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WASHINGTON
1789-1796
POLITICAL
Cabinet:
*The cabinet, the President’s advisors, were mentioned only briefly in the Constitution; it only mentions
that the President must receive Senate approval for appointments and that they were liable to impeachment
*The first cabinet, established by Congress, consisted of four departments: state (Thomas Jefferson),
treasury (Alexander Hamilton), war (Henry Knox), and an attorney general (Edmund Randolph)
*Vice President John Adams’s tie-breaking vote defeated a proposal that would have forbidden the
president from dismissing cabinet officers without Senate approval (In the future this becomes an issue
with the Tenure of Office Act during the Andrew Johnson administration
Judiciary Act of 1789:
*This law created the federal court system
*It established in each state a federal district court that operated according to local procedures
*A district-court ruling could ruling could be appealed to a federal circuit court
*Each circuit court consisted of one district-court judge and two Supreme Court justices (who would travel
among certain states between Supreme Court sessions), and the three would decide cases according to state
laws
*As the Constitution stipulated, the Supreme Court exercised final jurisdiction
*This law was a reasonable compromise that respected state traditions while offering wide access to federal
justice
Bill of Rights:
*The first Congress sifted through 210 proposals for constitutional amendments prior to creating the Bill of
Rights
*James Madison, who had been elected to the House of Representatives, battled fiercely to keep the
Constitution’s opponents from undermining the powers essential for a firm national government (Many
Antifederalists wanted to use the Bill of Rights to return the power to the states)
*It was Madison who played the leading role in drafting the ten amendments that became known as the Bill
of Rights when ratified by the states in December 1791
*The first eight amendments focused on protecting personal liberties (without reducing national authority
or increasing state powers)
*The Ninth and Tenth amendments reserved (reserved powers) to the people or to the states powers not
allocated to the federal government under the Constitution
*The Second Amendment was the most important concession to states’ rights--It ensured the collective
right of each state’s populace to maintain a militia free of federal interference--Many historians view this
amendment as a questionable move by the federal government since it invited a civil war
Farewell Address:
*This address was printed in the “American Daily Advertiser” on September 17, 1796
*It was Washington’s statement that he would not run for a third term
*Washington had been working on this statement since the end of his first term--During that period, he
consulted with Madison, Hamilton and Jay
*In his Address, Washington warned Americans against the formation of political parties and to avoid
“permanent alliances” with “any portion of the foreign world”
ECONOMIC
Tariff of 1789:
*The tariff, passed on the 4th of July, has been called Alexander Hamilton’s 10 percent tariff
*Duties on about 90 items ranged from 5 to 10 percent ad valorem (according to their invoiced value)-Most of the rates were below 10 percent
*Hamilton, as Secretary of the Treasury, was anxious to establish the tariff as a regular source of revenue,
and he was just as anxious to establish the principle of protection of domestic manufacture by tariffs
*The revenue was an immediate necessity; the protection was of minor immediate importance but was
destined to develop into a persistent political issue throughout U.S. history
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Hamiltonian Reports:
*Seeking guidance on how to restore the nation’s credit worthiness, in 1789 Congress directed the Treasury
Department to evaluate the status of the Revolutionary debt
*Hamilton seized the opportunity to devise policies that would not only rebuild the country’s credit but also
entice a key sector of the upper class to place their prestige and capital at its service
*Congress received the report on Public Credit in January 1790--The report called for funding at par and
assumption.
*In December 1790 the secretary of the treasury presented Congress with a second message, the Report on
the National Bank
*His third report, the Report on Manufacturers, was delivered December of 1791--This advocated
protective tariffs on foreign imports to foster domestic manufacturing, which in turn would both attract
immigrants and create national wealth--This was the only report by Hamilton that was denied
First Bank of the U.S.:
*1791-1811
*Hamilton proposed a bank in his Report on Banks and Manufacturers
*Washington received written statements from Hamilton and Jefferson on the constitutionality of such a
bank
*Hamilton developed the theory of “loose” construction of the Constitution in support of the bank, while
Jefferson expounded the theory of “strict” construction in opposition to it
*Washington accepted Hamilton’s reasoning, and Congress passed the law establishing the Bank
*Jeffersonian Argument: (a) Does the implied (elastic) clause give Congress the right to create a bank?
Jefferson’s answer was no! (b) “Congress shall have power to make all laws which shall be necessary and
proper for carrying into execution for foregoing powers . . .” If necessary means something less than
absolutely necessary, it begins to mean highly convenient, or merely convenient, or perhaps just a bit
helpful (c) If the word necessary is to have its strict meaning modified at all, how can there be any
particular point beyond which no further modification is permissible? Any such loose interpretation clears
the way for the U.S. government to accumulate power and eventually overwhelm the states (d) Loose
construction would destroy the protection the states believed that they had in the Tenth Amendment-- “The
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, or prohibited by it to the States, are reserved
to the States respectively, or to the people”
*Hamiltonian Argument: (a) Hamilton insisted that a sovereign government must have ample authority to
carry out any specified grant of power in the Constitution (b) Hamilton pointed out that navigation aids,
such as lighthouses, has been authorized by laws of Congress under the right to regulate commerceNowhere did the Constitution state, or need to, that Congress could erect lighthouses (c) If the end by
clearly comprehended within any of the specified powers, and if the measure have an obvious relation to
that end, and is not forbidden by any particular provision of the Constitution, it may safely be deemed to
come within the compass of the national authority (d) From this view it became apparent that the creation
of a United States Bank would be a measure with an obvious relation to the following powers granted in the
Constitution: to collect taxes, to borrow money, to pay the public debt and to regulate commerce
*Some of the following facts explain why the Secretary of the Treasury considered the establishment of the
Bank of the United States the key point of his financial program: (a) The bank was a private institution--80
percent of its stock was owned by private individuals with the remaining 20 percent owned by the United
States (b) Total capitalization was $10 million (c) The bank could issue paper money, that is, bank notes,
so long as it was redeemable in gold (d) Branches of the bank in major cities could transfer credit easily
from city to city by bank drafts and thus greatly aid business (e) Taxes could be paid to the Bank (f) The
sale of United States bonds could be handled by the Bank (g) Short-term loans could be made by the Bank
to the United States
*As it turned out, the Bank of the United States aided the Treasury Department in several of its functions-It had a stabilizing effect on the currency system, and it tended to make other banks adopt sound banking
practices--It was an asset to the economy--It was a very prosperous private business
Funding at Par:
*The people of the U.S. held government bonds totaling, with accumulated interest, almost $45 million
*The foreign debt was almost $12 million
*Hamilton advocated issuing new bonds in exchange for the original bonds, which were greatly
depreciated--This would form one new debt that had every prospect of being paid at the face value of the
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bonds, plus the interest
*There was no organized opposition to paying the foreign debt, which was owed chiefly to France and
Holland--But there was strong opposition to handling the domestic debt in this manner
*This combining of the domestic and foreign debts and refinancing them by a new issue of bonds is often
called funding the debt
*The opposition stemmed from the fact that those who originally bought the bonds were not longer the
owners--This was more true of small bondholders than of others
*Almost all of the thousands of people of modest means who had bought government bonds during the
Revolution had long since sold them at a small fraction of their face value--The depression in the middle
1780s had forced them to sell
*By the time Hamilton proposed funding the debts, the owners of the bonds were wealthy people in the
larger cities (mainly in New England)
*Republicans charged that this was another attempt by Hamilton to enrich the wealthy at the expense of the
poor
*Hamilton got his way by insisting that the credit of the United States must be established--The infant
nation could never get respect or make favorable trade agreements with other countries until it had earned
the reputation that it paid its bills and that its currency was sound
*Hamilton also stated that a government bond was a contract with the bondholder, that part of the value of
a bond was the fact that it could be sold whenever the owner could find a purchaser at a price acceptable to
both parties
*Establishing credit and the integrity of a government contract were of fundamental importance, not be set
aside because some people gained and others lost
*A key feature of the plan was the establishment of a “sinking fund”--This is a sum of money reserved
solely for guaranteeing future interest payments, into which revenues would be “sunk”--This precaution
would establish public confidence by assuring bond holders that their investments would be safe because
the government would always have funds to pay them their interest promptly
*Hamilton proposed that money owed to American citizens should be made a permanent debt--That is, he
urged that the government not attempt to repay the $42 million principal but instead keep paying interest to
persons wishing to hold bonds as an investment
Assumption:
*The total debt of all the states was about $25 million--Of this, over $21 million had been spent by the
states in conducting the Revolutionary War
*Left to themselves, some of the states would certainly have failed to pay off their bonds at face value
*Again, Hamilton emphasized the necessity of establishing the credit of the governments, state as well as
federal
*Congress passed the bill by which the U.S. assumed the debts contracted as part of their war effort, the
$21 million (This money had been spent in a common cause)
*The Southern states had already paid off a much larger share of their bonds than had the New England
states--So again, Hamilton’s plan brought financial advantage to commercial interests at the expense of
agrarian interests (The Assumption Bill meant that all the states would pay off the total debt)
*The Federalists needed some Republican support to get the Assumption Bill passed
*Jefferson agreed to persuade a few Republicans to vote for the bill if Hamilton would persuade a few New
Englanders to vote to have the permanent capital of the U.S. located on the Potomac River (It had
previously been in Philly and New York City at Federal Hall)--Thus, the Assumption Bill was passed and
the capital was located on the Potomac
*Logrolling: Political deal whereby one bloc or party gives support for one measure in return for support
for another
Eli Whitney:
*Whitney invented the cotton gin in 1793.
*Recent evidence suggests that Whitney did not invent the cotton gin without a good deal of help from
Catherine Littlefield Greene, widow of General Nathanael Greene. Whitney probably had not seen a raw
cotton ball, since he was from Massachusetts, until he was a guest for six months in the Greene home in
Georgia.
*Whitney developed a machine in which rollers were implanted with wire teeth. As a handle turned the
rollers, the teeth pulled the cotton seeds from the fibers.
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*A worker using a gin could clean fifty pounds of cotton in one day, as compared to one pound by hand.
*The increased production of cotton created an enormous demand for slave labor. No slaves had been
imported since the Revolution. In 1803 South Carolina legalized importation, and for the next five years
African flooded into Charleston in unprecedented numbers. In 1808 the twenty-year period of protection of
the slave trade, which had been written into the Constitution, expired.
*After inventing the cotton gin, Whitney applied for a patent from the federal government and opened a
factory to manufacture the new device. His machine was so easy to copy, though, that people simply made
their own. Whitney’s enterprise failed.
*Whitney’s inventive mind than turned to another mechanical problem. At the time, every rifle was a
unique unit. If one part broke, the entire gun had to go back to the manufacturer because only he could fix
it. Whitney looked at a gun as a combination of parts. He developed machines to produce each part. To
make a gun, these parts could be assembled quickly. If one part broke, it could be replaced. A gun
manufacturer could now turn out a great many guns in a short time. In addition, the guns could now be
repaired by unskilled workers instead of master mechanics.
*Whitney’s system of interchangeable parts was applied to dozens of other products. Soon factories
throughout the North were turning out goods on a mass basis, beginning the process now called mass
production.
Industrial Revolution:
*As in England, America’s Industrial Revolution started with the machinery for making textiles,
specifically cotton goods. The textile industry soon became the largest in the nation.
*In the U.S. the industry began in 1789, when a twenty-one-year-old Englishman named Samuel Slater
stepped onto a New York dock.
*When Slater left England, he had declared himself to be a farmer. Actually, he was a skilled mechanic.
Because the British wanted to guard the secrets of their industrial development, they had banned the export
of machine designs and even the emigration of mechanics.
*Slater, however, memorized the plans for a complete textile mill and then came to the U.S.
*With the financial backing from Quaker merchant Moses Brown, he opened a cotton-spinning plant at
Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Samuel Slater & Company became the first successful full-time factory in
America and was soon widely imitated.
SOCIAL
Whiskey Rebellion:
*An excise tax is levied on something produced, sold, and used in the U.S.
*Excise taxes were viewed by many as a violation of the liberty for which the Rev. War was fought
*Hamilton recommended and Congress passed an excise tax on whiskey
*The tax on whiskey was unpopular with corn farmers west of the Alleghenies because they had to change
their corn into whiskey in order to transport it for miles without roads if they wanted to get it to market
*Pennsylvania farmers refused to pay it--On Hamilton’s advice, Washington ordered almost 15,000 militia
to this area (from Pennsylvania, Maryland Virginia and New Jersey) and personally inspected troops in the
field
*Hamilton seized 150 suspects and two men received death sentences (Washington pardoned them both)
*This show of strength crushed this first challenge to federal authority (In the early 1790s, many Americans
still assumed that it was legitimate to protest unpopular laws using the same tactics with which they had
blocked parliamentary measures like the Stamp Act)
Creek:
*Washington wanted to weaken Spanish influence in the West by neutralizing Spain’s most important ally,
the Creek Indians (There had been attempts by the British and Spanish to detach the West from the United
States)
*The Creeks numbered 20,000, including perhaps 5,000 warriors, and they bore a strong dislike of the
Georgians
*In 1790 Creek leader Alexander McGillivray signed a peace treaty with the United States (a secret
provision of which promised him a large annual bribe) that permitted whites to occupy lands in the Georgia
piedmont fought over since 1786, but which in other respects preserved Creek territory against white
expansion
*Washington insisted that Georgia restore to the Creeks’ allies, the Chickasaws and Choctaws, the vast area
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along the Mississippi River known as the Yazoo Tract, which Georgia claimed and had begun selling off to
white land speculators
Treaty of Greenville:
*In 1791 Washington dispatched forces under General Arthur St. Clair to subdue the Indians who had been
resisting white settlement of the Northwest Territory
*St. Clair failed, having been routed by Miami Chief Little Turtle on the Wabash River
*Washington turned to Rev. War veteran “Mad” Anthony Wayne who, before launching the expedition,
spent many months training regular troops in Indian warfare
*Wayne constructed a chain of forts in the disputed area and on August 20, 1794 he crushed the Indians
under Little Turtle in the Battle of Fallen Timbers near present-day Toledo, Ohio
*Under the terms of the Treaty of Greenville (1795), the defeated tribes ceded disputed portions of the
Northwest Territory to the U.S. and moved west
*Through diplomacy, Washington tried with limited success to make peace with the Creeks and other tribes
in the South; In 1792 the president entertained the tribal leaders of the Six Nations confederation including
Seneca Chief Red Jacket, whom Washington presented with a silver medal, a token that the Indian
treasured the reset of his life---Red Jackson, who had led his warriors against Washington’s army during
the Revolution, rallied to the American cause during the War of 1812
Vindication of the Rights of Women:
*Mary Wollstonecraft was from Britain
*Her book, Vindication of the Rights of Women, was published in 1792 and focused on female moral
equality
*Judith Sargent Murray, a Massachusetts essayist and poet, contended in 1799 that the sexes had equal
intellectual ability and deserved equal education (she was strongly influenced by Wollstonecraft’s work)
*Murray believed that “sensible and informed” women would improve their minds which would then result
in them instilling republican ideals in their children
Women’s Senate:
*In 1793 Mason graduated from one of the female academies; she blamed “Man, despotic man” for
shutting women out of the church, the courts, and government
*In her salutary oration she urged that a women’s senate be established in Congress to evoke “all that is
human-all that is divine in the soul of woman”
Charlotte Temple:
*In 1794 Susanna Howell Rowson wrote the novel Charlotte Temple
*Having married a irresponsible man she had to support her family as a writer and headmistress of an
academy for young women
*Her book focused on the story of a fifteen-year-old girl that was carried off by a handsome man in a
military uniform. He soon abandoned her and the girl, penniless and desperate, bore a child from her affair
with the military man. The story ends with the child dying in the arms of its grandfather, who came to
support his daughter.
*The moral of the story is that appearances do not provide enough clues to the character of a potential
partner
*Partly due to this book, middle-class women delayed marriage and a prolonged period, known as
courtship, became the way for individuals to become acquainted before they wed
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Neutrality Proclamation:
*1793
*In the war between France, on the one side, and Britain, Austria, Prussia, Sardinia and the Netherlands, on
the other, President Washington in 1793 declared that the U.S. to be “friendly and impartial toward the
belligerent powers”
*Although he avoided using the word neutrality, his intention was clear
*Critics denounced the proclamation as reneging on the U.S. commitment to its first ally, France
*However, it kept the nation out of war it was ill-prepared to fight
Edmund Genet:
*Known as Citizen Genet, in the French Revolutionary style, he arrived in the U.S. April 8, 1793
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*Genet was sent to the U.S. with orders to enlist American mercenaries to conquer Spanish territories and
attack British shipping (However, much to the French disgust, the Neutrality Proclamation was issued April
22, 1793)
*Genet found no shortage of southern volunteers for his American Foreign Legion despite America’s
official neutrality
*Making generals of George Rogers Clark of Kentucky and Elisha Clarke of Georgia, Genet directed them
to seize the Spanish garrisons at New Orleans and St. Augustine
*Clark openly defied Washington’s Neutrality Proclamation by advertising for recruits for his mission in
Kentucky newspapers; Clarke began drilling three hundred troops on the Florida border
*But the French failed to provide adequate funds for either campaign; And as for the American recruits,
while all were willing to fight for France, few were willing to fight for free, and so both expeditions
eventually disintegrated in 1794 for lack of French money to supply them
*However, Genet did not need funds to outfit privateers, whose crews were paid from captured plunder--By
the summer of 1793, almost a thousand Americans were at sea in a dozen ships flying the French flag-These privateers seized more than eighty British vessels and towed them to United States ports, where
French consuls sold the ships and cargoes at auction
Jay Treaty:
*1795
*In 1793 England made it clear that it would not leave the trading and military posts in the Great LakesOhio River Valley area until British merchants had been paid the debts owed them by American merchants-England also sought recompense for the Loyalist property that had been seized during the Revolution
*In November 1793 the British began a campaign against neutral shipping in the West Indian waters--Any
ship carrying products from French colonies to any destination was seized--Its cargo was confiscated, some
of the crew impressed into the British Navy, and others put in jail
*The enforcement of this policy was such that any American ship that the British could catch was seized,
regardless of where it got its cargo or where it was going (This was a serious blow to Yankee shipping)
*In the Spring of 1774, Washington sent Chief Justice Jay to attempt a settlement of these difficulties
*Jay did not do well--The problems of British interference with U.S. shipping, the debts owed to the British
merchants, and the Maine-Canadian border were left for settlement by British-American commissioners
*Terms of the Jay Treaty: (a) The British would get out of the Northwest trading and military posts by
June 1796 (b) American ships displacing not over 70 tons could trade with British West Indies, but their
cargoes must not include cotton, molasses or sugar (This gave the Americans new trade with the West
Indies--Within a few years after 1795, American exports to the British Empire shot up 300 percent because
the U.S. had unofficially gained “most favored nation” status)
*This treaty was so unsatisfactory that the Senate considered it in a secret session, but the terms leaked out
*Washington, supporting the treaty because it would guarantee peace, requested the Senate to ratify the
treaty even though his Secretary of State, Edmund Randolph, opposed it
*The treaty was approved by the Federalist dominated Senate by a single vote
*The treaty was one of the Washington administration’s greatest accomplishments (under the
circumstances)--First, it defused an explosive crisis with Great Britain before war became inevitable;
second, it ended a twelve-year British occupation of U.S. territory; third, the treaty provided for the
settlement, by arbitration, of the claims of British merchants who were owed American debts from before
1776, and it also arranged for U.S. citizens’ compensation for property seized by the Royal Navy in 1793
and 1794 (American benefited disproportionately when these accounts were finally settled by 1804: they
received $10,345,000, compared to just $2,750,000 awarded to the British creditors)
*Washington’s acceptance of the treaty was an act that was unpopular, wise and courageous--The U.S.
could survive humiliation but it could not survive a war
Pinckney Treaty:
*1795
*This treaty was also known as the San Lorenzo Treaty
*Terms of the Treaty: (a) The United States had free navigation of the Mississippi River; (b) The 31st
parallel was accepted as the U.S. southern boundary; (c) The United States had the right of deposit at New
Orleans--This gave Americans the use of the port of New Orleans on the same basis as Spain--It permitted
Americans to ship goods down the river on flat boats for transshipment by sailing vessels to foreign ports-New Orleans was the only exit for foreign trade by Americans living west of the Alleghenies
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J. ADAMS
1796-1800
POLITICAL
Election of 1796:
*Madison, in Federalist Paper Number 10, claimed that the Constitution would prevent the rise of national
political factions
*Republican ideology commonly assumed that factions or parties would fill Congress with politicians of
little ability and less integrity, pursuing selfish goals at the expense of national welfare
*With Jefferson’s resignation from the Cabinet in 1793, sides were drawn between the Jeffersonians and
the Hamiltonians with each side claiming that they were the guardian of republican virtue and attacked the
other as an illegitimate “cabal” (faction)
*The Hamiltonians, known as the Federalists, opposed the Jeffersonians, known as Republicans or by some
as Democratic-Republicans
*Federalists and Republicans alike used the press to mold public opinion in the 1790s--Federalists were
painted as an aristocratic, pro-British party that only cared about the wealthy at the expense of the poor; the
Republicans were as pro-French, supporters of the common man and associated with Jefferson’s “absence
of God”
11th Amendment:
*In 1793, in Chisholm v. Georgia, the Supreme Court ruled that a state could be sued in federal courts by
nonresidents
*In 1796 the Court declared its right to determine the constitutionality of congressional statutes in Hylton v.
United States and to strike down state laws in Ware v. Hylton
*But Congress had already decided that the Court had encroached too far on states’ authority in Chisholm,
and in 1794 it had voted to overturn this decision through a congressional amendment
*Ratified in 1798, the Eleventh Amendment revised Article III, Section 2, so that private citizens could no
longer undermine states’ financial autonomy by using federal courts to sue another state’s government in
civil cases and claim money from that state’s treasury
*The defeat of Chisholm stands as one of the handful of instances in American history whereby the
Supreme Court was subsequently overruled by a constitutional amendment
12th Amendment:
*The 1800 election resulted in a tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, both Republicans
*The Constitution called for each elector to cast two votes for President--whoever placed second would
become Vice-President
*In the 1800 election, Jefferson and Burr received the same number of electoral votes
*The 12th Amendment was adopted in 1804 and required separate and distinct ballots in the electoral
college for the presidency and vice presidency---this would put an end to the possibility of an electoral tie
for the presidency
Midnight Judges:
*February 27, 1801-March 3, 1801
*Less than a week before Jefferson’s inauguration, the “lame duck” Federalist Congress and the rejected
President Adams passed and signed the Judiciary Act of 1801
*The Judiciary Act of 1801 changed the Supreme Court from six to five judges, created 16 additional court
judgeships, and provided jobs for several marshals, attorneys, and clerks
*The author of the Judiciary Act was reputed to be John Marshall
*Some of the commissions for these judgeships and other jobs were signed with the last night of Adams’
term in an effort to maintain Federalist control over the judicial branch of the government
*The new President, Jefferson, and the new Republican Congress repealed the Judiciary Act of 1801 two
months after it had been passed
*But the “midnight judges” proved to many that the Federalist party had defied public opinion as clearly
expressed in the election of 1800, and had used the establishment of federal courts for purely political
purposes
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Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions:
*November and December 1798
*Jefferson authored the Kentucky Resolutions/Madison authored the Virginia Resolutions
*Written in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts--they believed that the acts were unconstitutional
*The Kentucky Resolutions made the following points: (a) The state made a “compact,” an agreement,
known as the Constitution; (b) The Constitution set up a “general government,” the federal government,
for special purposes, gave it definite powers, and reserved to each state all other rights and powers; (c)
Whenever the “general government assumes undelegated powers, its acts are unauthoritative, void, and of
no force”; (d) The government made by this compact, “. . . was not made the exclusive or final judge of the
extent of the powers delegated to itself”; (e) The limited power of the general government and the
sovereignty of the states is made clear by the Tenth Amendment: “the powers not delegated to the United
States Constitution or prohibited by the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people” (f)
The states had the right of interposition, to intervene on the behalf of their residents against the national
government (g) If problems were settled properly, the states could possibly secede from the Union
*Significance of the Resolutions: At the time these resolutions were adopted by Kentucky and Virginia,
there was not intent to claim, much less act upon, the right of a state to withdraw from the Union. But it
clearly followed, and this was noted at the time, that acceptance of the Jefferson and Madison reasoning
would make both nullification of laws of Congress by states and the withdrawal of states from the Union
obviously lawful steps for any state to take. The Constitution says nothing about the power to nullify acts
of Congress, and it says nothing about a state withdrawing from the Union. It therefore follows that these
powers or rights are residual, and thus belong to the states, or the people. It is an interesting detail that the
Articles of Confederation contained the words, “perpetual Union,” but no such designation occurs in the
Constitution.
Alien and Sedition Acts:
*1798
*Issued by the Federalists since they stated that the likelihood of open war with France called for
legislation to protect national security; In reality, they were passed to protect the Federalists from the
Republican opposition
*Alien Enemies Act: It was designed to prevent wartime spying or sabotage; If a person posed a threat to
the U.S., they could be deported or jailed; It could only be implemented if Congress declared war, thus it
would not be used until the War of 1812
*Alien Friends Act: Peacetime statute that was enforceable until June 25, 1800; It authorized the president
to expel any foreign residents whose activities he considered dangerous; The law did not require proof of
guilt (assumption that spies would hide or destroy evidence); Law used to deport prominent Republican
immigrants
*Naturalization Act: Increased the residency requirement for U.S. citizenship from five to fourteen years
(the last five continuously in one state), with the purpose of reducing Irish voting
Sedition Act:
*1798
*The only measure, of the Alien and Sedition Acts, that was enforceable against U.S. citizens
*People could not criticize the U.S. Government or the President
*Federalists wrote the law to expire in 1801 so it could not be used against them if they lost the election
*The Sedition Act was meant to be used as a weapon of intimidation by arresting a few well-known
figures--The attorney general charged seventeen persons with sedition and won ten convictions
*Republican congressman Matthew Lyon of Vermont spent four months in jail for publishing an attack
against Adams
ECONOMIC
SOCIAL
Fries Rebellion:
*1799
*In July 1798 Adams approved legislation levying federal taxes on property (this tax was to raise money
for a larger national army)
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*The next spring John Fries led a group of his fellow Pennsylvanians in armed resistance against tax
assessors and collectors; they also freed prisoners jailed for refusing to pay the taxes
*Fries was arrested, convicted of treason, and sentenced to be hanged, but in May 1800 President Adams,
after considerable deliberation, pardoned him and others who took part in the rebellion
Gabriel’s Rebellion:
*August 1800
*Many southern whites feared an African-American rebellion after blacks in Saint Dominique rebelled
against the whites
*Having secretly assembled weapons, more than a thousand slaves planned to march on Richmond,
Virginia--there they would intimidate whites and capture Governor Monroe and demand their freedom
*State militiamen, called out by Governor James Monroe, swiftly put down the conspiracy and executed
some thirty-five slaves, including the leader, Gabriel Prosser
*Gabriel’s Rebellion confirmed whites’ anxieties that Saint Domingue’s terrifying experience could be
replayed on American soil
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
XYZ Affair:
*The American people were unhappy about the Jay Treaty; France was angry about it--France considered it
a violation of the Treaty of Alliance of 1778--France also resented America’s refusal to aid France, which
was its obligation under the Treaty of 1778--So, in 1797, the French began attacking U.S. shipping, much
as England had done in 1793
*The five-man Directory was in charge in France, Talleyrand, foreign minister Director, sought to take
advantage of the weakness of America and the public sympathy in the U.S. for the French Revolution
*Adams was anxious to avoid war
*Adams appointed commissioners Charles C. Pinckney, Elbridge Gerry, and John Marshall to try to come
to some acceptable terms with France
*Three “unofficial” French envoys informed the commissioners that before formal talks could begin, they
must be prepared to arrange a loan to France and pay a bribe of $240,000
*The demand for bribe and a loan as conditions to arrange for the opening of official talks between the
nations was considered outrageous by the Americans; Marshall refused to make any concessions so he and
Pinckney returned to Adams (Gerry would be recalled later)
*When Adams learned of this diplomatic extortion, he was enraged and prepared for war
*Republicans, including Vice President Jefferson, thought Adams was exaggerating the incident as an
excuse to declare war
*The Republicans asked to see the diplomatic dispatches--Adams refused on the grounds of executive
privilege, only reinforcing the Republican belief that Adams had trumped up the whole episode
*When Adams reported the incident to Congress on March 19, 1798, the “unofficial” French envoys were
referred to as “X,Y and Z”
*The slogan of the day became “Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute”
*France was expected to declare war, but instead, Talleyrand pretended that the XYZ episode was all a
misunderstanding--He claimed that he “unofficial” French envoys had no connection with the French
government and acted without his knowledge
Quasi War:
*This was an undeclared war that took place between the French and the Americans from 1798 until 1800
*Several engagements between warships occurred, and the Yankee privateers just about drove French
commerce out of West Indian waters
*The war ended with the Convention of 1800 which stated that France would accept U.S. neutrality rights
at sea and discharged the U.S. from its obligations under the alliance formed in 1778
9
JEFFERSON
1800-1808
POLITICAL
Revolution of 1800:
*Jefferson’s defeat of Adams is sometimes referred to as the Revolution of 1800, because it marked the fall
of Federalism and the rise of Republicanism.
*Jefferson set out at once to roll back what he regarded as the most offensive Federalist measures.
*The Alien and Sedition Acts were allowed to lapse.
*The residency requirement for naturalization was reduced again to five years.
*The federal tax on liquor that had touched off the Whiskey Rebellion was ended.
*The Judiciary Act of 1802 effectively nullified the last-minute rigging of the federal court system by the
previous administration.
Marbury v. Madison:
*1803
*President Adams had appointed William Marbury as a Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia.
*The commission had been properly signed, but had not been delivered.
*When Jefferson took office, he instructed his Secretary of State, James Madison, not to deliver any of the
commissions to the “midnight” appointees who hadn’t yet received them.
*William Marbury asked for an order from the Supreme Court directing the Secretary of State to deliver his
commission to him. Such an affirmative order, whereby the court tells someone to do something, is called
a mandamus.
*President Jefferson instructed Madison to pay no attention to the mandamus.
*The Judiciary Act of 1789 provided that the Supreme Court could issue a writ of mandamus to any officer
of the U.S. The officer in case was Secretary of State Madison.
*At this point we have a President refusing to do, through the Secretary of State, what a law of Congress
empowers the Supreme Court to order done.
*The pertinent parts in the decision delivered by Chief Justice Marshall were:
1) Marbury was entitled to the commission.
2) It was the duty of the President to see that the commission was delivered to Marbury.
3) The Supreme Court could not issue an order (mandamus) that the commission be delivered, because
the clause in the Judiciary Act of 1789 authorizing the Court to do so was unconstitutional.
a) This clause enlarged the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, a jurisdiction fixed by the
Constitution and not subject to modification by Congress.
b) This clause violated the fundamental principle of separation of powers. It provided that
Congress reach over into the judicial branch, the Supreme Court, to enlarge its powers beyond
the limits defined in the Constitution.
*This case is to be understood as a political contest between a Federalist Chief Justice and a Republican
President.
1) Had Marshall ordered Jefferson to deliver the commission to Marbury, Jefferson would not have
done so.
2) The Chief Justice could not make the President obey the Court order.
3) The Supreme Court would then invite public ridicule, endanger its prestige and a popular President
would be a bit more popular.
4) Had Marshall ruled that the President didn’t have to obey the Judiciary Act, it would have been an
abject surrender by the Court to the President.
5) So the Chief Justice ruled that Marbury should get his commission, that Jefferson was wrong in not
giving it to him, and that the Court’s hands were tied because the mandamus clause of the Judiciary
Act was unconstitutional.
*This decision did more than get the Chief Justice out of a dilemma:
1) It gave Jefferson a petty political victory by withholding commissions from Marbury and a few other
“midnight” appointees.
2) But it also established the principle of judicial review of laws of Congress. It was a tremendous
victory for “loose construction” of the Constitution and the tendency toward a stronger federal
10
government. It was not until 1857, the Dred Scott case, that the Supreme Court again ruled that a
law of Congress was unconstitutional.
Judiciary:
*While the Marbury decision was being decided, the Republicans took the offensive against the judiciary
by moving to impeach (charge with wrongdoing) two Federalist judges, John Pickering of the New
Hampshire District Court and Samuel Chase of the United States Supreme Court.
*Pickering was an alcoholic who behaved in bizarre manners in court.
*Chase, a notoriously partisan Federalist, had rigorously enforced the Sedition Act of 1798 and had jailed
several Republican editors.
*Despite these differing details, the two cases raised the same issue: the Constitution provided that federal
judges could be removed solely by impeachment, which could be considered only in cases of “Treason,
Bribery and other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.” Was this the correct route to take to remove an insane
judge and a partisan one?
*The Senate voted to convict Pickering on March 12, 1804. That same day, the House of Representatives
voted to indict Chase.
*John Randolph, one of Jefferson’s supporters in Congress, so completely botched the prosecution of
Chase that he failed to obtain the necessary two-thirds majority for conviction on any of the charges. But
even if Randolph had done a competent job, Chase might still have gained acquittal, because moderate
Republicans were coming to doubt whether impeachment was a solution to the issue of judicial
partisanship.
*The Chase acquittal ended Jefferson’s attack on the judiciary.
Quids:
*The name quid is taken from the Latin term tertium quid or “third thing”—Roughly, a dissenter.
*The quids were led by John Randolph. Randolph supported the “country ideology” of the 1770s, that set
of beliefs that had celebrated the honest wisdom of the plain farmer against the corruption of rulers and
“court” hangers-on and that had warned incessantly against the natural tendency of all governments to
encroach upon liberty.
*Jefferson had started out with the same beliefs but had gradually recognized their limitations.
*After serving in the House of Representatives between 1801 and 1805, Randolph began to turn on
Jefferson. First, he blasted Jefferson for backing a compromise in the Yazoo land scandal.
*In 1795 the Georgia legislature had sold the huge “Yazoo” tract (35 million acres of land comprising most
of present-day Alabama and Mississippi) for a fraction of its value to four land companies that had bribed
virtually the entire legislature.
*Following public outrage, the next legislature canceled the sale, but not before many investors had
purchased land in the expectation of reselling it at a higher price. The cancellation of the sale threatened to
bankrupt these investors, who had bought land to which they now no longer held legal title.
*For Jefferson, the scandal posed a moral challenge, since some of the purchasers, knowing nothing of the
bribery, had bought the land in good faith.
*It also confronted him with a political challenge, since some of the buyers were northerners whom
Jefferson hoped to woo into the Republican party.
*In 1803 a commission that included Secretary of State Madison and Treasury Secretary Gallatin awarded
5 million acres to Yazoo purchasers as a compromise.
*For Randolph, the compromise was itself a scandal, further evidence of the decay of republican virtue.
Executive Privilege:
*After being denied renomination as vice president in 1804, Aaron Burr entered into a series of intrigues
with a faction of despairing and extreme (or “High”) Federalists in New England.
*Led by Senator Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, these High Federalists plotted to sever the Union, by
forming a pro-British “Northern Confederacy,” composed of Nova Scotia (part of British-owned Canada),
New England, New York, and even Pennsylvania.
*Although most Federalists disdained the plot, Pickering and others settled on Burr as their leader and
helped him gain the Federalist nomination for the governorship of New York.
*Alexander Hamilton, who had thwarted Burr’s plans for the presidency in 1800 by throwing his weight
behind Jefferson, now foiled Burr a second time by allowing the publication of his negative opinion of
Burr. Defeated by a Republican in the election for New York’s governor, Burr challenged Hamilton to a
duel and mortally wounded him at Weehawken, New Jersey, on July 11, 1804.
11
*Under indictment in two states for his murder of Hamilton, Burr, still vice president, now hatched a
scheme so bold that it gained momentum initially because his political opponents seriously doubted that
even Burr was capable of such machinations.
*Burr allied himself with the general James Wilkinson, formerly the highest military officer in the U.S.
army and now military governor of the Louisiana Territory.
*Wilkinson had been on Spain’s payroll intermittently as a secret agent since the 1780s.
*Together Burr and Wilkinson conspired to separate the western states into an independent confederacy
south of the Ohio River. In addition, Wilkinson had long entertained the idea of an American conquest of
Mexico, and Burr now added West Florida as a possible target.
*Jefferson, not fearing Burr, allowed the plot to grow for a year before he took any action.
*In October 1806 Jefferson finally denounced the conspiracy publicly. By that time Burr and about 60
followers had left their staging ground, an island in the upper Ohio River, and were making their way down
the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to join Wilkinson at Natchez. But Wilkinson was not there to greet Burr.
Recognizing that Jefferson was now moving against Burr and that the British were uninterested in
supporting the plot, Wilkinson wrote to Jefferson to report the conspiracy and then took refuge in New
Orleans, where he proclaimed himself the most loyal of the president’s followers.
*Burr was captured and placed on trial in Richmond with Chief Justice John Marshall presiding. Marshall
decided that the prosecution had to prove not merely that Burr had treasonable intentions but also that he
had committed treasonable acts, a virtually impossible task inasmuch as the conspiracy had fallen apart
before Burr accomplished what he had planned. (Marshall was merely following the wording of the
Constitution which made proving treason very difficult—Thus, the jury would eventually return a verdict
of not guilty)
*President Jefferson was subpoenaed to testify at the Burr treason trial and to bring with him certain papers
bearing on the case.
*In declining to appear and releasing only such information as he chose, Jefferson established the precedent
of executive privilege.
ECONOMIC
Albert Gallatin:
*The national debt was $10 million when Jefferson replaced the Federalists.
*Jefferson and his secretary of the treasury, the Swiss-born Albert Gallatin, objected to the debt on both
political and economic grounds. (Merely to pay the interest on the debt, there would have to be taxes.
Taxes would suck money from industrious farmers, the backbone of the Republic, and place the money in
the hands of wealthy creditors, parasites who lived off the interest payments---Their view was just the
opposite of that constructed by Hamilton who wanted the wealthy connected to the government through a
debt and a hope of financial reward).
*Gallatin got Congress to repeal most internal taxes, but his repeal left the government dependent on
revenue from the tariff, which was inadequate to pay off the debt.
*Gallatin took moves to lower expenditures (his only alternative). Jefferson closed the Hague to save
money and to signal his intention of pulling the U.S. out of European entanglements, and he cut the army
from 4,000 to 2,500 men. (Jefferson, however, placed a great emphasis on the navy which he used in the
Tripolitan War).
*Gallatin calculated that the nation could be freed of debt in sixteen years if administrations held the line on
expenditures.
Steamboat:
*1807
*Robert Fulton, of New York, was the first person to show that steam power could be used to propel a boat.
*In 1807 his Clermont made a 150-mile trip up the Hudson River from New York City to Albany in thirtytwo hours.
*This successful demonstration marked the beginning of the steamboat era.
*The new method of transportation spread quickly to the Ohio and Mississippi rivers. Transportation on
the Mississippi was particularly affected. Until this time, most travel on the river had been southward, with
the current.
12
Embargo Act:
*The distant cause of the Embargo Act was the Napoleonic War in Europe.
*Recruiting in England for the British Navy was accomplished, in some instances, by direct action. Any
sailor who was alone when he left a waterfront tavern a bit unsteadily might be kidnapped by a pair of
recruiting officers. By the time the lone sailor recovered his wits, he might well be enlisted in the Royal
Navy and already on board a British warship.
*Equally direct recruiting took place on the high seas. U.S. ships were stopped, boarded, and the crew
lined up on the deck. Any sailors who seemed physically fit and who spoke English were likely to be taken
off as deserters from the British Navy. This was impressment.
*In June 1807 a flagrant violation of U.S. rights occurred when the U.S. frigate Chesapeake was stopped
off the Virginia coast (Hampton Roads) by the British frigate Leopard.
*Three Americans were killed, eighteen were wounded, and four men were impressed into the British
Navy. One of the four was a deserter; the other three had been impressed before and then escaped only to
be impressed a second time.
*Jefferson’s answer to the Chesapeake incident was not war but the Embargo Act (He called this
“peaceable coercion”):
1) Any American ship can leave an American port for a foreign port.
2) No foreign vessel can load a cargo at an American port.
3) Coastwise shipping must post a bond equal to twice the value of the ship and cargo before leaving
port. On delivery of the cargo, the bond would be repaid.
*Smuggling by ship and also over the Canadian border, especially through New York State, robbed the
Embargo Act of whatever effect it might have had. However, since all Jefferson really wanted to do was
avoid war, it could be stated that it temporarily accomplished its intent.
*Both France and England violated U.S. rights as a neutral nation.
*The Embargo Act made no attempt to assert American rights; it was intended to keep U.S. ships out of
danger by keeping them home.
*Its adverse economic effects ruined the shipping business along the Atlantic coast. The Act cost the U.S.
some $16 million in lost customs revenues alone.
*Enforcement was almost impossible. There were not enough federal officials to do the job without local
support.
*A New England convention was seriously considered, but not called, to protest the Embargo Act as an
unconstitutional exercise of federal authority. The Governor of Connecticut flatly branded the Embargo
Act as unconstitutional. The New England states were advancing the nullification theories of Jefferson and
Madison.
*The Non-Intercourse Act of 1809 was passed a few days before the end of Jefferson’s second term.
1) It allowed American ships to trade everywhere except in the ports controlled by England or by
France.
2) There followed a slight increase in trade, but no increase in the respect paid to American rights as
a neutral nation. England and France continued to interfere with U.S. commerce.
Waltham System:
*After a tour of the mills in England, Francis Cabot Lowell, in 1814, for the first time in the world, brought
the whole process of spinning and weaving under one roof—the “Waltham System” as it was called. This
was considered the first genuine factory system in America.
*From just a few thousand spindles turning in pre-embargo 1806, American mills jumped the number to a
half million by 1815 and were processing on the order of forty thousand bales of cotton a year.
*The balance of workers in the mills consisted of young women from seventeen to twenty-four, who
flocked to the mills from the worn-out farms of New England.
*Sine these women workers did not come from the mill towns and many were young enough to require
permission from their families to work, mill owners developed the so-called Lowell or Waltham System,
named after two of the leading Massachusetts mill towns. Under this system, women textile workers lived
in boardinghouses. The company deducted room and board from their paychecks, and employed
housemothers-—usually local widows—to cook meals, check up on their church attendance, and in general
provide an atmosphere of respectability.
*The women were kept in line by the fact that they were paid only two or four times a year. If they did not
obey the rules, they were fired without wages.
13
SOCIAL
Abolition of Slave Trade:
*At the Constitutional Convention, most of the states wanted to cut off slave trade. However, South
Carolina and Georgia, requiring slave labor in their rice paddies and malarial swamps, raised protests.
*By way of compromise the convention stipulated that the slave trade might continue until the end of 1807,
at which time Congress could stop importation (Art. 1, Sec. IX, para. 1).
*In March of 1807 President Jefferson signed into law the bill that banned the importation of slaves from
January 1, 1808.
*Slaves continued to be smuggled into the country until the Civil War; but the numbers were greatly
reduced.
Lewis and Clark:
*Meriwether Lewis and William Clark were sent by President Jefferson to explore the Louisiana Territory.
*They started up the Missouri River in May 1804 and reached the Pacific Ocean in November 1805.
*They wrote reports on the plants, animals, Native Americans, soil, rivers, type of country, etc.
*It was a scientific as well as an exploring undertaking.
*In the Dakota country, Lewis and Clark hired a French-Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, as a
guide and interpreter. The wife of Charbonneau, Sacagawea, was a sixteen-year-old girl that proved very
valuable in their trip. Sacagawea had just given birth to a child (the child’s presence reassured Indians of
their peaceful intent). Sacagawea showed Lewis and Clark how to forage for wild artichokes and other
plants, often their only food, by digging into the dens where rodents stored them.
*On the return trip, completed in September 1806, Lewis and Clark separated for part of the journey to take
different routes.
*There were between 40 and 50 men in the party. All but one returned safely.
*They had been instructed to avoid trouble with the Native Americans and to find a pass over the Rockies;
both instructions were carried out.
*Apparently, Jefferson was not bothered by the fact that he had ordered the expedition to go across the
Rockies beyond our western border.
1) Captain Robert Gray had sailed into the mouth of the Columbia River in 1792; in fact, the river
got its name from his ship.
2) The Lewis and Clark expedition came down the Columbia to the Pacific (1805), and a half dozen
years later the permanent settlement of Astoria, established by John Jacob Astor, was a fur trading
post near the mouth of the river.
3) These facts combined to give the U.S. its claim to the Oregon Territory, which we acquired in
1846.
4)
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Louisiana Purchase:
*1803
*The Louisiana Territory was purchased from France for $15 million.
*France received control of the Louisiana Territory from Spain in the Treaty of San Ildefonso on October 1,
1800.
*The area totaled about 830,000 square miles and just about doubled the size of the U.S.
*The boundaries were indefinite. The Mississippi River was the eastern border. On the south the territory
extended to the Gulf of Mexico, on the west to the Rocky Mountains, and on the north to Canada.
*Robert Livingston was the minister to France that handled most of the negotiations. Livingston was to
negotiate for New Orleans and as much of the Floridas as possible (Because West Florida had repeatedly
changed hands between France, Spain, and Britain, no one was sure who owned it).
*James Monroe was sent over by Jefferson as a special minister to help bring about a favorable deal.
*The day before Monroe arrived in Paris, Napoleon’s foreign minister, Talleyrand, still refused to sell only
the New Orleans’ area; but he did suggest that the U.S. buy the whole Louisiana Territory. (A slave revolt
led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in Santo Domingo, against French forces, and Napoleon’s need for money to
launch another European war led France to offer all of Louisiana to the U.S.)
*Both Monroe and Livingston recognized this offer as not only too good to lose but one to be concluded as
quickly as possible. The agreement was made on May 2, 1803.
14
*Livingston and Monroe had not been authorized to buy any such vast area or to agree to a price over $10
million.
*Jefferson worried about the constitutionality of the purchase. No provision of the Constitution explicitly
gave the government authority to acquire new territory or to incorporate it into the U.S. Jefferson drafted a
constitutional amendment that authorized the acquisition of territory and prohibited the American
settlement of Louisiana for an indefinite period (He feared the headlong rush into the area and the impact it
would have on the Indians). Worried that ratification of his amendment might take too long and Napoleon
would change his mind, Jefferson decided to drop the amendment and submitted the treaty to the Senate for
ratification.
