The Jacksonian
Era
The Age of Democracy
and
The Common Man
Timeline of Events
1824
Owen’s New Harmony founded
1826
American Temperance Society founded
1828
Andrew Jackson elected President
Tariff of Abominations
Railroad construction begins
American Peace Society founded
Timeline of Events
1830
Indian Removal Act
Webster-Hayne Debate
Mormon Church founded
Timeline of Events
1833
Jackson destroys the Second Bank
of the United States
Beginning of the penny press
American Antislavery Society
founded
Force Bill
Timeline of Events
1836
Texas gains independence
Charter of BUS expires
Martin Van Buren elected President
Alamo
Timeline of Events
1837
Panic of 1837
Plank Roads built
Steam powered threshers in use
John Deere’s steel plow in use
Horace Mann begins school reform
Election of 1828
Opponents
Andrew Jackson
178
John Quincy Adams
83
Jackson wins the election and
becomes the 7th President of the
United States
Election of 1828
Jackson felt Adams was an
intellectual elitist
Jackson portrayed himself as a
“common man”
Jackson in reality was a wealthy
plantation owner
Record number of people went to
Washington, D.C. to see the
inauguration of “Old Hickory”
Spoils System
Jackson knew how to inspire
loyalty and enthusiasm
He knew how to use the powers of
the presidency
“To the victor belong the spoils of
the enemy”
Andrew Jackson
Spoils System
Appointed people to federal
jobs for a maximum of 4 years
otherwise they may become
corrupt or inefficient
Jackson replaced officials of
the federal government with
his own friends
Spoils System
He fired about 10% of
the federal employees
(mostly people
appointed during the
Adams administration)
He gave the jobs to loyal
Jacksonians
He also had the “kitchen cabinet”,
his loyal friends who would advise
him on presidential matters
Jackson & Native Americans
Who were the five civilized tribes?
Creek
Choctaw
Chickasaw
Cherokee
Seminole
Jackson & Native Americans
What areas did they occupy?
Large areas of Georgia, Alabama,
North Carolina, South Carolina,
Mississippi, Tennessee, and Florida
Jackson & Native Americans
What were Jackson’s views
concerning the Native Americans?
He believed that the tribes could never
be assimilated into European ways
By allowing the Native Americans to
live in their original areas would require
too many troops to protect them
The only possible solution was to move
them to areas in the west
Indian Removal Act
1830
Passed by Congress
Provided federal funds to negotiate
treaties that would force Native
Americans to move west
90 treaties were signed
Jackson forced the Choctaw to sign
a treaty that required them to move
from Mississippi
Indian Removal Act
1831
Jackson ordered U.S. troops to
forcibly remove the Sauk and Fox
from their native lands in Illinois and
Missouri
1832
Jackson forced the Chickasaw to leave
their lands in Alabama and Mississippi
Cherokee Fight Back
Cherokees led by John Ross take the
fight to the Supreme Court
In Worcester v. Georgia, 1832, the
Cherokee won recognition as a
distinct political community
The Court ruled that Georgia was not
entitled to regulate the Cherokee nor
to invade their lands
Cherokee Fight Back
Jackson refused to abide by the Court’s
ruling stating “John Marshall has made
his decision: now let him enforce it.”
Cherokee Fight Back
1835
John Ross, the Cherokee
leader, still tried to
fight in court
Some Cherokee promoted relocation and
federal agents chose to recognize those
that did as the true representatives of the
tribe
Cherokee Lose the Battle
Treaty of New Echota
Cherokees’ last 8 million acres are
given to the federal government for
$5 million and
land west of the
Mississippi River
Cherokee Lose the Battle
1838
About 20,000 Cherokee are still living
in Georgia
Jackson’s successor,
Martin Van Buren
orders their forced
removal
Trail of Tears
Trail of Tears
October and November 1838
Cherokee were sent off in groups
of 1,000
800 mile trip was made partly by
steamboat, railroad and mostly by
walking
Many Cherokee died on the trip
Trail of Tears
Government officials stole their
money
Bandits made off with their
livestock
About 25% of the people who
made the journey died
Cherokee receive inferior land
when they reached their
destination
Tariff and State’s Rights
Tariff of 1816 was passed to protect
American goods
1824 was raised
1828 was raised again
John C. Calhoun, Jackson’s
vice president, called the
1828 tariff a ”Tariff of Abominations”
because it hurt the south economically
by making them have to purchase the
more costly Northern goods
Nullification Theory
Developed by John C. Calhoun as a
response to the Tariff of
Abominations
This theory questioned the legality
of applying some federal laws to
the sovereign states
Nullification Theory
Calhoun believed that since the
Constitution had be ratified by
“sovereign states” then they also
had the right to nullify, or reject, a
federal law they considered
unconstitutional
This theory was part of The South
Carolina Exposition and Protest, a
document to which Calhoun
conveniently did not sign his name
Webster-Hayne Debate
Daniel Webster
Robert Hayne
Webster-Hayne Debate
One of the greatest debates in
American history
