins Election
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1844: Goodyear Patents Vulcanization Process
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1845: Frederick Douglass Publishes his Autobiography
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1845: Cassius M. Clay’s The True American
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1845: James K. Polk Inaugurated
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1845: The Phrase Manifest Destiny Popularized by John L O’Sullivan
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1845: Texas Becomes the 28th State
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1846:Rotary Printing Press
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1846: Oregon Treaty
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