*The Senate ratified the treaty with France by a vote of 24 to 7 on October 20, 1803.
Tripolitan War:
*1801-1805
*The pirates of the Barbary states of Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis had long been preying on the
Mediterranean Sea traffic, looting and shanghaiing the seamen of those nations that refused to pay tribute.
*Most countries, including the U.S., found it cheaper to buy protection than to go to war with the Barbary
pirates.
*Jefferson had long opposed in principle paying such tribute but continued the practice briefly until May
1801, when Tripoli suddenly demanded more money.
*When Jefferson refused, Tripoli declared war on the U.S.
*American naval forces were dispatched to the region with little success.
*In 1803 the pirates seized the Philadelphia, along with its crew, and turned its guns against the rest of the
American fleet.
*In 1804, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur sailed to the Tripoli coast and burned down the Philadelphia.
Capitalizing on the victory, Jefferson sent virtually every available vessel to the region.
*As the war turned against the pirates, Tripoli in 1805 agreed to end demands for annual tribute.
*Meanwhile, the officers and crew of the Philadelphia continued to be held hostage in Tripoli.
*To secure their release Jefferson agreed to pay $60,000 in ransom.
*The U.S. continued to pay tribute to the other three Barbary states until 1815.
Rule of 1756:
*The British Rule of 1756 stated that trade closed in time of peace could not be reopened in time of war.
*For example, in peacetime, France usually restricted to French ships the transportation of products such as
sugar from the French West Indies.
*According to the Rule of 1756, the ships of a neutral country such as the U.S. could not replace French
ships as carriers now that the war between France and Britain made French vessels fair game for the British
navy.
*The American response to the Rule of 1756 was the “broken voyage.” American vessels would carry
produce from the Spanish and West Indies to an American port, unload it and pass it through customs, then
reload it and reexport it to Europe as American produce.
*Between 1795 and 1805, the British tolerated broken voyages but thereafter charted a new course.
Seeking to strangle French commerce as well as to defeat Napoleon’s armies, Britain pursued total war
against France. A sign of the new policy was a British court’s decision in the 1805 Essex case declaring
broken voyages illegal.
*The British followed the Essex decision in May 1806 with the first of the several trade regulations known
as Orders in Council, which established a blockade of part of the continent of Europe. In theory, this Order
in Council softened the Essex decision by allowing American vessels to trade with French possessions as
long as they carried their cargoes to Britain rather than to a continental port controlled by France.
*Napoleon responded in November 1806 with his Berlin Decree, which proclaimed a blockade of the
British Isles; any ship attempting to enter or leave a British port was now subject to seizure by France.
*The British answered the Berlin Decree with another Order in Council, this one requiring all neutral ships
trading in the blockaded zones of Europe to stop at British ports to secure licenses.
*Napoleon replied in December 1807 by tightening his so-called Continental System with the Milan
Decree, which proclaimed that any vessel that submitted to British regulations or allowed itself to be
searched by the Royal Navy was subject to seizure by France.
15
MADISON
1808-1816
POLITICAL
Hartford Convention:
*December 15, 1814—January 5, 1815
*The legislatures of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island elected delegates to this convention.
*New Hampshire and Vermont chose delegates by Federalist party conventions. Hence, the delegates
from the first three states were official representatives of the states, while those from New Hampshire and
Vermont represented the Federalist party only.
*The Massachusetts legislature sent out a call for such a convention in October.
*George Cabot of Massachusetts presided over the convention. It was his leadership that curbed the
more extreme Federalists and kept the resolutions clearly within legal bounds.
*In view of the climate of opinion prevailing in southern New England, the Hartford Convention
displayed self-restraint and moderation.
*The extreme Federalists openly expressed pleasure over the burning of Washington.
*Timothy Pickering, who had been Secretary of State in President Washington’s second term and also
under President John Adams, proposed secession of New England from the Union.
*New England states refused to allow their militia to fight beyond the boundaries of their own states.
*An attack on Montreal was frustrated when units of state militia refused to cross the border into Canada.
*The New York State militia joined New England in this attitude.
*Smuggling goods to the British army and navy was a lucrative and widespread practice.
*It was “Mr. Madison’s War.” This was the atmosphere in which the Hartford Convention met.
*The issue of secession was debated.
1) The convention rejected secession as inexpedient, not as unconstitutional.
2) The convention judged it to be inexpedient because the troubles of New England at the moment
were due to a war (between France and England) in which the U.S. should play no part.
3) The convention recognized these misfortunes as temporary.
4) Secession was too drastic a cure for problems that time and a few adjustments to the Constitution
could remedy.
*The most significant resolutions adopted by the Hartford Convention were proposals for amendments to
the Constitution. They were as follows:
1) No embargoes shall last for more than 60 days.
2) A two-thirds vote of each house of Congress shall be required to a) declare war (this would have
prevented the War of 1812), b) place restrictions on foreign trade, and c) admit new states to the
Union (new states would be western agricultural states and therefore Republican).
3) No naturalized citizen shall hold any federal office (almost all naturalized citizens would be
Republican).
4) Direct taxes and representation in the House of Representatives shall be apportioned among the
states according to the number of free inhabitants therein. (This would abolish the counting of
three-fifths of the slaves and thus reduce congressional delegations from the South where the
states were Republicans)
5) No President shall have more than one term. (The only President elected on the Federalist ticket,
John Adams, served only one term. The other three Presidents had served two terms.)
6) No two successive Presidents shall be from the same state. (Washington, Jefferson, Madison and
Monroe were all Virginians.) New England was fed up with the “Virginia Dynasty.”
*A committee of three, who called themselves “ambassadors,” headed by Harrison Otis of
Massachusetts set out for Washington to “negotiate” with the federal government.
a) News of Jackson’s victory at New Orleans and of the Treaty of Ghent hit Washington at the same
time Otis and his colleagues reached Baltimore on their way from Hartford.
b) The “ambassadors” were sent home.
*Public ridicule and contempt were heaped upon the Federalists and their proposals. Many labeled them
traitors.
*While the Federalist party continued as an organization in local elections, the Hartford Convention may
16
well be considered its last act as a major party.
ECONOMIC
Internal Improvements:
*Although he supported federal subsidies for the development of interstate transportation, Madison, in his
last act as president, surprised his own supporters in vetoing a bill authorizing federal funds for the
construction of highways and canals.
*In his veto message, he asserted that such a program, although beneficial, exceeded Congress’s
constitutional authority to provide for the general welfare.
*He recommended a constitutional amendment.
National Road:
*In 1811 the federal government began building the National Road (also called the Cumberland Road).
*This highway ultimately stretched from Cumberland, in western Maryland, to Vandalia, in Illinois, a
distance of 591 miles.
*The War of 1812 interrupted construction, and states’ rights shackles on internal improvements hampered
federal grants. But the thoroughfare was belatedly brought to its destination, in 1852, by a combination of
aid from the states and the federal government.
*The National Road, with its numerous branches, was a stimulant to American prosperity. As the vital
highway to the West, it made freight carrying cheaper and faster. It hastened the flow of European
immigrants over the mountains; it swelled population centers; it enhanced land values.
Tariff of 1816:
*The time had arrived when the ideas expressed by Hamilton in favor of protection became popular.
*From the Embargo Act of 1807 to the end of the War of 1812, the policies of the U.S. government and the
Napoleonic Wars combined to depress imports.
*Hostilities toward England had created ill-will toward British products.
*The spirit of unity and nationalism following the war smothered the sectionalism so characteristic of tariff
legislation.
*The victory over the Native Americans at Tippecanoe in 1811, soon followed by the death of Tecumseh,
greatly lessened their menace in the Northwest Territory.
*The tariff would be a step toward holding the country together:
a) People were moving west.
b) Indiana became a state in 1816 and Illinois in 1818.
c) The Southwest was also growing; Louisiana had become a state in 1812, and Mississippi and
Alabama would become states in 1817 and 1819.
d) Holding the spreading population together became a common concern. The protective tariff
seemed a good start.
*How it would hold the country together:
a) American manufacturers would have the domestic market relatively free from British competition.
b) Agricultural America could feed the towns and cities and supply many of the raw products for
factories.
c) If highways, turnpikes, and canals, extended east and west, could be combined with a protective
tariff program, the outlook for prosperity and unity seemed promising.
*There were sharper and more demanding factors that favored a protective tariff:
a) At the end of the war, British merchants were ready to flood American markets with superior
merchandise at prices the new and comparatively inefficient American manufacturers could not
meet.
b) Hundreds of small enterprises had been formed, especially in the North, to supply the demand
created by the lack of imports.
*The average rates were about 25 percent ad valorum.
*The votes in Congress in favor of the bill came from all sections of the nation.
a) John Calhoun, soon to be the great Southern leader against protective tariffs, was working hand in
hand with Henry Clay in favor of this first protective tariff.
b) Even Jefferson, who also changed his mind later, favored it.
17
Boston Associates:
*In 1807 Jefferson’s embargo caused many businessmen to turn from overseas trade to industry. The War
of 1812 likewise encouraged Americans to produce their own cloth.
*In 1813 a group of wealthy Bostonians decided to band together as the Boston Associates and pool their
capital resources.
*They established the world’s first integrated cotton manufacturing plant. All operations from the unbaling
of the cotton to the dyeing of the finished cloth were carried out under one roof.
*During the 1820s and 1830s, the Boston Associates expanded operations by establishing a series of plants,
each of which specialized in a different textile product. They also founded insurance companies and banks
in order to have a steady supply of capital. They set up real-estate firms to buy the best sites for their
factories. They even organized waterpower companies to develop the rivers whose falling waters powered
their machines.
SOCIAL
Tecumseh:
*Tecumseh, a Shawnee chief, attempted to unite the Native Americans in Ohio and the Indiana Territory
against American settlers.
*Demoralized by the continuing loss of Indian lands to the whites and by the ravages of Indian society by
alcoholism, Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet (a reformed alcoholic), tried to unify their people and
revive traditional Indian virtues.
*Both men believed that the Indians had to purge themselves of liquor and other corrupting messengers of
white civilization as part of this revival.
*William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory, was attempting to purchase as much Indian
land as territory (and thus, would be an opponent of Tecumseh). Harrison had purchased much of central
and western Indiana from the Miami and the Delaware Indians in the Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809) for the
sum of $10,000. When Tecumseh’s Shawnee people refused to sign the treaty, Harrison viewed Tecumseh
as an enemy.
*With white settlers in Indiana convinced that Tecumseh’s effort to unite the Indians was a British-inspired
scheme, Harrison gathered an army in September 1811 and marched against a Shawnee encampment, the
Prophet’s Town, at the junction of the Wabash and Tippecanoe rivers.
*In November 1811 the Shawnees, led by the Prophet (Tecumseh was off recruiting the Creek Indians),
attacked Harrison. In the ensuing Battle of Tippecanoe, the Shawnees were beaten, the Prophet’s Town
was destroyed, and the Prophet was discredited for his premature attack.
*Ironically, the Battle of Tippecanoe, which made Harrison a national hero, accomplished precisely what it
had been designed to prevent. Never before a British agent, Tecumseh now joined with the British.
*After gaining Lake Erie and Fort Detroit, Harrison led an assault into Canada. He defeated a combined
British and Indian force at the Battle of the Thames on October 5, 1813. Tecumseh died in the battle.
Colonel Richard Johnson’s claim, never proved, to have killed Tecumseh later contributed to Johnson’s
election as vice president of the U.S. under Van Buren.
Dolley Madison:
*Wife of James Madison
*When her husband was Secretary of State under Jefferson, she acted virtually as the nation’s First Lady
for Jefferson, a widower.
*When the capitol was attacked by the British in 1814, she grabbed a portrait of George Washington before
the building was set afire.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Non-Intercourse Act:
*With the failure and repeal of the embargo, President Madison sought to end British and French abuses of
American shipping by enforcing the Non-Intercourse Act, passed in the final days of the Jefferson
administration, which permitted U.S. trade with all nations except Britain and France.
*In addition the U.S. promised to exempt either nation from the act if it agreed to respect the neutrality of
American ships.
*As it became clear that the policy was having no effect, Madison sought to achieve the same goal in a
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different way with Macon’s Bill No. 2.
Erskine Agreement:
*Due to the failure of the Non-Intercourse Act, Madison negotiated an agreement with David Erskine, the
British minister in Washington, to reopen American trade in return for a British promise to revoke its
Orders in Council.
*That same days, June 10, 1809, some six hundred American ships sailed for Britain.
*But Erskine had acted without orders. British Foreign Secretary George Canning disavowed the Erskine
agreement as soon as he got wind of it, and Madison was forced to reembargo trade with Britain.
*The U.S. was very upset. Canning and his British statesmen saw the world as containing a few great
powers like Britain and France and innumerable small and weak powers. When great powers waged war
against each other, there were no neutrals. Weak nations such as the U.S. should logically seek the
protection of a great power. Since Britain was a natural trading partner for the U.S., Americans should
recognize, the reasoning went, that their best interests would be served by peacefully submitting to
dependency on Britain. (Jefferson and Madison disagreed with this conclusion. They felt that the U.S. was
morally superior to European nations and thus was not less than those powers.)
Macon’s Bill No. 2:
*The Macon Act, Berlin and Milan Decrees, and Orders in Council complete the story begun by the
Embargo Act of 1807 and continued by the Non-Intercourse Act of 1809.
*Together they tell what the American government did in its efforts to keep out of war and, at the same
time, force belligerents to recognize American rights as neutrals.
*The British Parliament by its Orders in Council and Napoleon by his Berlin and Milan Decrees had
established the policy of seizing any neutral shipping headed for enemy ports.
a) This had almost the same effect as making all neutral shipping bound for the British Isles or a
European port subject to capture by either England or France.
b) In enforcing their orders and decrees, neither England nor France was too careful about confining
its attacks to ships carrying contraband or actually bound for an enemy port.
*The Macon Act of 1810 withdrew all restrictions on trade with England and France.
a) It further provided that whichever nation ceased its attacks upon American commerce would be
rewarded by having the U.S. cease trading with the other nation.
b) The American hope was that both England and France would repeal the Orders in Council and the
Berlin and Milan Decrees respectively.
*Napoleon quickly announced the repeal of the Berlin and Milan Decrees but actually continued to harass
American shipping.
*However, over a year went by before the British Parliament repealed the Orders in Council.
*Meanwhile, America had renewed the embargo against England in accordance with the Macon Act, and
England, in retaliation, stepped up impressment of American sailors and other violations of American
rights.
*On May 16, 1811, the U.S. Frigate President attacked the British corvette Little Belt, killing 9 and
wounding 23 of her crew. This attack was the American reaction to the continuing impressment and other
interference with American shipping.
War of 1812:
Causes:
a) Actions of the War Hawks who were led by Henry Clay.
b) Clay made the most of his position as Speaker of the House to fan the war spirit.
c) John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, Felix Grundy of Tennessee, Richard Johnson of Kentucky and
Langdon Cheves of South Carolina were other leading War Hawks.
d) They were motivated by hatred of England or by ambition of expansion, or both.
e) Clay thought the Kentucky militia could capture Canada.
f) There was talk of taking Florida and Mexico.
g) The members of Congress clamoring for war represented the inland areas.
h) It was in this period that William Henry Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory, defeated the
Native American confederacy of Tecumseh in the battle of Tippecanoe, November 6, 1811.
Events:
*Even with the cream of the British army involved in Europe against Napoleon, the War of 1812 began
disastrously for the Americans.
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*Madison’s first objective was to take Canada.
*Madison chose General William Hull, an obese aging veteran of the Revolution, to advance on Fort
Malden at modern Windsor, Ontario. As Hull made his way cautiously across Canadian soil, he grew
increasingly fearful of Indian attacks and withdrew to Detroit. There, subsequently surrounded by an
inferior force of British and Indians, he surrendered Detroit without firing a short (Hull later was
court-martialed and sentenced to death but was pardoned because of his service in the Revolution).
*Madison handed command of the Northwest to William Henry Harrison, who got bogged down in the
swamps of northwestern Ohio. A foray into Canada led by Henry Dearborn also failed.
*Surprisingly, the U.S. fared better in the naval war despite Britain’s longtime supremacy at sea.
The Essex, the Constitution, and other U.S. vessels won decisive engagements against British ships.
Stunned by these setbacks, the British threw a blockade against the American coast and successfully
bottled up the U.S. fleet for the duration of the war.
*Britain dominated Lake Erie until September 1813 when Captain Oliver Hazard Perry led his eightvessel fleet from Put-in-Bay and in a three-hour battle took control of the strategic lake. “We have
met the enemy and they are ours,” wrote Perry in his famous dispatch.
*With Lake Erie secure and the British flushed from Detroit, William Henry Harrison pursued the
enemy into Canada and in October 1813 scored a signal victory at the Battle of the Thames, at which
the Indian leader Tecumseh was killed.
*To the southeast however, the British penetrated the feeble American defenses in the Chesapeake Bay
region to march into Washington and burn the White House, the Capitol, and other buildings in
August 1814.
*The blitz forced President and Mrs. Madison to take refuge in Virginia.
*The next month British guns pounded Fort McHenry at Baltimore but failed to force its surrender—a
glorious spectacle to observer Francis Scott Key, who celebrated the event in song. “The Star
Spangled Banner,” which became the national anthem. By this time both sides were sufficiently war
weary to talk peace.
*Before news of the Treaty of Ghent reached North America, crack British veterans of the Napoleonic
Wars, now since concluded, attempted to capture New Orleans. In a stunning defensive victory,
frontier militia under General Andrew Jackson laid down a withering barrage of rifle fire that dropped
more than 2,000 British troops. American casualties numbered just 21.
Results:
*The Treaty of Ghent (Belgium)
*In December 1814 the U.S. negotiating team—John Quincy Adams, James A. Bayard, Henry Clay,
Albert Gallatin, and Jonathan Russell—concluded with British commissioners the Treaty of Ghent
ending the War of 1812 status quo antebellum, that is, with each side retaining territory held prior to
the war. Impressment and other areas of conflict were left unsettled.
*The War of 1812, often called the Second War for Independence, marked the end of U.S. economic
dependence on Britain.
*Domestic industry, having filled the vacuum created by a suspension of trade with Europe, emerged
from the war a vital, expanding force in the economy.
*America had taken its first steps in the evolution from a largely agrarian nation into an industrial
giant.
*Of the 286,730 Americans to serve in the war, 2,260 were killed, 4,505 were wounded.
*The War of 1812 had three major political consequences:
1) It eliminated the Federalists as a national political force.
2) It went a long way toward convincing the Republicans that the nation was strong and resilient,
capable of fighting a war while maintaining the liberty of the people.
3) The “Era of Good Feelings” was launched as the Republicans increasingly embraced some
doctrines long associated with the Federalists. In a message to Congress in December 1815,
Madison called for federal support for internal improvements, tariff protection for the new
industries that had sprung up during the embargo, and the creation of a new national bank.
(The charter of the first Bank of the United States had expired in 1811.) In Congress another
Republican, Henry Clay of Kentucky, proposed similar measures, which he called the
American System, which the aim of making the nation economically self-sufficient and free
from the dependency of Europe. In 1816 Congress chartered the Second Bank of the United
States and enacted a moderate tariff. Federal support for internal improvements proved to a
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thornier problem. Madison favored federal aid in principle but believed that a constitutional
amendment was necessary to authorize it. Accordingly, he vetoed an internal-improvements
bill passed in 1817.
MONROE
1816-1824
POLITICAL
Era of Good Feelings:
*The phrase that came to be associated with the Monroe administration first appeared in the Boston
Columbia Centinel to describe the euphoria attending President Monroe’s triumphant tour of New
England, once a Federalist stronghold, in 1817.
*During this brief period in American history when a single party commanded the affections of virtually
all segments of society, the absence of partisan struggle did indeed generate, on the surface at least, an “era
of good feelings.”
*Monroe, who as the last Revolutionary War officer to reside in the White House was enormously
popular; personified this national unity.
*Behind the facade of good feeling ticked the twin bombs of slavery and protectionalism, issues that
would soon restore partisanship and ultimately lead to civil war.
ECONOMIC
Panic of 1819:
*Shoddy banking practices, fervid land speculation in the West, and renewed competition from European
imports following the War of 1812 all combined to thrust the U.S. into its first major economic depression.
*The Monroe administration offered some relief in relaxing mortgage terms on land purchased from the
government.
*The depression lasted until 1821.
Second National Bank:
*To help the West and South do business with each other, the federal government set up a new national
bank.
*After the charter of the first national bank expired in 1811, its business was conducted by state banks.
Regulations for these banks were lax. Many of them issued a great deal more paper money than they could
bank with silver or gold. Paper money, therefore, quickly lost value. In addition, money issued in one
locale was often not accepted anywhere else. This made it difficult to do business.
*In 1816 Congress chartered the Second Bank of the United States with twenty-five branches throughout
the country.
*The national bank issued its own paper money. These notes could be used anywhere, and by increasing
the money supply they fueled a two-year national business boom.
Dartmouth College v. Woodward:
*1819
*Jefferson’s old antagonist John Marshall continued to preside over the Supreme Court during the Monroe
administrations and in 1819 issued two opinions that stunned Republicans: Dartmouth College v.
Woodward and McCulloch v. Maryland.
*The case centered on whether New Hampshire could transform a private corporation, Dartmouth College,
into a state university.
*The founders who gave money to establish Dartmouth College received a charter giving their trustees the
right to control the school’s affairs “forever.” New Hampshire accepted this arrangement when it became
an independent state in 1776. Then, in 1816, the state changed the charter so it could appoint its own
trustees.
*The state courts said that New Hampshire could make this change because the charter was not a contract
according to the meaning of the word in the Constitution. No one stood to gain or lose anything of value
by it. Moreover, since education was a public concern, and since schools were public, not private,
institutions, the states could run them as they saw fit.
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*Arguing the case for the plaintiff was Daniel Webster, a graduate of 1801. Webster, presenting a very
emotional case, gave the famous statement “It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are
those who love it.”
*Marshall concluded that the college’s original charter, granted to its trustees by George III in 1769, was a
contract. Since the Constitution specifically forbade states to interfere with contracts, New Hampshire’s
effort to turn Dartmouth into a state university was unconstitutional.
*The implications of this ruling were far-reaching. Charters or acts of incorporation provided their
beneficiaries with various legal privileges and were sought by businesses as well as by colleges. In effect.
Marshall said that once a state had chartered a college or business, it surrendered both its power to alter the
charter and, in large measure, its authority to regulate the beneficiary.
McCulloch v. Maryland:
*1819
*The issue was whether the state of Maryland had the power to tax a national corporation, specifically the
Baltimore branch of the Second National Bank of the United States.
*The bank was a national corporation, chartered by Congress, but most of the stockholders were private
citizens who reaped whatever profits the bank made.
*Speaking for a unanimous Court, Marshall ignored these private features of the bank and concentrated
instead on two issues.
1) Did Congress have the power to charter a national bank? Nothing in the Constitution, Marshall
conceded, explicitly granted this power. But the Constitution did authorize Congress to lay and
collect taxes, to regulate interstate commerce, and to declare war. Surely these enumerated
powers, he reasoned, implied a power to charter a bank. Marshall was clearly engaging in a broad,
or “loose,” rather than strict, construction (interpretation) of the Constitution.
2) Could a state tax an agency of the federal government that lay within its borders? Marshall argued
that any power of the national government, express or implied, was supreme within its sphere.
States could not interfere with the exercise of federal powers. A tax by Maryland on the Baltimore
branch was such an interference and hence was plainly unconstitutional.
*The decision was very unpopular with many Republicans. Though Madison and Monroe had supported
the establishment of the Second Bank of the United States, the bank had made itself unpopular by
tightening its loan policies during the summer of 1818. This contraction of credit triggered a severe
depression, the Panic of 1819, that gave rise to considerable distress throughout the country, especially
among western farmers. At a time when the bank was widely blamed for the panic, Marshall’s ruling
stirred controversy by placing the bank beyond the regulatory power of any state government.
*The decision was as much an attack on state sovereignty as it was a defense of the bank. The
Constitution, Marshall argued, was the creation not of state governments but of the people of all the states
and thus was more fundamental than any state laws. His reasoning assailed the Republican theory, best
expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions of 1798-1799, that the Union was essentially a
compact among states. Republicans had continued to view state governments as more immediately
responsive to the people’s will than was the federal government and to regard the compact theory of the
Union as a guarantor of popular liberty.
Gibbons v. Ogden:
*Thomas Gibbons and Aaron Ogden were partners in operating a steamboat between New Jersey and New
York. The partnership broke up, and each then began operating his own steamboat line.
*Ogden had a charter from the state of New York that gave him exclusive rights to the route. Gibbons had
a charter from the federal government. Ogden took Gibbons to court for violating his exclusive charter.
*With Chief Justice John Marshall writing the landmark decision, the Supreme Court ruled that in a
conflict between the federal government and a state, “the law of the state must yield.”
*The Court based its decision on the “supremacy clause” in Article VI of the Constitution, which states that
in cases where there is a conflict of laws, the national law takes precedence.
*Marshall gave a broad definition to the clause of the Constitution that says “Congress shall have power . .
. to regulate commerce. . . among the several states.”
*Consequently, the charter Gibbons received from the federal government was legal, and Ogden’s
“exclusive” right was not.
*Marshall’s ruling was the cornerstone of later decisions giving the federal government authority to
regulate almost everything that crosses state boundaries, from air travel to radio signals.
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*In addition, by striking down Ogden’s state-granted monopoly, Marshall paved the way for competition
between companies. For this reason, the case is sometimes called “The Emancipation Proclamation of
American Commerce.”
Internal Improvements:
*President Monroe encouraged transportation in the West but believed that in the absence of a
constitutional amendment specifically authorizing such federal intervention, construction of roads and
canals must be left to the states.
*The West grew impatient over what residents considered legal hairsplitting, pointing out that the federal
government had seen fit to construct lighthouses and other coastal improvements to facilitate trade along
the Eastern seaboard.
*Henry Clay denounced the apparent double standard.
*In 1822 Congress passed a bill authorizing federal construction and maintenance of toll booths on the
Cumberland Road; the proceeds were to finance the westward expansion of the highway.
*Monroe exercised his only veto in killing the measure.
Tariff of 1824:
*In the eight years separating the Tariff of 1816 from that of 1824, the South, especially South Carolina,
had discovered that textile mills were not going to locate next to the cotton fields.
*Cotton was moving away from the Atlantic seaboard because repeated cultivation of the same soil without
crop rotation or proper use of fertilizers greatly reduced the yield per acre.
*The few attempts to establish cotton mills had failed.
*In the South neither the investment capital to establish the cotton mills nor the capable managers to run
them were readily available.
*Only in combination with a system of highways linking the East, South, and West could the protective
tariff be effective in building the nation as a whole. Only then could the products of each section find
markets in the other two areas: the prosperity of one would then tend to be reflected in the others.
*The effect on business of the Tariff of 1816 was immediate, but no east-west highways could be built
immediately.
*So, by 1824, Calhoun, who earlier had gone along with Clay’s advocacy of protective tariffs and roads,
had become opposed to both.
*Calhoun expressed the position of the South. He saw the protective tariff as a device that raised the cost
of living by increasing the price of manufactured goods.
*A program of turnpikes built at federal expense would mean a tax burden on the South out of proportion
to any benefits received by the South.
*Worst of all, vast building projects planned and paid for by the federal government would concentrate in
Washington legal authority and political power that properly belonged to the individual states.
*At just about the same time that the South was turning against protective tariffs, Clay was advocating his
three-point “American system”: internal improvements at federal expense, the Bank of the United States,
and protective tariffs.
*The harmonious note of national unity reflected by the Tariff of 1816 had changed to the discordant note
of sectional strife reflected by the Tariff of 1824.
*The Tariff of 1824 passed Congress with the vote clearly emphasizing the sectional interests of the
Northeast and the South.
*The political balance of power was held by the West. If the South or the Northwest could gain the support
of the West, it could control Congress and put its program into law.
SOCIAL
Missouri Compromise:
*1820 (Also called the Compromise of 1820)
*In 1820 there were eleven free and eleven slave states in the Union.
*Because of the greater population in the North, the 11 free states had 105 seats in the House to 81 seats for
the slave states.
*The South was determined to maintain equal voting power in the Senate.
*People of Maine petitioned Congress for admission as a state.
*Perhaps, as had happened several times before, a slave and a free state could have been admitted without
any political explosions if Representative James Tallmadge of New York had not introduced an amendment
23
to the bill for the admission of Missouri.
*The Tallmadge Amendment would have prohibited any additional slaves from entering Missouri and
would have declared free on their twenty-fifth birthday any slaves born in Missouri after it became a state.
*It passed the House by a close vote but was easily defeated in the Senate.
*A furious political storm broke. The slave states held that Congress had no right to attach conditions to a
state applying for admission. It could admit or refuse to admit, but it could not dictate social and economic
conditions. If Congress had any such power, it could create a class of inferior states and utterly destroy the
sovereign equality of the states so essential to a federal union.
*But the free states pointed to the Northwest Ordinance, which had set a precedent by forbidding slavery in
the territories, and states to be made therefrom, at the same time that it guaranteed their equality the with
original states.
*The compromise reached was that Maine should be admitted to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a
slave state.
*The political balance in the Senate was maintained.
*A line was established to set the pattern for the rest of the Louisiana Territory: South of the parallel 36-30
within the Territory slavery would be legal; but north of this parallel, except in Missouri, slavery would be
prohibited. The southern border of the new state of Missouri was on the 36-30 line.
*The threat lurking in this controversy did not go unobserved. Jefferson wrote, “This momentous question,
like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the
Union.” And John Q. Adams wrote in his diary, “I take it for granted that the present question is a mere
preamble—a title page to a great, tragic volume.”
Denmark Vesey:
*1822
*Denmark Vesey, a free black in Charleston, South Carolina, had purchased his freedom with a lottery
jackpot.
*Vesey was a preacher at the local African Methodist Episcopal Church and was well-read and principled.
*He quoted the Bible and the Declaration of Independence in his arguments against slavery.
*He was impatient with African Americans who would not stand up to whites. He believed that if blacks
would not challenge the system, that blacks deserved to remain slaves.
*Vesey and several allies, including the African-born Gullah Jack, planned to take over Charleston in July
1822.
*About eighty participants were to act in six units arranged by African origins.
*But Vesey was betrayed by some of his followers.
*The governor of South Carolina called out five companies of troops in June, and the rebellion was
smashed before it could get started.
*Before the end of the summer, thirty-five African Americans were hanged, including Vesey, and another
thirty-seven were banished from South Carolina.
Liberia:
*Colonization was a program to return free blacks and emancipated slaves to Africa.
*Convinced that African Americans would never achieve full participation in American society, in 1822
some antislavery advocates founded the country of Liberia in West Africa as a homeland to African
Americans (the capital was Monrovia)
*Although a free African American named Paul Cuffe had been one of the originators of the idea of
colonization, the plan offended most African Americans. They were interested in improving their lives in
the land they considered their home, the United States, not moving to a continent they had never seen.
*As of 1831, only about 1,400 African Americans had migrated to Liberia.
Troy School:
*In 1821 Emma Willard opened the nation’s first high school for girls in Troy, New York.
*The curriculum included mathematics, history, geography, languages, art and music, and English writing
and literature, as well as domestic sciences.
*The school prospered and set the standard for more schools for women.
*In 1837 it became possible for women in the U.S. to attend college. The first women’s college, Mount
Holyoke Female Seminary, was founded in South Hadley, Massachusetts, by Mary Lyon. That same year,
Oberlin College in Ohio admitted four women, thus becoming the nation’s first coeducational college.
24
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
First Seminole War:
*1817-1818
*Seminole Indians and fugitive slaves operating together out of sanctuaries in Spanish Florida frequently
raided settlements in Georgia, massacring residents.
*When it became clear that Spain would do nothing to check these incursions, President Monroe assigned
General Andrew Jackson to deal with the problem.
*Jackson promptly invaded Spanish Florida, crushed the Seminoles, destroyed their villages, and overthrew
the Spanish governor.
*Jackson also captured and executed two British citizens, Alexander Arbuthnot and Robert Ambrister, who
had incited the Seminoles to commit atrocities against Americans.
*Because he had taken such bold action without specific authorization from the President, Secretary of War
Calhoun and others urged Jackson to be reprimanded. However, no action was taken.
*The episode, while straining relations with Britain briefly, convinced Spain that the U.S. was capable of
seizing Florida at will.
*This belief was a powerful inducement for Spain to sell the territory and thus paved the way for the
Adams-Onis Treaty.
Rush-Bagot Agreement:
*1818
*This disarmament agreement between the U.S. and Great Britain demilitarized the Great Lakes.
*Acting Secretary of State Richard Rush and British Minister Charles Bagot negotiated the pact at
Washington in 1817; it was ratified the next year.
Convention of 1818:
*This agreement between the U.S. and Britain granted American fishermen the right to work certain eastern
Canadian waters and fixed the present-day U.S.—Canadian border from Minnesota to the Rockies.
Adams-Onis Treaty:
*1819
*Under its terms, Spain ceded Florida to the U.S., which agreed to assume damage claims amounting to
about $5 million that American citizens had lodged against Spain.
*It also fixed the southwestern boundary between the U.S. and Spanish territory at the Sabine River, thus
leaving all of modern Texas under Spanish control.
*Spain also relinquished its claim to Oregon.
*U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and Spanish Minister Luis de Onis concluded the agreement.
Monroe Doctrine:
*1823
*After Napoleon’s defeat, the Congress of Vienna, 1814 and 1815, rearranged Europe.
*Having undone the work of Napoleon on the continent, the next order of business was to straighten out the
chaos that resulted in the Spanish Empire from Mexico to the tip of South America.
*Able revolutionary leaders such as Simon Bolivar, Jose San Martin, and Bernando O’Higgins led
revolutions that changed the Spanish colonies into republics.
*England had established a very lucrative trade with the new republics.
*English subjects had invested substantially in mining rights. There was great promise of expansion for
English trade and investment.
*Russia, Austria, and Prussia (the Holy Alliance) wanted England to join with them in a reconquest of the
Spanish Empire in the Americas.
a) Quadruple Alliance: Formed in 1815, it contained Russia, Austria, Prussia and England.
b) Quintuple Alliance: Formed in 1818, it also included France after it restored its monarchical
ways. To avoid confusion, this is often called the Holy Alliance.
*England rejected the idea. Without the support of the British fleet, the Holy Alliance would be unable to
carry through such a project.
*The U.S. was negotiating the acquisition of Florida and the Step Line boundary was finally fixed in 1819.
*Until that was complete, Monroe and his Secretary of State, John Q. Adams, made no move toward
recognition to the new republics.
*George Canning, the British Foreign Secretary, suggested to the U.S. ambassador, Richard Rush, that the
U.S. join with England in telling the European nations to refrain from any attack upon the former Spanish
25
Empire in the Western Hemisphere.
*President Monroe submitted the idea to Jefferson and Madison who both liked the idea.
*J.Q. Adams felt it would be wiser to act independently of England and deliver to Europe, including
England, the message that the U.S. would look with displeasure at any interference by them with the
independence of any republic in the Western Hemisphere.
*At the moment, England would favor such a policy even though it might be surprised that the U.S. made
the declaration alone.
*There was really little danger of any attack by the continental powers of Europe. If such an attack did
occur, the English would squelch it.
*In his annual address to Congress, December 2, 1823, Monroe included the Monroe Doctrine.
a) The American people were on the whole in favor of the Doctrine.
b) The commercial world was especially gratified by the assurance that the Spanish-American market
would not be slammed shut.
c) The Doctrine was intoxicating to the national spirit.
*It became the guiding principle of U.S. foreign policy. It would be modified by the Roosevelt Corollary
(Teddy) and the Good Neighbor Policy (Franklin Roosevelt).
*Myths about the Monroe Doctrine:
a) What came to be known as the Monroe Doctrine was not law, national or international, although
repeated attempts were made in Congress to legalize it.
b) It was merely a simple, unilateral, Presidential statement of foreign policy. Adams even spoke of
it as a “lecture” to the powers.
c) It did not commit subsequent administrations to any definite course. It was not stronger than the
power of the U.S. to eject the trespasser—no bigger than America’s armed forces.
d) The Monroe Doctrine, when first enunciated, commanded relatively little attention at home and
even less respect abroad. It was not even generally known as the Monroe Doctrine until the
1850s. Yet by mid-century, the powers were aware that such a policy existed, and that it was
backed by a sturdy and growing U.S.
J.Q. ADAMS
1824-1828
POLITICAL
Election of 1824:
*All the candidates in this election were Republicans.
*William Crawford (Georgia) had been chosen in the usual manner, by congressional caucus. The other
candidates represented different sections of the country.
*Andrew Jackson (Tennessee) and Henry Clay (Kentucky) spoke for the West. John Quincy Adams
(Massachusetts) represented the Northeast.
*Crawford was stricken with a serious illness (stroke) during the campaign.
*Jackson was the hero of New Orleans and Florida. He was the man of action and the most popular
candidate.
*Clay had a distinguished career in Congress and as Secretary of State and possessed more personal charm
than any of the others.
*The election results were as follows: Jackson 155,872 popular votes and 99 electoral votes; Adams
105,321 popular votes and 84 electoral votes; Crawford 44,282 popular votes and 41 electoral votes; Clay
46,587 popular votes and 37 electoral votes.
*No candidate received the necessary majority of electoral votes. As provided in the Twelfth Amendment,
the election went to the House of Representatives where each state had one vote.
*Each state delegation in Congress had to caucus to decide how to cast their vote.
*Clay was out of the race, as only the top three candidates were eligible. However, Clay was Speaker of
the House and had considerable influence. Upon his advice, Adams was elected.
*Calhoun had considered being a fifth candidate for the presidency but had changed his mind and
campaigned for the vice-presidency. He won easily with 182 electoral votes.
*Many felt that the House of Representatives had a moral obligation to elect Jackson because he had
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received the largest vote, both electoral and popular.
*When President Adams appointed Clay Secretary of State, the Era of Good Feelings came to an end and
there were two political parties: National Republicans and Democratic Republicans.
*The Jackson supporters and many thousands of others believed that the charge of “corrupt bargain” was
justified. The charge was that Adams and Clay had plotted to bring about the result. There was no
evidence of such an understanding, and the verdict of history is that there was no bargain of any kind.
*Clay supported Adams instead of Jackson because the two men were in agreement on public policy.
Adams was an ardent supporter of Clay’s “American System.” Clay felt that Jackson was unsuited for the
presidency.
*Adams asked Clay to be Secretary of State because he considered Clay best qualified for the post.
*John Q. Adams served one term as President, but the people were just biding their time until 1828. (It was
an open secret that Jackson would be the next president.)
Exposition and Protest:
*1828
*Calhoun claimed that protective tariffs were unconstitutional.
*The Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions framed by Jefferson and Madison gave him all the arguments he
needed, although he did extend them a bit.
*The reasoning followed these lines:
a) The Constitution is a compact (an agreement) among several sovereign states.
b) The federal government has only those powers specifically delegated to it by the Constitution
(Tenth Amendment).
c) The power to regulate foreign commerce was clearly intended to be a means “of extending
commerce, by coercing foreign nations to a fair reciprocity in their intercourse with us,” and
only “incidentally connected with the encouragement of agriculture and manufactures.”
d) No mention is made in the Constitution about power to nullify a law of Congress, or about the
right of a state to withdraw from the Union. All powers not denied to the states and not
granted to the federal government belong to the states. (Tenth Amendment)
*The above four points expressed the Calhoun, Hayne, Davis thinking on the nature of the Union.
*Calhoun’s Exposition and Protest, Hayne’s arguments in the Webster-Hayne debate, and South Carolina’s
Nullification Act were the vehicles that gave effective expression to them.
*Calhoun’s claim that a protective tariff was unconstitutional rests on the fact that a tariff is a tax. The
Constitution says that taxes may be levied for only three purposes: to pay the public debt, to provide for
the common defense, and to promote the general welfare.
*A protective tariff is not for raising money to pay debts or to build defenses and thus it is unconstitutional.
It is equally clear that a protective tariff promotes sectional division, that it seriously threatens the harmony
of the Union, and therefore it can not promote the general welfare.
*Being a tax for a purpose not in the Constitution, it is therefore unconstitutional. Acting on this theory,
South Carolina passed the Nullification Act in November 1832.
ECONOMIC
Internal Improvements:
*Adams was the first president both to endorse wholeheartedly federally sponsored internal improvements
and to harbor no constitutional qualms about their implementation.
*In his first annual message to Congress in December 1825, Adams reminded the nation that “the great
object of the institution of government is the improvement of the condition of those who are parties to
social compact, and no government, in whatever form constituted, can accomplish the lawful ends of its
institution but in proportion as it improves the condition of those over whom it is established.”
*He went on to propose the construction of a network of roads and canals, a national university, and an
astronomical observatory, the latter to be manned by a full-time astronomer.
*The program was too ambitious for Congress, however, Adams obtained only the westward extension of
the Cumberland Road into Ohio and construction of the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal.
*At the canal’s groundbreaking ceremony on the Fourth of July, 1828, President Adams proudly turned
over the first shovelful of earth.
*Strict Jeffersonians (often called Old Republicans), among them the Virginian John Randolph, had
consistently attacked federal aid for internal improvements as unconstitutional.
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*Adams’s call for federal support for improvements came within a few months of New York’s completion
of the Erie Canal. Because New York had built the canal with its own money, its senator, Martin Van
Buren, opposed federal aid for internal improvements; such support would only enable other states to
construct rival canals.
Erie Canal:
*It was begun in 1817 and completed in 1825.
*The major force behind the building of the canal was Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York. The goal of
the canal was to connect the Great Lakes with the Hudson River.
*The canal eventually ran 363 miles and connected Lake Erie to the Hudson River which would take a ship
to the New York harbor and then the Atlantic.
*Impact: The cost of shipping a ton of grain from Buffalo to New York City fell from $100 to $5, and the
time of transit from about twenty days to six.
*Value of the land along the canal skyrocketed, and new cities (Rochester and Syracuse) blossomed.
*The new profitableness of farming in the Old Northwest (notably in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois)
attracted thousands of European immigrants to the unaxed and untaxed lands now available.
First Factory Strike:
*Industrialists thought that work in the mills benefited women and children. After all, they were learning
the value of labor, the worth of money, and the merits of strict moral behavior. Understandably, the women
and children involved sometimes took a different view.
*The first recorded factory strike in American history took place in 1828.
*The mill owners in Paterson, New Jersey, tried to change the lunch hour from twelve to one o’clock. The
children went out on strike “for fear,” said one observer, “if they assented to this, the next thing would be to
deprive them of eating at all.”
*The mill owners called in the militia—and the strike was broken.
Tariff of Abominations, 1828:
*The political lesson the South learned from the Tariff of 1824 was that the South would lose both the
House of Representatives and the Senate in any vote on the issue of protection.
*The pro-tariff members of Congress outnumbered the anti-tariff members in 1824 and 1828, and their
number would continue to increase.
*The Northeast and the West were growing closer together economically, as compared with the South and
West.
*There was every prospect that several new states would be formed from the northern areas of the
Northwest Territory and the Louisiana Territory. Michigan entered the Union in 1837, Iowa in 1846, and
Minnesota in 1858. The political outlook for the South was bleak.
*Only Arkansas, and possibly Kansas, could have been reorganized as potential new states to give political
support to the Southern way of life.
*There was one tactic that might bring victory to the South. To defeat a protective tariff, they must
outsmart the opposition. Their attempt to do this resulted in the Tariff of 1828.
*As the tariff bill was drawn up, Southern members of Congress supported ample protective rates for most
manufactured products of the Northeast, and ridiculously high protective rates for raw products that were
vital to manufacturing.
*The resulting high prices the manufacturers would have to pay for raw materials would rob them of the
advantages they would receive from the protection afforded to their products.
*This tactic, the South hoped, would so disgust several members of Congress from the Northeast that they
would vote against the bill. The Southerners would also vote against the bill. Their combined vote might
defeat this abominable tariff.
*However, the bill passed the House 105 to 94 and the Senate by 26 to 21.
*In South Carolina, flags were flown at half-mast.
*There was talk of boycotts against New England’s manufactured goods.
*Refusal to obey the new tariff law was seriously considered. Some even began to question the value of
remaining in the Union.
*Calhoun sensed a deeper rift between North and South than the tariff.
*In 1830 Calhoun said that the basic cause of the growing friction was “the peculiar domestic institutions
of the Southern states.”
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SOCIAL
Creek Indians:
*1826
*Adams irritated Southern states when he tried to protect the rights of the Creek Indians.
*Under pressure from land speculators, Georgia began a survey of Creek territory in 1826 with the
intention of selling land to white settlers.
*Adams threatened to send in federal troops to stop the survey and talked about the supremacy of the
national government.
*The governor of Georgia defied him and talked about states’ rights.
*Eventually the Creeks agreed to move west of the Mississippi River.
*Adams was humiliated by this event.
Noah Webster:
*The most popular textbook used in schools was the Blue-Backed Speller, written by Noah Webster, who
also complied, in 1828, the famous dictionary.
*Webster was a strong believer in “American education for Americans.”
*He tried to get people to talk less like the British and more like people in his native state of Connecticut.
As a result of his efforts, the spelling of words was simplified—for example, “plow” instead of “plough”
and “labor” instead of “labour.”
Second Great Awakening:
*In the late 1820s and early 1830s a religious revival called the Second Great Awakening (a reference to a
similar revival that had swept the colonies in the previous century) had a strong impact on antebellum
American religion and reform.
*It grew partly out of evangelical opposition to the deism associated with the French Revolution and
gathered strength in 1826, when Charles Grandison Finney, a charismatic lawyer-turned-itinerant preacher,
conducted a revival at Utica, New York.
*Finney argued against the belief that a Calvinist God controlled the destiny of human beings. He told
congregations throughout the northern United States that they were “moral free agents” who could obtain
salvation through their own efforts—but, he admonished, they must hurry because time was short.
*Finney achieved his greatest success in New York State’s “burned-over district,” especially in the winter
of 1830-1831 in Rochester, where prayer meetings were crowded almost every night, and conversions and
confessions of sin were frequent.
