Chapter 7
Nationalism and Sectionalism
1812 - 1855
1. Industry and Transportation
• What were some of the key developments in
transportation of the early 1800’s?
• Explain/analyze the rise of industry in the U.S. in
the early 1800’s.
• Describe some of the leading inventions and
industrial developments in the early 1800’s.
• New developments in technology,
transportation, manufacturing will set the country
on a path of industrialization for decades
Transportation
• Early travel: carts, wagons, stagecoaches
• Turnpikes built – toll paid but few profited
• Steamboat – Robert Fulton – first steam
powered boat in U.S. (coal or wood)
• Named Clermont
• Could now travel upstream
• Revolutionized river and ocean travel
Transportation cont.
• Growth of canals – mostly in northeast
• Erie Canal – across New York (Hudson
River to Lake Erie)
• http://www.history.com/shows/americathe-story-of-us/videos/building-the-eriecanal
• Produce could now be sent to NY quickly
which led to NY becoming a major
commercial center
Railroads
• Most dramatic improvement – developed
in GB – appeared in U.S. 1820’s
• First pulled by horses; later used steam
• Could carry much heavier freight
• Cost less to build than canals and could
travel faster
George Stephenson’s “ROCKET”
Industrial Growth
• Developments in technology transformed
manufacturing
• Known as the Industrial Revolution
• Transformed culture, social life and politics
• Began in Britain late 1700’s
• Used steam or flowing rivers to power
machines
• Textile industry first
Samuel Slater
• Emigrant from England who knew how steam
machinery worked
– Was illegal for British citizens to leave the country if
they knew the secrets to the machinery
– Secretly left England to start business in America
• Pawtucket, Rhode Island
– Set up first successful textile mill in the U.S.
– Techniques copied and by 1814, there were about
240 textile mills in America
– Family system – all lived together in town owned by
factory owner
Lowell Mills
• Francis Cabot Lowell established first mill
at Waltham, MA
• Created/controlled all aspects of
production not just thread
• Employed young, single women – “Lowell
Girls”
• Strict rules of behavior; had to live in
Lowell housing
Slater’s Mill & Spinning Frame
Lowell Mill and Lowell Women
Industry cont.
• Changed workers’ lives as well
• Divided work into small, specific tasks
• Little skill required so little training
required
• Less costly to employ unskilled
workers
• Downside for workers?
New Inventions
• Interchangeable Parts
(Eli Whitney)
• Products traditionally
made by skilled
craftsmen and were
unique
• Parts are now made
identically and
interchangeably
• Significance?
Inventions cont.
• Sewing machine
• Elias Howe – improved by Isaac Singer
• Lowered cost of making
cloth into clothing
Communication
• Samuel F. B. Morse
• Telegraph
• Electrical pulses over
wires; dots and
dashes
• Morse Code
• Revolutionized
communication
Farming
• New developments
• John Deere – steel plow
• Cyrus McCormick - reaper
2. Sectional Differences
• Why did industry take root in the North?
• Describe the impact of industrialization on
northern life.
• Analyze the reasons that agriculture and
slavery became entrenched in the South.
Sectional Differences
• Embargo of 1807 & War of 1812 had reduced
access to British manufactured goods
• Post war – flood of imports, threatened
American manufacturers
• Tariff of 1816 – increases prices
• Helped industrial Northeast but hurt farmers
• Why Northeast? Waterways for power; more
capital to invest; more workers; southern land
and climate favored agriculture
Social Change
• Industry required fewer skills; paid lower
wages; skilled artisans lost significance
and wages
• Factories – long hours, low pay, tedious
tasks, child labor, horrible conditions,
urban society – tenements, no sanitation,
little fire, police presence; dangerous
• See Venn Diagram (North & South)
Social Change
• Workers organized labor unions; united to
seek better pay, conditions
• Used strikes sometimes
• Middle class emerges – bankers, lawyers,
accountants, clerks, brokers, retailers
• Moved away from urban areas; poor
couldn’t afford to move so became
segregated by class, heritage, etc.
Immigration
• Mid 1800’s workers
increasingly made up of
immigrants
• Irish potato famine
• German political
problems; uprisings
• Mainly Catholic, Jewish
• New England cities;
factories, docks, domestic
servants
Immigration cont.
• Clustered in urban areas by
nationality/background
• Competed for jobs
• Discrimination, hostility, attacks
• Nativists campaigned for laws to restrict
immigration
Southern Agriculture
• Slavery had died out or been outlawed in
North
• In the South the cotton gin spurs
expansion of agriculture, slavery
• Removed seeds from cotton
• Invented by Eli Whitney
• By 1860 – 4 million slaves (1.5 mil. 1820)
• Price - $1,800 ($600 in 1820)
Cotton Gin
• “King Cotton” became
major export in South
• Filled growing
demand from
northern textile
factories
• Cotton/textiles
accounted for half of
all U.S. exports
Economic Consequences
• Dependent on one crop – sometimes
prices were low so some went bankrupt
• Didn’t encourage industry and
entrepreneurship
• Only one major city – New Orleans
• Population grew slowly (didn’t attract
immigrants) – this increased political
power of the North
Economic Consequences cont.
•
•
•
•
One in four owned slaves; usually 3-4
Very few owned 100 slaves or more
Why did it continue then?