January 1830
Opponents
Robert Hayne of South Carolina
Daniel Webster of Massachusetts
Debate was over the tariff question
and the underlying states’ rights
issue
Nullification Issue
Congress passes the Tariff of 1832
South Carolina declares the tariffs of
1828 and 1832 “null” and therefore
“void”
South Carolina threatens to secede
from the Union if customs officials try
to collect duties
Jackson is furious, threatens to place
South Carolina under federal troops if
they did not comply
Nullification Issue
Congress passes the Force Bill of 1833
- allowed the federal government to
use the army and navy against South
Carolina if states authorities resisted
paying the duties
Henry Clay – “The Great Compromiser”
steps in and proposed a tariff which
would reduce duties over a ten year
period
National Bank Controversy
National Bank Controversy
Jackson vetoes the bill to recharter
the Second Bank of the United States
(BUS) - 1832
He opposes the bank because he
believes it to be a privileged institution
Second Bank had an unfair advantage
over other banks (state banks)
BUS extended courtesies to the
“privileged few” usually congressman
Pet Banks
BUS was a “monster” that corrupted “our
statesmen” and wanted “to destroy our
republican institution”
Jackson had his secretary of the
treasury take the money from the BUS
and place it in state banks or “pet banks”
1836 – charter runs out and BUS
becomes another Philadelphia bank
5 years later it goes out of business
Wildcat Banks
Jackson deposited federal money in
pet banks – some were “wildcat” banks
Wildcat banks printed money in
excess of what gold and silver they
had on hand
Notes printed by these banks were
practically worthless
Federal government lost money when
people used the notes to buy land
Panic Begins
Jackson has Treasury Department
issue an order that made “specie”
(gold or silver) the only acceptable
form of payment for government land
Order goes into affect of August 15,
1836
Banks could not handle the flow of
people wanting gold and silver so they
suspended redemption of bank notes
Panic of 1837
May 1837
New York banks stop accepting paper
currency
Banks begin closing
Credit system collapses
People lose their entire savings
Hundreds of businesses go bankrupt
1/3 of the population ends up out of
work
Whig Party Forms
Formed in 1834 by Henry Clay, John
Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster
Backed the ideas of the American
System
Wanted a protective tariff
Wanted to use federal money to build
roads and canals
Backed federal control of the national
banking system and a national currency
Whig Party Forms
Henry Clay
Daniel Webster
John Quincy Adams
Van Buren Becomes President
Jackson will not run for a 3rd term
Martin Van Buren is Jackson’s hand
picked choice to become president
Whig Party runs 3
different candidates
from the different
regions
Van Buren win easily
Van Buren Tries to Help
Van Buren reduces government
spending
Declining prices drop even further
Set up an independent treasury
that would use only gold and silver
coin
1840 Congress creates this
treasury but it only makes
matters worse
“Tippecanoe and Tyler, too”
William Henry
Harrison
John Tyler
“Tippecanoe and Tyler, too”
Election of 1840
William Henry Harrison 234
Martin Van Buren
60
James G. Birney
0
Harrison a war hero is portrayed as
a man of the people even though he
was from a wealthy family
Harrison wins
Harrison’s Short Presidency
Harrison takes steps to revitalize
the economy
Harrison rides to inauguration
without a coat on and catches
pneumonia
Harrison dies one month into his
presidency
John Tyler becomes president
Tyler’s Presidency
Opposes many of the ideas put
forth in the Whig program
Obtained the nickname “His
Accidency” because he disagreed
with the Whig program for
economic reform
Second Great Awakening
Charles Grandison Finney, a preacher,
was one of the most fervent leaders
of this religious revival
Emphasized individual responsibility
for seeking salvation
Insisted people could improve
themselves and society
4 to 5 day revivals were held so that
participants could study the Bible and
examine their souls
Second Great Awakening
Charles Grandison Finney
African-American Churches
Second Great Awakening brought
Christianity on a large scale to slaves
Belief that all people – black or white
– belonged to God
Baptists and Methodists opened their
churches to blacks and whites
Slaves listened to the same messages
as their masters but interpreted it
differently – as a promise for
freedom for their people
AME Church
Richard Allen opens
the Bethel African
Church in Philadelphia
in 1816
AME Church
Becomes known as the African
Methodist Episcopal Church
Became a political, cultural, and
social center for African
Americans
Gave its members a sense of
community and the spiritual
support to oppose slavery
Transcendentalism
“ Do not go where the
path may lead, go instead
where there is no path
and leave a trail.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Transcendentalism
Begun by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Was a philosophical and literary
movement that emphasized living a
simple life
Celebrated the truth found in nature