*Finney and other preachers, such as Theodore Weld, tried to be entertaining and to appeal to the average
citizen. Their approach and the new techniques of evangelizing—protracted meetings, community-wide
campaigns, the “anxious bench” for those wrestling with the decision to convert, testimony meetings for the
converted—worked: in 1831, for example, church membership grew nationally by 100,000.
*The Second Great Awakening had effects that extended beyond American Protestantism. The period has
been called a “shopkeeper’s millennium” because nascent capitalists used church membership and
admonition to work and avoid sin as a means of instilling discipline in workers accustomed to being
independent artisans. And by spreading the belief that “heaven on earth” was possible, the revival
movement inspired or contributed to many secular reform movements, including temperance, abolition,
anti-dueling, moral reform, public education, philanthropic endeavors, and utopian socialism. It especially
appealed to women, many of whom were encouraged to become missionaries and lay preachers.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Panama Congress:
*1826
*President Adams supported U.S. participation in the Panama Congress, convened by South American
patriot Simon Bolivar to foster Pan-American cooperation.
*Southerners feared that U.S. attendance would imply recognition of Haiti, a black republic that had gained
its independence from France through a slave revolution.
*Both the sharp debate over the Missouri Compromise in 1819-1820 and the discovery of a planned slave
revolt in South Carolina in 1822 (organized by a free black, Denmark Vesey) had shaken southern
slaveholders and generated hostility to Adams’s proposal.
*Southern congressmen, who feared that the meeting might be used as a forum to condemn slavery,
combined with Adams’s political opponents to delay confirmation of the U.S. delegates long enough to
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make it impossible for them to reach Panama in time to attend the congress.
JACKSON
1828-1836
POLITICAL
Veto:
*More than any of his predecessors, Jackson exercised executive authority to implement his policies and
thwart the opposition.
*He vetoed a dozen bills, more than had all previous presidents combined, and was the first chief executive
to exercise the pocket veto, by which a bill passed within 10 days (excluding Sundays) before Congress
adjourns does not become law if the president does not sign it.
*He grew powerful in office through effective use of the spoils system, domination of the party convention,
and appeals to the common people.
*He was the founder of the modern presidency.
Kitchen Cabinet:
*Displeased with most of his official cabinet, largely because of their behavior in the Peggy Eaton affair,
Jackson abandoned regular cabinet meetings and instead began discussing and formulating policy with an
information group of advisers at the White House.
*Among the members of what came to be called the Kitchen Cabinet were Amos Kendall, partisan
journalist and later postmaster general; Francis P. Blair, editor of the Washington Globe; Andrew Jackson
Donelson, the president’s nephew and secretary; William B. Lewis, longtime Jackson confidant; Secretary
of State Martin Van Buren, and Secretary of War John H. Eaton.
Spoils System:
*Although the practice of rewarding supporters with government jobs had long been in use, the Jackson
administration’s abrupt turnover in personnel drew charges of abuse from the opposition.
*He ascribed to the maxim “To the victor belong the spoils,” but, in practice, President Jackson replaced
only about 15 percent of the federal workforce during his two terms.
*Jackson believed that the demands of public office could be met adequately by almost any ordinary
citizen.
*Jackson’s contention was that rotation in office achieved a superior quality of democracy by developing
more citizens versed in the arts of government.
Peggy Eaton:
*According to widespread gossip, Mrs. Peggy O’Neale Timberlake was having an affair with John Eaton, a
close friend of Andrew Jackson, when her husband, a civilian navy employee, died at sea, reportedly from
suicide, in 1828.
*Soon thereafter, Peggy married John Eaton, who two months later became Jackson’s secretary of war.
*Much of Washington society, most notably the wife of Vice President John Calhoun, ostracized Mrs.
Eaton.
*In this rapidly escalating social feud, Jackson saw disturbing parallels with the slanderous attacks leveled
against his late wife in the previous election.
*Jackson rushed to Mrs. Eaton’s defense and demanded that the cabinet wives treat her with due courtesy
and respect. They all refused.
*Only Secretary of State Martin Van Buren, a widower, socialized with her, thereby ingratiating himself
further with President Jackson at the expense of Calhoun.
*The episode distracted the administration until Secretary Eaton resigned in 1831.
Jackson-Calhoun Split:
*Van Buren’s friends worked to widen the breach between Jackson and Calhoun.
*William Crawford wrote a letter in which he revealed that Calhoun in 1818 had recommended Jackson’s
censure for hanging two British subjects during the invasion of Florida. Jackson now branded Calhoun his
enemy, and their political alliance ended in 1830.
*Consequently, Van Buren became Jackson’s choice for the succession.
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*Soon afterwards, Jackson reorganized the cabinet, named Eaton as governor of the Florida Territory and
thereby ended the social feud over Mrs. Eaton at Washington. Van Buren became ambassador to England.
Land Issue:
*Westerners were unsatisfied by the Land Act of 1820. They agitated for land on more favorable terms.
Senator Thomas Hart Benton of Missouri served as their leading spokesman. 1) “Squatters” who had
illegally settled on the public domain asked for preemption laws that would give them the first right to buy
the land after it was surveyed and put up for sale. 2) As a means of making lands available at a lower price,
Benton and many of the Democrats proposed the principle of graduation, that is, unsold land would be
gradually reduced in price according to a schedule fixed by law, or finally, would be given away.
*Easterners opposed easy terms of land since the Western lands drained away population and tended to
raise wages in industry. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts and Clay favored distribution of the revenues
from public land sales among the states. The West did not want land sold to raise revenue under any
conditions. The South opposed distribution since it would both drain the treasury surplus and support
demands for higher tariffs. The debate over land policy remained a fundamental difference between the
Democrats and Whigs.
Webster-Hayne Debate:
*In the course of the debates over land policy, Senator Samuel A. Foote introduced a resolution to stop land
sales.
*The South proposed an alliance with the West against the manufacturing East.
*The discussion in time turned to the tariff question.
*The discussion of the tariff raised the question of its constitutionality.
*Senator Hayne of South Carolina in the debates became the mouthpiece of Calhoun who as Vice President
presided over the Senate. Hayne stated the grievances of the angry South and again put forward Calhoun’s
nullification theory.
*In January, 1830, Daniel Webster replied to Hayne’s contentions: he argued that the ultimate sovereignty
rested in the people and not in the state governments. A state could not by itself declare an act of Congress
unconstitutional and nullify it.
*Many Westerners agreed with the South on the tariff but refused to accept the nullification theory.
*Jackson made his opposition clear at the Jefferson Day Dinner.
Nullification Ordinance:
*President Jackson confronted head-on the growing sectional crisis, ostensibly over the tariff question, but
fundamentally over the issue of states’ rights vis-a-vis the federal Union.
*At a dinner in 1830 marking the eighty-seventh anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birth, Jackson offered a
toast, “Our Federal Union—it must be preserved!” Vice President Calhoun, who was to be a principal
advocate of the South’s right to nullify federal laws, responded with a counter-toast: “The Union—next to
our liberty, the most dear!” Thus the lines were drawn.
*After the Tariff of 1828 passed, the South had one hope left. That was the incoming President, Jackson,
would reflect the tariff views common to most people of the South and Southwest. But President Jackson’s
position as President was that he would accept any tariff policy the Congress saw fit to enact into law, and
he would see to it that the law was enforced.
*In 1832 Jackson signed into law a moderate tariff, less exacting then the Tariff of Abominations.
*Calhoun resigned as vice—president and entered the U.S. Senate. The split between Jackson and Calhoun
fed upon both public and personal issues. (Exposition/Nullification/Peggy Eaton).
*This new tariff failed to satisfy the South Carolina which quickly enacted the Ordinance of Nullification
declaring the tariff null and void in that state.
*The Nullification Act was a threat by South Carolina that it would not permit import duties to be collected
within its borders in accordance with the tariff law.
*Within weeks Jackson responded with a strongly worded proclamation warning South Carolina to comply
with the tariff law and denouncing the doctrine of nullification as “incompatible with the existence of the
Union.”
*To those entertaining thoughts of secession in order to avoid the tariff or any other federal law, Jackson
issued this reminder: “Disunion by armed force is treason. Are you really ready to incur its guilt? If you
are, on the heads of the instigators of the act be the dreadful consequences; on their heads be the dishonor,
but on yours may fall the punishment.”
*Jackson, determined to make South Carolina obey the law, asked Congress for a power he already
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possessed, the power to use whatever force might be necessary in order to carry out the laws of the U.S.
*By passing the Force Bill in March 1833 by overwhelming majorities (Senate 32-1; House 149-47), the
Congress was telling South Carolina and Calhoun that they had no sympathy with nullification and the
states intention not to obey the tariff law. It was passed at the same time as Clay’s Compromise Tariff of
1833.
*The crisis ended with the passage of the Tariff of 1833, a compromise bill sponsored by Senator Henry
Clay and acceptable to both Jackson and the South.
*This provided for automatic annual reductions of tariff rates for ten years, so that at the end of this period
the rates would be approximately at the moderate protective level of 1816.
*This “saved face” for Calhoun and South Carolina and was quite satisfactory to the President whose
whole point had been that the law would be enforced in South Carolina.
*The doctrine of nullification and the claim that protective tariffs were unconstitutional were dropped, at
least for the time being.
Anti-Masonic Movement:
*A movement against the Masonic Lodge that began in 1826 was exploited by the New York politicians to
turn public sentiment against Jackson who was a Mason.
*It began with the publication of a pamphlet by a former Mason. The pamphlet claimed to reveal the
secrets of Masonry.
*The former Mason was kidnapped, taken to Niagara Falls, and nothing more was heard of him.
*The lodge was already disliked in the West because of its exclusiveness.
*The antimason movement developed into a political party as new issues were added to attract popular
support.
*The antimasons are significant because 1) It was the first third party in American politics. 2) Men who
rose with the Antimasons later joined the Whigs and still later many became prominent Republicans.
3) The party held the first national nominating convention to select a presidential candidate (1831).
Assassination Attempt:
*January 30, 1835
*As Jackson was leaving the U.S. Capitol Building, Richard Lawrence, 32, a mentally disturbed house
painter, approached to within a distance of about 13 feet and fired a single-shot derringer at the president.
*Although the percussion cap exploded properly, the gunpowder failed to ignite.
*Jackson lunged forward to strike the would-be assassin with his cane.
*Lawrence then fired a second derringer, this one at point-blank range. It, too, did not fire.
*At his trial, Lawrence was found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was confined to a mental institution
until his death in 1861.
*Soon after the assault, Lawrence’s derringers were examined and found to be in working order. The odds
of two such weapons malfunctioning in succession were put at one in 125,000.
Whig Party:
*After his defeat in 1832, Clay pondered on how to beat Jackson’s Democratic party.
*There was a growing number of Democrats who thoroughly disliked Jackson’s appeal to the “people” and
his tendency to view unkindly the people of both wealth and social prestige.
*The eastern seaboard states of the South contained many families who held the political power of the area
and who were unhappy with the fact that a Westerner of humble origin led their party.
*Add to these the anger of the extremists in the South who could never forgive Jackson’s firm stand against
nullification, and also the much larger number of Southerners who were bitterly disappointed that Jackson
had not taken a definite stand against protective tariffs.
*Clay saw that these anti-Jackson people had no political home.
*It was too much to expect them to join the National Republican party because that was, to them, the
traditional opposition party.
*The device of dropping the name National Republican and adopting the name Whig party was the magnet
that drew thousands of anti-Jackson Southerners into the same political fold as the National Republicans.
*There was one basic weakness in the Whig party. It was founded on the dislike of Jackson. Jackson and
his influence could not last very long, so the cement that at first held them firmly together would gradually
disintegrate and lose its adhesive strength.
*The Southern wing of the Whig party did not believe in Clay’s American System as did most of the old
National Republicans.
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*The attitude of the Northern wing of the Whig party on tariff and slavery was incompatible with the views
of Southern members.
*As long as the Whig party lasted, it had to avoid major political issues because any major issues would
split the party.
ECONOMIC
Internal Improvements:
*In 1830 President Jackson disappointed his western supporters in vetoing the Maysville Road bill, which
would have authorized federal funds for the construction of a highway wholly within Kentucky.
*Jackson objected to the measure on the ground it benefited a single state rather than the nation as a whole
and therefore was unconstitutional.
*However, Jackson supported genuinely internal improvements, among them the extension of the National
Road.
Second Bank of the U.S.:
*The bank was established in 1816. It had functioned well as a stabilizer for business as well as a
conservative check upon less responsible banks.
*Ownership of its stock was held in about equal amounts by wealthy families in the South, in the Middle
States, and by Europeans.
*Nicholas Biddle was president of the Second National Bank of the United States when Clay opposed
Jackson’s reelection in 1832.
*Clay persuaded Biddle, a National Republican, to make the recharter of the B.U.S. the major issue of the
campaign.
*As the Bank’s charter had over three years to run before it expired, there was no need to bring it up until
many months after the election. However, Clay needed a sound issue in order to make any headway
against the reelection of a popular President, and he believed that Jackson would oppose the recharter of the
Second B.U.S.
*Clay led the political maneuvering in Congress that got the recharter bill passed in July 1832. President
Jackson vetoed the bill.
*Jackson’s veto message contained the following points:
1) The Bank of the United States was unconstitutional.
2) The Bank was a monopoly.
3) The shares of stock at the B.U.S. were owned by “opulent” citizens and foreigners who thereby
benefitted at the expense of the people.
4) The stockholders had no right to special favors.
5) The B.U.S. could influence foreign policy through the power of its foreign stockholders, and it
was therefore dangerous.
6) The B.U.S. used its funds in an irregular manner to further the political views of its president,
Nicholas Biddle, views shared by Clay and the National Republican party.
7) The Supreme Court’s decision that the B.U.S. was constitutional carried no authority. It was
equally the right of the President and of Congress to make such a judgement.
*So the campaign became a debate about the Bank. Had the debate been a sober search for the truth, there
could have been no other conclusion than that Clay was right and Jackson was wrong.
*The result was what might have been predicted. Those who liked Jackson believed, at least during the
campaign, that the Bank was unconstitutional, corrupt, and a wicked device to enrich the rich by letting
them use the taxpayers’ funds supplied largely by the people.
*Those who liked Clay, and especially those who hated Jackson, saw the soundness of the Bank and its
great usefulness in the economy.
*Jackson’s reelection meant the destruction of the Second B.U.S. No more government funds were
deposited, and as expenditures depleted the government’s funds already in the Bank, the B.U.S. limped to
its death at the expiration of the charter in 1836.
Pet Banks:
*Jackson hastened the demise of the B.U.S. by withdrawing the approximately 11 million dollars in federal
funds on deposit at the Bank and distributing it to various state banks, or “pet” banks--carried out by
Jackson’s loyal Secretary of the Treasury Roger B. Taney. (There were about 80 state banks which were
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called “pets” because they tended to support Jacksonian programs). For this act, the Senate voted to
censure Jackson in 1834 but expunged the censure three years later.
*With the dissolution of the Bank also went the end of its conservative monetary policy. State banks
extended easy credit and issued paper money freely, touching off a round of western land speculation and
inflation.
*In 1836 Jackson signed an act, the Distribution Bill, to “deposit” the surplus treasury funds with the states,
actually a gift, made in proportion to their population. The new deposits stimulated an inflation already
gone too far.
*In 1836 Jackson sought to restore economic order by issuing the Specie Circular, which required buyers of
public land to pay in gold or silver. The order effectively dried up credit and ended the feverish land
speculation, but it also precipitated the panic of 1837.
SOCIAL
Indian Policy:
*President Jackson adopted a paternalistic attitude toward the Native Americans.
*Dismissing Native American claims of sovereignty in the Southeast, he supported Georgia in its efforts to
remove the Cherokees from their homeland in that state.
*Jackson encouraged various tribes to accept a federal offer of land west of the Mississippi where, he
promised, they would enjoy complete sovereignty forever. (This was the Indian Territory—modern-day
Oklahoma)
*Acting under the authority of the Indian Removal Act of 1830, the Jackson administration coerced
numerous tribes to abandon some 100 million acres of Native American lands and settle in the West.
*In Worchester v. Georgia (1832), the Supreme Court ruled that the Cherokee nation was a distinct
community within which the laws of Georgia had no force.
*Georgia flagrantly disregarded the ruling, and Jackson made no effort to enforce it.
*During 1838-1839 federal troops led some 15,000 Cherokees on a forced march from Georgia to their new
home in what is now Oklahoma. One out of every four Native Americans died enroute.
*Cherokees referred bitterly to the journey as the Trail of Tears.
Black Hawk War:
*U.S. military forces under General Henry Atkinson defeated the Sac and Fox Indians under Chief Black
Hawk in Illinois and Wisconsin.
*Among those fighting was 23-year-old militia captain Abraham Lincoln.
The Liberator:
*William Lloyd Garrison asserted that blacks were not Africans but Americans and that they were not
subjects but citizens. Accordingly, African Americans were entitled the same rights set forth in the
Declaration of Independence as other Americans were, and until African Americans obtained those rights,
the “American Revolution was not yet over.”
*Garrison did not advocate using force to get rid of slavery. He was, in fact, a pacifist. He believed the
answer lay in constitutional changes brought about by public opinion. Since the population of the free
states was nearly double that of the slave states, it remained only to convince Northerners that slavery was a
sin and must be removed at once.
*Garrison set out to change public opinion by issuing his weekly newspaper, The Liberator, which first
appeared on New Year’s Day, 1831, in Boston.
*Garrison was both publisher and editor. Of its first 2,300 subscribers, some 1,725 were free African
Americans. Garrison’s main financial backers and salespersons were also African Americans.
*In the first issue of The Liberator, Garrison called for the immediate and unconditional abolition, or
ending, of slavery. This concept of immediacy was a unique argument. Most abolitionists argued for a
gradual emancipation.
Turner’s Rebellion:
*A well-educated, thirty-one-year-old African American preacher who believed he acted with divine
inspiration, planned a slave rebellion in 1831.
*Turner led about seventy enslaved people in southeastern Virginia in an uprising.
*The rebels killed fifty-five whites. Eventually, local militia captured most of the rebels.
*The state of Virginia hanged about twenty of them, including Turner.
*Crowds of frightened and angry whites rioted and slaughtered about a hundred African American
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bystanders who had no part in this plot.
*The aborted Vesey and Turner rebellions led to harsher slave laws. Virginia and North Carolina passed
laws against teaching enslaved people to read. Criticizing slavery in speech or writing was forbidden.
Whites throughout the South became extremely frightened of possible rebellions.
Walker’s Appeal:
*As African Americans demonstrated in rejecting colonization, blacks wanted not to dodge the issue of
slavery but to end the practice immediately. For African Americans, the movement to end slavery had a
personal dimension and an urgency that white people could never fully understand.
*By 1829, nearly fifty African American antislavery groups had formed throughout the nation.
*In 1829, a forty-four-year-old free African American named David Walker captured their sentiments in
his Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World.
*Walker’s essay was an eloquent and angry denunciation of slavery and the nation that tolerated it. He did
not mince words. White Americans had made African Americans into “the most wretched, degraded and
abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began.” Throwing the words of the Declaration of
Independence in the faces of whites, Walker not only demanded equality but also spoke of the right of
revolution.
*Walker wanted neither charity nor condescension, but to be treated as a human entitled to the
opportunities the U.S. had to offer. He hoped that white people would cooperate so that all Americans
could “live in peace and happiness together.” But if they would not listen, he warned them, then “we must
and shall be free I say, in spite of you . . . for America is as much our country, as it is yours.”
American Antislavery Society:
*In 1833 William Lloyd Garrison helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society.
*By 1840 the organization boasted some 600 local groups and 200,000 members.
*Among its most effective lecturers were former slaves who had escaped to freedom. Probably the most
outstanding of these was Frederick Douglass.
*In 1841 Douglass became a lecturer within the society. He was an outstanding speaker that emphasized
the end of slavery through nonviolence. He believed that abolition was the only way to prevent violence.
Douglass also started a newspaper called The North Star. It was named after the steady star that runaway
slaves used as a guide as they fled northward to freedom.
Democracy in America:
*Democracy in America remains one of the classic, most-quoted studies of the nineteenth-century
American mind and way of life, although its views reflect its author’s upper-class biases.
*Alexis de Tocqueville and Gustave de Beaumont, both French aristocrats, arrived in New York from
France in May 1831 to study the American prison system for the French government.
*They spent nine months touring the country, recording their impressions not only of its penal system but
also of its society, economy, and political system.
*After returning to France in February 1832, they wrote their report on prisons, and Beaumont wrote a
novel about American race relations. But it was Tocqueville’s work that is remembered.
*Tocqueville wrote, “In America, men are nearer equality than in any other country in the world.” By that,
he meant that whatever class distinctions existed in American society were not due to government decree
because everyone had equality of opportunity.
*Tocqueville analyzed the religious and social views of Americans, differing conceptions of the role of
government, and the tragedy of the forced migration of the Choctaw Indians.
*Tocqueville glossed over or ignored completely poverty, sexual inequality, and the plight of the slaves.
*His work remains an insightful portrait of Jacksonian Democracy.
Transcendentalism:
*Transcendentalism is a term applied to the thought and style of a loosely associated group of romantic
writers and reformers including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Amos
Bronson Alcott, and others who flourished in New England between 1830 and 1850.
*More broadly, the name is given to a religious and spiritual movement of protest and revival that,
especially through Emerson’s work, has influenced American literature and society ever since.
*Because the term originally denoted the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and F.W. Schelling, it was applied
in New England to those writers—principally essayists and poets—whose affirmation of philosophical
idealism was influenced by German thought, either directly or through the mediation of Samuel Taylor
Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle. This group, of which Emerson quickly became the center, first emerged as
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a distinctive intellectual force by developing a romantic critique of the Unitarianism in which most of its
members had been trained and educated.
*The besetting sin of the times, the transcendentalists felt, was that when they believed at all, most people
believed in the wrong things and deferred their own power to powers outside themselves—that, for
example, they made an idol of historical Christianity, when the proper object of faith was surely the truth it
conveyed.
*In 1836, four years after resigning his pastorate at Boston’s Second Church, Emerson published Nature, a
central manifesto of the movement, which, though avoiding sectarian issues and relying more on poetic
insight than logical argument, directly challenged the materialism of the age.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
British and French:
*By relaxing discriminatory trade regulations against British vessels, Jackson succeeded in getting Britain
to open the West Indies trade to American shipping in 1830.
*The Spoliation Claims against France arose from the French confiscations of American shipping during
the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars.
*France could not deny the validity of the claims but postponed settlement indefinitely. After Louis
Philippe became King of France (1830) Jackson succeeded in signing a treaty by which France would pay
most of the American claims.
*When the first installment came due, the French treasury refused payment. After patiently waiting until
1834 Jackson asked Congress to authorize the seizure of French property if France did not appropriate the
funds for payment.
*The French government took great affront, recalled its minister, and refused to pay until Jackson
apologized.
*Jackson issued a statement denying any intention of insulting the French but not an outright apology.
*The French government began payments in 1836.
Texas Revolution:
*In 1820 Moses Austin secured Spanish permission to colonize families in Texas. After his death, his son,
Stephen F. Austin, took possession of the land grants in 1821 and secured confirmation of the colony’s
charter from the newly independent government of Mexico.
*In 1825 Mexico encouraged further immigration with an act introducing the empresario system under
which large grants were offered colonizers who would settle several hundred families. Terms of land sales
were far more generous than in the U.S. and settlers from the South flocked in to cultivate the rich soils.
*Friction soon developed between Mexico and the settlers for several reasons:
1) Mexico failed to solve annoying problems and provide services of local government.
2) Texans did not take seriously their promises to accept Roman Catholicism, the established church
of Mexico.
3) Conflicts over the payment of Mexican customs duties.
4) Mexican determination to abolish slavery.
5) Subordination of the province of Texas to Mexican-dominated Coahuila.
6) The prohibition of further immigration into Texas.
*The independence movement began when the Texans failed to secure satisfaction of their grievances.
*The Mexican dictator General Santa Anna led an army into Texas to establish Mexican control.
*The Texans declared their independence in March, 1836.
*The Mexican army killed all the Texan defenders of the Alamo, a mission in San Antonio which the
Texans undertook to defend.
*General Sam Houston, an old friend of Jackson, retreated towards the Louisiana border with his force but
at the Battle of San Jacinto in April, 1836, annihilated the larger Mexican army in a surprise attack during a
siesta. Santa Anna, as a prisoner of the Texans, recognized Texan independence, but Mexico later
repudiated the agreement made by Santa Anna.
*The Republic of Texas, with Sam Houston chosen president, was established and requested annexation to
the U.S. The U.S. Congress recognized Texan independence but President Jackson took no precipitate
steps to annex the republic. He wished to avoid war with Mexico and feared the disruption of the
Democratic party if he antagonized the antislavery Northerners.
*The issue of annexation of Texas, which would become a slave state, prevented annexation until 1845.
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VAN BUREN
1836-1840
POLITICAL
Gag Resolutions:
*1836-1844
*Debate over slavery was time-consuming, temper-provoking, and useless. Opinions in Congress would
not be swayed by more discussion. Consequently, in 1836 Congress passed a Gag Resolution.
*Ex-President J.Q. Adams served in the House of Representatives from 1841 to 1848. When it came his
time to vote on a roll call, he refused to cast a vote on the Gag Resolution. Instead, he said, “I hold the
resolution to be a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States, of the rules of this House, and of
the rights of my constituents.”
*What good was the right of petition guaranteed by the First Amendment if the House or the Senate
operated under a Gag Resolution?
*Each year John Q. Adams spoke vigorously against it; and by 1844 he won his fight and the gag
resolution was discontinued.
Texas Question:
*Having won its independence from Mexico at the end of a bloody revolution in 1836, Texas applied for
U.S. statehood.
*Northerners generally opposed annexation, fearing the national consequences of adding yet another slave
state to the Union.
*Southerners and Westerners favored annexation.
*President Van Buren, who had long agreed with the South that the issue of slavery was a wholly parochial
matter unfit for national debate, this time sided with the North.
*Van Buren opposed annexation of Texas because it threatened to exacerbate the debate over slavery and
deepen sectional divisions within the country.
*Texas was finally admitted the Union in 1845.
ECONOMIC
Panic of 1837:
*The panic resulted from a combination of factors: overspeculation of land, unsound financing by state
governments, the disturbing effects of the absence of the Bank of the United States, and the Specie
Circular.
*The Specie Circular was issued in midsummer 1836 by Andrew Jackson. This prevented payment for
public lands in any other money than gold and silver and certain paper money that was as sound as the gold
and silver specie.
*As almost all sales had been paid for in bank notes of questionable soundness, this order from Jackson
brought a sharp decline in the number of sales.
*Fraud and speculation in public lands had become a grave public issue. Something had to be done.
Jackson’s Specie Circular was his way of protecting the U.S. Treasury from accumulating vast amounts of
greatly depreciated paper money.
*The Specie Circular did precipitate the Panic of 1837, but it did not cause it.
*A depression set in that lasted throughout Van Buren’s term office.
*This alone would have made his administration unpopular, but there were other factors that further
aggravated an already hopeless situation.
*Van Buren was a city man of considerable wealth and polish. He had aristocratic tastes and was without
the “common touch” of Andrew Jackson.
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge:
*1837
*In 1785 Massachusetts gave the Charles River Bridge Company a charter allowing it to collect tolls from
all who used the bridge.
*The charter was to stand for seventy years.
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*In 1828 the state gave a similar charter for the Warren Bridge, which was a short distance from and
parallel to the earlier bridge.
*In six years, however, the Warren Bridge was made free to all passengers.
*Owners of the Charles River Bridge sued. They claimed that their charter, like that of Dartmouth College,
was a contract, and that it had been “impaired,” when the state allowed a competing bridge to take their
profits.
*In 1837, the case reached the Supreme Court, there was a new Chief Justice, Roger Taney.
*The view of contracts held by Taney and President Jackson was different from John Marshall’s. They
took into account a state’s right to protect its people against the power of monopolies.
*Taney decided against the Charles River Company’s claim that it had a legal, unbreakable monopoly.
According to Taney, the rights of the community superseded a broad interpretation of the private rights of
corporation.
Independent Treasury System:
*1840
*Jackson had always favored a safety deposit vault for federal funds. He didn’t like the government’s
being in the banking business.
*With the expiration of the Second Bank of the United States in 1836 and the depositing of government
monies in state banks, Van Buren pressed for the creation of subtreasuries in a few cities for the
safekeeping of federal funds.
*When the panic and depression witnessed many bank failures and some loss of government funds,
Congress went along with the President and established the Independent Treasury System; that is,
independent of any banking system.
*As the law provided in different cities for the safekeeping of government funds, these safety deposit vaults
were sometimes called sub-treasuries.
*This system had a major virtue; it kept government funds safe from loss through fraud and
mismanagement, both of which had taken a heavy toll in the past.
*The law that was passed in 1840 was repealed in 1841 but passed again in 1846, to remain in effect until
the Federal Reserve System replaced it in 1913.
*A faction of extremists sprang up in the Democratic party and opposed all banks, credit, and bank note
currency; they favored specie only. This group, nicknamed the Locofocus, were strongest in western New
York state but had considerable influence in adjoining states. Their influence finally secured the passage of
Van Buren’s Independent Treasury system in 1840.
Agriculture:
*During the 1830s, people moved into we now call the Middle West. There they ran into a problem.
Although they found the prairie soil to be very fertile, it was hard packed and difficult to plow.
*A solution was found in 1837, when a black-smith named John Deere invented the steel plow. It worked
where the iron plow did not. Prairie soil does not contain stone and grit, so it sticks to iron—but not steel.
Deere’s plow cut furrows at an angle instead of straight up and down. Soil offers less resistance to a
slanting blade than it does to a vertical blade. Still another advantage of the steel plow was its lightness. It
could be drawn by horses rather than oxen, and horses cover much more ground than a slow-moving oxen.
*In 1847 Deere established a factory at Moline, Illinois. By the late 1850s, he was selling thirteen thousand
of his plows each year.
*Cyrus McCormick patented a mowing and reaping machine in the 1830s. McCormick’s reaper became a
tremendous success because it enabled farmers to do without large numbers of hired hands. The various
parts of the reaper were packed and then shipped directly to the farmer, together with a handbook of
directions for assembling and operating the machine. This invention, along with the steel plow and other
inventions, raised wheat production in the U.S. so much that American farmers were soon exporting a
surplus to Europe.
SOCIAL
38
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Caroline Affair:
*1837
Canadian insurgents led by William L. Mackenzie of Ontario had been waging revolution against British
rule.
*Thwarted in an attempt to capture Toronto, the rebels fell back to Navy Island in the Niagara River, where
they established a government-in-exile committed to an independent Canada.
*Americans sympathetic to the revolution transported supplies to the island on the steamship Caroline.
*In December 1837 Canadian militia, on orders from Britain, seized the Caroline in U.S. waters, set it
afire, and set it over Niagara Falls in flames. One American was killed and several injured.
*In a message to Congress, President Van Buren denounced the incident as “an outrage of a most
aggravated character . . . producing the strongest feelings of resentment on the part of our citizens in the
neighborhood and on the whole border line.”
*Although he ordered American forces to the region, he resisted cries for war with Britain and issued a
proclamation of neutrality regarding the Canadian rebellion.
*In 1840, a Canadian, Alexander McLeod, was arrested in New York for the murder of the American killed
in the Caroline affair but was later acquitted.
*British-American relations, aggravated further by the Aroostock War, remained strained until the signing
of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty in 1842.
Aroostock War:
*1839
*The border between Maine and the Canadian province of New Brunswick had never been defined.
*Both the U.S. and Canada claimed some 12,000 square miles along the Aroostock River.
*The “war,” though bloodless, heated up in February 1839 when Canadian authorities arrested American
Rufus McIntire for attempting to expel Canadians from the disputed region. McIntire had been acting on
orders from Maine officials.
*Both sides immediately massed their militias along the frontier and sought support from their parent
governments.
*As in the Caroline affair, President Van Buren resisted cries for war and instead dispatched General
Winfield Scott on a peace mission to the region.
*Scott arranged a truce, effectively defusing the crisis pending the settlement of the border issue by the
Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842.
Second Seminole War:
*During the second term of the Jackson administration, Seminoles under Chief Osceola had gone to war
against forced removal from Florida to the West.
*Van Buren drew criticism for continuing Jackson’s Indian policy.
*The last Seminole resistance was stamped out in 1842.
W.H. HARRISON
1841
POLITICAL
Death in Office:
*April 4, 1841, 12:30 A.M., White House, Washington, D.C.
*Although he was at 68 the oldest man, before Ronald Reagan, to be inaugurated President, he insisted on
delivering an inaugural address lasting one hour and 40 minutes while outdoors in a brisk March wind
without hat, gloves, or overcoat.
*Sometime later he got caught in a downpour while out strolling and returned to the White House
drenched. He came down with a cold, which grew progressively worse.
*He was diagnosed with “bilious pleurisy.”
*Shortly before succumbing to pneumonia, he uttered his last words: “I wish you to understand the true
principles of government. I wish them carried out. I ask nothing more.”
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TYLER
1841-1845
POLITICAL
Right of Succession:
*As the first vice president to accede to the presidency on the death of a president, Tyler began his term
amid great controversy regarding his status.
*The Constitution was ambiguous on the right of succession.
*Some interpreted it to mean that only the powers and duties of the president, not the presidency itself,
devolved on the vice president. According to the narrow construction, Tyler was to be merely acting
president—a notion Tyler flatly rejected.
*From the beginning, Tyler regarded himself as president, his powers undiminished by the manner of his
accession.
*To emphasize the point, he returned unopened all mail addressed to him as “acting president.”
*Tyler’s view ultimately prevailed as the precedent that has many times since elevated the vice president to
the full status of president.
Preemption Act:
*President Tyler signed into law this bill recognizing squatter’s rights to occupy public lands.
*Under its terms, those who settled on and improved unsurveyed public land were entitled to first-purchase
rights of 160 acres of their property at $1.25 an acre.
Princeton Explosion:
*On February 28, 1844, President Tyler and other dignitaries inspected the USS Princeton, an advanced
warship, the first such steamer to be driven by a screw propeller, designed by Swedish engineer John
Ericsson and commanded by Captain Robert Stockton.
*The itinerary called for the presidential party to cruise down the Potomac and back. The highlight of the
day was to be the firing of the “Peacemaker,” the ship’s principal weapon and at the time the world’s
largest naval gun.
*The gun had been test fired successfully twice that day and thrilled the presidential party with its loud
report. At its third firing, however, the “Peacemaker” exploded at the breech, killing or injuring those near
it.
*Tyler was below decks at the time, along with is future wife and others, and thus escaped injury.
*Those killed were Secretary of State Abel P. Upshur, Secretary of Navy Thomas W. Gilmer, David
Gardiner, father of the president’s future wife, an American diplomat, a naval officer, and the president’s
black valet.
ECONOMIC
Bank Issue:
*Congressional Whigs led by Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky sought to resurrect the national bank that
had been destroyed by President Andrew Jackson.
*Tyler refused to accede to the wishes of his own party and twice vetoed bills to create a third Bank of the
United States.
*To protect the president’s abandonment of this cornerstone of Whig principles, the entire cabinet, except
Secretary of State Daniel Webster, resigned in September 1841.
*The mass walkout was a political victory for Clay and left Tyler a president without a party.
Lowell Female Labor Reform Association:
*1844
*In Massachusetts, some women textile workers organized the Lowell Female Labor Reform Association
in 1844.
*Its main goal was a ten-hour day, which it failed to achieve.
*It did, however, set up sick funds for its members, organized a library, held classes, and published a
newspaper called Voice of Industry.
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Telegraph:
*In addition to better transportation, the expanding American economy called for better means of
communication.
*The two major inventions in this field were the telegraph and the rotary printing press (invented by
Richard M. Hoe in 1847)
*The telegraph was invented by Joseph Henry and improved by a New England painter named Samuel F.B.
Morse
*In 1844, with aid from the federal government, Morse set up a demonstration of his device. From
Washington, D.C., he tapped out the words “What hath God wrought?” in code and sent them over an iron
wire. Seconds later, the message was received in Baltimore and a reply was on its way.
Commonwealth vs. Hunt:
*1842
*Traditional interpretations of considered unions illegal under the conspiracy laws of English common law.
*The Supreme Court in Massachusetts ruled that labor unions were not illegal conspiracies, provided that
their methods were “honorable and peaceful.”—It gave unions the right to organize
*This decision did not legalize the strike overnight throughout the country, but it was a significant signpost
of the times.
SOCIAL
Mentally Ill:
*A Boston school teacher named Dorothea Dix paid a visit to a Massachusetts jail in 1841. She discovered
that the insane were incarcerated with hardened criminals.
*Dix spent the next two years visiting every prison and poorhouse—a place where very poor people lived
supported by public funds—in Massachusetts.
*In the report she prepared for the Massachusetts legislature, Dix related in vivid detail the appalling
conditions and mistreatment she had witnessed. Her powerful testimony convinced Massachusetts
lawmakers to pass legislation to improve conditions in prisons and poorhouses. Dix also persuaded them to
establish a separate public institution for the mentally ill
*As a result of Dix’s campaign to have the mentally ill treated as patients rather than criminals, fifteen
states established special hospitals for the mentally ill.
Cult of Domesticity:
*Catharine Beecher led the fight for women to win respect for their contributions as wives, mothers, and
teachers.
*She was the daughter of Lyman Beecher and sister of both Harriet Beecher Stowe and the prominent
minister Henry Ward Beecher
*Beecher’s most popular and influential work was A Treatise on Domestic Economy, first published in
1841.
*In the Treatise, Beecher sought to help middle-class women adjust to a new world where they were
consumers more than producers and where they were having fewer children. Aside from offering practical
advice and household tips, she wrote on a positive note about the contributions that women could make in a
capitalistic society.
*Beecher encouraged women to make being a mother and a wife their focus instead of moving beyond the
realms of family and education.
*Some historians refer to this as the cult of domesticity, or the belief in the importance of women’s role in
the home.
Woman in the Nineteenth Century:
*Margaret Fuller was a famous transcendentalist who edited the transcendentalist journal called The Dial.
*In 1845 Fuller wrote a book called Woman in the Nineteenth Century, in which she criticized cultural
traditions that restricted women’s roles in society.
Prigg v. Pennsylvania:
*1842
*Pennsylvania tried to prohibit the capture and return of runaway slaves within the state, a direct challenge
to the federal government’s fugitive slave law of 1793.
*The state law was declared unconstitutional because the return of fugitive slaves was a federal power as
41
specified in Article IV, section 2 of the Constitution.
*Many Northern states responded by prohibiting state officials from assisting anyone pursuing runaway
slaves (called personal liberty laws).
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Webster-Ashburton Treaty:
*1842
*Webster did not resign during the National Bank veto because he was in the midst of negotiations with
Lord Ashburton over the Maine-Canadian border.
*This boundary dispute had been long and, at times, bitter.
*In 1838 and 1839 lumberjacks of Maine and New Brunswick had threatened to “shoot it out.” The
situation was so tense during this winter that it was called the “Aroostock War,” even though no lives were
lost.
*By 1842 the Webster-Ashburton Treaty line was fixed.
*Under its terms, the U.S. obtained 7,000 of the disputed 12,000 square miles. The treaty also made minor
territorial adjustments to complete the present U.S.—Canadian border from the East Coast of the Rockies,
leaving the Oregon question to be settled later.
*This settlement left the Mesabi iron deposits within the United States.
*In addition, the agreement established extradition procedures between the two countries for most crimes
of violence as well as for forgery and called for a cooperative effort to suppress the slave trade.
Treaty of Wanghai:
*1844
*Under its terms, the United States gained access to Chinese ports and won the right of extraterritoriality,
or exemption from the jurisdiction of Chinese law, in China.
*Negotiators of the treaty were Caleb Cushing, the first U.S. commissioner to China, and Chi-ying, envoy
of the emperor of China.
Texas War for Independence:
Causes:
*In the 1840s the term “Manifest Destiny” was used to refer to the obvious destiny of the United States to
expand over North America.
*In 1820 Moses Austin secured Spanish permission to colonize families in Texas. After his death, his son,
Stephen F. Austin, took possession of the land grants in 1821 and secured confirmation of the colony’s
charter from the newly independent government of Mexico
*In 1825 the Mexican government encouraged further immigration with an act introducing the empresario
system under which large grants were offered colonizers who would settle several hundred families. Terms
of the land sales were far more generous than in the U.S. and settlers from the South flocked to cultivate the
rich soils.
Events:
*The Mexican army killed all the Texan defenders of the Alamo, a mission in San Antonio which the
Texans undertook to defend.
*General Sam Houston, an old friend of Jackson, retreated towards the Louisiana border with his force but
at the Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836, annihilated the larger Mexican army in a surprise attack during a
siesta.
*Santa Anna, a prisoner of the Texans, recognized Texan independence, but Mexico later repudiated the
agreement made by Santa Anna.
Results:
*In April 1844 President Tyler approved a treaty for the annexation of Texas. However, the Senate refused
to ratify it.
*With the election of James K. Polk on a pro-annexation platform in November 1844, public opinion
seemed so overwhelmingly in favor of admitting Texas to the Union that Congress passed a joint resolution
to accomplish just that.
*Three days before the end of his term, Tyler signed the measure; it is the first instance in American history
of an international agreement being brought into effect by a joint congressional resolution instead of by a
treaty.
42
*Under its terms, the dividing line (36-30) separating slave and free territory under the Missouri
Compromise was to be extended through Texas.
*Texas officially became a state in December 1845.
POLK
1845-1849
POLITICAL
Manifest Destiny
*The word destiny implied that further expansion of the U.S. was inevitable, that nothing could stop it. The
word manifest meant that this destiny was obvious. Americans believed it was clearly inevitable that the
U.S. would expand to the Pacific Ocean and into part or all of Mexico.
*The origin of the term manifest destiny was not widely known at the time. Although it has been attributed
to John L. O’Sullivan, a New York magazine editor in 1845, the phrase was probably first used in Congress
by Robert C. Winthrop of Massachusetts.
*The term rapidly became common because most Americans knew instantly what it meant.
ECONOMIC
Independent Treasury Act
*1846
*A Polk-supported measure, this act restored the system of independent subtreasuries created by President
Martin Van Buren in 1840 and repealed the following year by the newly elected Whig majority
*It required that all federal funds be deposited in treasuries independent of private banks and that all debts
due the government be paid in gold and silver coin or in federal Treasury notes
Walker Tariff
*1846
*A longtime advocate of free trade, Polk signed into law a significant reduction in the tariff rates drawn up
by Secretary of Treasury Robert J. Walker.
*The law instituted the practice of storing imported goods in warehouses pending payment of duties.
*The Walker Tariff reversed the trend toward protective tariffs in the Tariff of 1842. The West and the
South supported the Walker Act with its revenue principle and reduced rates. For the deposit of federal
funds the Sub-Treasury was reestablished by Congress (1846) and remained in effect until abolished in
1920.
Sewing Machine
*In 1846 Elias Howe patented the sewing machine. Originally, it was used in factories to make shoes.
*In 1851 I.M. Singer improved the sewing machine by inventing the foot treadle.
*These two inventions made life for the homemaker much easier. Now it took only half an hour, instead of
four hours, to make and mend clothes.
*Even more important, clothing could now be mass-produced in factories. Prices tumbled by more than
three-quarters, and even ordinary people could afford something that was store-bought.
Gold Rush
*Gold was discovered at Johann Sutter’s Mill by James Marshall in California in January 1848.
*Newspapers in the eastern U.S. were soon full of exciting news, and people touched by gold fever rushed
west by the thousands. California had 14,000 residents in 1848. Within a year, 100,000 people were living
in the state, and by 1852 that number had reached 200,000.
*A majority of the new immigrants were unmarried men. In fact, only 5 percent of the “forty-niners” who
went to California in the 1849 gold rush were women or children.
*African Americans, both enslaved and free, were also part of the gold rush. Enslaved people worked as
servants or searched for gold on their owners’ work crews.
*The major importance of the gold rush was that the increase in population led to their application for
statehood
43
SOCIAL
Wilmot Proviso
*David Wilmot was a Democrat from Pennsylvania in the House of Representatives.
*Wilmot, along with the rest of Congress, took it for granted that the U.S. would acquire a large area of
land from Mexico.
*While the war was going on, Wilmot introduced a resolution that said, “. . . neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory.”
*The Wilmot Proviso passed the House by a comfortable margin, but had no chance to get by in the Senate.
The raising of the question started a political storm.
*Wilmot’s supporters claimed that Congress had a right to legislate about slavery in the territories, while
his opponents called the Proviso an attack on states’ rights
*Calhoun reiterated the arguments for nullification, the compact theory, secession, and what is sometimes
called interposition (the theory that a state may reject a federal mandate it considers an encroachment on its
rights).
*This political war was to prove much more difficult to bring to a conclusion than the Mexican War.
Seneca Falls
*In 1840 a single incident sparked the beginning of a formal women’s rights movement. Lucretia Mott and
Elizabeth Cady Stanton traveled with other abolitionists to the World’s Antislavery Convention in London.
Once there, the two women were refused proper seating because of their sex, despite the protests of
Garrison and some other American men.
*Mott and Stanton formed a meeting which focused entirely on women’s rights. In 1848 the women’s
rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York. Two hundred sixty women and forty men gathered
there and elected Frederick Douglass to chair the meeting.
*The convention boldly issued a Declaration of Sentiments, which was carefully modeled on the
Declaration of Independence.
*the group then passed a series of resolutions that denounced the many unfair legal restrictions on women.
All but one passed unanimously. The exception was the resolution demanding that women be given the
right to vote. Many feared that such a demand would create too much anger and ridicule on the part of the
American people.
*The meeting marked the start of a national campaign for women’s equality.
Mormons
*Mormon history dates back to 1823 in upstate New York, where eighteen-year-old Joseph Smith
announced that he had received a special message from God. He said he had found a book “written upon
gold plates” buried in a hillside. This Book of Mormon was written in an ancient language, Smith claimed,
but he could translate what it said. Smith and his associates formed the Mormon church in 1830,
establishing their headquarters in Kirtland, Ohio.
