Chapter 12
Shaping America in
the Antebellum Age
The American People, 6th ed.
I.
Religious Revival and
Reform Philosophy
Finney and the Second
Great Awakening
 From the late 1790s to the late 1830s, a
wave of religious revivalism swept
through the United States.
 Personified by the flamboyant Charles
Finney who preached every night for six
months in Rochester, New York.
 Revivalists toned down the Calvinist
rhetoric and preached a religion of
inclusiveness.
The Transcendentalists
 A small but influential group of New England
intellectuals who lived around Ralph Waldo
Emerson, the era’s foremost thinker.
 The group was called Transcendentalists
because of their belief that truth was found in
intuition beyond the senses.
 They questioned slavery and the pursuit of
wealth.
 Members included Nathanial Hawthorne and
Henry David Thoreau (“On Civil Disobedience”)
II.
The Political Response
to Change
Changing Political Culture
 Andrew Jackson’s presidency was instrumental
in bringing politics to the center focus of many
American lives.
 Jackson promised a more democratic system of
politics.
 He was personally not very democratic, owned
slaves, and favored the forced removal of
Indians to the west.
 His administration did see the effectual
emergence of a competitive party system.
Old Hickory’s Vigorous
Presidency
Jackson’s key principles:
 Majority rule
 Limited power of the national government
 The obligation of the government to
defend the nation’s average people
against the tyranny of the wealthy
 Aggressive use of the presidential veto
 Favored a rotational system of staffing
the government
Jackson’s Indian Policy
 Andrew Jackson favored forcible removal
and relocation westward on reservations.
 A Supreme Court decision in 1823 stating
that Indians could occupy but not hold title
to land in the United States made
Jackson’s policy easy to implement.
 Using harassment and bribery, Jackson’s
administration forced many of the Indian
Nations to march west to present-day
Oklahoma.
Jackson’s Bank War
 The Second Bank of the United States had been
in service since 1823 and had thirteen years left
on its charter.
 A responsible organization, the Bank restrained
smaller state banks form making unwise loans
by insisting payment in the form of specie (gold
or silver).
 American business wanted cheap, inflated,
paper money to fund expansion.
 Jackson used the struggle to underscore
differences between social classes.
 The sound fiscal policy of the Bank won out and
caused The Panic of 1837.
The Second American
Party System
 Democrats: had a sounder claim of
representation of the common man with a
broad base of support across the nation,
logic often shaped policy
 Whigs (formerly Republicans):
represented majority of wealth in America
and big businesses, religion often shaped
policy
III. Perfectionist Reform and
Utopianism
Utopian Communities:
Oneida and the Shakers
 Many reformers of the age sought to create the
perfect representation in miniature of what life
should be.
 John Humphrey Noyles founded a society of
“free love” and socialism at Oneida, New York.
 The Shakers believed in communal property,
perfectionism, and celibacy.
 Shaker worship featured a wild dance intended
to release sin from the body.
Other Utopias
Over 100 communities like the
Shakers and Oneida were founded
during the era:
 The Ephrata colony of Pennsylvania
 The Hopedale community of Mass.
 The Harmonists of Indiana
o Closely related were the Millerites and
Mormons
IV. Reforming Society
Temperance
 Nineteenth century Americans drank to
excess.
 Early efforts at curbing the public’s
consumption focused on moderation.
 The American Temperance Society
(1826) was dedicated to total abstinence.
 The Society successfully used revival
techniques of the Second Great
Awakening to motivate “converts.”
Humanizing the Asylum
 Some efforts of reform were not aimed at
the salvation of the individual but towards
organizations such as hospitals or
asylums.
 Dorothea Dix championed the cause of
the mentally ill, believing adequate
facilities and proper living conditions
would go far to produce some sort of a
“cure.”
Working-Class Reform
 In America, the institution most in need of reform
was the factory.
 The reform movement gradually was adapted to
the plight of workers and trade unions began to
appear.
 Skilled workers began to organize to protect
their crafts and to negotiate better conditions.
 The National Trades Union (1834) was the first
attempt at a nation-wide labor organization.
Tensions Within the
Antislavery Movement
 William Lloyd Garrison published The
Liberator—America’s first antislavery journal and
helped establish the American Anti-Slavery
Society.
 Garrison’s message was an immediate end to
slavery with no conditions.
 The majority of abolitionists in America
disagreed on how to reform slavery in America;
most preferred religious education, political
action, boycotts of slave-harvested goods, or
downright rebellion.