and in personal emotion and imagination
Spawned a literary movement that
stressed the ideas of optimism,
freedom, and self-reliance
Henry David Thoreau
Walden
Pond
and
House
Henry David
Thoreau
Henry David Thoreau
Built a cabin on Walden Pond near
Concord, Massachusetts and lived alone
for 2 years
Believed people should follow their
conscience and disobey laws they felt
were unjust
Form of protest called civil disobedience
Went to jail because he would not pay
taxes to help finance the war with
Mexico and keep slavery going
Unitarianism
Emphasized reason and appeals to
conscience as the paths to perfection
William Ellery Channing – prominent
leader
Believed the purpose of
Christianity was “the
perfection of human
nature, the elevation of
men into nobler beings”
Utopian Communities
Experimental groups that believe in a
“perfect place” or “utopia”
Brook Farm
Established in 1841 by George Ripley
Was set up to “prepare a society of
liberal, intelligent and cultivated persons,
whose relations with each other would
permit a more wholesome and simple life
than can be led amidst the pressure of our
competitive institutions”
Main building destroyed in 1847, society
disbanded
Utopian Communities
George Ripley
Brook Farm
Shakers
Led by Ann Lee
Believed men and women are equal
Should never fight for any reason
Took a vow to never marry or have
children
Depended on converts or adopting
children to keep communities going
1840s – 6000 members
1999 – 7 members in entire United
States
Shakers
Prison Reform
1831 – Alexis de Tocqueville, a French
writer visited the penitentiary
system and found it extremely lacking
He observed prisoners being beaten
or isolated for extended periods
“While society in the United States
gives the example of the most
extended liberty, the prisons of the
same country offer the spectacle of
the most complete despotism”
Reformers
Alexis de Tocqueville
Dorothea Dix
Dorothea Dix
personal experience helped her to join
the cause for social reform
Discovered jails housed mentally ill
people
1843 – sent report to Massachusetts
legislature who then passed a law to
improve conditions
1845-1852 – Dix convinced 9 southern
states to set up public hospitals for
the mentally ill
School Reform
Massachusetts and Vermont were
the only two states to pass
compulsory school attendance laws
before the Civil War
1834 – Pennsylvania established a
tax-supported public school
system
Horace Mann
The father of public education
1837 – became the first secretary of
the Massachusetts Board of Education
Established teacher
training programs
Instituted curriculum
reform
Doubled the money
states spent on schools
Slavery and Abolition
1820s – over 100 antislavery
societies wanted the resettlement
of blacks back to Africa
Only about 1400 blacks emigrated
to Africa
Abolition – the call to end or
outlaw slavery
Charles Grandison Finney – termed
slavery “ a great national sin”
William Lloyd Garrison
Radical white abolitionist
Editor of The Liberator which he
started in 1831
Called for the immediate emancipation
(freeing) of slaves
Founder of the New England AntiSlavery Society in 1832
Founder American Anti-Slavery Society
in 1833
William Lloyd Garrison
David Walker
Radical abolitionist
Free black who wrote Appeal to the
Colored Citizens of the World
published in 1829
Advised blacks to fight for their
freedom rather than wait for slave
owners to end slavery
David Walker
Frontispiece from
the 1830 edition of
David Walker's
Appeal…to the
Colored Citizens of
the World…, first
published in 1829.
Frederick Douglass
Born into slavery in 1817
Taught to read and write by the wife
of one of his owners
Believed education was an important
tool for freedom
Escaped in 1838 to New York
Editor of his own newspaper, The
North Star
Spokesman for abolitionism
Frederick Douglass
Rural Slavery
1820-1830 – the number of slaves
almost doubles from 1.2 million to 2
million
Rural Slavery
Worked on large plantations usually from
dawn to dusk
Driven to work fast by the overseer’s
whip
1850 most slaves live on plantations
with 10 or more slaves
Urban Slavery
1830s most southern whites are
farming not working in industries such
as mining or lumbering
Many slaves end up working in mills
and on ships
Slaves that developed a talent for
carpentry or blacksmithing were in
high demand in cities
Slave owners would often hire out
their slaves to work in factories
Nat Turner
Born in 1800 in Southampton
County, Virginia
Gifted preacher
Believed he had
been chosen to
lead his people
out of bondage
Nat Turner’s Rebellion
August 1831
Turner believed that an eclipse of
the sun was a divine sign for action
Turner and 80 followers attacked 4
plantations killing about 60 white
people
Turner hid for several weeks before
being captured and hanged
In retaliation, about 200 blacks
were killed
Defense of Slavery
In the aftermath of Turner’s Rebellion,
the Virginia legislature debated the
issue of slavery and the possible
abolition of it. When a motion for
abolition was put to the legislature, the
vote was 73 to 58 in favor of keeping
slavery. Thus this debate on slavery
effectively closed the issue in the
antebellum South.