*Due to verbal abuse received in Ohio, Smith and his people moved west, eventually stopping at Nauvoo,
Illinois, in 1839. There they stayed for five years and grew to some fifteen thousand.
*Serious conflict developed when Smith proclaimed that male members of the church could have more
than one wife in 1843. This idea of polygamy shocked most Americans. Those who differed with Smith
began publishing their disagreements with Mormon ideas. Smith was charged with destroying their
printing press and was jailed. An anti-Mormon mob then broke into the jail, hauled him out, and murdered
him.
*The new leader, Brigham Young, urged the Mormons to move west again. The Mormons began to walk
north to Nebraska, across Wyoming to the Rockies, and then south. In 1847 they found themselves in a
lonely land. They were in a desert by a salt lake in the northern part of what was then Mexico.
*At first the leaders of the Mormon church established their own system of government. With the end of
the Mexican War, however, Utah became an official territory of the United States and Brigham Young its
first governor—The territory was named Deseret.
*Utah eventually entered in the Union in 1896 as the forty-fifth state.
Civil Disobedience
*The Mexican War was not popular in the Northeast. Religious groups such as the Unitarians and the
Congregationalists felt it was immoral to support a struggle that would extend slavery to a new territory.
*Henry David Thoreau protested by refusing to pay his poll tax and was jailed for his action in 1846.
*The jailing led Thoreau to write his famous essay “The Duty of Civil Disobedience” in which he
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discussed what people should do when moral law conflicts with civil law.
Oneida
*This was a communitarian community led by John Humphrey Noyes, a Yale-educated minister who
settled with his followers in western New York in 1847.
*Noyes had tried an earlier utopian society in Putney, Vermont (1836).
*At Oneida, Noyes preached against what he called “the Sin system, the Marriage system, the Work
system, and the Death system,” combining religious evangelism and socialist economics. All work was
reduced to what seemed essential and unavoidable.
*Noyes’s most radical experiment was “complex marriage.” He and his followers believed that monogamy
(a single spouse) was selfish and interfered with a true sense of community. Instead, every man at Oneida
was considered the husband of every woman and vice versa. Outsiders called this “free love” and
condemned it as an utter breakdown of morality. But the Oneidaites responded that no one in the
community was forced to accept sexual relations he or she did not desire.
*Though Oneida members practiced birth control, some children were born into the community; they were
treated in an unusually permissive way, being allowed, for example, to sleep until awakened by the natural
rhythms of their bodies. Unlike the typical schools of the time, which used memorization and rewards and
punishments to prompt learning, Oneida schools sought to arouse curiosity and make learning pleasurable.
*The society was very successful due to a firm economic foundation. Noyes, recognizing that industry was
better suited to a community such as Oneida than agriculture, trained members in embroidery and silk
making and mobilized their ingenuity in developing manufactures. The community basked in prosperity
for many decades, becoming, ironically, the basis for a major commercial cutlery firm that is still in
business.
Forty-Eighters
*Due to crop failures and other hardships, large numbers of German farmers came to America between
1830 and 1860.
*Saddened by the collapse of the democratic revolutions of 1848, they had decided to leave the autocratic
fatherland and flee to America—the one brightest hope of democracy.
*The future history of Germany—and indeed of the world—might well have been less war-torn if these
liberals had remained home as a seedbed for genuine democracy.
*Zealous German liberals like Carl Schurz, a relentless foe of slavery and public corruption, contributed
richly to the elevation of American political life.
*The Germans, occasionally regarded with suspicion by their old-stock American neighbors, sought to
preserve their language and culture—They sometimes settled in compact “colonies” and kept aloof from
the surrounding community.
*Accustomed to the “Continental Sunday” and uncurbed by Puritan tradition, they made merry on the
Sabbath and drank huge quantities of an amber beverage called Bier (beer), which dates its real popularity
in America to their coming.
Temperance Movement
*The temperance movement agitated for the mitigation of the evils of alcohol even before abolitionists
became active.
*Dr. Benjamin Rush during the American Revolution condemned alcoholic beverages as harmful to the
health. Religious-minded reformers led the movement before 1820 and consolidated local temperance
societies into the American Temperance Union. “Teetotallers,” total abstinence advocates, clashed with the
moderationists.
*Prohibition laws of different kinds were enacted in thirteen Northern states in a wave of prohibitionalism
just before 1850.
*Neal Dow secured the first of these acts in Maine in 1846. Due to this, Dow is often called “The
Napoleon of Temperance.” He achieved a victory of sorts although enforcement was negligible; his means
must have aroused opposition because he took up boxing to protect himself.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Oregon Treaty
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*1846
*Both Great Britain and the U.S. had long claimed the Oregon Territory, the expanse west of the Rockies
between 42 degrees and the 54-40 latitude
*Polk, at first, would settle for nothing less than the entire region. “Fifty-four Forty for Fight!” became the
clarion call for the Democrats in the 1844 election.
*In December, 1845, Polk asked Congress for authority to take the necessary steps to fulfill his
commitment to take Oregon. The impending war with Mexico indicated the need to make a friendly
settlement with England.
*The actual occupation of Oregon by thousands of impatient American settlers gave the United States a
stronger claim by right of possession.
*Fearing that the Americans might raid her Fort Vancouver on the north bank of the Colombia, the
Hudson’s Bay Company withdrew to Vancouver Island.
*Polk rather than risk war, accepted the compromise which Britain had previously offered. The Oregon
Treaty provided for the division of Oregon by the extension of the American-Canadian boundary along the
49th parallel to the Pacific, thus granting the U.S. the present-day states of Washington and Oregon.
Bear Flag Republic
*Before news of the Mexican War reached California, a group of American settlers took matters into their
own hands.
*Led by William B. Ide, these settlers launched a surprise attack on the town of Sonoma on June 14, 1846
and proclaimed the Bear Flag Republic—named for their flag, which pictured a grizzly bear and a single
star.
*Fremont quickly assumed control of the rebel forces and drove the Mexican army out of northern
California.
Mexican War
Causes
*Manifest Destiny, a phrase popularized by Democrats to express the belief that the U.S. was divinely
driven to rule from sea to sea, swept the nation, especially the in the West and South. Polk supported this
concept.
*Ineffective government in Mexico made it difficult for her to meet her financial obligations and protect the
lives and property of Americans during her recurring revolutions. Polk was unable to secure payment of
damage claims of American citizens against Mexico.
*The annexation of Texas poisoned the Mexican-American relations, and the border between the two
countries remained in dispute. Mexico considered the annexation of Texas an hostile act and had warned it
would lead to war. Attempts at annexation deeply offended Mexico. After annexation it was the disputed
southern boundary of Texas and Mexico that led directly to war (Mexico recognized the legality of the
annexation of Texas, as a result of British negotiations, in May, 1845, just before the war broke out).
*The U.S. claimed the Rio Grande as its southwest boundary; Mexico fixed the border at the Nueces River
*American intrusions in California alarmed Mexico. In 1842 Commodore Jones of the American navy,
excited by rumors and thinking that war had broken out with Mexico, seized Monterey. After Larkin
convinced him he had acted mistakenly, he apologized and withdrew, but his action had revealed the desire
to take California.
*In 1843 Mexico ordered the expulsion of American citizens from California and the exclusion of further
immigration. Americans in California asked for American protection against arbitrary treatment.
*In an attempt to resolve the issue peaceably while at the same time satisfying the American hunger for
westward expansion, Polk in 1845 dispatched John Slidell to Mexico to offer to purchase New Mexico and
California for $30 million (he was approved up to $40 million).
*Slidell offered for the U.S. to 1) assume claims of American citizens against Mexico in return for
recognition of the Rio Grande boundary; 2) offer $5,000,000 for New Mexico; and 3) offer $20,000,000
for California.
*Political turmoil in Mexico made Slidell’s negotiations impossible. Mexican presidents did not dare to
offend public opinion by receiving Slidell.
*With the failure of the Slidell mission, Polk prepared for war. He ordered U.S. forces under General
Zachary Taylor into the disputed region (Corpus Christi).
*In April 1846 Mexican troops engaged Taylor’s forces in the disputed region, thus providing Polk a
concrete act of aggression on which to base his own request for a congressional declaration of war.
46
*“Mexico,” Polk charged in his war message on May 11, 1846, “has passed the boundary of the United
States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil.”
*Congress declared war two days later by a vote of 174-14 in the House and 40-2 in the Senate.
*Democrats enthusiastically supported the war effort. Whigs, however, were divided: Northern
“Conscience” Whigs, among them Representative Abraham Lincoln of Illinois, denounced the conflict as
an act of U.S. aggression, a device designed to spread slavery westward into captured territory. Southern
and western “Cotton” Whigs supported the war.
Events
*The war was fought in three main campaigns: (1) General Taylor’s invasion of northern Mexico, (2) the
conquest of New Mexico and California under the leadership of General Kearny, and (3) General Scott’s
march to Mexico City.
*Taylor’s Campaign—General Zachary Taylor crossed the Rio Grande into Mexico at Matamoras in May,
1846. Marching to the southwest, he captured Monterrey in September and in February, 1847, won the
Battle of Buena Vista against a force under General Santa Anna more than twice as large as his own force.
He might have advanced across the rugged terrain to Mexico City, but Polk decided not to give a potential
Whig presidential candidate further opportunity to build himself up for the campaign of 1848. He ordered
Taylor to hold northern Mexico.
*Kearny in New Mexico and California—In June, 1846, Colonel Stephen W. Kearny, in command of an
expedition to take California, marched over the Santa Fe Trail and along the Gila River to take charge in
California. The war had begun there when the Bear Flag Republic was proclaimed by American settlers
under the leadership of William B. Ide. Captain John C. Fremont’s presence at the head of a surveying
expedition apparently encouraged the revolt. Two weeks later when news of the war arrived, Fremont took
over leadership of the Bear Flaggers and with his own men marched into southern California. Naval forces
in the Pacific under Commodore Sloat and his successor Commodore Stockton, took the coastal towns of
San Francisco, Monterey, and Los Angeles. When General Kearny arrived in San Diego he took command
of all American forces and completed the conquest near Los Angeles.
*Scott’s March to Mexico City—Late in 1846 General Winfield Scott was ordered to land his army at Vera
Cruz to begin the conquest of Mexico City. The able leader won brilliant victories in hard fought
engagements against the valiant Mexican defenders. Santa Anna’s forces in Mexico City surrendered in
September, 1847. To draft a peace treaty Polk sent with Scott’s forces Nicholas Trist, the chief clerk of the
State Department who had learned his Spanish well in Cuba. Trist, after being recalled to Washington,
undertook upon his own initiative to draft a treaty according to his original instructions. Meanwhile,
enlarged American ambitions were ready to take much more, if not all, of Mexico. When Trist’s agreement
arrived in Washington, Polk reluctantly accepted the accomplished fact of a signed treaty. Protests of
abolitionists against adding new territory that might be opened to slavery suggested that the Treaty of
Guadalupe Hidalgo should be accepted, which Polk reluctantly did.
Results
*February 1848
*Under the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war, (1) the border between the U.S. and
Mexico was fixed at the Rio Grande; Mexico thus relinquished all or part of modern California, Nevada,
Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona; (2) Mexicans residing in the ceded territory
were free to remain or to move to Mexico at any time without loss of personal or real property; (3) the
United States was to pay Mexico $15 million for ceded territory; (4) the United States agreed to assume all
claims lodged against Mexico by American citizens, a sum that totaled more than $3 million.
* Ratified 38-14 by the Senate in March 1848, the treaty took effect in July.
*Result: The U.S. acquired more than 500,000 square miles in the Southwest, the largest single annexation
since the Louisiana Purchase. Mexico was reduced to about one-half its former size. Mexican resentment
toward the United States for what it regarded as blatant land seizure still lingers. In the United States,
whether to permit slavery in the newly won territory became the focus of national debate.
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TAYLOR
1849-1850
POLITICAL
Galphin Claim
*The principal of a long-standing claim against the U.S. by the Galphin family of Georgia had been paid
before Taylor took office, but the family was now pressing for payment of $191,000 in interest.
*Treasury Secretary William M. Meredith, on the advice of Attorney General Reverdy Johnson, paid the
full amount.
*During the entire time the matter was under consideration by the president and his cabinet, War Secretary
George W. Crawford never disclosed that he had long represented the Galphin family in the matter and, by
previous arrangement, stood to receive half of whatever the government awarded them.
*When news of this interest leaked out, a firestorm of criticism broke over the administration.
*Although Taylor, Meredith, and Johnson all denied knowledge of Crawford’s role, the opposition party
charged conflict of interest and threatened impeachment of the president.
*Taylor was so upset over the episode that he decided to reorganize his cabinet--He died, however, before
removing a single member.
Death
*July 9, 1850, 10:35 P.M., White House, Washington, D.C.
*On a hot Fourth of July, Taylor attended outdoor festivities at the Washington Monument, then under
construction, where he sat through two hours of patriotic addresses. Afterward, he went for a stroll, further
exposing himself to the simmering rays of the sun.
*When Taylor returned to the White House he, according to traditional account, ate a large bowl of cherries
and a pitcher of ice milk.
*Later that day, Taylor developed severe cramps. Dr. Alexander S. Wotherspoon diagnosed his condition
as cholera morbus, a gastrointestinal upset common in Washington, where poor sanitation made it risky to
eat any raw fruit or fresh dairy product during the summer. Wotherspoon gave Taylor calomel and opium
and was pleased to find him well enough the next day to conduct some business.
*During the next few days, Taylor grew weaker from the effects of diarrhea and vomiting Over time, the
president continued to decline. Realizing his fate, Taylor reported July 8th that “I am about to die. I expect
the summons very soon. I have tried to discharge my duties faithfully. I regret nothing, but I am sorry that
I am about to leave my friends.” [These were his last words]
*In the 1980s, Taylor’s body was exumed and testing was done to see if his death was foul play (ex: arsenic
poisoning). The tests were inconclusive.
ECONOMIC
SOCIAL
Slavery
*Although a slaveholder himself and elected with significant southern support, Taylor opposed the
extension of slavery.
*He was committed to the Union above all and steadfastly denied the right of secession.
*Taylor opposed what came to be known as the Compromise of 1850.
*Although Taylor favored California’s admission to the Union as a free state, as called for under the
compromise, he rejected those aspects of the measure favorable to the South.
*Taylor referred to the package derisively as the Omnibus Bill, for its many disparate provisions, and made
clear his willingness to exercise the veto.
*Prospects for the compromise were dim until the sudden death of Taylor and the accession of Millard
Fillmore, who approved it.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
48
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
*1850
*This pact between the United States and Great Britain stipulated that (1) any canal constructed across
Central America was to be neutral; with neither government exercising absolute control over it; (2) neither
side was to “erect or maintain any fortifications” at the canal; (3) neither side was to “occupy, or fortify, or
colonize, or assume, or exercise any dominion over . . . any party of Central America.” This last clause,
deliberately vague and interpreted differently by the two governments, drew widespread criticism in the
United States, especially from Democrats, who complained that it sanctioned British claims to Honduras
and other colonies already established.
*Indeed, Britain interpreted the treaty as a bar only to further colonization of the region without retroactive
force.
*The Taylor administration, however, read the pact as a ban on all colonization, past as well as future.
*Negotiating the agreement were U.S. Secretary of State John M. Clayton and Henry Lytton Bulwer,
British minister to the United States.
*The treaty was abrogated by the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty in 1901.
FILLMORE
1850-1853
POLITICAL
Compromise of 1850
*The result of the 1849 gold rush was that California’s population grew enormously almost overnight. In
1849 a constitutional convention met at Monterey and drew up a constitution outlawing slavery. When
California’s application for statehood arrived in Congress, it launched a heated debate.
*Henry Clay, the Great Compromiser (Compromise of 1820 and Tariff of 1833) consulted with his longtime rival, Daniel Webster, and presented a plan to the Senate.
*Clay proposed a series of seven resolutions that carefully balanced the interests of the North and South.
They were as follows: (1) California would be admitted as a free state; (2) Utah should be separated from
New Mexico, and the two territories should be allowed to decide for themselves whether to have slavery or
not; (3) The disputed land between Texas and New Mexico should be assigned to New Mexico; (4) The
United States should pay the debts that Texas had incurred before annexation; (5) Slavery should not be
abolished in the District of Columbia without the consent of its residents and the surrounding state of
Maryland, and then only if the owners were paid for the slaves; (6) Slave trading (but not slavery) should
be banned from the District of Columbia; (7) A stricter fugitive slave law should be adopted.
*Clay, becoming to ill to continue the struggle himself, was replaced by Stephen Douglas of Illinois. Clay
had presented his compromise as an omnibus bill (The term omnibus means “covering everything”). In
other words, Clay had presented his resolutions as a package, to be considered on an all-or-nothing basis.
Douglas realized that the compromise would fail if it was offered this way because very congressman hated
at least one of its provisions.
*Douglas separated the contents of the omnibus bill into a series of bills to be voted on individually. Thus
any individual congressman could vote for the provisions he liked and could vote against, or abstain from
voting on, the provisions he disliked. Douglas had found the key to passing the entire compromise as many
opponents abstained.
*The South was willing to live with the Compromise--But many Northerners resented the Fugitive Slave
Law. They were beginning to share the view of William H. Seward of New York, who had said during the
debates in Congress that there was a “higher law” than laws of Congress and the Constitution
*This decision fatally divided the Whig party.
7th of March Speech
*John Calhoun of South Carolina led the attack on Clay’s proposal (Compromise of 1850)--Since he was
too ill to respond himself, he had a speech read in the Senate for him. Calhoun summarized what he had
been saying for years: the North’s growing power, enhanced by protective tariffs and by the Missouri
Compromise’s exclusion of slaveholders from the northern part of the Louisiana Purchase, had created an
imbalance between the sections. Only a decision by the North to treat the South as an equal could now
save the Union.
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*Three days after Calhoun’s speech, Daniel Webster of Massachusetts gave his famous 7th of March
Speech.
*Webster, claiming that he was addressing the Senate as an American and not as a northerner, denounced
Calhoun’s warnings about secession and spoke strongly in favor of the Union. He called upon the North to
make concessions, especially in support of a new, strict fugitive slave law.
Nashville Convention
*A convention was held in Nashville during the summer of 1850.
*A strong presence was felt by the “fire-eaters” (extreme advocates of “southern rights”)
*Only nine of the fifteen slave states, most in the Lower South, sent delegates to the convention, and
moderates took control and isolated the extremists.
ECONOMIC
SOCIAL
Fugitive Slave Law
*The Fugitive Slave Law called for the following items: (a) All law enforcement officials who failed to
cooperate in the apprehension of fugitive slaves were made liable up to the value of the slave, if the slave
was not captured or escaped while in custody; (b) All “good citizens are hereby commanded to aid and
assist in the prompt execution of this law”; (c) No alleged fugitive was allowed to testify in his or her own
behalf, and no trial by jury was allowed; (d) Any person who hindered the recovery of a fugitive slave was
subject to a $1,000 fine, imprisonment for six months, and the payment of $1,000 to the owner; (e) If mob
violence threatened a rescue of a recovered fugitive from a master’s custody, it was the duty of local
officials to provide for the delivery of the slave to the place from which he or she had escaped
*The Fugitive Slave Law enabled court-appointed commissioners to collect ten dollars if they ruled for the
slaveholder but only five dollars if they ruled for the fugitive--Obviously, this strongly influenced the
decisions
*In response to the Fugitive Slave Law, nine northern states passed “personal liberty laws” which forbade
the use of state jails to incarcerate alleged fugitives--these laws aimed to bar state officials from enforcing
the law
Uncle Tom’s Cabin
*A number of blacks actually captured and sent south under the Fugitive Slave Act was relatively small,
perhaps three hundred. But the law did produce one practical effect. Calling the law a “nightmare
abomination,” a Harriet Beecher Stowe decided to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
*Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly first appeared in serial form in the National Era, an
abolitionist journal. In 1852 a Boston publisher brought out the book in its complete form.
*Simplistic and overly melodramatic, the novel was also deeply affecting. The plot attempted to depict the
lives of slaves and slaveholders through three primary characters: Eliza, a slave who wanted to keep her
child who was about to be sold off, and set off in search of the Underground Railroad; Eva, the angelic but
sickly daughter of a New Orleans plantation owner; and Uncle Tom, the noble slave sold to a series of
owners, but who retained his dignity through all the degradations he suffered in hope of being reunited with
his family. That family, living together in Tom’s idealized cabin on a Kentucky farm, represented the
humanity of slaves, depicting them as husbands and wives, parents and children, in stark counterpoint to
the common image of slaves as mere drudges.
*Many of the book’s characters were simply characters calculated to jolt tears from even the most heartless.
But the book contained unforgettable images and scenes, perhaps the most famous of which was the picture
of the barefoot Eliza, her child in her arms, leaping from one ice floe to another across the frozen Ohio
River to escape a ruthless slave trader.
*In a time when slavery was discussed with dry legalisms and code words like “states’ rights” and “popular
sovereignty,” this book personalized the question of slavery as no amount of abolitionist literature or
congressional debate had.
*Faced with the charge, from the South, that the book was deceitful, Stowe answered with A Key to Uncle
Tom’s Cabin, which provided documentation that every incident in the novel had actually happened.
*In 1862, Lincoln met Harriet Beecher Stowe and reportedly said, “So you’re the little woman that wrote
the book that made this great war.” It is safe to say that no other literary work since 1776, when Tom
Paine’s Common Sense incited a wave of pro-Independence fervor, had the political impact of Uncle Tom’s
Cabin.
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MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Clayton-Bulwer Treaty
*The large gold rush to California and the sustained migration to Oregon dictated the need for better
communications to the American Pacific coast than those afforded by horse and wagon across the Western
plains and mountains.
*The United States during the Polk administration secured exclusive transit rights across Panama in a treaty
(1846) with the government of New Granada.
*American promoters wanted to construct a canal. Britain chose to check the possible American choice of
an alternate route through Nicaragua by seizing Greytown (San Juan, Nicaragua).
*In the crisis that followed, the two powers chose to negotiate a compromise, the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty.
*It agreed that neither nation should fortify or exercise exclusive control over an isthmian canal. The treaty
checked British expansion in Central America at a time when the United States was weakened by the
slavery quarrel.
PIERCE
1853-1857
POLITICAL
Kansas-Nebraska Act
*1854
*In 1854 Stephen Douglas introduced a bill to organize the vast Nebraska Territory, which lay completely
north of 36-30.
*The bill, which became known as the Kansas-Nebraska Act, divided the Nebraska Territory, setting off
the southern portion as the territory of Kansas and the northern portion as the territory of Nebraska.
*It also repealed the Missouri Compromise, which specified that there would be no slaves north of 36-30 in
the territory that was part of the Louisiana Purchase.
*Under the new act, both territories would have popular sovereignty--that is, the settlers themselves would
decide whether or not they wanted slavery in their territory.
*Douglas launched this act because he wanted a railroad (transcontinental) to start at Chicago, where he
owned considerable real estate, and to run west through the Nebraska Territory. Southerners, however,
wanted the railroad to begin at New Orleans or Memphis and to follow a southern route through El Paso to
San Diego.
*Douglas did not favor slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. He believed it could not exist on the open praries,
since none of the crops requiring slave labor could be grown there. However, in order to win Southern
support for his railroad route and for his own Presidential hopes, he agreed to support repeal of the
Missouri Compromise.
*Douglas successfully guided the Kansas-Nebraska bill through the Senate, where it passed by a vote of 37
to 14. In the House of Representatives, where the bill passed by little more than a whisker, 113 to 100, the
true dimensions of the conflict became apparent. Not a single northern Whig representative in the House
voted for the bill, while the northern Democrats divided evenly, 44 to 44.
Republican Party
*In the summer of 1854, a group of people representing Whigs, Free-Soilers, and antislavery Democrats
met in Jackson, Michigan, and formed the present-day Republican party (It had no connection, however,
with Jefferson and Madison’s old Republican party).
*Unlike the American party, it was not organized around a single issue. Instead, it favored certain
economic policies, such as higher wages for labor and the construction of a transcontinental railroad.
*It also supported a high protective tariff on the basis that if business flourished, so would the worker.
*What unified the party and made it grow was the belief that slavery must be barred from all territories.
American Party
*The policy of favoring native-born people over immigrants is called nativism.
*The Native American Association was organized in Washington D.C., in 1837. The nativists held their
first national convention in Philadelphia in 1845 and adopted the name Native American party.
*Nativist sentiment grew rapidly in the 1840s and 1850s. In the cities, the main reason was the fear of job
51
competition from immigrants who were desperate for work and would accept less money.
*Nativists objected to so many of the immigrants being Roman Catholics. They resented the increasing
number of priests and nuns, parochial schools, and Catholic colleges. Many Americans had grown up in an
anti-Catholic tradition that was as old as the Reformation England. They believed that the Pope headed an
organization that wanted to wipe out Protestantism and take over the world. They also were convinced that
Catholics could not understand democracy because they were used to following orders from the Pope.
*Shops and factories carried NINA signs, indicating No Irish Need Apply.
*During the 1840s, nativist Americans organized a number of secret societies with such names as the Sons
of America and the Sons of ‘76. They aimed at “protecting” Americans from the threat of Catholic
immigration.
*In the early 1850s, many of these societies united as a single national organization called the Supreme
Order of the Star Spangled Banner. Its members were pledged to secrecy about the organization’s structure
and leaders. When questioned about the organization, a member was supposed to say, “I know nothing.”
Soon, members of the organization were being called Know-Nothings.
*The Know-Nothings decided they could best achieve their aims by entering politics. They especially
wanted to restrict the flow of immigration. They therefore called for changes in the naturalization laws that
would require aliens to wait twenty-one years before they could apply for citizenship. They also pledged to
support only white, native-born Protestants for public office.
*The Know-Nothings were extremely successful at the polls. In 1854 they obtained 25 percent of the vote
in New York state and 40 percent of the vote in Pennsylvania. They elected numerous state legislators and
governors, and at least seventy-five members of Congress.
*In 1856 they became known as the American party and nominated ex-President Millard Fillmore for
President on the slogan “Americans Must Rule America.”
Sumner-Brooks
*1856
*Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts gave a speech which became known as the “Crime Against
Kansas” (a day before the sack of Lawrence)
*Sumner demanded the immediate admission of Kansas as a free state
*Sumner lashed out against Senator Douglas of Illinois and Senator Andrew Butler of South Carolina,
using language sometimes heard in the streets but not on the floor of the Senate.
*Sumner continued his speech with a cruel remark about Butler’s speech difficulties, which were caused by
a heart condition. (Sumner referred to Butler’s “loose expectoration” of speech which referred to Butler’s
tendency to drool)
*Two days later a relative of Butler, Democratic representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, strode
into the Senate chamber, found Sumner at his desk, and struck him repeatedly with a cane.
*Sumner, going into shock, was not able to return to the Senate for three years.
*Brooks became an instant hero in the South, and the fragments of the cane were viewed as “sacred relics.”
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Gadsden Purchase
*1853
*In 1853 Pierce’s emissary, James Gadsden, concluded a treaty with Mexico for the purchase of a strip of
land south of the Gila River (now southern Arizona and part of southern New Mexico), an acquisition
favored by advocates of a southern railroad route to the Pacific.
*The fiercely negative reaction to the so-called Gadsden Purchase, however, pointed up the mounting
suspicions of expansionist aims.
*Encountering stiff northern opposition, Gadsden’s treaty gained Senate approval in 1854 only after an
amendment slashed nine thousand square miles from the purchase.
Ostend Manifesto
*Even as Congress was wrestling with the Kansas-Nebraska bill, Mississippi’s former senator John A.
Quitman was planning a massive filibustering (unofficial) military expedition—to seize Cuba from Spain.
*Pierce himself wanted to purchase Cuba and may have encouraged Quitman as a way to scare Spain into
selling the island. However, northerners, aroused by the Kansas-Nebraska bill, increasingly viewed
filibustering as another manifestation of the Slave Power’s conspiracy to grab more territory for the
“peculiar institution.”
*Pierce, alarmed by northern reaction to the Kansas-Nebraska bill and by signs that Spain planned to
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defend the island militarily, forced Quitman to scuttle the planned expedition. (Narcisco Lopez led
filibustering expeditions from American ports between 1849 and 1850).
*In 1854 a crisis arose when the Spanish seized the Black Warrior, an American ship, for violation of
customs regulations. Spain answered Pierce’s ultimatum with an apology.
*In 1854 Pierce decided to take advantage of both difficulties within Spain and of French and British
involvement in the Crimean War to take action regarding Cuba.
*The American ministers to England, France, and Spain were directed to meet at Ostend, Belgium (two of
them from the South), to plan concerted action to aid the American minister Pierre Soule in Madrid.
*They drew up the Ostend Manifesto pointing out the importance of Cuba to the United States. The
statement declared that Spain ought to sell Cuba to the United States. If Spain refused, the U.S. would be
justified in seizing it by force and then to welcome the island “into that great family of states of which the
Union is the Providential Nursery.”
*Already beset by the storm over the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and faced by northern outrage at the threat of
aggression against Spain, Pierce quickly repudiated the manifesto.
*The manifesto showed how far the South would go to strengthen the slave interests of the country by
trying to annex one or more new states.
William Walker
*Despite the Pierce administration’s opposition to the Ostend Manifesto, the idea of expansion into the
Caribbean continued to attract southerners, including the Tennessee-born adventurer William Walker.
*Between 1854 and 1860, the year when he was executed by a firing squad in Honduras, Walker led a
succession of filibustering expeditions into Central America.
*Taking advantage of civil chaos in Nicaragua, he made himself the chief political force in that nation,
reinstituted slavery there, and talked openly of making Nicaragua a United States colony.
SOCIAL
Bleeding Kansas
*After passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, a minor war broke out in Kansas.
*Proslavery settlers began moving into Kansas from Missouri. In March 1855 the first territorial election
took place. Although only fourteen hundred residents were eligible to vote, some six thousand votes were
cast. Most of the voters were from Missouri (they were called border ruffians)
*The new territorial legislature (Lecompton) promptly passed laws in support of slavery, including one that
imposed the death penalty for aiding a fugitive slave.
*Antislavery residents of Kansas refused to recognize the new government. Instead, they organized one of
their own (Topeka).
*Soon, major incidents of violence broke out. In one instance, a large group of tough proslavery men rode
into Lawrence, Kansas, in search of several leading Free-Soilers. The proslavery legislature had indicted
those Free-Soilers for treason, so the raiders of Lawrence felt that they had legal backing. They burned
down the tiny town’s only hotel, destroyed several homes, and smashed the presses of a new Free-Soil
newspaper. When Northern newspapers learned about the raid, they called it the “Sack of Lawrence” and
exaggerated every detail.
*John Brown, an abolitionist, gathered four of his sons and two other followers and in May 1856 they rode
into the small proslavery settlement at Pottawatomie Creek, dragged five men out of their homes, and killed
them. Brown claimed that he had God’s support for this murderous action.
*In the North, abolitionists organized the New England Emigrant Aid Company to assist Free-Soilers who
would migrate to Kansas.
*Tensions increased when one of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s brothers (Henry Ward Beecher), who was a
popular preacher, said that guns would be more useful against slavery than Bibles. In response, crates of
“Beecher’s Bibles” began arriving in free-soil settlements--crates packed with rifles and ammunition.
*Bleeding Kansas turned into a battleground on which more than two hundred people eventually died in a
miniature civil war.
Anthony Burns
*1854
*In 1854 a Boston mob, aroused by antislavery speeches, broke into a courthouse and killed a guard in an
abortive effort to rescue the fugitive slave Anthony Burns.
*Determined to prove that the law could be enforced “even in Boston,” Pierce sent a detachment of federal
troops to escort Burns to the harbor, where a ship carried him back to slavery.
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*As five platoons of troops marched with Burns to the ship, some fifty thousand people lined the streets.
*The Burns incident shattered the complacency of conservative supporters of the Compromise of 1850.
*A Boston committee later successfully purchased Burns’s freedom, but the fate of fugitives was far less
happy.
BUCHANAN
1857-1861
POLITICAL
Dred Scott v. Sandford
*1857
*Dred Scott was a slave, born in Virginia, raised in Missouri, taken by his master in 1834 to the free state
of Illinois, then to the free Wisconsin Territory, and then back to Missouri.
*In 1843 Scott sued for his freedom on the grounds that freedom went with the land (Since he had lived in
a free state and a free territory, Scott argued, he was therefore a free man).
*The nine justices of the Supreme Court faced two basic legal questions: (1) Was Scott a citizen of the
U.S.? If not, he could not sue in federal court, and the case would have to be thrown out. (2) Did Scott’s
residence in a free territory make him a free man, even though he had returned to a slave state?
*The Dred Scott decision was handed down on March 6, 1857.
*The opinion of Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (a seventy-nine-year-old Marylander whom Andrew Jackson
had appointed to succeed John Marshall in 1835) carried the most weight. Taney declared that blacks had
never been regarded as citizens, either before or after the adoption of the Constitution. They had been
treated, Taney said, as “beings of an inferior order” with “no rights which any white man was bound to
respect.” Thus, in this view, national citizenship was for whites only. Two justices disagreed strongly,
pointing out that several colonies and states had allowed blacks to vote. A majority of the Court, however,
agreed that Scott lacked the legal standing to sue in federal court.
*The Court also ruled that being on free territory did not make a slave free. For territories to exclude
slavery, Taney said, would be to take away an owner’s property “without due process of law.” This was a
violation of the Fifth Amendment.
*In effect, the Supreme Court declared the Missouri Compromise unconstitutional. This was the first time
since Marbury v. Madison (1803) that the Court struck down an act of Congress.
*Republicans restrained themselves from open defiance of the decision only by insisting that it did not bind
the nation; Taney’s comments on the constitutionality of the Missouri Compromise, they contended,
amounted merely to obiter dicta, opinions unnecessary to settling the case.
Lecompton Constitution
*1858
*Buchanan sought a concrete solution to the problem of Kansas, where the free-state government at Topeka
and the officially recognized proslavery government of Lecompton viewed each other with profound
distrust. Buchanan’s plan for Kansas looked simple: an elected territorial convention would draw up a
constitution that would either permit or prohibit slavery; Buchanan would submit the constitution to
Congress; Congress would then admit Kansas as a state.
*Buchanan’s plan blew up in his face since the essence of his plan, popular sovereignty, demanded fair
play which was missing in Kansas. An election for a constitutional convention took place in June 1857, but
free-staters, by now a majority in Kansas, boycotted the election on grounds that the proslavery side would
rig it. The result was the Lecompton constitution that protected the rights of those slaveholders already
living in Kansas and to their slave property and provided for a referendum in which voters could decide
whether to allow in more slaves.
*The Lecompton constitution proposed a dilemma for Buchanan. A supporter of popular sovereignty, he
had gone on record in favor of letting the voters in Kansas decide the slavery issue. However, the
convention was elected by less than 10 percent of the eligible voters, had plans for a referendum that would
not allow voters to remove slaves already in Kansas, and by the prospect that the proslavery side would
conduct the referendum no more honestly than the others.
*Buchanan had compelling reasons to accept the Lecompton constitution: (1) The South, which had
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provided him with 112 of his 174 electoral votes in 1856, supported the constitution; (2) There were only
about 200 slaves in Kansas and he believed that the prospects of slavery expanding in Kansas were slight.
*Buchanan formally endorsed the Lecompton constitution in December of 1857.
*Stephen Douglas broke ranks with Buchanan because he was upset with the referendum which took power
from the voters.
*In December 1857 the referendum called earlier by the constitutional convention was held. Boycotted by
free-staters, the constitution with slavery passed overwhelmingly.
*Two weeks later, in the election called by the territorial legislature (they called for a referendum on the
entire Lecompton constitution--Where the Kansas constitutional convention’s goal had been to restrict the
choice of voters to the narrow issue of the future introduction of slaves, the territorial legislature sought a
referendum that would allow Kansans to vote against the protection of existing slave property as well as the
introduction of new slaves). The proslavery side abstained, and the constitution went down to a crushing
defeat.
*Having already cast his lot with the Lecompton convention’s election, Buchanan simply ignored this
second election.
*When Douglas submitted the plan to Congress, a deadlock in the House forced him to accept a proposal
for still another referendum. This time, Kansans were given the choice between accepting or rejecting the
entire constitution, with the proviso that rejection would delay statehood. Despite the proviso, Kansans
overwhelmingly voted down the constitution.
*Congress refused to admit Kansas to the Union under the Lecompton Constitution.
*Buchanan’s support of the Lecompton constitution divided his party--many northern Democrats believed
that the southern Slave Power pulled all the important strings in their party.
*Douglas was a winner in this episode in the sense that the northern Democrats looked at him as their
leader. However, he lost since his concept of popular sovereignty was shown to be weak.
Lincoln-Douglas Debates
*1858
*Stephen Douglas, incumbent Democrat, was challenged by Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, for the
senatorial seat of Illinois in 1858.
*Lincoln challenged Douglas to a series of seven open-air debates (August 21 to October 15, 1858) to be
held in various parts of the state. Lincoln hoped to receive more public recognition and Douglas viewed it
as a way to put an end to Lincoln’s practice of speaking in each Illinois town as soon as Douglas had left.
These debates grew wide attention. They concerned the most important issue of the day--slavery’s
expansion in the territories.
*In their speeches, Lincoln and Douglas kept their arguments consistent. Douglas believed deeply in
popular sovereignty. Lincoln believed just as strongly that Congress could and should keep slavery out of
the territories. This was the main issue of the Lincoln-Douglas debates.
*Lincoln opened the campaign with the “House Divided” speech ( “this nation cannot exist permanently
half slave and half free”) at Springfield. Lincoln reminded his Republican followers of the gulf that still
separated his doctrine of free soil from Douglas’s popular sovereignty. Douglas dismissed the housedivided doctrine as an invitation to secession.
*In Freeport, Illinois, Lincoln asked Douglas a crucial question: Could the settlers of a territory vote to
exclude slavery before the territory became a state? Everyone new that the Dred Scott decision said no.
*Douglas retorted with an answer that became known as the Freeport Doctrine. He acknowledged that
slavery could not exist without laws to support it--laws dealing with runaways, the sale of slaves, and the
like. If the people of a territory refused to pass such laws, Douglas said, slavery could not exist in practice,
no matter what the Supreme Court said about the theory of the matter.
*The Freeport Doctrine convinced many Illinois voters who simply wanted to keep slavery out the
territories to vote for Douglas. As a result, he won the senatorial election. However, the Doctrine cost him
most of his support in the South. Many Southerners had considered the Dred Scott decision a major
victory. Now they heard Douglas saying the settlers could easily get around it.
Ableman v. Booth
*1859
*Booth, a Wisconsin abolitionist editor, was arrested by the federal government for helping a fugitive slave
escape from the custody of a federal marshall. The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued a writ of habeas
corpus to release him. The federal authorities refused to recognize the validity of the writ of habeas corpus.
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*Chief Justice Taney wrote the unanimous decision asserting that a court or judge which goes beyond the
limits of its jurisdiction exercises “nothing less than lawless violence.” The issue was now federal
supremacy, not the fugitive slave laws.
*Northern reaction paralled the earlier Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions.
Davis Resolutions
*Proposed by Senator Jefferson Davis of Mississippi in February 1860.
*The resolutions called for the federal government to enforce the Dred Scott decision by actively protecting
territorial slavery.
*The Davis resolutions never stood a chance of adoption by Congress. Nevertheless, they embarrassed the
Douglas Democrats. No northern Democrat could win an election on a platform calling for the
congressional protection of slavery in the territories. This led to a final split in the Democratic party.
*The Democratic party’s internal turmoil boiled over at its Charleston convention in the spring of 1860.
Failing to force acceptance of a platform guaranteeing federal protection of slavery in the territories, the
delegates from the Lower South stalked out. The convention adjourned to Baltimore, where a new fight
broke out over the question of seating hastily elected, pro-Douglas slates of delegates from the Lower
South states that had seceded from the Charleston convention.
*The decision to seat these pro-Douglas slates led to another walkout, this time by delegates from Virginia
and other states in the Upper South.
*The remaining delegates nominated Douglas, while the seceders marched off to another hall in Baltimore
and nominated Buchanan’s vice president, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky, on a platform calling for the
congressional protection of slavery in the territories.
*The disruption of the Democratic party was now complete.
1860 Election
*The Presidential election of 1860 was a four-way race. The parties, their platforms, and their candidates
were as follows:
1) Southern Democrats took the position set forth in the Dred Scott decision; namely, that the federal
government was obligated to protect slavery in the territories. They nominated Vice President John C.
Breckinridge of Kentucky.
2) Northern Democrats lined up behind Stephen A. Douglas, declaring that the best way to decide the
slavery question in the territories was by popular sovereignty.
3) The remnants of the Whig and American parties formed the Constitutional Union party, which did not
say much except that it supported “the Constitution, the Union, and the laws.” Its candidate was John Bell
of Tennessee.
4) The Republican party ran Abraham Lincoln on a platform that opposed extending slavery into the
territories.
*Lincoln won with only 40 percent (plurality) of the popular vote, but he received 59 percent of the
electoral vote--all from the Northern states. Since the South could see that it did not have enough influence
to determine a presidential election, this was the final straw which led to their secession.
Confederate States of America
*1861
*On December 20, 1860, a South Carolina convention voted unanimously for secession (Ordinance of
Secession); and by February 1, 1861, Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas had
followed South Carolina’s lead.
*On February 4, 1861 delegates from these seven states met in Montgomery, Alabama, and established the
Confederate States of America.
*They adopted a constitution like that of the United States but with these differences: (1) the right to own
slaves and move them from one state to another was guaranteed; (2) state sovereignty was recognized but
nothing was said about the right of secession; (3) protective tariffs were prohibited; and (4) the term of the
President was limited to six years.
*Even after Lincoln’s election, fire-eating secessionists had met fierce opposition in the Lower South from
so-called cooperationists, who called upon the South to act in unison or not at all. Many cooperationists
had hoped to delay secession in order to wring concessions from the North that might remove the need for
secession.
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*Jefferson Davis, who was inaugurated in February 1861 as the first president of the Confederacy, was a
most reluctant secessionist, and he remained in the U.S. Senate for two weeks after his own state of
Mississippi had seceded.
*Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas (all Upper South) and the border states of Maryland,
Kentucky, Delaware, and Missouri all rejected calls for secession. (Various factors account for the Upper
South’s reluctance to embrace the movement--In contrast to the Lower South, which had a guaranteed
export market for its cotton, the Upper South depended heavily on economic ties to the North, bonds that
would be severed by secession--Further, with proportionately far fewer slaves than the Lower South, the
states of the Upper South and the border states doubted the loyalty of their sizable nonslaveholding
populations to the idea of secession)
Crittenden Compromise
*1861
*In the immediate wake of South Carolina’s secession, Senator John J. Crittenden of Kentucky brought
forth the most important of the compromises.
*Crittenden’s plan included calls for the compensation of owners of runaway slaves, the repeal of the
North’s personal-liberty laws, a constitutional amendment to prohibit the federal government from ever
interfering with slavery in the southern states, and another constitutional amendment that would restore the
Missouri Compromise line for the remaining territories and guarantee federal protection of slavery below
the line.
*The last amendment proved to be the sticking point. (The extension of slavery went against the principle
belief of the Republican party and the proposal to extend the 36-30 line, the Crittenden plan specifically
referred to territories “hereafter acquired,” a veiled reference to future Caribbean expansion--Lincoln felt
that if the plan was approved it would only be a matter of time before the U.S. would have to attempt to
acquire Cuba if they wanted to keep the South in the Union).
*In the face of steadfast Republican opposition, the Crittenden plan collapsed.
ECONOMICS
Panic of 1857
*In 1857 the national economy suffered a depression.
*The depression was caused by the preceding years of overexpansion and overspeculation, the Crimean
War checked the flow of European capital into American investments and the return of peace in 1857
caused a fall in farm prices.
*Banks and businesses folded, and tens of thousands of people were out of work.
*The effects of the depression were greater in the North than in the South because the Southern economy
depended on agriculture rather than business and finance. Southern writers and politicians were quick to
point this fact out.
*Southerners claimed that cynical and greedy attitude of Northern merchants and manufacturers was
largely responsible for the depression. Northerners blamed the Walker Tariff for the depression.
*Northerners responded that the Southern economy was more stable only because it rested on the
unspeakable evil of slavery.
The Impending Crisis of the South
*1857
*The Impending Crisis of the South: How to Meet It was written by Hinton Rowan Helper.
*Helper was a non-slaveholding North Carolinian.
*He presented statistics and arguments to show that slavery was economically harmful to the South. He
argued that slavery enriched the planters at the expense of the yeoman farmers.
*This book claimed that slavery was actually holding back the economic development of the South. In
other words, Helper believed that the South should abandon slavery and become industrialized.
*The book alarmed Southern leaders so much that it became dangerous to be found in possession of a copy
of it; it threatened to turn the common people of the South against the planter ruling class.
Oil:
*Before the Civil War, Americans did not drill for oil. They simply skimmed it from creeks or other places
where it had seeped to the earth’s surface. They used it mostly to grease their wagons and as a rub for
rheumatism.
*In the 1850s, people began thinking of kerosene as a substitute for whale oil in lamps. The whale
population was declining, and the price of whale oil was going up.
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*So in 1858 Edwin L. Drake started drilling for oil in Titusville, Pennsylvania. In 1859 “Drake’s folly”
gushed in, and the petroleum industry was on its way.
*At first the oil was refined primarily into kerosene for lamps. Gasoline, an oil by-product, was thrown
away because people had no use for it. In the 1890s, the internal-combustion engine was put into a car. It
operated not on steam but on gasoline.
Pullman Cars
*Sleeping accommodations on railroads depended on whether a person rode a Pullman car, a day coach, or
a Zulu car.
*A Pullman car, first introduced in 1859 by George M. Pullman, was the best. For one hundred dollars
plus four dollars a day, travelers could ride on a comfortable sofa that converted into a bed with warm
blankets and a certain amount of privacy. For day-coach passengers, who paid seventy-five dollars, the
seat back was lowered at night and the footrest extended.
*Zulu cars cost forty dollars and usually contained rows of backless benches. Passengers--mostly
European immigrants to whom the railroads had sold land--took turns sleeping under the benches or in the
aisles.