Farmers hoped to have plantations one
day and feared freeing slaves
• Felt racially superior, slavery helped the
southern economy
• Claimed it was kinder than industrial life
3. Era of Nationalism
• Analyze the causes and effects of
nationalism on domestic policy during the
years following the War of 1812
• Describe the impact of nationalism on the
nation’s foreign policy
• Summarize the struggle over the issue of
slavery as the nation grew
Nationalism
• Surge in pride and national identity following
War of 1812
• “Era of Good Feeling”
• Democratic Republicans essentially only party
• James Monroe – 5th president
• Henry Clay and other D-R’s supported tariffs;
American System – wanted federal government
to build roads, canals, to link Atlantic with
Midwest – “internal improvements”
Nationalism cont.
• Also favored Bank of U.S.
• 2nd bank established (1816)
• Irony: This is the group who hated federal
power!
• Marshall Court
– Expands Court’s power
• Marbury v. Madison (JR), McCulloch v. Maryland (Bank),
Gibbons v. Ogden (Int. Commerce)
– Federal law over state law – govt. can regulate
interstate commerce, can create Bank
• Shift from single businesses or proprietorships to
corporations
Economic Panics
• Periodic shocks or downturns in the
economy
• Boom or Bust cycles common in
capitalism (driven by supply and demand)
• Boom – high demand, high prices, high
production
• Bust – goods exceed demand, falling
demand, falling prices
• 3 panics 1819, 1837, 1857
Nationalism in Foreign Affairs
• Adams-Onis Treaty
– Gave Florida to the U.S.
– Ended Spanish claims to Oregon Territory
• Opened up new areas for expansion
• Monroe Doctrine – warned European
powers to stay out of western affairs
• Reflected our desire for power
Compromise over Slavery
• Spirit of nationalism failed to suppress
growing sectional (regional) differences
• 1820 – Missouri Compromise is reached
(Henry Clay)
• Maine admitted as a free state, Missouri
as a slave state; kept balance equal
• No slavery permitted North of 36 degrees
• Only temporarily solved the issue of
slavery (can you compromise on this?)
Jefferson Quote
• “This momentous question,
like a fire-bell in the night
awakened and filled me with
terror. I considered it at once
the death knell of the Union.”
4. Age of Jackson
• 1824 – John Quincy Adams; Jackson
loses; “corrupt bargain” (goes to House, Clay
gives support to JQA then gets a Cabinet post)
• Election of 1828 campaigned across the
country (a new idea)
• National politics growing more democratic
(electors chosen by people, property
restrictions dropped so more could vote) –
see chart page 251; still no women/blacks
Jackson cont.
•
•
•
•
He became the symbol of democracy
Jacksonian Democracy
Celebrated majority rule, common people
Born in a log cabin, orphaned, fought in
American Revolution; but actually became
a wealthy attorney in Tennessee; war hero
against Indians & New Orleans
• By 1828 – supporters called Democrats
Jackson
• A return to strong state govt., weak
federal power that would not interfere
with basic rights (including slavery)
• A return to Jeffersonian Democracy
• Rewarded service with govt. jobs –
the “spoils system” – criticized for this
Native American Removal
• Jackson - Strong political base in the South
• 60,000 Native Americans lived here
• Cherokee, Creek, Chocktaw, Seminole,
Chickasaw – land seized
• Supreme Court rules (Worcester v. GA) that GA
can’t interfere with Indians
• Jackson ignored it! (Favored states here)
• Executive branch – enforces laws
Native Americans cont.
• Indian Removal Act 1830
• Southern tribes would be moved to
western territory (Oklahoma)
• Trail of Tears – route traveled by
thousands of Indians; starved, frozen,
beaten, shot – over 4,000 died
5. Constitutional Crisis & Disputes
• Tariffs were a long debated issue
• North favored (protected business) South
opposed (higher prices)
• 1828 – Tariff of Abominations
• John Calhoun (SC) violently opposed tariff
(remember he was a War Hawk – strong
nationalist – switched to states’ rights)
• Future of slavery depended on states’
rights
Crisis
• 1832 – SC nullifies (void) tariff and threatened
to secede (break away) if the govt. tried to
enforce
• Jackson, a strong state supporter drew the line
here – the Union must be preserved (favors
federal law over state law)
• Threatens to send troops (Force Bill)
• Daniel Webster defends national unity
• Tariff reduced; crisis avoided (for now)
The Bank War
• Jackson opposed Bank – saw this as
elitist, favoring North, industrialists, left out
the southern farmers, laborers
• 2nd Bank charter renewed
• Jackson vetoed it (rarely used) – Bank
unauthorized by Constitution
• Opponents denounced him as a power
hungry tyrant (“King Andrew”) – new party
Whigs
Whigs
• Many of old Federalists – wanted strong
national govt., broad (loose) interpretation
of the constitution, protective tariffs,
internal improvements, national bank
• Renewed two-party politics
• 1832 – Jackson reelected
After Jackson
• 1836 – Martin Van Buren new Democratic
president
• Panic of 1837 – revived Whig party
• 1840 - Whig William Henry Harrison –
“Tippecanoe (Indian defeat) and Tyler too”
wins; effective campaign
• First Whig victory