Backlash from Revolts
Fearing future revolts, many
states passed laws which became
known as the slave codes
Alabama – free & enslaved blacks
were not allowed to preach the
gospel unless slave owners were
present
All southern states denied free
blacks the right to vote by 1835
Backlash from Revolts
Free blacks lost the right to own
guns, purchase alcohol, assemble in
public, and testify in court in some
states
In some southern cities AfricanAmericans were no longer allowed
to own property, learn to read &
write, or work independently as
carpenters or blacksmiths
Gag Rule
Was a rule limiting or preventing
debate on the issue of slavery
To keep the topic of slavery out
of Congress
Secured in 1836 the gag rule
lasted until 1844
People who wanted to have their
petitions heard were denied
because of this rule
Gag Rule
Women and Reform
Early Rights of Women
By 1850 – 1 in 5 white women worked
for wages a few years before they
were married
1 in 10 single white women worked
outside the home earning about half
the pay of men for the same job
Women could not vote nor sit on
juries
Early Rights of Women
When a woman married, her
property and any money she
earned became her husband’s
Married women lacked
guardianship rights over their own
children
Mobilizing for Reform
Sarah and Angelina Grimke, daughters
of a South Carolina slaveholder, were
abolitionists
1836 – Angelina Grimke published An
Appeal to Christian Women of the
South
Women abolitionists raised money,
distributed literature, and collected
signatures for petitions to Congress
Mobilizing for Reform
Sarah and Angelina Grimke
Time for Temperance
Temperance – the effort to prohibit the
drinking of alcohol
Early 19th century alcohol flowed freely
in America
Helped to wash down salted meat and
fish that were part of many peoples
diets
Doctors dosed patients with whiskey or
brandy before operating until the 1840s
Temperance Movement
1825 – Lyman Beecher, a Connecticut
minister, begins preaching against the
use of liquor
1826 – American
Temperance Society
founded
1833 – about 6000
temperance societies
throughout the country
Education for Women
1821 – Troy Female Seminary opened by
Emma Willard, the first academically
rigorous school for girls
Education for Women
1837 – Mary Lyon opens Mount Holyoke
Female Seminary (Mount Holyoke
College) in South Hadley,
Massachusetts
Education for Women
1837 – Oberlin College in Ohio admitted
4 women to its degree program – first
coeducational college
Health Reform
Elizabeth Blackwell became the first
woman to graduate from medical school
in 1849 and later founded the New York
Infirmary for Women and Children
Catherine Beecher did a national survey
on women’s health and found 3 sick
women for every healthy one
Amelia Bloomer rebelled against the
fashion of the day and sewed loose
fitting pants tied at the ankles thus
giving us “bloomers”
Health Reform
Elizabeth
Blackwell
Catherine
Beecher
Amelia
Bloomer
Women’s Rights Movement
1848
Seneca Falls, New York
Held by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and
Lucretia Mott
Stanton wrote the Declaration of
Sentiments carefully modeled from the
Declaration of Independence
All issues were passed unanimously
except for the issue of suffrage which
narrowly passed
Women’s Rights Movement
Sojourner Truth
Isabella Baumfree was her real name
A slave for the first 30 years of her life
in New York
Became legally free on July 4, 1827
Traveled the country preaching and
arguing for abolition
Successfully sued for the return of her
youngest son who had been illegally sold
into slavery
Sojourner Truth
Industrialization Continues
New innovation and techniques in
manufacturing improve the textile
industry
Other manufactured products are
entering into the factory system
New machines helped to revolutionize
the factory system allowing unskilled
workers to find jobs
By 1828, 90% of the workforce is
unmarried farm girls in the New England
mills
Better Working Conditions
Lowell Mills
Day began at 5 am ended at 7:30 pm
12 pm to 1 pm –lunch
Windows sealed to protect thread
Summer – weaving rooms were like
ovens
Winter – smoke from lamps and
cotton dust made breathing difficult
Lowell Mills
Strikes at Lowell Mills
1834
Strikes began when wages were cut
15%
Was broken and women went back to
work with wage cuts
1836
Strike occurred when board charges
were raised equaling a 12.5% wage cut
Strike leaders were fired
Women went back to work
Coming Events
Immigration increases
1845-1854 millions of immigrants come
to the United States