Comstock Lode:
*In 1859, Nevada’s famed “Comstock Lode,” a large silver strike, brought on another rush
SOCIAL
Harpers Ferry
*1859
*John Brown, of Pottawattomie Creek fame, had studied the slave uprisings in ancient Rome and on the
French islands of Haiti. He decided the time had come for something similar to take place in the U.S.
*On October 6, 1859, assisted by only seventeen free blacks and white men, Brown attacked the federal
arsenal at Harpers Ferry on the Virginia side of the Potomac River. He and his followers hoped that such
an act would encourage the blacks of Virginia to revolt.
*Brown captured some arms and took several slaveholders hostage, together with several slaves. Then he
and his men dug in and waited for news of a general slave rebellion.
*No revolt took place, however. Instead, Virginia militiamen and federal troops from Washington, D.C.,
under the command of Colonel Robert E. Lee, raced to Harpers Ferry and surrounded the arsenal.
*The raiders found themselves pinned down by rifle fire. Brown held out for two days. With more than
half his men dead, however, he surrendered.
*Brown was placed on trial for his life and was found guilty of treason to Virginia. Thoughout the trial be
insisted calmly that his cause had been just. Some men began to call him a martyr for the sacred cause of
freedom.
*On December 2, 1859, Brown was hanged in the presence of federal troops and a crowd of observers.
*Brown’s actions became a major issue between the North and South when captured correspondence
revealed that Brown, far from acting alone, had extensive ties to prominent northern abolitionists. These
northerners had provided both moral and financial support for Brown’s plan to invade Virginia, free the
slaves, and “purge this land with blood.”
*The entire episode aroused fierce emotions in both sections of the country. For months, little incidents
continued to inflame both sides. In the South, outraged mobs assaulted whites who were suspected of
being antislavery. The hysteria played into the hands of the southern-rights extremists known as fire-eaters.
Indeed, this faction actively encouraged the witch hunt by spreading tales of slave conspiracies in the press
so that southern voters would turn to them.
Central Park
*1858
*In 1858 Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux entered the competition for the design of New York
City’s proposed Central Park.
*Olmsted was famous for his famous newspaper accounts of his tours through the slave states--He had
shown that he was keenly interested in landscapes.
*Olmsted and Vaux shared the widening fear that urban and industrial growth was destroying the American
landscape and robbing the nation of its natural treasures.
*Olmsted and Vaux called for the creation of parks--enclaves of unspoiled nature in or near cities. They
drew inspiration from a movement in the 1830s to construct artistically landscaped “rural” cemeteries on
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the outskirts of cities. This movement for rural cemeteries addressed the practical problems spawned as
urban developers churned up graves and as entrepreneurs plastered tombstones with handbills announcing
new business ventures.
*From the cemetery movement and other sources, Olmsted and Vaux derived the principle that nature
could always be improved upon by moving earth to form little hills and valleys--The result would be
“picturesque”; that is, it would remind viewers of the landscapes that they had seen in pictures.
*Olmsted and Vaux wove their ideas into a plan called “Greensward.” Not only did Greensward win the
competition, but Olmsted secured the coveted appointment as the park’s architect in chief.
*Viewing Central Park as a secluded retreat in the heart of the city, Olmsted hoped that the park would
encourage harmony between the rich and the poor by providing all classes with a meeting place free of the
tensions generated by acquisitiveness.
*The city’s Democratic administration used the construction jobs created by the park to reward its largely
immigrant following.
*The park became a mainstay for the middle and upper classes as the lower class did not find the free time
to enjoy the park.
CANNIBALS ALL!
*1857
*This book, written by George Fitzhugh, was an answer to Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
*Southerners believed that northerners were no intent on making a profit that they had no concern whatever
for the human needs of their workers.
*The most direct statement of the above statement was Fitzhugh’s book. Fitzhugh saw northern
industrialists as no better than cannibals and that at least the southern system at least took care of their
slaves and often included them within their own families.
LINCOLN
1861-1865
POLITICAL
Copperheads
*Antiwar Democrats during the Civil War
*They named after a poisonous snake.
*They wrote editorials and gave speeches warning that Republican policies would bring a tide of African
Americans to the North, freed by Union armies. These freed slaves, said Copperheads, would take jobs
away from whites. Using such scare tactics, the Copperheads won many congressional and state elections
in 1862.
Habeas Corpus
*In response to emergencies created by the war, Lincoln extended government power into the lives of the
people by denying them basic rights.
*Lincoln interfered with freedom of the press by sending the army to shut down newspapers that criticized
the policies of his administration.
*Lincoln suspended the writ of habeas corpus, a basic civil liberty protected by the Constitution. This writ
is a court order directed to an officer holding a prisoner in jail. It commands the officer to demonstrate to
the court that the prisoner is being held for good reason.
*The Constitution allows suspension of the writ during a rebellion.
*Lincoln, like President Davis in the South, suspended the writ in various parts of the country. He could
then imprison anyone who interfered with the war effort without having to justify his actions.
*Lincoln’s suspension of the writ of habeas corpus was no idle threat—Over 13,000 Americans who
objected to federal policies were held in northern prisons without trial during the war.
Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction
*Lincoln was eager to restore the Union as quickly as possible, so he wanted a Reconstruction that would
be mild and forgiving.
*In December 1863 he announced his Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction—Amnesty means a
pardon for crimes against the government
*The proclamation granted pardons to all Confederates who would swear allegiance to the Union and
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promise to obey its laws. However, this pardon did not include high officials of the Confederacy and those
accused of crimes against prisoners of war.
*Under the proclamation, a Confederate state could form a state government as soon as 10 percent of those
on the 1860 voting lists took an oath to uphold the U.S. Constitution—That state could then send its
representatives and senators to Congress.
Wade-Davis Bill
*In July 1864 the Radical Republicans in Congress adopted their own blueprint for Reconstruction (WadeDavis Bill)
*This bill proposed that Congress, not the President, be responsible for Reconstruction.
*It also declared that for a state government to be acceptable, a majority—not just 10 percent—of those
eligible to vote in 1860 would have to take an ironclad oath to support the Constitution.
*In addition, they would have to swear that they never supported the Confederacy in any way. (Clearly, if
more than half a states’ voters had been loyal to the Union, the state would not have seceded in the first
place).
*Lincoln did not condemn the Radical plan. Instead, he waited until Congress adjourned, and then he
killed the bill with a pocket veto (According to the Constitution, the President may, within ten days of the
end of a congressional session, use a pocket veto. He simply ignores a bill [puts it in his pocket] and, if
Congress adjourns within ten days, it automatically fails to become law).
*The Radical Republicans responded by issuing a manifesto, or proclamation, in which they called
Lincoln’s pocket veto a “stupid outrage” and declared the authority of Congress to be supreme. They
warned Lincoln to confine himself to his executive duties and to leave Reconstruction up to Congress.
*The Radicals took the position that the Confederate states actually had seceded. Thus, they now were
territories seeking admission to the Union. Furthermore, it was Congress, not the President, that controlled
territorial matters.
*After the fall elections of 1864, Arkansas and Louisiana, acting under Lincoln’s plan, sent representatives
to Washington. However, the Radicals barred them from taking their seats.
Ex parte Merryman
*1861
*This is not technically a Supreme Court case.
*Early in the Civil War an unruly Baltimore mob attacked Union soldiers passing through the city. Under
President Lincoln’s orders the army suspended habeas corpus and declared martial law.
*John Merryman, a Southern sympathizer, was among those arrested. The federal circuit judge, who
happened to be Chief Justice Roger B. Taney, issued a writ of habeas corpus which the army refused to
accept.
*The only recourse left to Taney was to write to the president criticizing his usurpation of the power of
Congress (Article I, section 9). Lincoln never directly replied.
*When Merryman was no longer a potential threat to the war effort he was quietly released.
Prize Cases
*1863
*In April 1861, Lincoln declared a blockade of Southern ports before Congress met to react to secession.
*Captured ship owners sued to recover their property, and claimed that in the absence of a declaration of
war by Congress the president was powerless.
*The Court by a 5-4 margin upheld the blockade from the date it was first proclaimed. Under his powers as
commander in chief the president had to respond to an insurrection which had become a war “without
waiting for Congress to baptize it with a name.”
Assassination Conspiracy
*April 14, 1865
*Lincoln was assassinated while watching Our American Cousin, a play, at Ford’s Theater in Washington,
D.C.
*The assassin, John Wilkes Booth, shop the president and then jumped from the President’s box to the
stage, in the process catching his spur on the bunting that draped the box and breaking his shin. He
brandished his gun and shouted either “Sic semper tyrannis!” (“Thus be it ever to tyrants.”) or “The South
shall live.” Then he escaped through a back exit to a waiting horse.
*A second assassin had assaulted Secretary of State William Seward at home with a knife. Attacks on
General Grant and Vice-President Johnson were planned but were never carried out.
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*Secretary of War Stanton took charge, and martial law was announced in Washington.
*The assassin, it was soon discovered, was John Wilkes Booth, an actor like his more famous father, Junius
Brutus Booth, and brother Edwin Booth. A fanatical supporter of the South—though he never joined the
Confederate army—Both first plotted with a small group of conspirators in a Washington boardinghouse to
kidnap Lincoln. Then he planned instead to assassinate the President along with other key government
figures.
*After an intensive manhunt, Booth was trapped in a Bowling Green, Virginia, tobacco-drying barn on
April 26, and shot and killed. A military tribunal sentenced four other captured conspirators, including
boardinghouse owner Mary Surratt, to be hanged. Although conspiracy theories involving Jefferson Davis
and most other prominent leaders of the Confederacy abounded in the press, they were all dismissed and
disproven. Davis was actually captured and held for two years without trial, but eventually released.
ECONOMIC
Internal Revenue Act of 1862
*In 1861 the Republican-controlled Congress passed the first federal tax on income in American history—
It collected 3 percent of the income of people making more than $800 a year.
*In the Internal Revenue Act of 1862, Congress created taxes on items such as liquor, tobacco, medicine,
and newspaper ads.
*The act even established a stamp tax.
*While almost all of the taxes ended with the war, the Bureau of Internal Revenue created by Republican
legislation became a permanent part of the federal government. It is now known as the Internal Revenue
Service (IRS) and is responsible for collecting taxes from individuals and corporations.
National Banking Act
*In 1863 and 1864, Congress reformed the nation’s banking system.
*Since 1832, when Andrew Jackson vetoed the rechartering of the Second Bank of the United States,
Americans had relied on state banks, which issued their own bank notes. Believing that this system was
too disorganized, Republicans created a national currency, called greenbacks after their color.
*Though greenbacks were only bank notes, the banks that issued them were chartered not by the states but
by the federal government—and the government guaranteed their value.
*However, greenbacks could not be redeemed for gold, thus the value of the currency went up and down
depending on the latest news from the war front.
Morrill Tariff
*1861
*It raised the average import duty on manufactured goods to 25 percent.
*By 1864 the rates reached an all-time high of 47 percent.
*This tariff protected American manufacturers from European competition.
Pacific Railroad Act of 1862
*This law permitted the federal government to offer public land and money to several companies in return
for the construction of a railroad from Nebraska to the Pacific Coast..
*The idea of a railroad that would run from the Atlantic to the Pacific was first raised in 1832. No one
gave the idea much attention, however, until gold was discovered in California.
*In 1862 Lincoln signed the Pacific Railroad Act. A second railroad act was passed in 1864. Under these
acts, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroad companies received about 20 million acres of federal
land, as well as federal loans of $60 million. Additional money was invested by individuals hoping to
make a profit and by towns that wanted to make certain that the railroad would not pass them by.
First Principles
*Darwin’s ideas were transferred from biology to business by the English philosopher Herbert Spencer. In
his book First Principles, published in 1862.
*Spencer argued that free competition was a natural law and that it was dangerous to interfere with it. If
the government would just leave business and business people alone, the fittest would naturally survive.
The more productive the business, the larger it would grow. The more competent the individual, the richer
he or she would become. Whatever survived must be good, and the more effectively it survived, the better
it was.
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SOCIAL
Homestead Act
*Westward expansion continued during the Civil War. Prospectors were seeking gold and silver,
California and Oregon were attracting new settlers, and many were going west to escape the draft.
*The Homestead Act stimulated this westward movement by offering 160 acres to any head of a family.
*The land was free if it was lived on for five years, or it could be bought at $1.25 an acre after it was lived
on for six months.
*The purpose of the act was to frustrate the land companies and other speculators who were buying the
better lands at $1.25 an acre for resale.
Morrill Act
*1862
*The government granted to each state, proportionate to its representation in Congress, public lands, which
were to be sold to finance agricultural and mechanical arts colleges.
*The bill was sponsored by Representative Justin S. Morrill of Virginia.
*The Morrill Act also established the Department of Agriculture to promote farming in the nation.
Contraband Rule
*During war, the property of the enemy may be seized and declared contraband. It then becomes property
of the government.
*Early in the war, Benjamin Butler, a Union general, realized that if enslaved African Americans were
supposedly the property of the enemy, they too could be considered contraband. The federal government,
as their legal owner, could then declare them free.
*As the former slaves left slave plantations, which depended on their labor, African Americans weakened
the Confederacy.
Emancipation Proclamation
*With the Union success at Antietam. Lincoln feels he can issue the Emancipation Proclamation from a
position of strength. The proclamation is published in northern newspapers the next day.
*In June 1862 Congress passed a law prohibiting slavery in the territories.
*Lacking the magisterial prose of some of his other famous speeches, this was a dry legalistic document.
By itself, the Emancipation Proclamation didn’t free a single slave, but it did change the character and
course of the war.
*Lincoln felt that under his war powers he could legally free only those slaves in rebel-held territory; it was
up to Congress or the states to address the question of universal emancipation.
*In the South the proclamation simply seemed to confirm what secessionists had always believed: that
Lincoln planned to force them to surrender slavery, a right they believed to be theirs, constitutionally
granted and protected. They also saw the proclamation as an incitement to slave rebellion, and stiffened
their resolve to defend the South against Yankee encroachment.
*On January 1, 1863, Lincoln issued the final form of his Emancipation Proclamation.
*The proclamation produced two other results. First, because of it, France and England ended a tense
diplomatic dance, they resolved not to recognized the Confederacy. To do so would endorse slavery, which
was illegal and politically unpopular in both countries. Second, in the North, the proclamation had the
effect of making the war considerably less popular. White workers, who were volunteering freely when the
cause was the Union’s preservation, were less interested in freeing slaves who they thought would overrun
the North, taking their jobs and creating social havoc. The serious decline in enlistments led to the
Conscription Act in March 1863, which applied to all men between twenty and forty-five—unless they
were wealthy enough to pay a substitute—and later led to violent anti-conscription reaction.
African-American Troops
*January 1863
*The Secretary of War authorized the governor of Massachusetts to recruit black troops.
*While blacks fought in every previous American war, a 1792 law barred them from the army.
*the 54th Massachusetts Volunteers were the first black regiment recruited in the North.
*Eventually, 185,000 black solders in the Union army would be organized into 166 all-black regiments.
Nearly 70,000 black soldiers came from the states of Louisiana, Kentucky and Tennessee.
*While most were pressed into support units forced into the most unpleasant tasks, and were paid less than
their white counterparts, black troops were involved in numerous major engagements, and sixteen black
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soldiers received the Medal of Honor. Their impact in the navy was even great, where one in four sailors
were black; four would win the Medal of Honor.
Chivington Massacre
*1864
*In the Colorado Territory, miners had forced the Cheyenne into a barren area known as the Sand Creek
Reserve.
*Short of food, bands of Indians began raiding nearby trials and settlements.
*Colorado Governor John Evans immediately called out the militia. At the same time, he urged those
Indians who did want to fight to report to Fort Lyon where they would be safe from harm.
*In the fall of 1864, some five hundred Cheyenne were encamped on Sand Creek. Two flags fluttered
above the camp: the Stars and Stripes, and a white flag--both symbols of the Indians’ desire for peace. In
the meantime, General S.R. Curtis, United States army commander in the West, had sent a telegram to the
head of the Colorado militia, Colonel J.M. Chivington: “I want no peace till the Indians suffer more.” So at
daybreak of November 29, Chivington and his troops fell upon the sleeping Indians and killed about four
hundred fifty of them.
*The Chivington Massacre led to four more years of savage fighting between the United States and various
Indian tribes. Finally in 1868, most of the Plains Indians agreed to withdraw to two reservations, one in the
Black Hills of the Dakota Territory, the other in what is now Oklahoma.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Fort Sumter
*After secession, federal military property in the South was immediately taken over by the Southern states.
*Attention concentrated on Fort Sumter located on a defensible island in the harbor of Charleston, South
Carolina.
*The South could not permit the Federals to retain this fort within such an important seaport.
*Lincoln expressed a conciliatory tone in his inaugural address. Lincoln faced a delicate decision in
handling the Fort Sumter problem. He decided to maintain the fort by sending provisions only but to avoid
any offensive measure. Lincoln could not alienate the border states by any action making the North appear
as the aggressor.
*The fort surrendered (Major Robert Anderson to PGT Beauregard—after a 24 hour bombardment) on the
14th of April.
*On the 15th Lincoln called for volunteers and declared a blockade of Southern ports. Both sides prepared
for war. In response to Lincoln’s call for troops, the Upper South seceded from the Union (Virginia, North
Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas). That left the four border states (Missouri, Kentucky, Maryland, and
Delaware) still under question.
First Battle of Bull Run
*July, 1861
*The first important engagement of the war brought Union defeat at the Battle of Bull Run in Virginia just
southwest of Washington, D.C.
*The battle showed both sides how unprepared they were for war.
The Peninsular Campaign
*In 1862 plans called for General George C. McClellan to land forces by sea on the peninsula between the
James and York rivers and march toward Richmond.
*General McDowell led another large army at the same time from Washington toward Richmond.
*General Robert E. Lee brilliantly countered this strategy by dispatching a force under General Thomas
“Stonewall” Jackson toward Washington, D.C. Lincoln recalled McDowell’s army.
*McClellan was driven back from Richmond in the Seven Days Battle and ordered back to Washington.
Battle of Shiloh
*April 6-7, 1862
*Also known as the Battle of Pittsburg Landing (Tennessee)
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*Confederate forces under General Albert S. Johnston attacked Grant’s army. Union forces were nearly
defeated, but reinforcements arrived and drove off the Confederate army.
*Losses were staggering: 13,000 Union troops and 11,000 Confederate soldiers were lost in two days of
fighting; the combined losses were more than the total American casualties in the Revolution, the War of
1812, and the Mexican War put together.
Battle of Antietam
*September, 1862
*Also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg (Maryland)
*Lee crossed the Potomac in an offensive into Maryland and toward Washington.
*McClellan (who had been recalled after being replaced by Pope—Pope lost at the Second Bull Run and
was fired) met the Confederates at Antietam Creek in Maryland and won a crucial victory in a bloody
engagement (It was the bloodiest single day in the war—dead and wounded exceeded 10,000 for both
sides).. Lee succeeded in escaping however.
*The battle was a critical turning point. With Lee’s offensive stalled, the likelihood of European
recognition of the South is reduced.
*This victory gave the North a great diplomatic advantage because it enabled Lincoln to issue the
Emancipation Proclamation (from a position of strength) and thereby insure that England would not
actively take the side of the Confederacy.
Ironclads
*Ironclads were wooden ships with ironplate armor.
*One such ironclad was the Monitor. This ship was the first to have a revolving gun turret.
*The South had previously captured a Union ironclad called the Merrimac but had changed its name to the
Virginia.
*In 1862 the two ships engaged in battle in the channel off the southeast coast of Virginia known as
Hampton Roads. It was the first naval battle in American history between ironclads.
*Although the battle ended in a draw, the Virginia had to return to Norfolk for repairs.
*The new ironclads made it clear that the days of the all-wood naval ships were over.
Gettysburg
*Lee carried the war into enemy territory in July, 1863, at Gettysburg (Pennsylvania) with a force of 80,000
men.
*General George Meade defeated Lee’s army and it now retreated back to Virginia.
*This had been the high point of Confederate hopes in the war.
*After Gettysburg Northern victory was only a matter of time. England and France now withheld cruisers
intended for the Confederacy.
Trent Affair
*In the fall of 1861, Britain had almost slipped into war against the North.
*The captain of a U.S. warship had stopped a British merchantman, named the Trent, on its way home from
Havana, Cuba. He had seized two Confederate diplomats, James M. Mason and John Slidell, who were
traveling to Europe. This was a clear violation of neutral rights.
*The British cabinet drafted an angry letter of protest and send eight thousand troops to Canada.
*Not wanting to fight two foes at the same time, the U.S. finally released the diplomats. It also sent Great
Britain a note congratulating it on accepting the principle of freedom of the seas over which the War of
1812 had been fought.
Sherman’s March
*1864
*General William T. Sherman took charge of the army in the West and began his “march to the sea” which
would take him from Atlanta to Savannah.
*In September, 1864, with 100,000 men he took off from Atlanta, Georgia. In the march to Savannah he
carried out a scorched earth policy of destroying everything in sight (60 miles wide).
*He wanted to destroy the productive resources and end the war more quickly.
JOHNSON
1865-1869
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POLITICAL
Johnson Reconstruction Plan
*With Congress out of session in May of 1865 and not due to convene until December, Johnson issued his
reconstruction program.
*Johnson presented his program as a continuation of Lincoln’s plan, but in fact, it was very much his own.
*He explained in two proclamations how the seven southern states still without reconstruction governments
could return to the Union.
*Almost all southerners who took an oath of allegiance would receive a pardon and amnesty, and all their
property except slaves would be restored.
*Oath takers would elect delegates to state conventions, which would provide for regular elections.
*Each state convention, Johnson later added, would have to proclaim the illegality of secession, repudiate
state debts incurred when the state belonged to the Confederacy, and ratify the Thirteenth Amendment,
which abolished slavery (Proposed by an enthusiastic wartime Congress early in 1865, the amendment
would be ratified in December of that year).
*As under Lincoln’s plan, all Confederate civil and military officers would be excluded from the oath
needed for voting. But Johnson added a new disqualification. All well-off ex-Confederates, those with
taxable property worth $20,000 or more, would also be barred from political life.
*Those southerners disqualified on the basis of wealth or high Confederate position applied for pardons in
droves. Either gratified by their supplications or seeking support for reelection in 1868, Johnson handed
out pardons liberally--some thirteen thousand of them. He also dropped plans for the punishment of
treason.
*By the end of 1865, all seven states had created new civil governments to replace military rule, but in
other ways the states had almost returned to the status quo ante bellum.
*Confederate army officers and large planters assumed state offices. Former Confederate congressmen,
state officials, and generals were elected to serve in Congress. Georgia sent Alexander Stephens, the
former Confederate vice president and a onetime Unionist, back to Congress as a senator. Some states
refused to ratify the Thirteenth Amendment or to repudiate their Confederate debts.
14th Amendment
*It is often called the “Omnibus Amendment” due to its numerous provisions.
*This amendment was to take the place of the Civil Rights Act of 1866 which Johnson had vetoed.
*In April 1866 Congress adopted the Fourteenth Amendment, which had been proposed by the Joint
Committee on Reconstruction.
*The first clause of the Fourteenth Amendment made “all persons born or naturalized in the United States”
citizens of the country. All were entitled to equal protection of the law, and no state could deprive any
person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. This section nullified the Dred Scott
decision of 1857, which had declared that blacks were not citizens.
*The amendment did not grant black citizens the right to vote because that was still viewed as a matter to
be decided by the states. However, if a state barred black people from taking part in elections, that state
would lose some of its seats in Congress. This provision did not guarantee black suffrage, but it threatened
to deprive southern states of some of their legislators if black men were denied the vote.
*Another provision of the Fourteenth Amendment barred most Southern leaders from holding federal or
state offices. The ban could be lifted only by a two-thirds majority of Congress. In so providing, Congress
intended to invalidate Johnson’s wholesale distribution of amnesties and pardons.
*Finally, the amendment repudiated the Confederate debt and maintained the validity of the federal debt.
*This amendment was the first national effort to limit state control of civil and political rights.
*Congress adopted the Fourteenth Amendment and sent it to the states for their approval. If the Southern
states had ratified it, most Northerners would have been satisfied. Johnson, however, believed that the
amendment was too harsh and that the Southern states should be guided gently back to partnership in the
Union. More importantly, he believed that Congress did not have the constitutional power to treat states in
this way. Therefore, he advised the states to reject the amendment. (It also turned the congressional
elections of 1866 into a referendum on the Fourteenth Amendment). All of them except Tennessee did.
The amendment was not ratified.
Mid-Term Elections
*In 1866 the congressional elections focused partly on the question of who should control Reconstruction:
the President or the Radicals.
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*Johnson went on a long speaking tour, urging voters to elect to Congress those men who agreed with is
policy of an easy Reconstruction. Johnson referred to this campaign as the “swing around the circle”
*His trip was a disaster, however, because he was his own worst enemy. He had a hot temper, and he
embarrassed many people with his rough language and undignified behavior.
*Johnson’s hope of creating a new National Union party, composed of Democrats and conservative
Republicans who opposed the Fourteenth Amendment, thus made little headway.
*Vicious race riots erupted in the South, particularly in Memphis, Tennessee, and in New Orleans,
Louisiana. This strengthened many people’s belief that the federal government had to take action to protect
freed slaves against their former masters.
*The voters gave the Radicals a two-thirds majority in Congress, which meant that Radicals could now
override Presidential vetoes.
Reconstruction Act
*1867
*This act, which was followed by two others, divided all of the seceded states except Tennessee into five
military districts.
*The civilian courts in these districts were replaced by military tribunals.
*Each district was placed under a major general who was to oversee the drawing up of new constitutions in
the states that were under his control.
*The constitutions were required to give black males the right to vote.
*In addition, before states could be readmitted to the Union, their legislatures had to ratify the Fourteenth
Amendment.
*Johnson vetoed the First Reconstruction Act, saying that it was “without precedent and without authority,
in clear conflict with the plainest provisions of the Constitution” Congress promptly overrode the veto.
*Some twenty thousand federal troops were sent to the South during the spring and summer of 1867 to
keep law and order.
*The Reconstruction Act of 1867 invalidated the state governments formed under the Lincoln and Johnson
plans and all the legal decisions made by those governments. Only Tennessee, which had ratified the
Fourteenth Amendment and had been readmitted to the Union, escaped further reconstruction.
*The Second Reconstruction Act was issued to enforce the First. It was issued in March of 1867 and
required military commanders to initiate voter enrollment.
*The Third Reconstruction Act was issued to enforce the First. It was issued in July of 1867. It expanded
the powers of military commanders.
*The Fourth Reconstruction Act was issued to enforce the First. It was issued in March of 1868. It
provided that a majority of voters, however few, could put a new state constitution into force.
Land-Reform Bill
*During the congressional debates, Radical Republican congressman Thaddeus Stevens had argued for the
confiscation of large Confederate estates to “humble the proud traitors” and to provide for the former
slaves.
*In March 1867 he had proposed subdividing such confiscated property into forty-acre tracts to be
distributed among the freedmen. The remainder of the confiscated land, some 90 percent of it, would be
sold to pay off war debts. (Stevens wanted to crush the planter aristocracy and create a new class of selfsufficient black yeoman farmers--Political independence rested on economic independence, he contended;
land grants would be more valuable to the freedmen than the right of suffrage.)
*Stevens’s land-reform bill won the support of other Radicals, but it never made progress, for most
Republicans held property rights sacred. Tampering with such rights in the South, they feared, would
jeopardize them in the North. Moreover, Stevens’s proposal would alienate southern ex-Whigs from the
Republican cause, antagonize other white southerners, and thereby endanger the rest of Reconstruction.
Thus land reform never came about.
Tenure of Office Act
*1867
*Radicals felt that Johnson was not carrying out his constitutional obligation to enforce the First
Reconstruction Act. For instance, he removed military officers who were helping black people. Also,
members of his cabinet ignored the required oaths and appointed many Confederates to positions in their
departments.
*The Radicals made a bold move to take control of the Presidency by passing the Tenure of Office Act.
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*This law stated that Presidents could not remove cabinet officers they had themselves appointed without
first obtaining a two-thirds vote of the Senate.
*So that no one would misunderstand the real purpose of the act (impeachment), one clause flatly stated
that breaking the act would be a “high misdemeanor.” The phrase “high crimes and misdemeanors” is used
in the Constitution (Article 2, Section 4) to define an impeachable offense.
*Johnson, as well as others, was sure that Congress had overreached itself and that the act was
unconstitutional. Still it had to be tested in court.
*In August 1867, with Congress out of session, Johnson suspended Secretary of War Stanton and replaced
him with General Grant. In early 1868 the reconvened Senate refused to approve Stanton’s suspension, and
Grant, sensing the Republican mood, vacated the office. Johnson then removed Stanton and replaced him
with another general, the aged Lorenzo Thomas.
Army Appropriations Act
*1867
*A rider to the army appropriations bill prohibited the president from issuing military orders except through
the commanding general, Ulysses S. Grant, who could not be removed without the Senate’s consent.
Impeachment
*Impeachment is the charge of a public official--in this case, the President--with misconduct in office.
*On February 24, 1868, the House voted to impeach the President (They approved eleven charges of
impeachment, nine of them based on violation of the Tenure of Office Act--The other charges accused
Johnson of being “unmindful of the high duties of office,” of seeking to disgrace Congress, and failing to
enforce the Reconstruction acts).
*Johnson’s trial before the Senate lasted from mid-March to May 26, 1868. (11 weeks)
*Seven congressmen, including leading Radical Republicans, served as prosecutors or “managers,” while
prominent attorneys represented the president.
*There were two questions to be decided at Johnson’s trial:
(1) One involved a narrow constitutional case, which easily knocked down by the President’s lawyers.
The Tenure of Office Act, they pointed out, did not even apply to Stanton. He had been appointed by
Lincoln, not Johnson. Therefore, no criminal act as defined by the Constitution was committed.
(2) The second question had to do with Johnson’s conduct in office. He was accused of “intemperate
language” and of having brought “disgrace, ridicule, contempt, and reproach” on Congress. To press
criminal charges against a man because Congress did not like the way he talked or behaved seemed
ridiculous to those not caught up in the passion of the moment. Nevertheless, there was an underlying
issue. Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts stated that Johnson personally stood for the “tyrannical
slave power.” Keeping him in the Presidency, Sumner went on, would mean leaving loyal Unionists of the
South--both black and white--at the mercy of their enemies. The question thus was political, not legal.
Impeachment, said Sumner, is “as broad as the Constitution itself.” It applied, he said, to “any act of evil
example or influence.”
*The Massachusetts senator had raised a serious issue. There is no doubt that the Radicals were trying to
change the way the Constitution worked. They were trying to destroy the federal government’s system of
checks and balances, and to make the executive branch answerable to the legislature (as it is in the British
system).
*The congressional “managers” countered Johnson’s attorneys that impeachment was a political process,
not a criminal trial, and that Johnson’s “abuse of discretionary power” constituted an impeachable offense.
*Although Senate opinion split along party lines and Republicans outnumbered Democrats, some
Republicans wavered, fearing that the removal of a president would destroy the balance of power among
the three branches of the federal government. They also distrusted Radical Republican Benjamin Wade,
the president pro tempore of the Senate, who, because there was no vice president, would accede to the
presidency if Johnson were thrown out.
*The vote in the Senate was 35 to 19; one vote less than the two-thirds needed to convict the President.
Southern Government
*In addition to black people, the Radical Reconstruction governments in Southern states were supported by
scalawags and carpetbaggers.
*Scalawags were white Southerners who joined the Republican party. Some had been Whigs before the
Civil War. They wanted the South to industrialize as quickly as possible and believed this could best be
done under the Republicans. Other scalawags had opposed slavery and secession, and they did not want
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the former planter aristocracy to return to power. Finally, some scalawags were selfish individuals who
hoped to get themselves into office with the help of black voters and then steal as much as they could.
These scalawags would parade blacks to the polls, pad voting lists, and stuff ballot boxes. Whatever their
motives, scalawags were considered traitors by most white Southerners (The word scalawag means
scoundrel.)
*Carpetbaggers were Northerners who moved to the South after the war. (The nickname came from the
belief that they carried all their belongings in a bag made of carpeting material). Like the scalawags,
carpetbaggers had mixed motives for supporting Radical Reconstruction. Some were teachers and
members of the clergy who felt a moral duty to help former slaves. Some were Union soldiers who
preferred to live in the warm climate of the South. Some were businesspeople who hoped to start new
industries (The iron works in Birmingham, Alabama, and in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for example, were
founded by Ohioans John T. Wilder and Willard Ware). In addition, some carpetbaggers were dishonest,
irresponsible adventurers.
Ex Parte Milligan
*1866
*Lambdin Milligan, a citizen of Indiana, was arrested for subversive activities in support of the Southern
cause during the Civil War.
*He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to die by a military court system in Indiana in spite of the fact that
the Indiana civilian court system was functioning. Milligan’s appeal to the Supreme Court raised the
question of the dividing line between civil and military control over civilians during wartime.
*The Supreme Court ruled that while the Constitution permitted the suspension of habeas corpus, it did not
suspend the judicial powers of federal courts. Military tribunals could be established, but when the federal
courts were “open and ready” no other court could claim jurisdiction.
*Milligan sued for damages for false imprisonment. A jury awarded him five dollars.
Mississippi v. Johnson
*1867
*This case involved the attempt by the state of Mississippi to force the president to stop enforcing the
Reconstruction acts on the grounds that the acts were unconstitutional. Can the Supreme Court stop the
President from carrying out an act of Congress?
* “The Congress is the legislative department of the government; the President is the executive department.
Neither can be restrained in its action by the judicial department; though the acts of both, when performed,
are in proper cases, subject to its cognizance.”
*The Court had earlier issued the doctrine of political question to avoid involvement in Dorr’s Rebellion
(Luther v. Borden, 1849). This doctrine simply stated that the issue was a political question to be resolved
at the polls or in the legislature.
ECONOMIC
Southern Taxes
*Because rebuilding the devastated South and expanding the state governments cost millions, state debts
and taxes skyrocketed.
*During the 1860s the southern tax burden rose 400 percent.
*State legislatures increased poll taxes or “head” taxes (levies on individuals); enacted luxury, sales, and
occupation taxes; and imposed new property taxes.
*Before the war southern states had taxed property in slaves but had barely taxed landed property at all.
Now for the first time, state governments assessed even small farmers’ holdings, and big planters paid what
they considered an excessive burden.
*Although northern tax rates still exceeded southern rates, southern landowners resented the new levies. In
their view, Reconstruction strained the pocketbooks of the propertied, who were already beset by labor
problems and falling land values, in order to finance the vast expenditures of Republican legislators.
Southern Homestead Act
*1866
*It was an attempt by the federal government to provide ex-slaves with land.
*It set aside 44 million acres of land in five southern states for freedmen and loyal whites.
*Not only did this acreage contain poor soil, but few former slaves had the resources to survive even until
their first harvest.
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*Thus although about four thousand blacks were resettled on homesteads under the law, most were unable
to establish farms.
Sharecropping
*Planters and freedmen began experimenting with new labor schemes, including the division of plantations
into small tenancies.
*Sharecropping, the most widespread arrangement, evolved as a compromise.
*Under the sharecropping system, landowners subdivided large plantations into farms of thirty to fifty
acres, which they rented to freedmen under annual leases for a share of the crop, usually half.
*Freedmen preferred this system to wage labor because it represented a step toward independence. The
decentralized plan enabled heads of households to use the labor of family members. Moreover, a half-share
of the crop far exceeded the fraction that freedmen had received as wages under the black codes.
*By 1880, 80 percent of the land in the cotton-producing states had been subdivided into tenancies, most of
it farmed by sharecroppers, white and black. Indeed, white sharecroppers now outnumbered black ones,
although a higher proportion of southern blacks, about 75 percent, were involved in the system.
Crop Lien System
*Before the Civil War, planters had depended on factors, or middlemen, who sold them supplies, extended
credit, and marketed their crops through urban merchants. These long-distance credit arrangements were
backed by the high value and liquidity of slave property. When slavery ended, the factorage system
collapsed. The postwar South, with hundreds of thousands of tenants and sharecroppers, needed a far more
localized network of credit.
*Into the gap stepped the rural merchants (often themselves planters), who advanced supplies to tenants and
sharecroppers on credit and sold their crops to wholesalers or textile manufacturers.
*Since renters had no property to use as collateral, the merchants secured their loans with a lien, or claim,
on each farmer’s next crop. They charged exorbitant interest of 50 percent or 60 percent or more and
quickly drew many tenants and sharecroppers into a cycle of indebtedness.
*Owing part of the crop to a landowner for rent, a sharecropper also owed his rural merchant a large sum
(perhaps amounting to the rest of the crop, if not more) for supplies. Moreover, an illiterate tenant often
could not keep track of his financial arrangements, and a merchant could easily take advantage of him.
Long Drive
*When the Civil War broke out, Texas men joined the Confederate army and left their cattle to fend for
themselves. The animals managed so well that by 1865 they had increased from several hundred thousand
head to at least three-and-a-half million.
*Texans returning from the war thus found themselves with a prime asset. They faced a problem, though-How could they get all that beef to the industrial workers and European immigrants who were flooding
Northern cities? No railroads came into the Texas cattle country, and Mississippi River steamboats could
carry only a few animals at a time.
*The person who solved the problem was an Illinois cattle dealer named Joseph G. McCoy. In 1867 he
built a shipping yard at Abilene, Kansas. The village was situated on the Kansas Pacific Railroad.
McCoy’s venture paid off. The first season, some thirty-five thousand longhorns moved along the
Chisholm Trail. From Abilene, a thousand cattle cars shipped the animals to packing plants in Chicago.
*By 1871, more than six hundred thousand head were making the long drive.
Typewriter
*The typewriter was invented by Christopher Sholes in 1867.
*Sholes, who had worked as an editor and a postmaster, looked on his invention as a toy.
*The Remington Arms Company took a different view. In 1874 the firm bought Sholes’s patent rights to
the machine and proceeded to revolutionize offices throughout the nation.
*Sholes received only $12,000 from the Remington Arms Company (later Remington Rand) for his
invention. His financial backer, who took royalties from Remington rather than cash, ended up with $1.5
million.
*The typewriter had a tremendous impact on women. In 1870 women made up less than 5 percent of office
workers. By 1900 they made up more than 75 percent, or about 500,000. Most of them were between
fifteen and twenty-four years old, single, and living at home. Most of them were also white and nativeborn. White-collar work was reserved for “real Americans.” It was cleaner and easier than factory or
domestic work and it was usually steady so one was less likely to be laid off. With such an economic base,
women began to press more strongly for suffrage.
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National Labor Union
*1866
*Skilled workers had formed local unions in the early 1800s. However, it was not until 1866 that the first
national federation came into being.
*The new organization was called the National Labor Union (NLU).
*It consisted of about three hundred local unions from thirteen states, led by an iron molder named William
H. Sylvis.
*Its main demand was for an eight-hour workday.
*Sylvis urged labor to organize its own national party, the way workers in Europe were doing.
*Sylvis argued in favor of including women and blacks in the NLU. Kate Mullaney, head of the Laundry
Workers Union in Troy, New York, became assistant secretary of the national federation. The carpenters
and joiners agreed to open their locals to black members. Other unions, however, refused to follow suit.
*The NLU grew up to 650,000 members. In 1868 it persuaded Congress to pass an eight-hour law for
government workers.
*In 1872 it ran a candidate for President on the Labor Reform party ticket.
*The National Labor Union failed to survive the depression of 1873.
Strike
*1877
*The first national strike in American history took place July 1877. It was organized by workers for the
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in West Virginia.
*Ever since the 1873 depression, the railroad industry had been in trouble. In an effort to lower costs and
still pay the 8 to 10 percent annual divided that stockholders expected, railroad management had cut wage
rates 35 percent, lengthened the workday from fifteen to eighteen hours, and doubled the train size.
*On July 11, the railroad announced yet another pay cut. On July 16, when the new pay scale went into
effect, forty firemen and brakemen quit their jobs in protest. They were replaced at once, and the freight
trains started down the line. When they reached Martinsburg, West Virginia, sympathetic trainmen
surrounded the railroad depot. No trains would leave, they said, until wages were restored to their original
level.
*A sympathetic strike broke out in Pittsburgh.
*Federal troops were summoned to break up the demonstration. They killed twenty-six strikers and
wounded hundreds.
*Enraged by the bloodshed, some twenty thousand persons, including thousands of workers from
Pittsburgh’s steel mills and coal mines, attacked the federal troops and drove them out of the city. Then
they began to destroy railroad property.
*Similar strikes flared up all along the nation’s railroad lines. Everywhere, federal troops were used
against peaceful strikers and rioters alike.
*By August 2 order had been restored and trains began running again. Most workers who had gone out on
strike lost their jobs. However, the workers had made their point. Most railroads decided either to restore
wage cuts or at least not to lower wages any further.
*After the strike, railroads and many other corporations began to organize against unions. Corporations
required new employees to sign yellow-dog contracts, that is, pledges not to join a union. They also hired
private detectives to spy on union members and to serve as scabs, or strikebreakers. These outsiders were
called Pinkertons after the Pinkerton Detective Agency, which had become famous for this type of work.
SOCIAL
Supplementary Freedmen’s Bureau Act
*Congress voted to continue the Freedmen’s Bureau, established in 1865, whose term was coming to an
end.
*This agency, headed by former Union general O.O. Howard and staffed mainly by army officers, was a
major federal arm in the South.
*It provided relief, rations, and medical care; built schools for the freedmen; put them to work on
abandoned or confiscated lands; and tried to protect their rights as laborers.
*Congress voted not only to extend the bureau’s life for three years but to give it new power: it could run
special military courts to settle labor disputes and could invalidate labor contracts forced on freedmen by
the black codes.
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*In February 1866 Johnson vetoed the Freedmen’s Bureau bill. The Constitution, he declared, did not
sanction military trials of civilians in peacetime, nor did it support a system to care for “indigent persons.”
*In July Congress enacted the Supplementary Freedmen’s Bureau Act over Johnson’s veto.
Civil Rights Act of 1866
*In March 1866 Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1866.
*This bill, as well as the Supplementary Freedmen’s Bureau Act, were written by Senator Lyman Trumbull
of Illinois who was a leader among the moderate Republicans.
*This act gave black citizenship and forbade states from passing discriminatory laws. The law gave the
federal government the right to intervene in the states to ensure black rights in court.
*Johnson vetoed this measure.
*But in April Congress overrode this veto; the Civil Rights Act of 1866 was the first major law ever passed
over a presidential veto.
Black Codes
*Laws aimed at regulating the economic and social lives of freed slaves. It was an attempt to ensure a
landless, dependent black labor force.
*The black codes replaced the slave codes, the state laws that had regulated slavery.
*Black codes varied. Generally, they all stated that blacks could legally marry, own property, sue in court,
and go to school. Thus, the codes recognized that blacks had certain rights they did not have before.
*At the same time, however, blacks could not serve on juries, carry weapons, testify before whites, or
marry whites. Blacks also had to obey a curfew, and they needed permits in order to travel.
*Blacks were not allowed to start their own businesses. In some states, blacks could not rent or lease farm
land.
*In South Carolina, blacks needed special licenses to work other than as servants or farm laborers.
*The black codes solidified the alliance between planters and local law enforcement agents--a white power
structure with control over black labor.
*In practice, many clauses in the codes never took effect: the Union army and the Freedmen’s Bureau
swiftly suspended the enforcement of racially discriminatory provisions of the new laws. But the black
codes were important indicators of their intentions and what “home rule” would have been like.
Ku Klux Klan
*Vigilante groups sprang up spontaneously in all parts of the former Confederacy under names like
moderators, regulators, and in Louisiana, the Knights of the White Camelia.
*In the spring of 1866, when the Johnson governments were still in power, six young Confederate war
veterans in Tennessee formed a social club, the Ku Klux Klan, distinguished by elaborate rituals, hooded
costumes, and secret passwords.
*By the election of 1868, when black suffrage had become a reality, Klan dens existed in all the southern
states, and Klansmen embarked on night raids to intimidate black voters. Reminiscent of the antebellum
slave patrols, the Ku Klux Klan became a violent arm of the Democratic party.
*The Klan’s goals were to suppress black voting, reestablish white supremacy, and topple the
Reconstruction governments.
*Klan dens adapted their strategies and timing to local conditions. In Mississippi the Klan targeted black
schools; in Alabama it concentrated on Republican officeholders.
*By 1872 the federal government had effectively suppressed the Klan (see Grant--Enforcement Acts), but
vigilantism had served its purpose. Only a large military presence in the South could have protected black
rights, and the government in Washington never provided it. Instead, federal power in the former
Confederacy diminished.
Grange
*1867
*In 1867 a farmer named Oliver Kelley organized the Patrons of Husbandry, popularly known as the
Grange which means “farm.”
*Kelley, a member of the Department of Agriculture, made an inspection tour of the southern farms in
1866. Disturbed by farmers’ isolation, the following year he formed the Grange.
*Its original purpose was to provide a way for isolated farm families to get together socially and also learn
more about scientific methods of farming.
*By the 1870s, however, farmers in the Grange lodges were spending most of their time and energy
fighting the railroads. Since there were more than twenty thousand lodges with a membership of more than
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1.5 million--women as well as men--they put up an extremely effective fight.
*What angered the Grangers were the rate policies the railroads followed. Since most communities were
served by only one line, there was no price competition. Furthermore, there were no alternative means of
transportation. If farmers wanted to send their crops to market, they had to pay whatever shipping rate the
railroad set. All too often, the railroad charged all that the traffic could bear.
*The Granger idea was that the railroads were a public utility, that is, they were public in nature even
though they were privately owned and managed. Since they were public utilities, the public had the right to
regulate them through their government.
*The Grangers voted as a bloc, or unified group, and elected enough state legislators to get so-called
Granger laws passed in fourteen states, including the breadbasket states of Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, and
Wisconsin. In general, these laws established state railroad commissions with the power to set freight rates
according to distance.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Mexico
*French intervention began in 1862 when Archduke Maximilian of Austria, with the support of the French
forces in collaboration with reactionary landowners and churchmen in Mexico, was enthroned as Emperor
of Mexico.
*Back of the French intervention was the Emperor Napoleon III and his ambitions for an empire. Mexico
was only one of a half-dozen instances of Napoleon’s aggression.
*Secretary of State Seward demanded the withdrawal of the French troops that upheld the French puppets
against the will of the people of Mexico, but the Civil War precluded the use of American troops.
*In the fall of 1865 General Sheridan was sent to the Texas border at the Rio Grande by Johnson and
Seward, and quiet demands invoking the Monroe Doctrine were made again for withdrawal; at the same
time Benito Juarez, the revolutionary leader, was tactily recognized.
*With growing problems of his own in Europe, Napoleon had no alternative and withdrew his troops in
May, 1866.
*Without foreign military support, Maximilian was captured and shot by a Mexican firing squad.
*The American course of action further reinforced the Monroe Doctrine.
Alaska
*1867
*Secretary of State Seward, an eager expansionist, was approached in December, 1866, by the Russian
minister in a move that resulted in the purchase of Alaska by the United States.
*The friendliness of the Russians in sending their fleet to New York during the Civil War opened the way
for these negotiations.
*The Russians wished to sell Alaska because its fur resources had now been well exhausted.
*Expecting that friction with Great Britain might lead to war and the capture of defenseless Alaska by the
British, the Russians preferred to see it in American hands.
*The United States bought “Seward’s Folly” in 1867 chiefly through the energetic efforts of the Secretary
of State.
*It was urged that the purchase would repay the Russians for their show of friendship during the Civil War.
Rumors of its wealth of furs, fish, and gold along with a propaganda campaign helped to convince
Congress of the wisdom of the purchase.
*It proved to be a profitable purchase at a cost of $7,200,000.
GRANT
1869-1877
POLITICAL
Amnesty Act
*1872
*In May 1872 Congress passed the Amnesty Act.
*It returned to about 160,000 former Confederates the right to vote and to hold federal and state offices.
*Only about 500 of the highest Confederate leaders did not receive their political rights back under this act.
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Redemption
*The process of reconstruction governments being replaced by governments that represented traditional
white rule.
*By the end of the century, new voting regulations were adopted in all Southern states. These were
carefully drawn to stay within the bounds of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, but they contained
subtle discrimination. For example, a requirement for voting might be the ability to “read and understand”
the law (referred to as literacy tests). Tests of understanding were administered orally. Blacks and others
who might vote Republican were given hard questions and were told they had failed. Democratic party
members, on the other hand, received easy questions.
*Poll taxes were also used. An individual had to pay a poll tax before being allowed to vote. The tax was
small, usually a few dollars, but it had to be paid long before election day. Blacks might not get reminders
of the due date, but whites would. Those blacks who remembered on their own were unable to find an
official to accept their money.
*The literacy test and poll tax kept many poor whites as well as blacks away from the polls. Therefore,
beginning in 1898 several Southern states added a grandfather clause to their constitutions. The clause
stated that even if a man failed the literacy test or could not afford the poll tax, he was still entitled to vote
provided that he had been eligible to do so on January 1, 1867--before Radical Reconstruction--or provided
that his father or grandfather had been eligible to do so. The grandfather clause enabled many poor whites
to vote. However, it did not apply to blacks, because blacks did not have suffrage before Radical
Reconstruction. (In 1915 the grandfather clause was declared unconstitutional in Guinn v. U.S.)
*As a result of these tactics, most Southern blacks stopped voting.
Scandals
*Beginning in 1873 a series of long-simmering scandals erupted in the Grant administration.
*First came the Treasury Department scandal involving kickbacks on a tax-collecting contract. It led to the
resignation of the secretary of treasury.
*Then came the so-called Whiskey Ring, which involved internal revenue collectors who had helped
defraud the federal government of millions of dollars of revenue taxes on whiskey. The scandal reached up
to Grant’s private secretary, General Orville E. Babcock, who was one of 238 persons indicted.
*Next it was the discovered that Secretary of War William E. Belknap had accepted bribes from merchants
in Indian territory who wanted to keep their profitable trading concessions. The House of Representatives
impeached Belknap, who promptly resigned.
*Similarly, the secretary of the navy had taken bribes from shipbuilders, and the secretary of interior had
had dealings with land speculators.
Salary Grab Act
*In 1873 Congress doubled the salary of the President and voted themselves a salary increase of 50 percent.
The worst part of the act was that it made the increase retroactive two years back. Public reaction gave the
Democrats control of the next Congress and the law was repealed.
“Black Friday” Gold Conspiracy
*Two notorious and unscrupulous speculators, Jim Fisk and Jay Gould, in September, 1869, engineered a
plot to make millions in quick profit by cornering the nation’s gold supply.
*Through a brother-in-law the President was convinced by a seemingly logical argument that a stoppage of
the sale of gold by the Treasury would help farmers by causing a rise in the price of wheat.
*Grant’s innocent complicity enabled these two speculators to buy much of the small supply of gold in the
country and drive the price up fantastically.
*Businessmen who needed gold in legitimate transactions were driven to bankruptcy on “Black Friday”
when the price was bid up madly.
*When Grant realized what was happening, the ordered the Treasury Department to sell gold and thereby
broke the speculative bubble, but great harm had already been done to thousands of persons.
Credit Mobilier
*1872
*The Credit Mobilier was a construction company that built the Union Pacific Railroad, and it operated in
the following way. Credit Mobilier and Union Pacific were both run by the same individuals. These men
realized that it was not the owners or operators who made the most money out of building the railroads. It
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was the construction contractors. So, in their capacity as officials of the Union Pacific, these men formed a
construction company called the Credit Mobilier. Then, in their capacity as officials of the Union Pacific,
they gave their own construction company a contract to lay track at two or three times the actual cost. They
divided the excess profits among themselves. These profits were later estimated as ranging from $33 to
$50 million.
*Similar tactics were followed by the Central Pacific Railroad which was paid $120 million to build a line
that actually cost about $58 million.
*The railroad officials wanted to be sure that Congress would continue giving the railroads land grants and
construction subsidies. They also wanted to prevent a congressional investigation of their financial
dealings. So they gave shares of stock in Credit Mobilier to twenty or so congressmen, including James
Garfield of Ohio, who later became President of the United States. The stock paid dividends of several
hundred percent.
*In 1872 a crusading newspaper, the New York Sun, exposed the bribery.
*In 1873 a congressional committee investigated the matter. Two congressmen were censured, but
otherwise the result was a complete whitewash.
Tweed Ring
*1873
*Political machines were unofficial organizations designed to keep a particular party or group in power.
Usually a single, powerful political boss presided over them. Sometimes the boss held public office--More
often he handpicked others to run for office and then helped them win. An army of ward leaders, people
who each administered a city district, assisted the boss by handing out city jobs and contracts and by doing
favors for residents. In return, residents supported the machine ticket on election day.
*Machines controlled jobs in all administrative offices. They gave their leaders access to graft, or money
passed “under the table” in return for favors, such as the granting of a city contract for work.
*Many people blamed the success of political machines on the large number of immigrants who had no one
else to rely upon since there was no public welfare system.
*One of the more notorious bosses in American history was William Marcy Tweed. Tweed was the most
powerful politician of Tammany Hall, the political club that controlled New York City’s Democratic party.
*Perhaps the most extravagant example of graft was that involved in the construction of the New York
County Courthouse, which was built while Tammany Hall was under the control of the Tweed Ring.
*The building cost about $11 million, or 1.5 times as much as it cost to buy Alaska. Expenditures included
$179,729 for three tables and forty chairs and $41,190 for brooms. Although the entire building was made
of marble and iron, the plastering bill came to almost three million dollars.
*The New York Times printed one scathing editorial after another indicting the Tweed Ring. Cartoons by
Thomas Nast appearing in the Times and in Harper’s Weekly were even more devastating. As Tweed
himself said, “I don’t care what people write, for my people can’t read. But they have eyes and they can
see as well as other folk.”
*The Tweed Ring was finally broken in 1871 when a disgruntled member of the machine provided the New
York Times with direct proof of corruption. That year, reformers were elected to every municipal office in
New York. Tweed himself was indicted on 120 counts. His first trial ended without a verdict, his second
with a twelve-year sentence. He escaped from jail but was recaptured in Spain. Spanish officials
recognized him from a drawing by Nast. In 1878 Tweed died in prison.
Texas v. White
*1869
*This case involved the legality of the sale of U.S. federal government bonds in the possession of the Texas
government, which were sold after the state seceded.
*The case hinged upon the question of whether or not a state could leave the Union. The Court said
secession was constitutionally impossible. “The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an
indestructible Union, composed of indestructible states.”
* “When, therefore, Texas became one of the United States, she entered into an indissoluble relation. All
the obligations of perpetual union and all the guarantees of republican government in the Union, attached at
once to the State. The act which consummated her admission into the Union was something more than a
compact; it was the incorporation of a new member into the political body. And it was final. The union
between Texas and the other states was as complete, as perpetual, and as indissoluable as the union
between the original States.”
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Legal Tender Cases
*1870, 1871
*During the Civil War the Union government issued paper money, called greenbacks, and made them legal
tender, meaning that they were considered money for all public and private debts. Even if one refused to
accept a greenback when it was offered, the debt was still legally considered to have been paid. (Read a
modern dollar bill.)
*Many in this period believed that paper money had to be backed by specie.
*When the first case, Hepburn v. Griswold, was decided in 1870 a 5-4 Court majority ruled the Legal
Tender Acts of 1862 and 1863 unconstitutional in regard to contracts made before the passage of these acts.
The decision implied that later contracts might be invalid, and jeopardized the circulation of $350,000,000
in greenbacks. Within a year President Grant appointed two new judges to the Supreme Court. The two
new judges joined three of the dissenters from Hepburn v. Griswold to declare the Legal Tender Acts
constitutional in a new suit for all debts, whether previous or subsequent to the first Legal Tender Act.
*The cases involved in the 1871 second suit were Knox v. Lee and Parker v. Davis.
*Grant was incensed at the Hepburn decision and frankly solicited the opinions of his new appointees
before submitting their names to the Senate for confirmation.
*These cases clearly illustrate how the Supreme Court can become involved in current political issues.
Slaughterhouse Cases
*1873
*The three suits in the Slaughterhouse cases were the first under the Fourteenth Amendment. Both the
majority opinion and the dissenting opinions molded the interpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment for
decades.
*The Louisiana Reconstruction state government granted a monopoly to one corporation for butchering
livestock in New Orleans, and put over one thousand butchers out of business. The butchers claimed this
act violated the Fourteenth Amendment, abridging their “privileges and immunities” as citizens of the
United States.
*In a 5-4 decision the Court ruled a sharp distinction between state privileges and rights. The Fourteenth
Amendment protected only the latter; it offered no protection against state infringement. Most rights of
citizenship are state, not national.
*The Court narrowly interpreted the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments as designed solely
for freeing the slaves and establishing citizenship rights for blacks.
*The dissenting opinions of two judges foreshadowed the future emphasis of the first clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment. The due process and equal protection clauses became the heart of the
amendment’s later interpretations, which made the guarantees in the Bill of Rights applicable to the states.
Bradwell v. Illinois
*1873
*Myra Bradwell, wife of a prominent Chicago lawyer, studied law in her husband’s law office. In 1868 she
began to publish the Chicago Legal News, a weekly paper specializing in state and municipal court cases
and state legislation. Within a short time she was recognized as an expert on state and local law.
*After she passed the bar exam she applied to the Illinois Supreme Court for admission to the bar. She was
rejected on the grounds that she was a married woman and therefore not legally able to sign contracts
without her husband’s consent to each contract.
*She and her husband appealed to the United States Supreme Court claiming that her “privileges and
immunities” of citizenship had been denied.
*As with Minor v. Happersett, the Court ruled that the right to practice law was not a right of citizenship.
*Women reformers were incensed at a concurring opinion which served as a legalistic justification for
excluding women from professional careers.
*Myra Bradwell was finally admitted to the bar in 1890.
Greenback Party
*In 1875 the Greenback Party was organized to give expression to the debtors who demanded an increased
money supply.
*In 1878 the disgruntled labor groups joined to form the Greenback Labor Party.
*Their platforms demanded the increased use of greenbacks and the free coinage of silver on a parity with
gold.
*In 1878, at its peak, the party elected 15 representatives to Congress and many state officials.
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Compromise of 1877
*The election returns for the election of 1876 produced the most disputed election in American history.
*Samuel Tilden, a reform governor from New York who had become nationally famous by bringing an end
to the Tweed Ring in New York City, won 264,000 more popular votes than Rutherford B. Hayes, former
Civil War general and governor of Ohio, but of the undisputed electoral votes Hayes had 165 to 184 for
Tilden.
*Twenty electoral votes were disputed; 19 of these were in the Southern states of Louisiana, South
Carolina, and Florida. These states submitted two sets of election returns, one favoring each party, to
Congress.
*The Republicans would have to win every disputed elector to win the presidency.
*Congress had no law or precedent for settling such a dispute, but finally agreed to appoint an Electoral
Commission of fifteen with five members from each—the House, the Senate, and the Supreme Court.
*The membership was made up of seven Republicans, seven Democrats, and one nonpartisan. When the
nonpartisan member resigned from the Supreme Court he was necessarily replaced by a Republican since
all remaining members of the Supreme Court were Republican.
*The strictly partisan vote gave every point in dispute to the Republicans.
*The dispute was decided just a few days before the new President was inaugurated.
*A political bargain between the two parties secured the assent of the Democrats to the decision of the
Electoral Commission in return for the withdrawal of the remaining federal troops in Louisiana and South
Carolina (This is often called the Compromise of 1877). Thus was military reconstruction terminated.
ECONOMIC
Panic of 1873
*The economy had been expanding since the end of the Civil War. People in railroads and manufacturing
thus thought that business would always be good and that profits would always go up. They therefore
borrowed enormous amounts of money and built new facilities as quickly as possible.
*Unfortunately, many bankers and businessmen became overextended--that is, they assumed more debts
than they could pay.
*In September 1873 Jay Cooke and Company, a major banking firm, went bankrupt, setting off a series of
financial failures.
*Within a year, eighty-nine railroads went broke, and hundreds of companies folded.
*In the four-year depression that followed, three million workers lost their jobs. Dislike of the Grant
administration grew as a result, and white interest in black welfare declined.
The “Crime of 73”
*In 1873 another step (Legal Tender Cases) was taken to prevent the increase in the money supply.
*Congress approved a bill recommended by the treasury that discontinued the purchase and coinage of
silver, which had become relatively scarce.
*By coincidence the silver supply increased and the price fell just as silver coinage was stopped.
*To the debtors this seemed a deliberate step by the creditor interests to prevent the supply of cheap silver
from flowing into the nation’s money supply. Thus they protested violently against the demonetization of
silver and referred to the act as the “Crime of 73.”
*They began to agitate for the remonetization of silver as another way to increase the amount of money in
circulation.
Resumption Act
*In 1875 Congress yielded to financial interests to provide for a resumption of redeemability of the nation’s
paper money in gold.
*The act went into effect in 1879.
*It created creditor confidence in the soundness of the American dollar but further increased the burden of
debtors.
Barbed Wire
*Historians generally credit the invention of barbed wire to Joseph F. Glidden, who received a patent in
1874.
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*Farmers needed barbed wire for two reasons: to prevent their own cattle from wandering off and keep
stray animals from trampling their crops. Longhorns could walk through a fence or ordinary wire without
much problem. Barbed wire, however, was an effective barrier even to a stampeding herd.
*As a result of this invention, farmers could fence their land and keep out grazing cattle that had caused
much conflict between farmers and ranchers. Thus the open range on which ranchers had freely grazed
their huge herds began to disappear. This meant an end to the long drive and the cattle era.
Telephone
*The telephone first appeared in public at the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, a year after it had
been invented for practical use by Alexander Graham Bell.
*Bell’s invention not only speeded up communication but helped to tie the different parts of the nation
together.
*It also had the profound effect on the role of women in the economy. The first telephone switchboard
operators were women. Then employers discovered that women would do the work just as well for less
pay. By 1900 there were some seventy-seven thousand female telephone operators, about 96 percent of the
total.
Transcontinental Railroad
*The Union Pacific was to build westward from Omaha, Nebraska. The Central Pacific was to build
eastward from Sacramento, California.
*The construction of the two lines moved slowly at first, for the nation’s attention was focused on the Civil
War. In 1865, however, thousands of young veterans found themselves at loose ends. They were strong,
used to danger, and trained to do what they were told. They were as eager to work as the railroad was eager
to hire them. The majority of those who laid tracks for the Union Pacific were Irish immigrants.
*The Union Pacific work gangs were headed by former Union General Jack S. Casement and his brother
Dan.
*The Central Pacific had a serious shortage of labor for there were few Civil War veterans in California.
Then Charlie Crocker, the railroad’s general superintendent, decided to hire Chinese. About twenty-five
thousand had come from Canton in 1850 to take part in the gold rush. The Chinese turned out to be
excellent workers--steady, patient and brave.
*The Chinese received less than white workers for their efforts. The Chinese worked from sunrise to
sunset; white workers, eight hours a day. The Chinese earned thirty-five dollars a month; white workers,
from forty to sixty dollars. The Chinese had to buy their own dried fish, rice, and tea; white workers were
fed by the railroad free of charge.
*The last few months of the construction were sparked by a duel between the workers of the Union Pacific
and those of the Central Pacific to see which group could lay the most track in a single day.
*Finally, on May 10, 1869, the greatest engineering and construction effort undertaken since the arrival of
the first Europeans in America was over. The two rails were joined with a golden spike at Promontory
Point, Utah, and the United States was joined from coast to coast with rails of steel.
Carnegie Steel
*In 1873 Andrew Carnegie, a Scottish immigrant, launched what was to become known as Carnegie Steel.
*Carnegie was interested in controlling as much of the steel industry as possible. He bought out rival
plants whenever he had the chance. He lowered his prices--which he could afford to do--and undersold his
competitors, many of whom went out of business.
*He developed an operation that included not only steel plants but also coal and iron mines, ore freighters,
and railroad lines. This is called an integrated operation because it controls every step in the manufacturing
process from mining the raw materials to delivering the finished product to the consumer. Carnegie was
producing 25 percent of the nation’s steel when he sold his property in 1901.
Knights of Labor
*The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor was organized in 1869 by Uriah Stephens, a garment cutter from
Philadelphia.
*It started out as a secret society, with a password and a distinctive hand grip that members used when
greeting one another. Its motto was “An injury to one is the concern of all.”
*Unlike the NLU, the Knights of Labor was an organization of individuals rather than unions. Membership
was open to all workers regardless of race, sex, or degree of skill. The only occupations that were excluded
were lawyers, bankers, professional gamblers, and liquor dealers.
*Like the NLU, the Knights supported the eight-hour workday. They were opposed to child and convict
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labor. They championed health and safety laws. They advocated “equal pay for equal work” for men and
women. These ideas were considered quite radical at the time.
*The Knights believed that the road to labor success lay in political activity and in the education of the
public. They did not favor the use of strikes except as a last resort. They preferred arbitration, that is, the
settlement of disagreements between employers and workers by an impartial third party.
*At first the Knights grew slowly. Then in 1879 a mechanic named Terence V. Powderly of Scranton,
Pennsylvania, became the order’s Grand Master Workman. Under his leadership, the Knights expanded
from 28,000 members in 1880 to 700,000 in 1886. Powderly was an excellent speaker and dropped the
Knights’ secrecy and made the organization public.
Gould Strike
*The most successful strike by the Knights of Labor was against Jay Gould’s railroads.
*The Knights struck several of Gould’s lines to cancel pay cuts, and they won.
*When Gould’s Wabash line fired several hundred men for being union members, the Knights ordered its
members to refuse to handle Wabash railroads cars and locomotives. Since Gould could not afford to have
work stop on twenty thousand miles of railroad track, he rehired the fired workers and membership in the
Knights grew by leaps and bounds.
SOCIAL
Enforcement Acts
*Republican legislatures outlawed vigilantism through laws providing for fines and imprisonment of
offenders.
*But the state militia could not enforce the laws, and state officials turned to the federal government for
help.
*In May 1870 Congress passed the Enforcement Act to protect black voters. Even this law was
unenforceable, because witnesses to violations were afraid to testify against vigilantes, and local juries
refused to convict them.
*The Second Enforcement Act, which provided for federal supervision of southern elections, followed in
February 1871.
*Two months later Congress passed the Third Enforcement Act, or Ku Klux Klan Act, which strengthened
the sanctions against those who prevented blacks from voting. It also empowered the president to use
federal troops to enforce the law and to suspend the writ of habeas corpus in areas that he declared in
insurrection. President Grant suspended the writ in nine South Carolina counties that had been devastated
by Klan attacks.
Wyoming and Women’s Suffrage
*Women decided that to eventually win suffrage at the national level, it would first have to be
accomplished at the state level.
*The first test for women came in Wyoming.
*In 1869 the territory of Wyoming gave women the right to vote.
*In 1889 the territory applied for statehood. However, because its constitution contained a woman suffrage
provision, there was considerable resistance in Congress. Once Wyoming stood firm on the issue,
Congress conceded and Wyoming entered as a state in 1890.
Susan B. Anthony
*In 1871 and 1872 there were some 150 attempts by women to vote in ten states and in the District of
Columbia. the most famous attempt was that of Susan B. Anthony in Rochester, New York.
*Anthony felt that women were entitled to vote under the first article of the Fourteenth Amendment. The
article stated that “all persons born or naturalized in the United States . . . are citizens.”
*On November 1, 1872, Anthony and fifteen women appeared at the registration desk in Rochester’s
Eighth Ward and asked to be listed as voters. The inspectors agreed. On November 5 the sixteen women
went to the polls and voted.
*Three weeks later Anthony and her followers were arrested and convicted for voting illegally. Anthony
refused to pay the $100 fine. She had hoped her case would go the Supreme Court, but this did not happen.
Minor v. Happersett
*1873
*In the case the Court ruled unanimously that women were citizens. However, the justices said, citizenship
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did not automatically include the right to vote.
*If the state could withhold suffrage from certain men such as criminals, the mentally unfit, and those
under twenty-one, then the states could withhold it from all women.
Exodusters
*1875
*In the late 1870s, southern African Americans planned a mass “Exodus,” similar to the biblical account of
the Israelites’ flight from Egypt to the promised land. For this reason, these settlers called themselves
Exodusters.
*Life was not easy for the almost fifty thousand Exodusters who migrated to Kansas. Some came with
money and property, but many did not. Even after finding work, only a few earned enough for a
homestead. For those who did, winters were harsher than in the South, and the resettled farmers lacked
experience with the crops, such as cotton and corn, widely grown in Kansas.
*The Exodusters could not completely escape racial hatred: Kansas, like other western lands, had an active
Ku Klux Klan.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Custer’s Last Stand
*The treaty of 1868 had promised the Sioux that they could live forever in the Black Hills area of what is
now South Dakota and Wyoming. To the Sioux this land was sacred. It was the center of their land, the
place where warriors went to await visions from their guardian spirits. It was also the only good hunting
ground remaining to them.
*Unfortunately for the Sioux, the Black Hills contained large deposits of gold. As soon as white
Americans learned that gold had been discovered, they poured into the Indians’ territory and began staking
claims.
*The Indians appealed to Washington to enforce the treaty terms and remove the miners. The government
responded by sending out a commission to either lease mineral rights or buy the Black Hills outright. The
Indians refused the commission’s offer, whereupon the government sent in the Seventh Calvary, under the
command of Lieutenant-Colonel George Armstrong Custer, to remove not the miners but the Indians.
*In 1876 Sitting Bull, who was a medicine man that often had visions that showed him what actions to
take, formed an alliance among the Arapaho, the Cheyenne and the Sioux. (Chiefs of different tribes were
considered equal to one another--however, Sitting Bull was recognized as being “above all the others.”)
*Crazy Horse was the Indians’ field commander. He was always coming up with new ways of moving his
troops around and attacking the enemy where it was least expected. He was especially skilled at making
charges and fake retreats that would draw off part of the opposing forces.
*The battle known as Custer’s Last Stand took place on June 25, 1876, along the banks of the Little
Bighorn River in Montana. When it was over, Custer and all 215 of the officers and men with him were
dead. It was the greatest victory the Plains Indians scored against the United States forces. It was also the
last.
*The death of Custer and his men shook the nation. Calls for vengeance were common. Congress
promptly voted money to enlarge the army and to send thousands of additional troops to the frontier.
Santo Domingo
*1869
*Grant in 1869 fell in with a scheme of speculators to take over Santo Domingo.
*He submitted a treaty to the Senate, but there it was opposed by Charles Sumner who recognized the
dishonesty involved.
*Grant persistently tried to secure Senate approval. Later Sumner was deposed from the chairmanship of
the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations when Grant had his revenge.
Fenians
*A secret Irish-American brotherhood known as the Fenians organized in the 1850’s to help achieve
freedom for Ireland.
*After the Civil War they planned to use Union veterans of the Civil War to conquer Canada and exchange
it to Britain for freedom for Ireland.
*In 1866 the Fenians invaded Canada from the U.S. at the Niagara River and fought a battle with the
Canadian militia.
*After a second invasion in 1870 the U.S. arrested the Fenian leaders and took other steps to prevent other
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invasions of British Canada.
*The incidents may have made the British more willing to recognize their error in aiding the Confederacy.
Treaty of Washington
*1871
*On behalf of the United States, Secretary of State Sumner made large claims against Great Britain for
damage payments for the depredations of the Alabama and other British-built cruisers that had destroyed
American shipping during the Civil War.
*Settlement was prevented for several years by the preposterous claims of Sumner and British reluctance to
make any reasonable settlement.
*When Hamilton Fish became Secretary of State he quietly worked out a settlement in the Treaty of
Washington of 1871.
*In this treaty the British admitted their unneutral behavior and agreed to submit the claims to arbitration
under conditions that assured the United States an award. As a consequence the Alabama Tribunal met at
Geneva and awarded the United States $15,500,000 indemnity.
*Another provision of the Treaty of Washington resulted in an award of $2,000,000 to Britain for property
lost by her subjects in the Civil War.
*Still another British claim against the United States over American fishing privileges resulted in an
arbitration award of $5,500,000 to Britain.
*A final provision led to settlement by arbitration of the exact boundary between the United States and
British Columbia in the maze of islands in the Puget Sound.
*These awards constituted another landmark in the long record of peaceable settlement of serious disputes
between the two countries and of victory for the principle of arbitration in international law.
Cuban Revolt
*1868
*A ten year long revolt of Cuba against Spain began in 1868; the United States, although sympathetic with
the Cubans, adopted a policy of neutrality.
*In 1873 the Spaniards captured the Virginius, a ship illegally flying the American flag and proceeded with
the execution of those aboard, including some Americans.
*Hostilities were avoided and Spain agreed to make damage payments to families of those executed.
Burlingame Treaty
*Anson Burlingame, the American minister to China during the 1860’s, drew up this agreement (1868)
which permitted unrestricted Chinese immigration to the United States.
*Large numbers of Chinese were entering California at the time; strenuous but unsuccessful efforts were
soon made in California to limit drastically the incoming surplus of labor.
HAYES
1877-1881
POLITICAL
Munn v. Illinois
*1877
*The case involved an Illinois state law limiting maximum rates for the storage of grain in privately owned
grain elevators. One of the so-called Granger laws, it grew out of the 1870 revision of the state
constitution, which empowered the legislature to regulate the storage of grain.
*Munn and his partner were fined $100 for charging higher rates and for operating without a license. He
sought relief from his conviction on the grounds that it violated the due process and equal protection
clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment and on the grounds of exclusive federal regulation of commerce.
(Railroad attorneys argued that Granger laws took away private property without due process of law.)
*In the Munn decision the Court ruled that state Granger laws were constitutional.
*Chief Justice Waite wrote the 7-2 opinion asserting that the owners of property “in which the public has
an interest . . . must submit to be controlled by the public for the common good.”
Civil Service
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*About one month after being declared the winner of the 1876 election, Hayes wrote in his diary, “Now for
Civil Service Reform.” Hayes was the first President to turn away from the practice of patronage.
*Unfortunately, Hayes was unable to get legislative support for his ideas, even from members of his own
party. So he did what he could through executive orders and appointments.
*Hayes began by naming able independents to his cabinet. One appointee set up a merit system in his
department. Another took the unheard-of step of firing clerks who did not have enough work to do.
*Hayes’s next step was to appoint a commission to investigate the nation’s customshouses. These
customshouses were a source of great corruption. The New York Customs House, for example, had more
than one thousand employees, all of whom spent most of their time working for the Republican party.
*When the commission turned in its report, Hayes fired the two top officials at the New York Customs
House. Senator Roscoe Conkling, the New York Republican boss, was outraged. Conkling and his
supporters, who were called Stalwarts, waged political war on the President for the rest of his term.
Greenback-Labor Party
*Hayes endorsed the “sound money” policies of his party.
*He backed the successful efforts of his Secretary of Treasury, John Sherman, to accumulate a gold reserve
of $100,000,000 so that the purpose of the Resumption Act could be realized.
*In 1879 the Treasury resumed the redemption of greenbacks in gold, i.e., adopted the gold standard.
*This hard money policy caused a continual appreciation in the value of the dollar to the benefit of the
creditor class and to the detriment of the debtors. Farm prices continued their long-term decline.
*The Greenbackers voiced their objections by organizing the Greenback-Labor Party in 1878, a successor
to the National Greenback Party that had organized in 1875. Western farmers gave the party much support
in the party’s demand for an increased money supply.
*The party lasted until 1884 when it merged with the Anti-Monopoly party.
ECONOMIC
Bland-Allison Act
*1878
*This law was favored by supporters of soft money--the term used to describe an increase in the currency
supply
*This act favored those with high debts, such as farmers and business owners who had borrowed money.
*It required the federal government to purchase and coin more silver, increasing the currency supply and
causing inflation. If prices went up, farmers would make more money for their goods and would more
easily pay off debts incurred earlier.
*Although Congress passed the act, Hayes vetoed it because he opposed the inflation it would create.
*Congress overrode Hayes’s veto. Nevertheless, Hayes’s Treasury Department limited the effectiveness of
the act by buying only the minimum silver it required. The Treasury also refused to circulate the silver
dollars that the law required it to mint.
SOCIAL
Anthony Amendment
*1878
*Senator A.A. Sargent of California introduced an amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Known as the
Anthony amendment, it read: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or
abridged by the United States on by any state or account of sex.”
*The measure was sent to the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections. The committee held hearings
at which representatives of the women’s organizations testified (Elizabeth Cady Stanton is an example of a
woman that testified).
*The committee did not recommend passage of the bill.
*Even so, supporters of woman suffrage reintroduced the bill every year for the next eight years. In 1886
the bill was finally called up for debate, but it was voted down in January 1887. It was reintroduced again
for the next nine years without success.
Chief Joseph
*The Nez Perce inhabited a large area in what is now Idaho and the eastern sections of Washington and
Oregon. In the 1850s and 1860s, some Nez Perce signed treaties agreeing to sell their lands to the
government. But the largest group, which lived in the Wallowa Valley at the crossroads of the three states,
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refused. As the chief of this group lay dying in 1871, he made his son and successor, Joseph, swear never
to sell their homeland. Fulfilling that promise proved impossible.
*After pressuring Chief Joseph for five years, General Oliver Otis Howard finally ordered him and his
people to leave Wallowa Valley for a reservation in Idaho. Faced with the threat of superior force, Chief
Joseph felt he must give in. Before he could do so, however, a group of Nez Perce youths attacked some
settlers who had been accused of stealing Nez Perce horses. The Nez Perce and the United States
government were now at war.
*Chief Joseph wanted to stay and fight, but his advisory council thought that they could escape. Pursued
by soldiers, the Nez Perce fled. Eventually, Chief Joseph’s group reached Montana. Exhausted, they set up
camp at Big Hole Basin, but in a surprise 4:30 A.M. raid, U.S. soldiers attacked, killing men, women, and
children.
*The Nez Perce who escaped looked to Canada as their last hope for freedom. On September 30, 1877,
less than forty miles from Canada, Colonel Nelson Miles’s cavalry charged them. Heavily outnumbered,
Chief Joseph had no choice but to surrender. When Joseph surrendered, he made the famous statement “I
will fight no more forever.”
*The government sent Chief Joseph’s people to Indian Territory. There, due to heat and malaria, many
more Nez Perce died. In 1885 Chief Joseph and the remaining Nez Perce were allowed to leave the
territory for a reservation in present-day Washington state, but the federal government did not allow them
to return to their beloved Wallowa Valley.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
GARFIELD
1881
POLITICAL
Civil Service
*Hayes decided not to run for reelection in 1880. So there was a free-for-all at the Republican convention
between Conkling’s Stalwarts and reform Republicans. Since neither side could obtain a majority, the
convention finally settled on an independent candidate, Congressman James A. Garfield of Ohio. Garfield,
however, was a close personal friend of the reformer Hayes. Therefore, the Republicans decided to balance
the ticket by nominating a lieutenant of Conkling’s for Vice President, Chester Arthur.
*Once elected, Garfield gave anti-Conkling Republicans most of the patronage positions at his disposal.
He even appointed one as head of the New York Customs House. The Stalwarts were furious.
Assassination
*On July 2, 1881, Garfield went to Washington, D.C. railroad station to travel to his twenty-fifth college
reunion. As he strolled through the station, two shots rang out. They were fired by a mentally unbalanced
lawyer named Charles Guiteau, whom Garfield had turned down for a job. As police officers seized the
assassin, he shouted, “I did it and will go to jail for it. I am a Stalwart and Arthur will be President.”
*Garfield lingered throughout the summer but finally died from the gunshot wounds on September 19.
*Guiteau was convicted of murder and hanged.
ECONOMIC
SOCIAL
A Century of Dishonor
*1881
*Helen Hunt Jackson wrote A Century of Dishonor which focused on the mistreatment of Native
Americans.
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MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
ARTHUR
1881-1885
POLITICAL
Pendleton Act
*1883
*Arthur, to everyone’s surprise, urged legislators to pass a civil service law during his first message to
Congress.
*Under the Pendleton Act of 1883, sponsored by Senator George H. Pendleton, the President was
authorized to appoint a three-member, bipartisan civil service commission. The commission was to give
“open competitive examinations” to all applicants for “classified” jobs. These constituted about 10 percent
of all federal jobs and included almost all the workers at the New York Customs House.
*The act also gave the President the power to add to the “classified list.” Today the merit system covers
about 85 percent of all federal jobs.
*In addition, the Pendleton Act said that federal employees could no longer be forced to kick back part of
their salaries as contributions to a political party.
*Public administration became more honest when the patronage system was ended. However, with the loss
of patronage, the most obvious source of campaign funds became wealthy business people. So the alliance
between the federal government and big business became stronger than ever.
Civil Rights Cases
*1883
*In a decision consistent with the Slaughterhouse Cases the Supreme Court narrowly defined the civil
rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment in the Civil Rights Cases.
*The Civil Rights Act of 1875 made it a crime for any individual to deny full and equal use of public
conveyances and public places such as hotels, trains, railroads, theaters, and restaurants. The Court
declared that the Fourteenth Amendment protected individuals from state actions, not individual action.
*Discouraged, Congress did not pass another civil rights act until 1957.
ECONOMIC
Standard Time
*1883
*In 1870 Professor C.F. Dowd of Saratoga Springs, New York, started a campaign for uniform time.
*He suggested that the earth’s surface be divided into twenty-four time belts, or zones, beginning at
Greenwich, England (which is at zero degrees longitude). Each zone would represent one hour.
*The continental United States would have four such zones, which Dowd named Eastern, Central,
Mountain and Pacific. Thus, when it was noon in New York City, it would be eleven o’clock in Chicago,
ten in Denver, and nine in San Francisco.
*In 1883 Dowd’s plan finally went into effect. No sooner did the railroads adopt standard time zones than
the rest of the nation did the same.
*In 1918 Congress passed an act making the four time zones official.
*In 1966 Congress set up eight time zones, thus including Alaska, Hawaii and all United States
possessions. Congress also adopted daylight-savings time in summer as a fuel-saving measure.
Standard Oil
*Founded by John D. Rockefeller in 1882.
*As a powerful businessman, he was called a captain of industry. He was also called a robber baron
because he wielded more power, behaved more ruthlessly, and made and gave away more money than any
man in his time.
*Rockefeller would sell products below cost until he had driven all of his competitors out of business. The
he would jack up his prices to several times their previous level. He also forced railroads to give him
rebates, or refunds, of part of his payments for shipping his products. This was against the law. Yet the
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railroads felt they had no choice, because they could not operate if they lost Standard Oil’s business. After
all, the trust controlled at least 90 percent of the nation’s oil refining and marketing.
AFL
*1881
*The Knights of Labor had been organized on the basis that all workers had the same interests. Therefore,
there was no need for specialized unions. Now a different kind of unionism was developing. Known as
bread-and-butter unionism, its interest was less in political reform and more in shorter hours, higher wages,
and better working conditions for skilled, specialized workers. The ideas came mainly from a man named
Samuel Gompers.
*In 1881 Gompers helped found the Federation of Organized Trade and Labor Unions of the United States
of America and Canada. The name was shortened in 1886 to the American Federation of Labor (AFL).
Gompers was elected president in 1885, and except for one year, he continued to lead the organization until
his death in 1924.
*Like the NLU, the AFL was a federation of unions. However, the union were national rather than local,
and they included skilled workers only. Women and blacks, for the most part, were also excluded. Unions
that included only skilled workers in a particular craft are know as craft unions.
*The AFL avoided third-party political activity. Instead, it supported whichever candidate or party which
agreed with its demands.
*It used collective bargaining, or group negotiations between workers and their employers, whenever
possible, and strikes whenever necessary.
*It succeeded in its basic goals. Between 1890 and 1915, the average weekly wages in unionized industries
rose from $17.57 to $23.98, while the average workweek fell from 54.4 to 48.9 hours.
*Despite these successes, craft unionism was limited. The problem was that skilled workers made up less
than 30 percent of the labor force. Moreover, their numbers decreased as big business broke production
down into increasingly simpler tasks.
SOCIAL
Frontier Myth
*The romantic image of the American cowboy began developing as early as the 1870s, popularized in the
dime novels of writers like Edward L. Wheeler. In books like Deadwood Dick, Wheeler painted a hero
who was, at various times, outlaw, miner, gang leader, or cowboy and who dealt out righteous justice
against evil.
*In 1883 William F. (“Buffalo Bill”) Cody began his Wild West shows, contributing further to frontier
myths. These colorful events drew thousands of paying spectators to steer-roping contests, rodeos, and
staged battles between “good” cavalry regiments and “bad” native Americans.
Chinese Exclusion Act
*The Chinese first came to America during the Gold Rush. They found work building the transcontinental
railroad and then challenged other immigrants for low-paying jobs.
*As economic conditions worsened due to the depression of 1873, anti-Chinese feelings in California grew
more intense. The Chinese were disliked because they would work for less money than the whites.
*Dennis Kearney, himself an immigrant from Ireland and recently naturalized citizen, spearheaded the antiChinese movement. He founded the Workingman’s party and made hundreds of speeches throughout the
state, each speech ending with the words “The Chinese must go!”
*Finally, in 1882 Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act. This prohibited Chinese workers from
entering the U.S. for the next ten years.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
CLEVELAND
1885-1889
1893-1897
POLITICAL
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Wabash v. Illinois
*1886
*This case is significant because it added to the push for the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887.
*An Illinois law prohibited the infamous practice of different rates for long and short haul traffic.
*In 1886 the Supreme Court took most of the teeth out of Munn v. Illinois by a new ruling.
*In the Wabash case, the Court held that even within its own borders, a state could not set rates on railroad
traffic that either came from another state or was headed for another state (It could only pass laws on
intrastate traffic not interstate). Only the federal government, the Court said, had the power to regulate
interstate commerce.
*Since the federal government had not yet begun to regulate railroads crossing state lines, the railroads
were legally beyond control.
U.S. v. E.C. Knight Co.
*1895
*This was the first significant case under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
*The E.C. Knight Co. controlled 98% of the nation’s manufacture of sugar.
*The Court ruled that monopoly control of manufacturing was not the same as monopoly control of
commerce. The Sherman Antitrust Act restricted commerce, not manufacturing.
*Within a short time the Court broadened the definition of commerce by introducing the concept of “stream
of commerce.”
Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan and Trust Co.
*1895
*Actually several cases, the Pollock suit challenged the constitutionality of the income tax imposed by the
Wilson-Gorman Tariff, 1894.
*Income taxes had been in use for thirty years, but the Court now found them to be a violation of the
Constitution, which required direct taxes to be apportioned by population.
*The Court decided that a tax on rental income and a tax on personal property were both direct taxes.
*The Sixteenth Amendment negated this decision, and specifically permitted income taxes.
In Re Debs
*1895
*During the Pullman strike in 1894 the Pullman Company obtained an injunction under the Sherman
Antitrust Act. After refusing to comply, the union’s leader, Eugene V. Debs, was arrested for contempt of
court.
*Debs’ writ of habeas corpus to the Supreme Court was denied on the basis of a broad interpretation of the
commerce clause and the federal government’s obligation to deliver the mail. Justice Brewer wrote, “The
strong arm of the national government may be put forth to brush away all obstructions to the freedom of
interstate commerce or the transportation of the mails.”
*Critics and cynics wondered why “the strong arm of the national government” did not move as swiftly
against monopolies.
Plessy v. Ferguson
*1896
*One-eighth black, Homer Plessy was fined for refusing to leave a railroad car restricted to only whites.
Louisiana state law required “separate but equal” facilities.
*The Fourteenth Amendment ensured political equality, not social equality.
*According to the Court, separate was not second-rate citizenship. The legislature could only do so much
to ensure civil rights.
*In a stinging dissent Justice Harlan laid the foundation for the arguments that overturned the Plessy
decision in Brown v. Bd. of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 1954. “Our Constitution is colorblind, and
neither knows nor tolerates classes among citizens. In respect to civil rights, all citizens are equal before
the law.”
ECONOMIC
Interstate Commerce Act
*1887
*Responding to public pressure after the Wabash decision, Congress passed the Interstate Commerce Act.
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*It required railroad rates to be “reasonable and just” and established a five-member Interstate Commerce
Commission (ICC)--this was the first regulatory board in American history. The act required that rates be
set in proportion to distance traveled and that rate schedules be made public. The act also outlawed the
practice of giving rebates and favors to powerful customers.
*All the ICC could do, however, was prohibit railroads from charging more for short hauls than for long
hauls. It had no power to set maximum rates.
*Also, the only way it could enforce a decision was by suing the railroad--and such cases dragged on for
years. Of the sixteen cases involving the ICC that came before the Supreme Court between 1887 and 1905,
the Court ruled against the ICC fifteen times. Still, the creation of the ICC established the precedent that
private enterprise was subject to government control.
*The ICC did not become effective until after Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901.
Haymarket Affair
*1886
*On the evening of May 4, 1886 at Haymarket Square, in Chicago, twelve hundred people gathered and
listened to speeches by so-called radicals Albert Parsons, August Spies, and Samuel Fielden. They three
men were arguing in favor of the eight-hour day and were condemning a police action that had taken place
on May 3. (There had been a fight between pickets and strikebreakers at the McCormick Harvester plant-The police had killed four workers and wounded several others).
*About the time that the meeting was ending, about one hundred and eighty policemen appeared in the
square. Someone threw a bomb into the mass of policemen which resulted in the death of seven officers
and wounding sixty-seven others. The police immediately opened fire and then charged on horseback.
When the shooting and clubbing were over, ten workers lay dead and another fifty wounded.
*Though no one knew who threw the bomb, the police arrested Parsons, Spies, and Fielden. They also
arrested five other radicals who in the past had advocated violence. Although only three of the accused
men were actually in Haymarket Square and although there was no proof that any of them had either
planted or thrown a bomb, all eight men were convicted. Four of them, including Parsons and Spies, were
hanged.
*Like those convicted of the crime, the Knights of Labor had no known connection to the Haymarket
violence. Yet, because they were the leading labor organization involved in the strike at the McCormick
Harvester plant, they paid for it. Throughout the press they were pictured as a gang of radicals with bombs
in their pockets. Public opinion went sharply against them.
American Railway Union
*The man who made the first attempt at industrial unionism (organizing workers, skilled or unskilled, who
worked in the same industry) was Eugene V. Debs.
*Debs, a worker in the railroad yards, was an officer in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and
Enginemen, to which only skilled workers belonged. In 1893 the Switchmen’s Union went on strike.
Debs’s brotherhood and three others refused to support the strike. Disgusted, Debs resigned and formed his
own union.
*In 1893 Debs formed the American Railway Union to include all railroad workers. Most of its members
were unskilled or semiskilled workers who were not eligible for the brotherhoods. However, many skilled
engineers and firemen joined too. Despite Debs’s efforts, blacks were not admitted.
*The next year the American Railway Union won a strike for higher wages which resulted in a severe
climb in membership. Debs’s idea that workers had to “march together, vote together, and fight together”
was well on its way.
Pullman Strike
*1894
*A dispute over wage cuts at the Pullman Company had escalated into a strike by 125,000 members of the
American Railway Union (ARU).
*Within four days, rail traffic between Chicago and the West Coast was just about at a standstill. At this
point, the General Managers Association, an organization of twenty-four of the nation’s biggest railroads,
decided to step in.
*First the managers brought in scabs. Then they asked United States Attorney General Richard Olney, a
former railroad lawyer, for help. Olney convinced President Cleveland to send in federal troops to
guarantee the delivery of mail. In truth, however, the ARU strike was not interfering with mail trains at all.
*Olney then appointed a special federal attorney, who promptly sought an injunction, or court order,
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prohibiting all strike activity against the railroads. He argued that railroads were not a private business but
“a public highway.” If workers quit as a group, they were interfering with interstate commerce. The court
agreed and issued the injunction.
*The combination of federal troops and the injunction was too much for the union. Soon after, the strike
ended, and the American Railway Union fell apart.
*The use of injunctions gave business a strong edge over unions. All a company had to do was say that a
strike, a picket line, or a boycott would hurt its sales. A federal or state court would then issue an
injunction on the grounds that such activity by a union was “a conspiracy in restraint of trade” and violated
the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890.
*Some judges went even further. They prohibited unions from supporting strikes “by letters, printed or
other circulars, telegrams or telephones, word of mouth, oral persuasion, or suggestion, or through
interviews to be published in newspapers.”
*Under these conditions, unions found it difficult to organize workers.
Wilson-Gorman Tariff
*1896
*Passed due to the influence of the American Sugar Refining Company
*It restored a 40 percent duty on imports of Cuban sugar—resulted in the ruin of the Cuban economy
SOCIAL
Dawes Act
*1887
*This law sought to break Native American traditions by requiring Native Americans to farm individual
plots.
*The government broke up communal villages and gave separate plots to each Native American family
headed by a male.
*Much of the land was not suitable for farming, and many Native Americans had no interest or experience
in farming. Many simply sold their lands to speculators: between 1887 and 1934, the amount of land
owned by Native American shrank by 65 percent.
Texas Seed Bill
*In 1887 Congress passed the Texas Seed bill, which appropriated money for seed grain to aid drought
victims.
*But Democratic President Grover Cleveland vetoed the bill, expressing a then commonly held view that
“though the people support the government, the government should not support the people.”
Turner Thesis
*1893
*In 1890 the superintendent of the census announced the end of the frontier. The country’s so-called
“unsettled area has been so broken into by isolated bodies of settlement,” he declared, “that there can
hardly be said to be a frontier line.”
*In 1893 a young historian named Frederick Jackson Turner delivered a speech in which he addressed the
“closing of the frontier.”
*He claimed a central role for the frontier in forming the American character. The West had forced its
Anglo-American and European settlers to shed their old ways and adapt, innovate, and invent, he said. To
the frontier, Turner claimed, “American intellect owes its striking characteristics,” which he described as
insight, curiosity, inventive mind, individualism and liveliness.
*To Turner, it was the frontier that had produced the highly individualistic, restless, and socially mobile
American, the person ready for adventure, bent on self-improvement, and committed to democracy.
Coxey’s Army
*1894
*During the depression which began in 1893, millions of people lost their jobs or had their wages slashed,
yet the government offered not help to those out of work.
*Jacob Coxey, a wealthy Ohio quarry owner turned Populist, demanded that government create jobs for the
unemployed.
*Coxey called for a march on Washington. Many small “armies” started out on the protest march, but only
Coxey’s arrived.
*Police arrested Coxey and a few others for illegally carrying banners on Capitol grounds and for trampling
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the grass.
Literacy Test
*1896
*The Immigration Restriction League, established in Boston in 1894 to keep the New Immigrants out of
America, was reluctant to exclude immigrants for the stated reason of race. So they came up with the idea
of a literacy test. Only immigrants who could read and write forty words, either in their own language or in
some other language, would be admitted.
*In 1896 Senator Henry Cabot Lodge of Massachusetts introduced a bill to this effect.
*The bill passed Congress but was vetoed by President Cleveland. In his veto message, Cleveland argued
that the literacy test measured opportunity, not ability. Just because people had never had a chance to learn
how to read and write, he said, did not mean that they were incapable of learning.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Venezuela Boundary Dispute
*1895
*There was a dispute between Venezuela and Great Britain over the boundary line of British Guiana.
*The disagreement came to a head after gold was discovered in the contested territory.
*When the British rejected a U.S. arbitration offer, Secretary of State Richard Olney sent them a stern
memorandum reminding them of the Monroe Doctrine. Delighted, President Cleveland described this
lengthy note as “Olney’s twenty-inch gun.”
*When the British eventually replied with a condescending message insisting that America’s revered
Monroe Doctrine had no standing in international law, a livid Grover Cleveland asked Congress to set up a
commission to settle the disputed boundary even without Britain’s approval.
*As patriotic fervor pulsed through the nation, the British decided to placate the United States and in 1897
accepted the findings of the American boundary commission.
Hawaii
*United States interest in Hawaii had been of long standing. No sooner was the Revolutionary War over
than American merchants set out in their tall sailing ships to obtain a share of the lucrative China and East
India trade. On their way across the Pacific, they would stop at the Hawaiian islands for fresh supplies of
fruits and vegetables. The merchants were followed in the 1820’s by Yankee missionaries.
*In the 1850’s the islands’ economy changed. Sugar growing replaced whaling as the main industry.
Almost all the sugar plantations were owned by white planters from the United States. This change had
several significant consequences.
*First, it led to the importing of contract laborers. As one historian explained, Hawaiians “could see no
sense in working hard all day in the hot sun in the cane fields to earn money, when the sea was full of fish,
and a man could eat well off his own small tara [a tropical plant with edible roots] patch.” Wages for
American workers were too high for plantation owners to make a profit. So young male Chinese, then
Portuguese, and finally Japanese were brought into Hawaii by the tens of thousands to work in the cane
fields. By 1872 the Hawaiians were a minority in their own nation. They were outnumbered almost two to
one by foreigners and immigrant laborers.
*A second result of the economic change was a desire on the part of plantation owners for closer ties with
the United States. In 1875 a treaty between the two nations removed American tariffs on Hawaiian sugar,
as well as Hawaiian tariffs on American goods. The treaty was renewed in 1887, at which time the United
States acquired Pearl Harbor as a coaling station for its Pacific fleet.
*In 1887 Hawaiian-born businessmen forced King Kalakaua to change the constitution. Under the change,
only men who owned land or had a certain income were allowed to vote. Since most Hawaiians either were
poor or did not own land and since immigrant laborers were not citizens, control of the government passed
into the hands of businessmen of American descent.
*The Hawaiians grew more and more resentful. In 1891 King Kalakaua died and his sister Liliuokalani
became Queen. She did not like white rule. So she announced her intention of issuing a new constitution
that would remove property qualifications from the right to vote. She wanted “Hawaii for Hawaiians.”
*The result was a revolution organized by white business groups with the help of John L. Stevens, the
United States minister to Hawaii. On the night of January 16, 1893, the U.S.S. Boston appeared without
warning in Honolulu harbor. Following Stevens’s orders, American marines moved ashore to “protect
American lives and property in case of riot.” As they marched through the streets, volunteer troops
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organized by the white business groups took over the government building. The Hawaiian flag was pulled
down, and the Stars and Stripes was raised in its stead. The Queen was imprisoned in her palace.
*Stevens immediately recognized the provisional government, which sent a commission to Washington,
D.C., asking that the islands be annexed. Queen Liliuokalani also sent a representative, asking for justice.
*President Cleveland ordered a special investigator to Hawaii to learn what was going on. The investigator
reported that “in my judgment, Minister Stevens had been responsible for the revolution.” Cleveland then
demanded that the provisional government restore Queen Liluokalani to the throne. Instead, the provisional
government formed the Republic of Hawaii, wrote a constitution, and elected pineapple grower Sanford B.
Dole as president.
*By this time it was clear in the United States that only force could put the Queen back on her throne, yet
Congress did not want to use force. Instead, in 1894 it adopted a resolution saying that the United States
should not interfere further in Hawaii.
*Then came the Spanish-American War. Public opinion in the United States changed. When the Republic
of Hawaii again petitioned for annexation, Congress agreed. On August 12, 1898, the Hawaiian islands
became a territory of the United States. In 1959 Hawaii became the fiftieth state in the Union.
B. HARRISON
1889-1893
POLITICAL
ECONOMIC
Indian Territory
*1889
*Relocation into the Indian Territory (Oklahoma) had been difficult for nearly seventy groups who were
removed there, but worse was to come. Following the Civil War, a flood of whites began to enter the
territory. Some worked for Native American landowners as tenants of sharecroppers. Others were
squatters, people who move onto land that does not belong to them.
*Although Native Americans protested and the government tried to stop them, squatters continued to come.
Other would be settlers--so-called boomers--pressured Congress to allow legal settlement in the territory.
*In 1889 Congress responded, opening for homesteading nearly two million acres of lands in Indian
Territory that had not yet been assigned to Native Americans.
*At noon on April 22, soldiers signaled with their pistols and hundreds of homesteaders, called sooners if
they had sneaked in earlier, rushed across the border to stake claims.
SOCIAL
Office of the Superintendent of Immigration
*1891
*Before 1891, decisions about whom to allow into the country were left to the states.
*In 1891 the federal government created the Office of Superintendent of Immigration to determine who
was “fit” for life in the United States and who was not.
*The next year laws required all new immigrants to undergo physical examination, and applicants could be
denied admission on medical grounds. Those found to have contagious illnesses such as tuberculosis faced
quarantine or even deportation.
Ellis Island
*1892
*Throughout most of the 1800s, immigrants arriving in New York entered at the Castle Garden depot near
the southern tip of Manhattan.
*In 1892 the federal government opened a huge reception center for steerage passengers (a large open area
beneath the ship’s deck with inadequate toilet facilities, no privacy, and poor food, but where tickets cost as
little as $15) on Ellis Island in New York Harbor, near where the Statute of Liberty had been erected in
1886.
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*The Statute of Liberty, a gift from France, celebrated “Liberty Enlightening the World.” It became a
world symbol of the United States as a place of refuge and hope.
*From 1892 to 1924 historians estimate that 16 million people passed through Ellis Island (many of these
were New Immigrants from southern and eastern Europe). During the peak immigration years from 1905
to 1907, ten thousand immigrants a day went through Ellis Island.
Wounded Knee
*1890
*In 188 a Paiute Indian named Wovoka spawned a religious movement called the Ghost Dance. Ghost
Dances believed that the world would soon end and that the Indians, including the dead of the past, would
inherit the earth. Wovoka preached harmony among Indians and rejection of all things white, especially
alcohol. The religion took its name from a ritual in which the frenzied dancers would glimpse their future
paradise.
*The religion quickly took hold and was widely adopted by Indians throughout the Plains, the Southwest,
and the Far West. But it took on new importance when two Sioux medicine men claimed that “ghost
shirts” worn by the dancers would stop white men’s bullets, leading to a new militant fervor among some
Indians.
*Alarmed by the Ghost Dancers, the army attempted to arrest a number of Indian leaders, including the
great chief Sitting Bull, who was then on a reservation. Like Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull was killed during
the fight to capture him.
*Another chief named Big Foot, also sought by the army, was ill with pneumonia and wanted peace. But
three days after Christmas Day in 1890, his band of some 350 women, children, and men was intercepted
by an army patrol and taken to an encampment at Wounded Knee, South Dakota.
*As the Indians were surrendering their weapons to the soldiers, the gun of a deaf Indian named Black
Coyote discharged. Whether it was an accident or deliberate is uncertain. But the soldiers immediately
turned their guns and artillery pieces on the disarmed Indians. At least 150 Indians, and probably as many
as 300, died in the barrage.
*Wounded Knee was the Indians “last stand.”
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Chilean Incident
*1891
*In 1891 the United States seized a Chilean vessel that was attempting to buy guns in San Diego for one
faction in a civil war then raging in Chile.
*A short time later, a mob in Valparaiso, Chile, killed two unarmed American sailors and injured seventeen
others on shore leave.
*Furious over this “insult . . . to the uniform of the United States,” President Harrison practically called for
a declaration of war against Chile.
*Only when the Chile government apologized and paid an indemnity of seventy-five thousand dollars was
the incident closed.
Pago Pago
*Port located in Samoa in the South Pacific.
*The U.S. Navy sought access to the port of Pago Pago as a refueling station
*Britain and Germany also had ambitions in Samoa as well, and in March 1889 the United States and
Germany narrowly avoided a naval clash when a hurricane destroyed most of both fleets.
*The United States, Great Britain and Germany established a three-way protectorate on the islands.
W. McKinley
1897-1901
POLITICAL
Insular Cases
*During 1901 cases involving Puerto Rico and the Philippines came before the Supreme Court. These
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cases involved several important questions: Were the people in the territories entitled to the rights
guaranteed by the Constitution to citizens of the United States? Could a tariff be levied on goods coming
from these possessions into the United States? Would every child born on these islands after the United
States took possession of them automatically be citizens? In general, these questions involved on basic
question: Does the Constitution follow the flag?
*The Supreme Court said that the question of what to do about the island possessions and the Constitution
might be considered a political question to be decided by Congress rather than a legal one for the courts.
*On the specific point raids, concerning the legality of a tariff on goods entering the United States from
Puerto Rico, the Court ruled that Congress could levy tariffs on goods from Puerto Rico. Except for this
decision on the revenue clauses, the Supreme Court tossed the problem into the lap of Congress.
*In the Insular Cases the court agreed in general that the new territories were under almost complete
control of Congress rather than having the same rights under the Constitution as citizens of the states.
Thus, it was decided that the Constitution does not necessarily follow the flag.
Assassination
*McKinley was shot September 6, 1901, 4:07 P.M., Buffalo, New York and he died September 14, 1901,
2:15 A.M., Buffalo.
*In his last public address at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo on September 5, 1901, President
McKinley appeared to break with his long-standing commitment to a high protective tariff, arguing for
greater reliance on reciprocal trade agreements. “The period of exclusiveness is past,” he asserted. “The
expansion of our trade and commerce is the pressing problem. Commercial wars are unprofitable. A
policy of goodwill and friendly trade relations will prevent reprisals. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony
with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not.”
*The next day he stood in a receiving line at the Temple of Music on the exposition grounds. Leon F.
Czolgosz, 28, a Detroit native of Polish heritage and an unemployed millworker, queued up with others
waiting to shake the president’s hand. His right had was wrapped in a bandage, which concealed a .32 Iver
Johnson revolver. As McKinley stretched to greet him, Czolgosz fired two shots at point-blank range. The
first apparently struck a button near the breastbone and failed to penetrate the skin. Startled by the shot, the
president rose up on his toes and turned his body slightly to the right in time to take the second round in the
abdomen between the naval and the left nipple. The bullet passed through the stomach, nipped the top of
the left kidney, and lodged in the pancreas. The president doubled over and fell backward into the arms of
a Secret Service agent. Seeing his assailant being pummeled to the ground, he cried out, “Don’t let them
hurt him.”
*An autopsy revealed the proximate cause of death to be gangrene, which had developed around the bullet
holes and along the track of the bullet.
*Czolgosz, a self-avowed anarchist, admitted the shooting. “I killed President McKinley,” he informed
Buffalo authorities, “because I done my duty. I don’t believe one man should have so much service and
another man should have none.” At his trial on September 23, 1901, Czolgosz pleaded guilty, but in New
York defendants accused of capital crimes must enter a plea of not guilty; the plea was so changed.
ECONOMIC
Dingley Tariff
*1897
*Sponsored by Republican Representative Nelson R. Dingley of Maine, the bill redeemed Republican
campaign promises to restore the high protective tariff and provided for an average rate of 46 percent.
*It replaced the Wilson-Gorman Act (1894). It was replaced by the Payne-Aldrich Tariff (1909).
Gold Standard Act
*1900
*Under its terms, the United States formally placed its money on the gold standard.
*All currency was fully backed by gold. Its price was fixed at $20.67 an ounce.
SOCIAL
Alfred Thayer Mahan
*Author of The Influence of Sea Power upon History 1660-1783 (1890).
*In 1886 he became president of the newly established Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island.
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There he gave a series of lectures that were later published as The Influence of Sea Power
*Mahan argued that sea power was essential if a nation wanted to be rich in peacetime and unbeatable in
wartime. A nation needed a navy to defend its shipping lanes. It also needed strategically located bases
where its fleets could refuel. Specifically, according to Mahan, the U.S. should acquire four things: a
modern fleet, naval bases in the Caribbean Sea, a canal across the Isthmus of Panama, and Hawaii and
other islands in the Pacific.
*Mahan’s book had a tremendous influence. Gradually the U.S. acquired all the things Mahan said it
needed.
*First came a modern fleet. Prodded by Secretary of State James Blaine, one of Mahan’s staunchest
supporters, Congress set about building up the American navy. Between 1883 and 1890, nine steel cruisers
were completed, and construction was started on the nation’s first modern battleship, the Maine. By 1898
the U.S. was the third largest naval power in the world. Only Great Britain and France ranked higher.
*After the modern fleet came naval bases in the Caribbean. The U.S. obtained these, as well as a number
of Pacific islands, as a result of the Spanish-American War.
Josiah Strong
*Author of Our Country (1885).
*He argued for expansion in order to spread Christianity.
*His work had a racist tinge: “God is training the Anglo-Saxon race for its mission—a mission of bringing
Christianity and civilization to the world’s weaker races.”
MILTARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Cuban Civil War
*In 1868 the first war for independence broke out in Cuba. It lasted for ten years and resulted in some
250,000 casualties. Although the rebels lost, Spain agreed to abolish slavery and to allow a certain amount
of self-government. The latter promise, however, was not kept.
*After the emancipation of Cuba’s slaves in 1886, American capitalists began investing tens of millions of
dollars in Cuba. In particular, they bought large tracts of land and set up sugar cane plantations. Sugar was
the basis of the Cuban economy, and now the U.S. became the island’s main market. In 1884 the U.S.
abolished its tariff on Cuban sugar. This sent sugar production skyrocketing even higher than before. Ten
years later, however, as a result of the efforts of the American Sugar Refining Company lobby (a pressure
group formed to influence lawmakers), the Wilson-Gorman Tariff restored a 40 percent duty on imports of
Cuban sugar. The Cuban economy was ruined.
*The second war for independence broke out in 1895. It was led by Jose Marti a poet and journalist who
had spent much of his life in exile in New York City. There he organized Cuban resistance against Spain.
Unable to defeat the Spanish troops in battle, the rebels took to the hills and began an active guerrilla
campaign. Their strategy included destroying property, especially American-owned sugar mills and
plantations. The rebels did this deliberately, for they hoped the United States would intervene. Apparently,
they were willing to have their rebellion put down if, in exchange, Cuba would become free from Spain.
*In 1896 the Spanish government sent to Cuba a new general, Valeriano Weyler, with orders to put down
the revolt. Weyler decided that regular military methods would not work against the rebels’ guerrilla
tactics. He moved the entire rural population of central and western Cuba, areas in which the rebels were
particularly active, into reconcentration camps. Unfortunately for the people in the camps, sanitation
facilities were miserable and food was in short supply. Disease and famine took a high toll. Of the 1.6
million people whom Weyler reconcentrated, about 200,000 died within two years.
Yellow Press
*Associated with the circulation war between two New York City newspapers, William Randolph Hearst’s
Journal and Joseph Pulitzer’s World.
*One of Hearst’s gimmicks was a colored comic strip, “The Yellow Kid,” which provided a name for his
sensationalized editorial approach: yellow journalism.
*Both began to play up Spanish “atrocities.” General Weyler was nicknamed the Butcher. Legitimate
accounts of suffering in the reconcentration camps were mixed with stories of wells being poisoned and
little children being thrown to the sharks.
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*American correspondents, who were not allowed to enter areas where fighting was going on, would sit
around the bars in Havana and make up reports about battles that never took place.
*Artist Frederic Remington, who had been illustrating reporters’ dispatches, cabled Hearst saying that a
war between the United States and Spain seemed very unlikely. Back came Hearst’s reply: “You furnish
the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.”
de Lome Letter
*This was a private letter written by Enrique Dupuy de Lome, the Spanish minister to the United States. A
Cuban rebel stole the letter from a Havana post office and leaked it to Heast’s Journal. In the letter, de
Lome called McKinley a weak President and a common politician who took both sides on an issue and
always sought the admiration of the crowd.
*This was much milder than some of Theodore Roosevelt’s comments. Roosevelt, assistant secretary of
the navy, considered McKinley “a white-livered cur” and with “no more backbone than a chocolate eclair!”
Nevertheless, foreign ministers are supposed to be discreet and are not supposed to put critical statements
down on paper. Before an indignant State Department could demand his recall, de Lome resigned. Six days
later came the sinking of the Maine.
Sinking of the Maine
*Early in 1898 President McKinley had ordered the U.S.S. Maine to Havana. Officially, it was a courtesy
call. Actually, the battleship had responded to a telegram from the American consul general in Havana. He
was afraid that American citizens there might be in danger from local rioters.
*When the Maine arrived in the city’s harbor, all seemed calm. On the evening of February 15, 1898, there
was a terrible explosion and the ship’s ammunition went up in flames. Some 260 of the 350 officers and
men on board lost their lives.
*Even today no one really knows what caused the Maine to explode. A naval court of inquiry decided that
the ship had hit a submarine mine. Other investigators believed there was an internal explosion in the coal
bunkers. William Randolph Hearst, however, had no doubt about the matter at all. His Journal’s headline
read: THE WARSHIP MAINE WAS SPLIT IN TWO BY AN ENEMY’S SECRET INFERNAL
MACHINE. The paper offered a reward of $50,000 for the capture of the evil Spaniards who had
committed the outrage.
*There was no holding back the forces that wanted war. Everyone seemed to be crying, “Remember the
Maine!” It made no difference that the Spanish government agreed on April 9 to almost everything the
United States demanded, including a six-month cease fire.
*On April 11 McKinley sent a message to Congress asking for the right “to use military and naval forces of
the United States” to bring peace to Cuba. On April 19 Congress agreed. On April 20 the United States
went to war with Spain.
Rough Riders
*Led by Colonel Leonard Wood. However, most history books only talk about the leadership of Teddy
Roosevelt.
*Made up of volunteers. It was an unusual mix. It included cowboys, Indians, and former sheriffs from the
Western territories of Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. There were also “polo players, and gentlemen
riders from New York’s Harvard, Yale, and Princeton clubs.”
*The most famous land battle in Cuba was the Battle of San Juan Hill, which occurred on the outskirts of
Santiago on July 1, 1898. The first part of the battle, which took place on nearby Kettle Hill, featured a
gallant uphill charge by the Rough Riders and two black regiments, the Ninth and Tenth Cavalries (known
as buffalo soldiers). The second part consisted of an infantry attack on San Juan Hill proper.
*Made T. Roosevelt a military hero—helped him in his political career.
Battle of Manila Bay
*On February 25, 1898 John Long, Secretary of the Navy, left his office for some badly needed rest. No
sooner had he gone that the assistant secretary, Theodore Roosevelt, sent a cable to Commodore (later
Admiral) George Dewey, head of the Pacific fleet (located in Hong Kong). The cable told him to sail for
the Philippine Islands in case war with Spain broke out.
*On May 1 Dewey steamed into the harbor of Manila, the capital of the Spanish-owned Philippine Islands.
Thanks to Secretary of State Blaine’s preparedness campaign, the squadron included four heavily armed
cruisers. The Spanish fleet, although larger, carried only a few obsolete guns.
*As one historian wrote, it “was more a practice shoot than a battle.” Dewey brought his ships within three
miles of the Spanish fleet and then remarked to an officer, “You may fire when ready, Gridley.” Then back
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and forth went the American squadron, firing gunpowder for several hours, until the entire enemy fleet was
destroyed. Spanish casualties numbered three hundred and eighty-one. American casualties numbered
one: an overweight engineer who died of heat prostration.
*Over the next two months, some eleven thousand American troops landed in the Philippines. There they
jonied forces with Filipino rebels led by General Emilio Aguinaldo. The rebels had been fighting for
freedom since 1896. In August the Spanish troops in Manila surrendered. However, they surrendered only
to the Americans. Aguinaldo’s troops were not allowed into the city.
Battle of Santiago Bay
*July 3, 1898
*In Cuba the fighting centered on the Spanish military stronghold of Santiago de Cuba on the southeastern
coast. On May 19 a Spanish battle fleet of seven aging vessels under Admiral Pascual Cervera sailed into
the Santiago de Cuba harbor, where five U.S. battleships and two cruisers at once blockaded them. On July
1, in the war’s only significant land action, American troops seized two strongly defended Spanish
garrisons on El Caney Hill and San Juan Hill overlooking Santiago de Cuba. Leading the volunteer
“Rough Riders” unit in the capture of San Juan Hill was Theodore Roosevelt.
*The final act came on July 3, when Cervera, under orders not to surrender, attempted to pierce through the
American blockade to the open sea. American naval fire raked the archaic Spanish vessels and sank them.
Spain lost 474 men in this engagement.
Filipino Insurrection
*McKinley initially had little desire to keep the Philippines, but the victory over Spain had whetted the
public’s appetite for expansion. To the American business community, the Philippines offered a
steppingstone to the inviting China markets. Reflecting the prevailing mood as always, McKinley reasoned
that it would be dishonorable to return the Philippines to Spain and dangerous to leave them on their own.
The Filipinos were unready for self-government, he believed, and would be gobbled up if released by
imperial rivals. McKinley further persuaded himself that American rule would enormously benefit the
Filipinos, whom he called “our little brown brothers.” He explained that America’s mission was “to
educate the Filipinos, and to uplift and civilize and Christianize them. . . “ (In fact, most Filipinos were
already Christian—a legacy of centuries of Spanish rule.) Having prayerfully reached his decision,
McKinley instructed the American peace negotiators at Paris to insist on U.S. acquisition of the
Philippines.
*Filipino rebels had fought with American troops in the war against Spain with the expectation that victory
would bring independence. But when the rebel leader Emilio Aguinaldo issued a proclamation in January
1899 declaring the Philippines a republic, the United States government ignored him.
*Mounting tensions between the rebel forces and American soldiers finally erupted into a war in February.
*In the bitter three-year war that followed, 4,200 Americans were killed and 2,800 more wounded.
Fighting without restraint—and sometimes with great brutality—American forces killed some 16,000
Filipino rebels and hundreds of thousands of Filipino civilians.
*Complicating matters during the war was the fact that many of the seventy thousand American troops
were black. Once an area was conquered, ties of friendship soon developed between the Filipinos and the
African Americans. White Americans, on the other hand, tended to look down on the Filipinos because of
their skin color. A number of black newspapers in the United States wondered why black soldiers were
“fighting to curse the country [the Philippines] with colorphobia, [Jim Crow] cars, disfranchisement,
lynchers, and everything that prejudice can do to blight the manhood of the darker races.” Many African
American deserted to the Filipino side.
*The war began to wind down in 1901 when Aguinaldo was captured. Except for an outbreak of fighting
on the island of Mindanao, peace was more or less in effect by mid-1942.
*From 1901 to 1904, William Howard Taft served as civilian governor of the Philippines. Legislative
functions were placed in the hands of an appointed commission and an elected assembly.
*In 1916 the Jones Act replaced the appointed commission with an elected senate.
*In 1934 the Tydings-McDuffie Act offered the Philippines complete independence after a ten-year trial
period as a commonwealth. The Filipinos accepted the offer in 1936.
*The Philippines did not gain complete independence until 1946.
Teller Amendment
*1898
*An amendment to the declaration of war (Spanish-American).
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*It was introduced by Senator Henry M. Teller of Colorado and declared that the United States had no
desire for “sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control” in Cuba and pledged that America would leave the island
alone once independence was assured.
Platt Amendment
*1901
*Many of the provisions of the Cuban constitution were not written by the Cuban constitutional assembly.
Instead, they were drafted in Washington, D.C., and were presented to the assembly merely for its approval.
Collectively these provisions are known as the Platt Amendment, offered by Senator Orville Platt of
Connecticut at the request of the War Department, because they took the form of an amendment to a
military appropriations bill.
*The Platt Amendment provided the following: (1) Cuba was not to make any treaties that might limit its
independence; (2) Cuba was not to permit any foreign power to control any part of its territory; (3) the
United States was to have the right to intervene in Cuba’s internal affairs “for the protection of life,
property, and individual liberty”; (4) Cuba was not to go into debt; and (5) the United States could buy or
lease land on the island for coaling or naval stations.
*The result of the Platt Amendment was to make Cuba a protectorate of the United States. As the stronger
of the two nations, the United States protected Cuba by partially controlling its affairs. A major American
naval base was set up at Guantanamo Bay. Although American troops were removed from the island in
1902, they were sent back three times between 1906 and 1920 to support a particular political group. In
addition, it was common practice for the American ambassador in Havana to present his government’s
views to the Cuban President about the policies the latter was following.
*The Platt Amendment was finally abrogated, or abolished, in 1934, although the United States retained a
naval base in Cuba. American economic influence on the island, however, continued until the early 1960’s.
Treaty of Paris of 1898
*December 10, 1898
*The American and Spanish commissioners in Paris agreed on most issues. Cuba was to become
independent. The United States would take over Puerto Rico and the Spanish-owned island of Guam in the
Pacific.
*The sticking point was what to do with the Philippines. When the war broke out, the idea of annexing a
group of islands six thousand miles west of California was probably the last thing in most Americans’
minds. President McKinley admitted that he did not even know where these islands were. Mahan,
Roosevelt, and their followers, however, believed that the islands had strategic and commercial importance.
*McKinley justified taking the Philippines in the name of Christianity—he wanted to Christianize the
heathens. McKinley apparently did not remember that most Filipinos had been Christians for several
hundred years.
*In the Treaty of Paris the U.S. took over Spain’s role as ruler of the Philippines. In exchange, the United
States promised to pay Spain $20 million.
*The struggle for ratification was touch and go. Although a majority of Americans favored ratification,
many vocal people opposed it. These included former Presidents Benjamin Harrison and Grover Cleveland
as well as Jane Addams, Andrew Carnegie, and Mark Twain. They believed that imperialistic expansion
by the United States to gain colonies went against American tradition. Speaker of the House Thomas B.
Reed felt so strongly about the matter that he later resigned his congressional seat in protest. In addition,
labor leaders such as Samuel Gompers were afraid that Filipino workers would compete against Americans
for jobs, while racists like “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman did not want any more dark-skinned Americans.
*The Treaty passed with one vote to spare.
Open Door Policy
*1899
*When the United States set up a colonial government in the Philippines it became interested in the
mainland of Asia. The bast but weak nation of China was in danger of being carved up by France,
Germany, Great Britain, Japan, and Russia. Each nation had its sphere of influence, areas where it had
special trading privileges and where numbers of its merchants, missionaries, and other nationals lived. In
these areas the people who might be charged with criminal behavior were tried according to their own laws
and by their own courts, not by Chinese laws and courts. This right of extraterritoriality had been forced on
China by the stronger powers.
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*The United States was not interested in acquiring colonies on the Asian mainland. Nor did it want to risk
a war. On the other hand, it did want a larger share of the rich China market.
*A solution to the problem was proposed by John Hay. He sent notes with the same message to Britain,
Germany, and Russia and, later, to France, Italy, and Japan. Hay asked the powers to promise two things
with regard to their spheres of influence: (1) They would not prevent other nations from doing business
there; (2) They would not charge other nations higher railroad, harbor, and tariff rates than they charged
their own merchants. In other words, there would really be no advantage in having a sphere of influence
because every other nation would be allowed to compete there on equal terms.
*The nations involved more or less said no to Hay’s note. Nevertheless, on March 20, 1900, Hay
announced that the Open Door policy had been accepted and was in effect.
Boxer Rebellion
*A Chinese secret society called the Righteous and Harmonious Fists, known to Westerners as the Boxers,
began an armed movement to “expel the barbarians.” The Boxers objected to what they saw as a foreign
takeover of their country. After they killed several thousand Chinese Christians in northern China and laid
siege to foreign legations in two Chinese cities, an international military force was sent in. These troops,
which included Americans, British, French, Germans, and Japanese, put down the rebellion within two
months.
*Although the colonial powers now had an excellent excuse to take over more territory from China, Hay
moved to prevent this. He announced that it was United States policy to “preserve the Chinese territorial
and administrative entity” and to “safeguard for the world the principle of equal and impartial trade with all
parts of the Chinese Empire.”
*As a result of Hay’s statement, known as the Second Open Door Notes, the colonial powers agreed not to
occupy additional parts of China after all. Even more important, the policy paved the way for greater
American influence in Asia. Within a few years, that influence showed itself in the settlement of the
Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905.
T. ROOSEVELT
1901-1909
POLITICAL
Square Deal
*Politically, TR believed in action. The federal government was responsible for the national welfare
according to TR. He believed it should step in whenever the states proved incapable of handling problems.
He also believed that because the President represented all the people, he should play a major role in
shaping legislative policy. If big business was squeezing farmers, workers, and small business people, then
he, Roosevelt, would see to it that they received a “square deal.”
Natural Resources
*The federal government had paid almost no attention to the nation’s natural resources. The Forest Bureau
had been established in 1887. Presidents Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley had withdrawn several
millions acres of timberland from public sale and put them into a national forest reserve. Other than this,
nothing had been done.
*When Roosevelt became President, he called the forest and water problems the most vital internal
problems of the United States. He attacked the problem by withdrawing 148 million acres of forest land
from public sale (This was an area larger than Germany). He also withdrew 1.5 million acres of land
containing some 2,500 water-power sites. Finally, he withdrew another 84 million acres of land that he
asked the United States Geological Survey to explore for mineral and water resources.
*To help people enjoy the wonders of nature, Roosevelt established over fifty wildlife sanctuaries, five
national parks, and eighteen sites as national monuments. He put Gifford Pinchot, a professional
conservationist, in charge of supervising the national forests.
Newlands Reclamation Act
*Roosevelt pushed for passage of the Newlands Reclamation Act.
*Under the act, money from the sale of public lands in the West was set aside to build irrigation projects
that would enable farmers to cultivate the desert.
*Both the Roosevelt Dam in Arizona and the Shoshone Dam in Wyoming were built under this act.
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Conservation Conference
*1908
*This White House Conservation Conference resulted in forty-one of the forty-six states that were part of
the union at that time setting up conservation agencies. A national commission began a study to find out
what the nation’s resources were.
Trustbuster
*TR was known as the trustbuster due to his attack on the bad trusts.
*Deeply conservative at heart, TR had no desire to abolish America’s big corporations, which he believed
essential to national greatness. Nevertheless, as president, he came to embrace progressive conviction that
corporate behavior must be carefully regulated.
*During Roosevelt’s presidency, forty-four companies were sued for violating the antitrust law. In two key
cases not finally decided until 1911, the Supreme Court ordered the breakup of the Standard Oil Company,
the granddaddy of all the trusts, and the reorganization of the American Tobacco Company to make it less
monopolistic.
*As the 1904 election approached, Roosevelt made his peace with the Republicans’ big-business wing,
writing cordial letters to J.P. Morgan, E.H. Harriman, and other tycoons. The death of Mark Hanna early in
1904 removed a potential rival for the nomination. When the convention that unanimously nominated
Roosevelt in Chicago adopted a conservative, pro-business platform, $2 million in corporate campaign
contributions poured in.
*On the antitrust front, the Taft administration actually outdid Roosevelt, prosecuting no fewer than ninety
cases. But Taft characteristically pursued these cases without much publicity; and in the public mind, TR,
not Taft, remained the quintessential “trustbuster.”
Insular Cases
*1901, 1903, 1904
*Three appeals to the Supreme Court--Dorr v. U.S., Downes v. Bidwell, and Hawaii v. Mankichi--raised
questions concerning the extent to which constitutional rights were bestowed automatically upon the
natives in newly acquired territories.
*The Supreme Court slowly worked out a new judicial position for the Constitution. Some rights are
fundamental and applied to all American territory. Other rights are procedural and should not be imposed
upon those unfamiliar with American law.
*Congress must determine which procedural rights applied to unincorporated territories.
*The Constitution did not follow the flag.
Lochner v. New York
*1905
*The state of New York passed a law to limit bakery and confectionary workers to only sixty hours a week
or ten hours per day. Lochner, who owned a bakery in Utica, was arrested for violating the law.
*The case involved a contest between the due process clause of freedom of contract and the state’s police
power to guard the health, safety, and morals of its people.
*In a 5-4 decision the Court held that the Fourteenth Amendment protected individuals against “an
unreasonable, unnecessary and arbitrary interference with the right of the individual to his personal liberty.”
These criteria put judges in the position of legislators. Unreasonable and arbitrary laws are easier to
identify than unnecessary laws, which are a matter of philosophical opinion.
* “Due process” had historically meant procedures to guarantee a fair trial. The Supreme Court now used
“due process” to protect property from unreasonable, unnecessary, and arbitrary legislation.
ECONOMIC
Anthracite Coal Strike
*1902
*Coal miners in Pennsylvania struck for higher wages, an eight-hour workday, and the right to organize a
union. The mine operators refused to bargain or even meet with the labor leaders at the White House.
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George Baer, a mine owner and the president of the Reading Railroad, said that it was his religious duty to
defeat the strikers.
*To counter the company, Roosevelt threatened to seize the mines and have the army run them. However,
he decided to appoint a commission to make recommendations for settling the strike.
*The mine owners eventually agreed to arbitration. The settlement was a compromise. The workers
received a 10 percent pay hike and a nine-hour workday. They did not obtain a closed shop, that is, an
agreement under which operators will not hire anyone who does not belong to the union. In addition, the
workers agreed not to strike again for three years.
*More important than the actual settlement, however, was the establishment of a new principle. In the past,
Presidents had sent in federal troops only to protect private property or to keep such services as the United
States mail going. Now, Roosevelt was saying that the federal government could intervene in a strike if the
public welfare was involved. In addition, Roosevelt was emphasizing the Progressive belief that disputes
should be settled in an orderly way with the help of experts.
Elkins Act
*1903
*This law made it illegal for railroad officials and shippers either to give or to receive rebates.
*It also said that once a railroad had set rates, it could not change them without notifying the public.
Hepburn Act
*1906
*This law went several steps further than the Elkins Act.
*It gave the Interstate Commerce Commission power to set maximum railroad rates, subject to court
approval, whenever shippers complained.
*Within two years, the commission received more than nine thousand complains and lowered a great many
rates.
* In addition, the railroads were told to use uniform methods of accounting and to stop giving out free
passes.
Meat Inspection Act
*1906
*Roosevelt-like millions of Americans who stopped eating canned meat-was horrified when he read The
Jungle. He promptly appointed a commission to investigate Upton Sinclair’s charges. The commission
found the charges to be true, so in 1906 Congress passed the first federal Meat Inspection Act.
Pure Food and Drug Act
*1906
*Credit for the legislation belongs mostly to Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley, chief chemist in the
Department of Agriculture. For years, Wiley had lectured across the country, criticizing the harmful
preservatives that were added to food. There was coal-tar dye and borax in sausage, formaldehyde in
canned pork and beans, and so on. Wiley wanted such information printed on the labels of cans and other
food packages.
*The 1906 act also placed some restrictions on the manufacturers of prepared foods and patent medicines.
*An amendment in 1911 prohibited the use of misleading labels.
Panic of 1907
*Touched off by the failure of the Knickerbocker Trust Company of New York in October 1907, the panic
brought on the collapse of a dozen other banks and some railroads. Stock prices plummeted.
*Administration critics blamed Roosevelt’s antitrust and prolabor policies for squeezing corporate profits;
the president, in turn, blamed big business for the slump.
*To help curb the decline, he assured U.S. Steel that the government would not direct antitrust action
against its proposed acquisition of the failing Tennessee Coal and Iron Company. The administration also
deposited federal funds with ailing banks.
*Recovery began in the spring of 1908.
Ford Motor Company
*The automobile was not invented by any one person. Rather, it was combination of devices produced by
American, English, French, and German inventors.
*The person most responsible for putting America on wheels was Henry Ford.
*In 1903 Ford organized the Ford Motor Company. Five years later, he introduced his famous Model T. It
came in one color--black--and its shape remained unchanged from year to year. It was tough enough to
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travel on rugged dirt roads and was easy to fix and was priced under $300. The price was easily within
reach of the average wage earner.
Northern Securities Case
*1904
*At the turn of the century three financial giants, J.P. Morgan, James J. Hill, and E.H. Harriman fought for
control of the railroads running west from Chicago to the Pacific coast. Frustrated in their separate efforts,
they joined forces to create the Northern Securities Company, which owned a majority of the stock in both
the Northern Pacific and the Great Northern railroads, which together owned enough stock to control the
Burlington Railroad.
*A single holding company thus controlled the entire transportation network for one-quarter of the nation.
*On a whirlwind speaking tour that summer, Roosevelt called for a “square deal” for all Americans and
denounced special treatment for powerful capitalists. He didn’t want to destroy the corporations, but rather
to make them subversive to the public good.
*The Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Northern Securities holding company violated the Sherman
Antitrust Act. The company was a “trust,” not just a stock company. Owning the stock of competing
railroads violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.
SOCIAL
The Jungle
*Written by Upton Sinclair in 1906.
*The focus of the book was lives of stockyard workers and the operations of the meat-packing industry.
Muller v. Oregon
*1908
*The Supreme Court reversed itself on the issue of whether a state could limit the working hours of
women. In the past the Court had held that such limits interfered with freedom of contract. This time,
however, lawyer Louis D. Brandeis, assisted by Josephine Goldmark and Florence Kelley, submitted a 112page legal brief. Brandeis, reminding the Court that freedom of contract meant that women were as free as
corporations to sign or not to sign a contract, argued that a woman was much more economically insecure
than a giant corporation and thus needed protection.
*The “Brandeis Brief” convinced the Court, which said that Oregon’s law limiting women to a ten-hour
day was constitutional.
*In 1917 a similar brief in Bunting v. Oregon persuaded the Court to uphold a ten-hour workday law for
men.
*As the result of these two decisions, many states passed laws limiting working hours.
Muckrakers
*Using the mass-circulation publications, journalists also alerted the public to wrongdoing on the part of
political bosses or big business. Theodore Roosevelt called such writers muckrakers, an allusion to a
character in John Bunyan’s 1678 book Pilgrim’s Progress who was too busy raking filth to look to heaven.
*Despite Roosevelt’s criticism, the muckrakers included respected writers who identified and exposed real
abuses.
Wright Brothers
*Apart from the ancient Greek legend of Icarus and Leonardo da Vinci’s plans for a flying machine, the
idea of heavier-than-air flight is usually traced to Englishman George Cayley. In 1799 Cayley said that the
solution was not to imitate the flapping wings of a bird but to use rigid wings. He also described the kind
of engine that would be needed for such an effort. That engine became available in the late 1800’s.
*Among those who experimented with it were two bicycle manufacturers from Dayton, Ohio, named
Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright. The Wright brothers began by building a glider. Next they developed a
wind tunnel to test how differently shaped wings behaved. Then they built their own four-cylinder internal
combustion engine, figured out the best design for a propeller, designed a biplane with a forty-foot
wingspan--and went aloft on December 17, 1903. The flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, lasted fiftyfive seconds and covered 852 feet.
*Public response was almost nil. Only two newspapers in the country even bothered to print the story.
Within two years, however, the Wrights were flying distances of twenty-five miles or more. By 1908 the
United States government began to take an interest in the new machine. After America entered World War
I, the armed forces used airplanes for scouting and in combat.
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Danbury Hatters’ Case
*1908
*Unable to secure union recognition at the Danbury Hatters Company owned by Loewe and others, the
hatters’ union instituted a boycott against the company’s hats.
*The unanimous Supreme Court decision held the boycott to be a violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act,
and required triple damages against the union for the amount of normal income lost due to the boycott.
*Labor unions were shocked. They found partial exemption from antitrust laws in the Clayton Act.
Brownsville Incident
*TR appointed a black as head of the Charleston customhouse despite white opposition, and he closed a
Mississippi post office rather than yield to racist demands that he dismiss the black postmistress.
*In a gesture of symbolic importance, he invited Booker T. Washington to confer with him at the White
House.
*The worst blot on his record came in 1906, when he summarily discharged an entire regiment of black
army troops charged with rioting in Brownsville, Texas. The “Brownsville Incident” incensed black
Americans. (In 1972, when most of the men involved were long dead, Congress reversed Roosevelt’s
unfair action and removed the dishonorable discharges from their service records.)
IWW
*The Industrial Workers of the World were formed in 1905.
*The IWW was a radical labor organization that sought to overthrow capitalism.
*Nicknamed the Wobblies
*This union focused on unskilled workers. It consisted mostly of western miners, lumberman, migrant
farm workers, and some eastern textile workers.
*The First World War, due to the patriotic fervor of the era, would bring the end of the IWW as a major
union in America.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Treaty of Portsmouth
*Japan and Russia came to blows over Korea. Japan had received Korea from China in 1895 and had set it
up as a partly independent state within the Japanese sphere of influence. After the Boxer Rebellion, the
Russians set up Manchuria, the northernmost region of China, within their sphere of influence and began to
cast their eyes at Korea.
*Japan suggested that these two imperialistic nations agree to respect each other’s sphere and stay off each
other’s turf. Russia refused. Japan thereupon gave Russia “a last and earnest warning” and in February
1904 launched a surprise attack.
*Surprisingly, Japan destroyed the Russian Pacific fleet. Then it also destroyed Russia’s European fleet,
which had been ordered to Asia after the Pacific fleet was defeated. Through a series of land battles in
China, Japan obtained firm control over not only Korea but much of Manchuria as well.
*Japan’s victories, however, cost a lot of money. So the Japanese asked the U.S. to mediate the conflict.
President T. Roosevelt agreed. In the summer of 1905, he invited Russia and Japan to send delegates to a
conference in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.
*Japan wanted Sahhalin Island, off the coast of Siberia, and a large sum of money from Russia. Russia
refused.
*Roosevelt persuaded Japan to accept half the island and to forget about the cash indemnity. In exchange,
Russia agreed to let Japan take over its interests in Manchuria and Korea.
*As a result of the Treaty of Portsmouth, Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.
Gentlemen’s Agreement
*1907
*In response to growing hostility in California toward Japanese immigrants, President Roosevelt reached a
private understanding with Tokyo officials, whereby Japan promised to curb emigration of laborers and the
United States would refrain from enacting an outright exclusion law, similar to that directed against the
Chinese during the Arthur administration.
Roosevelt Corollary
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*In December 1904, Roosevelt issued a message to Congress that became known as the Roosevelt
Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
*Roosevelt denied that he was interested in acquiring any more territory. It wanted only “to see
neighboring countries stable, orderly, and prosperous.” But if the countries engaged in activities harmful to
the interests of the United States or if their governments collapsed, inviting intervention from stronger
nations, then the United States would be forced to exercise “an international police power.” In other words,
the United States government would intervene to prevent intervention from other powers.
*The first test of the Roosevelt Corollary concerned the small Caribbean island republic of Santo Domingo
(now the Dominican Republic). When the island went bankrupt, European nations threatened to intervene
to collect their money. Quickly Roosevelt made an “executive agreement” with Santo Domingo’s
president. Bankers in the United States took over the country’s finances and paid its European debt.
*Under Roosevelt, United States intervention in Latin America became common. This development
angered Western Hemisphere countries. Congress also was displeased, for Roosevelt’s interventionalism
meant that presidential powers grew while those of the legislature shrank.
Hay-Pauncefote Treaty
*1901
*By 1900 the U.S. had acquired three of the four things Mahan said it needed to become a world power. It
had a modern fleet, naval bases in the Caribbean, and Hawaii. What did not have was a canal across the
Isthmus of Panama.
*In the Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 the U.S. and Great Britain agreed that they would have equal rights
to any canal that might be built between the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans.
*Under the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, the U.S. received exclusive rights to build, control, and presumably
fortify a canal across the narrow part of Central America. In return, the U.S. promised that all nations
would be allowed to send their commercial and fighting ships through such a canal without discrimination.
Nicaragua
*After the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was approved, the question became where to build the canal. The two
possibilities were Nicaragua and the province of Panama in Colombia. Nicaragua was several hundred
miles closer to the United States. It contained lakes and rivers that could form part of the route and thus
reduce construction costs. Although the government of Nicaragua was cooperative, the final decision was
in favor of the Panama route.
*The man largely responsible for the choice of Panama was Philippe Bunau-Varilla. In 1878 a French
company headed by Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had directed the construction of the Suez Canal, began
digging in Panama. Bunau-Varilla joined the company in 1884 and soon became its chief engineer.
*In 1889 the French abandoned the project and sold the concession and the rusted machinery to the New
Panama Canal Company. This company consisted of a group of speculators, one of whom was BunauVarilla. After negotiating first with Russia and then with Great Britain, the company approached the U.S.
President Roosevelt and Congress were receptive to the idea of America building the canal. An
investigating committee recommended Nicaragua as the site of the canal, and the House of Representatives
agreed.
*At this point, Bunau-Varilla, who was acting as the company’s agent in the United States, pulled a
brilliant public relations coup. He sent each of the ninety-two senators in the United States Senate a
Nicaraguan stamp with a picture of an erupting volcano. The Senate voted to build the canal in Panama
instead.
Hay-Herran Treaty
*In March 1903 the Senate ratified the Hay-Herran Treaty between the United States and Columbia. The
treaty stated that the United States would give Colombia $10 million, plus an annual rent of $250,000, for a
six-mile-wide strip across the Isthmus of Panama. However, a new government had just come to power in
Columbia, and it turned the treaty down.
Panama Revolution
*On October 10, 1903, Bunau-Varilla met with Roosevelt at the White House. Bunau-Varilla predicted
that there might soon be a revolution in Panama. The canal would have meant an economic boom for the
area, and the Panamanians were very disappointed. Roosevelt did not promise to prevent the landing of
Colombian troops on the isthmus. However, he strongly hinted that the U.S. would help.
*On October 30, 1903, the commander of the U.S.S. Nashville received instructions from Washington,
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D.C., to head for the harbor of Colon in Panama. If a rebellion broke out there, he was to take over the
Panama Railroad. He was also to “prevent the landing of any armed forces with hostile intent” within fifty
miles of the city. Thus, the only way the Colombian government could send troops to Colon was by sea.
*The Nashville entered Colon harbor on November 2. The next day a rebellion against Colombia broke
out. On November 4 ten American warships appeared in the Panamanian waters, and Panama declared its
independence.
*On November 6 the United States recognized the new republic. Bunau-Varilla became the first
Panamanian minister to the United States.
Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty
*1903
*On November 18 the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty was signed. It gave the United States a ten-mile-wide
canal zone in perpetuity, or forever. It gave Panama $10 million plus $250,000 a year after nine years. The
treaty also guaranteed Panama’s independence but added that the principles of the Platt Amendment—
including the right of American intervention—would apply.
Panama Canal
*While engineers and Congress were wrestling with the location of the canal, army physician William
Gorgas was wrestling with an insect. Medical science had learned only a few years before that two of the
deadliest tropical diseases, yellow fever and malaria, were transmitted by mosquitoes. The secret of
mosquito control, Gorgas found, was to cover, destroy, or drain every place where mosquitoes could lay
their eggs (every tank, jar, hollow, and puddle, indoors or out). He divided the cities on the canal route into
districts, each with an inspector who entered every house on a daily basis to check for uncovered or
standing water. He also gave orders that any pools that could not be drained were to be covered with a film
of oil or kerosene to kill the insects. Gorgas’s methods wiped out yellow fever before the end of 1905.
Malaria, which was carried by a tougher mosquito, was not eliminated, but was much reduced.
*The canal was completed after ten years of construction under the supervision of George Goethals. About
fifty-six hundred workers, forty-five hundred of whom were African Americans, lost their lives from
disease and accidents. Costs ran higher than for anything the United States government had built up to that
time. In fact, buying the Panama Canal cost more than five times as much as buying the Louisiana
Territory, Florida, California, and Alaska put together.
*On August 15, 1914, the waterway was finally opened for business. In 1921 Congress paid Colombia $25
million for its loss of Panama. An apology for Roosevelt’s actions, however, was dropped from the treaty
that authorized payment.
Roosevelt Corollary
*After the building of the Panama Canal, Latin America was the United States’s major sphere of influence.
Like all imperialist nations, the U.S. wanted to keep its sphere of influence as free as possible from foreign
competition or control.
*The main problem had to do with the financial condition of the smaller nations, especially those in the
Caribbean. Most of them had borrowed heavily from European banks to build railroads and other public
works and to develop their mines, farms, and industries. However, they were not always able to pay the
interest on their loans. This made a very tempting situation for European imperialist nations.
*An example of European intervention was in Mexico in 1863. When Mexico’s President, Benito Juarez,
stopped payment on European loans, Napoleon III sent troops to Mexico and overthrew the government.
He also set up Maximilian of Austria as his puppet Emperor of Mexico. The United States, at that time in
the midst of a Civil War, could do little but protest. However, after Appomattox Secretary of State Seward
warned Napoleon III to remove this troops. He did so, and Maximilian died before a firing squad.
*Roosevelt was well aware of the danger of foreign interference in the Western Hemisphere. After
becoming president in 1901, he told Minnesota state fair-goers that he would adopt the West African
proverb “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” This came to be known as “Big Stick”
diplomacy. In 1904, in a message to Congress, Roosevelt expressed what historians call the Roosevelt
Corollary (extension) to the Monroe Doctrine. In sum, if any foreign nation was to interfere in the affairs
of a Latin American country, it would be the United States that would do the interfering.
TAFT
1909-1913
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POLITICAL
Ballinger Pinchot Affair
*Main item that brought the permanent split between TR and Taft.
*Taft’s secretary of the interior, Richard A. Ballinger, was a conservative lawyer who disliked federal
controls and believed in private development of natural resources. In one of a series of decisions galling to
conservationists, Ballinger approved the sale, to a group of Seattle businessmen, of several million acres of
public lands in Alaska containing rich coal deposits. This group in turn sold its holdings to a consortium of
New York bankers that included J.P. Morgan, the very symbol of the money power.
*When a low-level Department of the Interior official, Louis R. Glavis, protested these actions, he was
fired. In the best muckraking tradition, Glavis in November of 1909 published an article in Collier’s
blasting Ballinger’s actions.
*When Gifford Pinchot of the Forestry Service likewise criticized Ballinger in congressional testimony in
January 1910, he, too, got the ax.
Insurgents
*During the Roosevelt administration, a small but vocal group of reform-minded Republican legislators,
nicknamed the Insurgents, challenged their party’s congressional leadership.
*Influential Insurgents included senators La Follette and Albert Beveridge of Indiana and congressman
George Norris of Nebraska.
*In 1909 the Insurgents turned against President Taft after a bruising battle over the tariff.
Joseph Cannon
*Taft supported Joseph Cannon as Speaker of the House of Representatives. At that time, the Speaker had
the power to choose the members of all House committees.
*Joe Cannon, known as Uncle Joe, hated the proposed reform legislation and thus appointed only
conservatives, or those who tended toward established tradition and resisted change. He ignored
congressmen whose seniority, or length of service, entitled them to committee posts. In addition, Cannon
appointed himself head of the Committee on Rules, which decided what bills Congress would or would not
consider. He rarely decided on progressive bills. He was a virtual dictator of the House.
*Blocked in their efforts to pass Progressive legislation, a group of reform-minded Republicans decided
that the only thing to do was to strip Cannon of his power. In March 1910, with the help of the Democrats,
they succeeded. One of them, Representative George W. Norris of Nebraska, introduced a resolution
calling for the entire House to elect the Committee on Rules. After thirty-six hours of violent debate, the
resolution was adopted.
*The next Congress changed the rules even further: the entire House would elect all committees, not just
the Rules Committee.
Midterm Elections
*By 1910 the Grand Old Party (GOP), as the Republican party was known, was splitting at the seams. The
Progressives were on one side, and the “old guard” was on the other.
*People were unhappy about the rising cost of living, which they blamed on the Payne-Aldrich Tariff.
They also were upset with Taft’s stand on conservation.
*For the first time in sixteen years, Democrats controlled the House of Representatives.
Progressive Party
*Following Taft’s election, Roosevelt had gone to Africa to shoot lions and other big game. In 1910 he
came home to a hero’s welcome. Roosevelt responded by delivering a speech at Osawatomie, Kansas.
“Property shall be the servant and not the master,” he said. He went on to say that the country needed a
“New Nationalism” under which the federal government would extend its power and use it for “the welfare
of the people.”
*Taft felt that Roosevelt was attacking him unfairly. Roosevelt felt that Taft had fallen on down on the job.
By 1911 Roosevelt was regretting his pledge of no third term. In February 1912 he decided to throw his
hat into the Presidential ring after all.
*An incumbent President has certain advantages. In Chicago in June 1912, Taft’s supporters seized control
of the Republican convention. They refused to seat delegates who were backing Roosevelt. Then they
renominated Taft on the first ballot. Roosevelt’s supporters stormed out and held their own convention in
Chicago in August. They formed a new third party, the Progressive party. It was commonly called the
Bull Moose party after a statement Roosevelt made to Mark Hanna in 1900: “I am as strong as a bull moose
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and you can use me to the limit.” Then, in an atmosphere of near-hysteria, the new party nominated
Roosevelt as its candidate for President.
*The Bull Moose platform called for various Progressive reforms including the direct election of senators
and the adoption in all states of the initiative, referendum, and recall. It also advocated woman suffrage,
national workers’ compensation, an eight-hour work day, a minimum wage for women, a federal law
against child labor, and a federal trade commission to regulate business.
*The split in Republican ranks had two main results. In the long run, it changed the nature of the
Republican party. Since the Civil War, the GOP had been known as “the party of new ideas and positive
leadership.” Now, liberal and Progressive elements had shifted to the Bull Moose party. In the short run,
the Republican split provided the Democrats with their first real chance at the Presidency since Grover
Cleveland was elected.
ECONOMIC
Mann-Elkins Act
*1910
*The bill was sponsored by Republican Representative James R. Mann of Illinois and Republican Senator
Stephen B. Elkins of West Virginia.
*Pledged to carry on TR’s reformist program, Taft supported the Mann-Elkins Act, which strengthened the
Interstate Commerce Commission’s rate-setting powers and extended its regulatory authority to the
nation’s telephone and telegraph companies. (It was the first time the telephone and telegraph companies
came under the regulatory supervision of the ICC.)
*It also banned the practice of charging more for short hauls than for longer ones.
Webb-Kenyon Act
*1913
*Passed over President Taft’s veto, the law barred the interstate transportation of liquor into dry states.
Sixteenth Amendment
*1913
*Legalized the income tax.
SOCIAL
NAACP
*W.E.B. Du Bois helped found the Niagara Movement in 1905. According to one historian, this was the
“first organized attempt to protest the shameful treatment [African Americans] had suffered since the end
of Reconstruction.”
*In 1909 Du Bois helped found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
(NAACP) and in 1910 he became a director of that association, a position he held for twenty-four years.
*Du Bois also was the editor of the official magazine, The Crisis, of the NAACP.
*The focus of the NAACP was to reach equality through the legal channels.
FOREIGN POLICY
Payne-Aldrich Tariff
*Taft had run on a platform of lowering tariffs. The House did in fact pass the Payne Bill, which lowered
rates on many manufactured goods. When the bill reached the Senate, however, conservative Republicans
restored most of the cuts. Under pressure from big business, they boosted other rates as well.
*Taft signed the Payne-Aldrich Tariff Act amid cries of betrayal by the Insurgents.
*Taft went on the stump to defend the tariff. In Winona, Minnesota, before a hostile audience of grain
growers, he asserted that the new law was “the best [tariff] bill the Republican party ever passed.” Farmers
were upset because the tariff would make the manufactured articles they needed more expensive. Taft
made matters worse by saying he dictated the speech hurriedly between two railroad stations and had not
bothered to reread it for meaning.
Dollar Diplomacy
*In 1911 there was a revolution in Nicaragua, and the nation was on the verge of bankruptcy. Taft quickly
arranged for United States bankers to loan Nicaragua enough money to pay its debts. In return, the bankers
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were given the right to recover their money by collecting Nicaragua’s customs duties. The United States
bankers also received control of Nicaragua’s state-owned railroad system and the nation’s national bank.
*When the Nicaraguan citizens heard about this deal, they revolted against President Adolfo Diaz. To prop
up Diaz’s government and to protect United States economic interests, some two thousand marines were
sent to Nicaragua. The revolt was put down, but some marine detachments remained in the country until
1933 to ensure that United States business interests did not suffer.
*The policy of using the United States government to guarantee loans made to foreign countries by United
States business people was called dollar diplomacy by those who opposed it. The policy was followed
again in Haiti in 1916. It was justified as a method of keeping Europeans out of the Caribbean area.
WILSON
1913-1921
POLITICAL
New Freedom
*Political philosophy of Woodrow Wilson incorporated in his 1912 presidential run.
*Wilson ran on a reform platform (just like T Roosevelt), but, unlike Roosevelt, he criticized both big
business and big government.
*Calling his philosophy New Freedom, Wilson promised to enforce antitrust laws without threatening free
economic competition.
Louis Brandeis
*Early in 1916 Wilson nominated progressive lawyer Louis D. Brandeis to the Supreme Court. Brandeis
was known for fighting many public causes, often without fee. His work earned him the nickname “the
people’s lawyer.”
*Brandeis supported Wilson in 1912 and advised him during the campaign. When Wilson nominated him
to the Supreme Court, the action drew a storm of protest. Opponents, who included former President Taft,
accused Brandeis of being too radical. Anti-Semitism also played a part in opposition to Brandeis, as he
was the first Jewish Supreme court nominee.
*Brandeis won his seat on the Court and served with distinction until 1939.
*His appointment marked the peak of progressive reform at the federal level.
Espionage and Sedition Acts
*When Wilson addressed Congress on the war resolution, he had warned that disloyalty would be “dealt
with with a firm hand of repression.”
*Accordingly, Congress passed the Espionage Act (1917), which made it illegal to interfere with the draft.
This was followed by the Sedition Act (1918), which made it illegal to obstruct the sale of Liberty Bonds or
to discuss anything “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive” about the American form of government, the
Constitution, or the army and navy.
*The government imposed censorship on the press and banned some publications from the mail. It pursued
more than 1,500 prosecutions and won over 1,000 convictions.
*Socialist and former presidential candidate Eugene Debs drew a ten-year jail sentence for criticizing the
American government and business leaders and urging people to “resist militarism.” From prison he ran
again for President in 1920 and won nearly a million votes. The victor in the race, Warren G. Harding,
pardoned him in 1921.
Fourteen Points
*On January 8, 1918, President Wilson delivered a peace program to Congress, which came to be called the
Fourteen Points for the number of provisions it included.
*The fourteen points, Wilson’s suggested ground rules for peace, were divided into three groups. First
were five points designed to remove what Wilson believed were the causes of war:
a) Open covenants openly arrived at, that is, open diplomacy and no secret treaties.
b) Freedom of the seas.
c) The removal of tariffs and other economic barriers between nations.
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d) Arms reduction “to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety”
e) Colonial policies that would take into account the interests of the colonial people as well as the interests
of the imperialist powers
*Next were eight points dealing with boundary changes. These were based on the principle of selfdetermination “along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality.” In other words, national
groups were to decide for themselves what nation they wanted to be a part of.
*The fourteenth point called for the formation of a League of Nations to keep world peace. The members
of the league would be bound to protect any nation that was attacked by another.
Ratification Fight
*The main opposition to the Treaty of Versailles centered on the issue of the League of Nations. The
covenant providing for the league’s establishment formed the first section of the Versailles treaty. If the
Senate ratified the treaty, the league would automatically be approved. Wilson felt that the covenant could
not be eliminated or even changed without destroying the entire treaty.
*The Senate was divided into three groups. The Democratic supporters of Wilson favored immediate
ratification. The moderates, headed by Henry Cabot Lodge, favored participation in the league with
reservations to protect American interests. The “irreconciliables,” such as William Borah and Hiram
Johnson, advocated total rejection of the covenant.
*The isolationists were suspicious for the following reasons: (1) the covenant did not recognize the Monroe
Doctrine, (2) it did not acknowledge that member nations had authority over their own internal affairs, (3) it
did not indicate that a member nation had the right to withdraw from the league if it wished, and (4) it did
not recognize that Congress had to approve any action the United States might take in the league.
*Realizing that the Senate might not approve the treaty and the league, Wilson decided to go directly to the
people. Despite warnings from friends and doctors that his health was fragile, Wilson set out in September
1919 on an eight-thousand-mile tour. He made thirty-five speeches in twenty-two days, explaining the
need for the United States to join the league. Senators Borah and Johnson followed in his footsteps,
speaking in the same towns against the league.
*Wilson suffered a stroke on October 2, 1919. He laid partially paralyzed for more than two months. He
could not even meet with his cabinet.
*The treaty came up for a vote in the Senate in November 1919. Senator Lodge introduced a number of
amendments, called “reservations.” Wilson appealed from his sick bed to “all true friends of the treaty” to
defeat the Lodge reservations. The Senate did so by a majority vote. When the Senate voted on the treaty
itself, however, Wilson’s supporters could not obtain the necessary two-thirds vote.
*The treaty came up again in March 1920. Again Wilson urged the Democrats to reject it if the Lodge
reservations were included. The Senate again rejected the Lodge reservations--and again failed to muster
enough votes to ratify the treaty.
*The United States finally signed a separate peace treaty with Germany in 1921, after Wilson was no
longer president.
ECONOMIC
Overman Act
*May 1918
*This law gave President Wilson ultimate control of the vast tangle of federal agencies, including the Fuel
Board, the Shipping Board, and the National War Labor Board, which resolved labor-management disputes
that jeopardized production.
*When a massive railroad tie-up during the snowy winter of 1917-1918 threatened the flow of supplies to
Europe, the government simply took over the system. Within a few months, the U.S. Railroad
Administration, headed by Secretary of Treasury William G. McAdoo, transformed the 400,000 miles of
track owned by nearly 3,000 competing firms into an efficient national transportation system.
Liberty Bonds
*The government launched a vigorous campaign to raise money from the American people, a plan created
by Secretary of Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo.
*By selling Liberty Bonds to enthusiastic Americans, McAdoo raised millions of dollars, which he then
loaned to the Allies at low interest rates.
*People who purchased the bonds could later redeem them, collecting what they paid for the bonds plus
interest.
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*All told, four great Liberty Loans drives and one Victory Loan drive were held. On the average, every
adult American lent the government $400.
Dollar-A-Year-Men
*In 1918 Wilson won authority to set up a huge bureaucracy to manage the process of converting industry
to the production of war goods.
*Business leaders--so-called “dollar-a-year” men and women--gave their service for a token salary and
flocked to Washington to take up posts in thousands of agencies.
War Industries Board
*Headed by financier Bernard Baruch
*The War Industries Board oversaw the entire war effort. The board’s control was almost dictatorial. It
doled out raw materials, told manufacturers what and how much to produce, and even fixed prices.
*The board did a great deal to improve production by encouraging the use of mass-production techniques.
*The board also did psychological testing to help find the right person for the right job.
National War Labor Board
*Established in April of 1918 under former President Taft
*It mediated labor disputes that might hinder the war effort
*It dealt with disputes between management and labor. In general, labor agreed not to strike in exchange
for the right to organize and bargain collectively and the right to keep the eight-hour workday wherever it
already existed.
*Workers who were reluctant to go along with board decisions were warned that they would lose their draft
exemption. “Work or fight,” they were told.
War Labor Policies Board
*Headed by Harvard law professor Felix Frankfurter
*It standardized wages, hours, and working conditions in the war industries
*Labor unions won limited rights to organize and bargain collectively
Food Administration
*Led by Herbert Hoover; established in 1917
*It worked to increase agricultural output and reduce waste
*Hoover hoped that voluntary restraint and increased efficiency would accomplish their goals.
*Hoover’s entire staff except for clerks consisted of volunteers.
*Instead of rationing food, he organized a tremendous publicity campaign that called on people to flow the
gospel of the clean plate. Since Europeans were used to eating wheat, Hoover urged Americans to eat corn
so they could send their wheat abroad.
*Homeowners planted “victory gardens” in their yards. Schoolchildren spent their after-school hours
raising vegetables in public parks.
*Women, assumed to be in charge of America’s kitchens, were a key part of Hoover’s program. Eager for
a chance to play a purposeful part in the war, women across the country responded to Hoover’s patriotic
challenge.
Underwood-Simmons Tariff
*The first item on Wilson’s agenda was tariff reform--a hot political issue and long a goal of southern and
agrarian Democrats.
*Breaking a precedent dating from Thomas Jefferson’s day, Wilson on April 8, 1913, read his tariff
message to Congress in person.
*A low-tariff bill quickly passed the House, but as usual the Senate bill bogged down in a fierce partisan
battle. Demonstrating his talent for democratic leadership, Wilson publicly denounced the tariff lobbyists
flooding into Washington. His censure led to a Senate investigation of lobbyists and of individual senators’
financial interests in maintaining high tariffs.
*In the aftermath of all the publicity, the Senate passed a bill slashing tariff rates even more than the House
version.
*The Underwood-Simmons Tariff, which Wilson signed in October 1913, reduced rates by an average of
15 percent and placed a number of items, including iron and steel, on the free list. It also imposed an
income tax, as authorized by the newly ratified Sixteenth Amendment.
Federal Reserve Act
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*December 1913
*In June 1913, as the tariff battle raged, Wilson again went before Congress, this time to call for banking
and currency reform. Everyone agreed that the nation’s antiquated banking system was woefully
inadequate for a modern industrial economy. Totally decentralized and independent, American banks
needed a strong central bank--a “lender of last resort” to enable them to survive a fiscal crisis such as the
Panic of 1907, in which many banks had failed. But beyond a general agreement on the need for reform,
the consensus evaporated.
*The nation’s bankers, whose Senate spokesman was Nelson W. Aldrich, favored a privately controlled
central bank similar to the old Bank of the United States that Andrew Jackson had attacked in the 1830s.
Others, including influential Virginian congressman Carter Glass, also supported a privately controlled
banking system but thought that it should be decentralized. Progressive reformers believed that the central
banking system should be completely under public control.
*Wilson insisted that the central banking system must ultimately be under public control. Though the
summer and fall of 1913, the complex bargaining went on, with Wilson playing a critical behind-the-scenes
role. The result was the Federal Reserve Act which was Wilson’s greatest legislative achievement.
*A compromise among the various viewpoints considered by Congress, the Federal Reserve Act created a
network of twelve regional Federal Reserve banks under mixed public and private control. Each regional
bank was authorized to issue currency, called Federal Reserve notes, to the private banks in its district.
These banks, in turn, could use this money to make loans to corporations and individual borrowers.
Overall control of the system was placed in the hands of the president of the twelve regional banks and a
Washington-based Federal Reserve Board consisting of the secretary of the treasury, the comptroller of the
currency, and seven other members appointed by the president for fourteen-year terms.
*As established in 1913, the Federal Reserve’s decision-making authority was badly diffused. But
eventually--and particularly after the 1930s-- “the Fed” would grow into a strong institution capable of
directing the nations’ monetary system.
Federal Trade Commission Act
*1914
*This law created a new five-member federal “watchdog” agency, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC),
with power to investigate suspected violations of federal regulatory statutes, to require regular reports from
corporations, and to issue “cease and desist” orders (subject to court review) when it found unfair methods
of business competition.
Clayton Antitrust Act
*1914
*It took the more traditional approach of listing specific illegal activities.
*The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, while outlawing all business practices “in restraint of trade,” had
remained vague about the details.
*The Clayton Act spelled out such illegal practices, among them selling at a loss to monopolize a market
and setting up interlocking directorates of supposedly competing companies.
*Sympathetic to labor, and leading a party historically identified with working people, Wilson supported
the American Federation of Labor, defended workers’ right to organize, and endorsed a Clayton Act clause
that explicitly exempted strikes, boycotts, and peaceful picketing from the antitrust laws prohibiting such
actions “in restraint of trade.” Somewhat exaggeratedly, AFL president Samuel Gompers hailed this clause
as labor’s Magna Carta.
Federal Highway Act
*1916
*This law matched federal funds with state appropriations for highway construction. It benefited not only
the new automobile industry but also farmers plagued by bad roads.
SOCIAL
Winning Plan
*When the revered Susan B. Anthony retired in 1900 from the presidency of the National American
Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA), she passed the mantle to the talented and energetic Carrie
Chapman Catt of Iowa.
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*Under Catt’s leadership, the NAWSA adopted the so-called Winning Plan: grassroots organization within
a framework of tight centralized coordination. The plan consisted of developing a large troop of totally
committed, full-time leaders to work in “red hot” campaigns for six years.
*Following an overall strategy devised in NAWSA’s central office, women nationwide lobbied legislators,
distributed literature, conducted referenda, and organized more parades and rallies. State after state, most
in the Far West and Midwest, fell into the suffrage column.
*A key victory came in November 1917 when New York State voters approved a woman-suffrage
referendum.
National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage
*Formed in 1911.
*Formed by Josephine Dodge, widow of one of the New York City’s richest capitalists.
*Women already had vast behind-the-scenes influence, Dodge and her friends argued; to invade the male
realm of politics could only diminish their vital moral and spiritual role.
Congressional Union
*Formed by Alice Paul in 1913 as an alternative to Catt’s Winning Plan.
*This group was later renamed the Woman’s party.
*Unhappy with the state to state plan of the NAWSA, Paul, influenced by the militant actions of the British
suffragists, wanted to bring direct pressure on the federal government to enact a woman-suffrage
amendment.
*Insisting that “the party in power” (in this case the Democrats under Woodrow Wilson) must be held
accountable for the continued denial of votes to women, Paul and her followers in the wartime year 1917
picketed the White House round the clock. Several of the demonstrators were arrested, jailed, and when
they went on a hunger strike, force-fed.
Anthony Amendment
*On January 9, 1918, President Wilson declared himself in favor of woman suffrage, and on January 10 the
Anthony amendment passed the House with the bare two-thirds majority.
*It took another year-and-a-half as well as the election of a new Congress to get the amendment through the
Senate.
*On August 26, 1920, the last of the necessary thirty-seven states ratified the Nineteenth Amendment and it
became law.
Daylight Savings Time
*A wartime conservation measure, daylight savings time was introduced by federal law in March, 1918.
*Benjamin Franklin, in the 1770s, had originally proposed the idea of adjusting the locks to take advantage
of the longer summer daylight hours, but it took the war emergency to bring it about.
Harlem Hell Fighters
*The more than 300,000 African American volunteered or were drafted into service were kept separate
from the white troops (segregated). Though many African Americans fought with distinction and 3,925
died or were wounded, most never saw combat. The marines refused to accept African Americans
altogether, and the navy used them for menial tasks only. The army, too, used African Americans mostly
for manual labor.
*The 369th Infantry Regiment, who came to be known as the Harlem Hell Fighters, was especially eager to
fight. Its members convinced their white officers to loan them to the French, who did not practice
segregation. Because of their distinguished service, the French awarded the entire regiment their highest
combat medal, the Croix de Guerre.
Creel Committee
*Actually named the Committee on Public Information--It was called the Creel Committee after its leader,
George Creel, a Denver journalist and former muckraker
*This was the country’s first propaganda machine--all news and information came under federal control
*Creel’s office coordinated the production of short propaganda films, pamphlets explaining war aims, and
posters selling recruitment and Liberty Bonds.
*Study plans distributed to teachers from Creel’s office put the entire blame for the war on Germany.
National Security League
*A few months after the sinking of the Lusitania, a staff member of the German embassy left his briefcase
on a train. In it were plans for undermining pro-Allied sentiment and disrupting the American economy.
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Henceforth, the government was on the alert for sabotage. In 1917 the League got Congress to pass, over
Wilson’s veto, a literacy test for immigrants. This test excluded those who could not read or write a
language--relatively few immigrants, as it turned out.
18th Amendment
*In 1917 Congress proposed prohibition.
*Prohibition was passed less out of concern for the health of alcoholics and their families than to show
patriotism.
*Because of the war, the grain that used to make alcohol would now make bread to meet needs at home and
overseas.
*The states ratified the amendment in 1919.
Abrams v. U.S.
*The Abrams case involved the Sedition Act of 1918, an amendment to the Espionage Act of 1917.
*Five Russian immigrants were convicted for distributing antiwar propaganda.
*Justice Holmes, who wrote the opinion in the Schenck case, dissented from the 7-2 decision. Holmes
recognized that “the United States constitutionally may punish speech that produces or is intended to
produce a clear and imminent danger that it will bring about forthwith certain substantive evils that the
United States constitutionally may seek to prevent. The power undoubtedly is greater in time of war than
in time of peace because war opens dangers that do not exist at other times.”
General Strike
*A famous general strike took place in Seattle in January of 1919.
*Shipworkers walked off their jobs and later were joined by workers in other industries. This action, one in
which many unions participate as a show of worker unity, is known as a general strike.
*The Seattle strike paralyzed industry, trade, and the delivery of essential services in the area for five days.
*This strike convinced many people that the United States was on the brink of revolution.
Boston Police Strike
*1919
*Boston’s police force tried to win their first pay raise since the start of the First World War. When the
police commissioner fired nineteen officers for union activity, the whole force voted to strike.
*Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge responded quickly, proclaiming, “There is no right to strike
against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, anytime.” He received national attention for his firm
response to the police walkout.
Palmer Raids
*In 1919 there were Communist attempts to overthrow the governments of Germany and Hungary. Also,
in March 1919 the Third Communist International--consisting mostly of delegates from the Russian
Communist party--convened in Moscow for the stated purpose of encouraging worldwide revolutions. The
Communist International, called the Comitern for short, advocated the overthrow of the capitalist system
and the abolition of free enterprise and private property.
*Many radicals in the United States were communists, but many more were not. The public, however,
found it difficult to distinguish between the two. Many Americans feared that radical support of unions
was really an attack on the free enterprise system. Their fears were fed by the numerous strikes of 1919.
*In April 1919 bombs began turning up in the United States mail. They were hidden in packages addressed
to various government and business leaders. Random explosions and outbreaks of violence in a number of
cities caused something close to panic to grip the nation. On May 1, or May Day (the international
workers’ holiday) the violence was intense. It was followed throughout the summer by heavy labor unrest.
In the fall, two major strikes closed down the nation’s steel mills and coal mines.
*The mounting frenzy over supposed radicals soon took political form. In November 1919 the House of
Representatives refused to seat prominent Milwaukee socialist Victor Berger. Berger’s district promptly
reelected him, but the House stood firm. The New York legislature expelled several socialist members.
The Justice Department, hastily setting up a new countersubversion division under a young J. Edgar
Hoover, future head of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, arrested hundreds of suspected communists and
radicals. In December 1919, 249 Russian-born aliens were deported to their native land aboard the USS
Buford, nicknamed the Red Ark.
*The Palmer raids were often carried out without search warrants. People were kept locked up for long
periods without being allowed to see a lawyer. Many were arrested not because of their actions or
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affiliations but because they were friends of persons Palmer considered suspicious. Many of those arrested
were not American citizens. In December 1919 some 200 of these aliens were deported.
*Palmer was a great hero for a time. However, he kept predicting riots that never came. Finally, he said
there would be serious trouble on May Day, 1920. After a calm May 1, people began to lose interest in
Palmer and his anti-Red crusade.
Keating-Owen Act
*This law barred from interstate commerce products manufactured by child labor
*This measure was declared unconstitutional in 1918. Later a 1919 law that placed a special tax on all
goods manufactured by child labor was also ruled unconstitutional. But these laws paved the way for the
final abolition of child labor by the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938.
Hammer v. Dagenhart
*1918
*The Keating-Owen Act of 1916 tried to stop child labor by excluding the products produced by child labor
from interstate commerce.
*Dagenhart sued, asking for an injunction to permit his two sons to continue working to supplement the
family’s income.
*The Court ruled 5-4 that Congress had overstepped its authority.
*The Court invoked the doctrine which came to be known as “dual federalism,” the idea that Congress
could not intrude into the powers reserved to the states by the Twelfth Amendment.
Shenck v. U.S.
*1919
*Shenck, an official of the Socialist party, was arrested and convicted for violation of the Espionage Act of
1917 because he and other socialists had distributed leaflets to draftees urging them to resist.
*One side of the leaflet was a copy of the Thirteenth Amendment, which outlawed slavery or involuntary
servitude. Schenck claimed he was protected by the First Amendment freedom of speech and press.
*The opinion of the unanimous Court announced Justice Holmes’s “clear and present danger” test. Every
act must be judged according to the circumstances. No freedom is absolute; First Amendment questions
were a matter of “proximity and degree,” and the nation was at war. He included his often quoted remark
that freedom of speech “would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.”
Steelworkers Strike
*September 1919
*Most steelworkers put in seven twelve-hour days every week in uncomfortable foundries. Since steel
furnaces must operate around the clock, there were two shifts. Once every two weeks, a steelworker
“swung” from the day shift to the night shift. This “swing shift” meant that the worker had to put in an
incredible twenty-fours of labor. Furthermore, that was labor as hard, uncomfortable, and dangerous as any
in American history.
*The steel industry was not unionized although more than twenty unions belonging to the American
Federation of Labor wanted to represent various occupations in the mills. This unwieldy group formed an
organizing committee under William Z. Foster, but its efforts were badly coordinated. The AFL unions
were jealous of one another, and Foster offended and frightened many with his radicalism. He later joined
the Communist party and was its Presidential candidate in 1924, 1928, and 1932.
*The steel strike was broken in January 1920, after eighteen workers were killed by a combination of
United States Steel security police, state militia, and federal troops. At first, people in general were
relieved that another threat by “un-American elements” had been turned back. Then in 1923, a Protestant
interfaith committee published a report on working conditions in the mills. The report shocked the public,
and the steel companies agreed to establish an eight-hour workday.
Coal Strike
*In 1919 the United Mine Workers, organized since 1840, got a new president, John L. Lewis.
*Lewis called his union’s members on strike on November 1, 1919. On November 9 Attorney General
Palmer got a court order sending the miners back to work. Lewis declared the strike over. “We cannot
fight the government,” he said, with uncharacteristic meekness. However, he quietly gave the word for the
strike to continue.
*The mines stayed closed for another month. Finally, President Wilson promised to have an arbitrator
decide the issues between the miners and the mine owners. In due course the miners received a 27 percent
wage increase, and John L. Lewis became a national figure.
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Sacco and Vanzetti Case
*Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were two Italian anarchists who had evaded the draft during World
War I.
*On May 5, 1920, they were arrested for a payroll robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, in which the
paymaster and his guard were shot and killed. Although anarchists sometimes committed such crimes to
get money for their cause, the evidence in the Sacco-Vanzetti case was circumstantial, or indirect.
Nevertheless, they were found guilty and sentenced to death.
*The state supreme court refused to grant a new trial, and the governor refused to pardon them or to change
the sentence. He did postpone execution while a committee of three distinguished citizens examined the
case. Although the committee strongly criticized the behavior of the judge, who had not remained impartial
during the proceedings, it upheld the conviction.
*In spite of protests and demonstrations in the United States, Europe and Latin America, Sacco and
Vanzetti were electrocuted on August 23, 1927.
*In 1961, ballistics tests were done on the pistol that had been found on Sacco. Some authorities believe
this new evidence proves that this was the gun used in the murder. Other experts claim that the evidence
against each man remains inconclusive.
Chicago Riot
*A result, in part, from the great migration of African-Americans that took place from the South to the
North during and after the First World War--they were seeking jobs in the factories.
*On Sunday, July 27, 1919, an African American youth went for a swim. New to town, he knew nothing
of the invisible racial divisions that segregated the beach. When he drifted onto the “white” side, a white
man threw a stone at him. The rock injured the youth, and he drowned.
*In retaliation, blacks began attacking whites.
*The riot left almost forty people dead, hundreds injured, and thousands homeless.
Anti-Lynching
*In 1919 the secretary of the NAACP, a poet and lawyer named James Weldon Johnson, managed to have
an antilynching law introduced to Congress (Between 1889 and 1919, 3,224 black men and women had
been shot, burned, or hanged without trial. Between 1919 and 1927, another 400 blacks were lynched, 10
while wearing their World War I uniforms).
*The bill passed the House but was filibustered to death in the Senate (To filibuster means to hold the floor
by talking at length, sometimes for days, in an attempt to postpone or avoid a vote being taken on a
subject).
*However, the NAACP kept up its campaign through numerous antilynching organizations that had been
established earlier by Ida B. Wells-Barnett.
FOREIGN POLICY/MILITARY
Pancho Villa
*From 1911 to 1914, Wilson’s major foreign preoccupation was with neighboring Mexico, a nation divided
between a tiny elite of wealthy landowners and a mass of poor peasants. In a particularly turbulent era for
Mexico, Wilson tried to promote good government in Mexico City, as he had at home; to protect the very
large U.S. capital investments in the country; and ultimately, to safeguard the U.S. citizens traveling in
Mexico or living along its border.
*In 1911 rebels led by a democratic reformer and mystic named Francisco Madero unceremoniously ended
the thirty-year rule of the autocratic president Porfirio Diaz. Forty thousand Americans had settled in
Mexico under Diaz’s regime, and U.S. investors had poured some $2 billion into Mexican oil wells and
other ventures. Madero briefly succeeded Diaz, but early in 1913, just as Wilson took office, Mexican
troops loyal to general Victoriano Huerta, a full-blooded Indian, overthrew and murdered Madero.
*Reversing the long-standing American policy of recognizing all governments that clearly held power
regardless of how they came to office, Wilson refused to recognize Huerta’s regime. Authorizing arms
sales to Huerta’s rival, General Venustiano Carranza, Wilson also ordered the port of Vera Cruz blocked to
prevent a shipment of German arms from reaching Huerta.
*In April 1914, seven thousand U.S. troops occupied Vera Cruz and began fighting Huerta’s forces. Sixtyfive Americans and some five hundred Mexicans were killed or wounded. Bowing to U.S. might, Huerta
abdicated, Carranza took power, and the U.S. troops withdrew.
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*But the turmoil in Mexico continued, as local rebels and bandits challenged Carranza’s authority. In
January 1916 a bandit chieftain operating in northern Mexico, Pancho Villa, murdered sixteen young
American mining engineers whom he had pulled from a train. Soon after, Pancho Villa’s gang burned the
town of Columbus, New Mexico, and killed nineteen of its inhabitants. Enraged, the American people
demanded action. Wilson dispatched a punitive expedition that eventually totaled 12,000 U.S. troops into
Mexico under the command of General John J. Pershing. Many of these troops were black, and Pershing,
who expressed high regard for their abilities, thereafter carried the nickname Black Jack.
*When Pancho Villa not only eluded Pershing but brazenly staged another raid across the border into
Texas, Wilson ordered 150,000 members of the National Guard into duty along the Mexican border. This
massive military response to a comparatively minor problem would long prove a sore point in U.S.Mexican relations.
*Early in 1917, with the United States entering on the brink of a far broader conflict in Europe, Wilson
withdrew the U.S. forces from Mexico. When Carranza was formally declared president later that year,
Wilson extended U.S. recognition, thus opening the way to diplomatic exchange. That same year, in a
move clearly aimed at curbing the free-wheeling operations of U.S. capitalists, Mexico adopted a new
constitution that gave the central government rather than regional administrators control of the nation’s oil
and mineral resources and imposed strict regulations on foreign investors and developers.
Preparedness
*At the same time that America pushed for neutrality, American business leaders who had strong
commercial ties to Great Britain urged that the United States get ready for war. Their watchword was
preparedness, and they wanted their country to be ready to aid Great Britain, if necessary.
*In December 1914, preparedness advocates organized a National Security League “to promote patriotic
education and national sentiment and service among people of the United States.”
*By the late summer of 1915, the movement had won over President Wilson. The government set up
camps to train American men for combat. By the summer of 1916, President Wilson and Congress had
worked out an agreement for large increases in the armed forces.
American Union Against Militarism
*When world war broke out, a peace movement also swung into gear. In the early 1900s, peace advocates
consisted primarily of former populists, midwest progressives, and social reformers.
*Women were particularly active in the movement. On August 29, suffragists, dressed in black and
carrying a banner of a dove, marched down New York City’s Fifth Avenue to the slow beat of a muffled
drum.
*In November 1915, a group of women and men social reformers founded the American Union Against
Militarism
Lusitania
*American public opinion of the Germans sank lower on May 7, 1915, when a U-boat sighted the
Lusitania, a British passenger liner, in the Irish Sea. Suspecting correctly that the ship carried weapons for
the Allies, the U-boat fired on the liner. Eighteen minutes later the Lusitania disappeared beneath the
waves along with 1,198 passengers. Included among the dead were 128 Americans, who had boarded the
Lusitania in spite of German warnings to stay off British ships.
*Wilson directed his secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, to demand that Germany renounce
unrestricted submarine warfare and make payments to the victims’ survivors (these were known as the
Lusitania notes). Germany’s reply that the ship carried small arms and ammunition did not quiet American
anger.
*Wilson ordered a second, stronger note. This time, however, Bryan refused to sign it, fearing it would
lead to war. Bryan also insisted that Wilson send an equally strong note to Great Britain protesting its
blockade. Wilson refused and Bryan resigned. His successor, Robert Lansing, signed the note to Germany.
In response, Germany promised to stop sinking passenger ships without warning, as long as the ship’s crew
offered no resistance to German search or seizure.
Zimmermann Telegram
*The British revealed the contents of an intercepted German telegram to Mexico. In it, Arthur
Zimmermann, Germany’s foreign secretary, encouraged Mexico to war against the U.S. In return, the
Mexicans would receive the lands they lost in the Mexican Cession.
*Neither Wilson nor Mexico took this telegram seriously. Its release, however, scored another propaganda
victory for Great Britain.
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Sussex Pledge
*The United States protested sharply against the sinking of the Lusitania. Two months later a U-boat sank
another British liner, the Arabic. Although only two Americans were drowned, anti-German sentiment in
the United States was so intense that Germany agreed not to sink any more lines without warning “provided
that the liners do not try to escape or offer resistance.”
*In March 1916 Germany broke its promise and torpedoed an unarmed French passenger steamer, the
Sussex. The Sussex did not sink, but about eighty passengers, including Americans, were killed or injured.
Once again the United States warned that it would break off diplomatic relations unless Germany changed
its tactics.
*Again Germany agreed, in the so-called Sussex Pledge. There was a string attached, however. If the
United States could not persuade Britain to life the “hunger blockade,” Germany said, it would consider
itself free to renew unrestricted submarine warfare.
Russian Revolution
*Russia left the war in 1917. Russia for years had been seething with discontent. Landless peasants,
exploited industrial workers, university intellectuals inspired by Western liberal values, and revolutionaries
inflamed by the communist ideology of Karl Marx were united in their hatred of the repressive and
incompetent government of Czar Nicholas II. In March 1917 a revolutionary uprising including all these
elements overthrew the czar and led to the establishment of a provisional government under the liberal
Alexander Kerensky.
*The provisional government proved highly unstable as the Marxist revolutionaries maneuvered to seize
power. The members of one faction of the divided revolutionary party, called bolsheviks (the Russian
word for majority), gained the initiative in April when several top bolshevik leaders, including Vladimir
Lenin, returned from exile in Switzerland. (The Germans, hoping that a victorious Lenin would take Russia
out of the war, had permitted him and his party to pass through Germany in a sealed train).
*On November 6, 1917 (October 24 by the Russian calendar), a bolshevik coup led by Lenin and Leon
Trostsky, another exiled bolshevik who had recently arrived from New York City, overthrew Kerensky and
assumed control of the government. Capitalizing on the war weariness of the Russian people, the new
leaders signed an armistice with Germany, which freed many thousands of German troops on the Russian
front for fighting in France.
War Declaration
*Between March 16 and March 18, Germany sank the United States ships City of Memphis, Illinois, and
Vigilancia. On March 20 Wilson’s cabinet voted unanimously for war.
*Casting the issue in idealistic terms, on April 2, 1917, Wilson told Congress that “The world must be
made safe for democracy.”
*Antiwar forces were devastated. Social worker Jane Addams used her considerable prestige to appeal
directly to the President, but to no avail. An Emergency Peace Federation was formed to pressure Congress
not to say yes to war.
*A war resolution passed 82 to 6 in the Senate and 373 to 50 in the House.
*On April 6, 1917, Wilson signed the war declaration.
Selective Service Act
*When the United States entered the war, the armed forces numbered only 120,000 enlisted men and
80,000 National Guardsmen.
*In May 1917 Congress authorized a draft of young men for military service.
*During the Civil War, the draft had sparked riots. Now, however, the general feeling that this would be
the “war to end all wars” resulted in wide acceptance for the program.
*By November 1918, over 24 million men had registered for the draft. From those, a lottery picked three
million draftees. This group came to be known as the American Expeditionary Force (AEF).
*Included in this American force was a new group of people--women. Eleven thousand women
volunteered to serve in uniform as nurses, drivers, clerks, and telephone operators.
*The Selective Service Act of May 18, 1917, required all young men between twenty-one and thirty (later
expanded to eighteen and forty-five) to register for military service.
*With memories of the Civil War draft riots in many minds, Secretary of War Newton Baker laid careful
plans to make the first official draft-registration day, June 5, 1917, a “festival and patriotic occasion.”
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*Each registrant received a number, and draftees were chosen by lottery, with a blindfolded Newton D.
Baker presiding. In contrast to the policy during the Civil War, local civilian draft boards rather than the
military handled details of the draft.
*By November 1918 more than 24 million American men had registered, of whom nearly 3 million were
drafted.
AEF
*The American Expeditionary Force, AEF, was commanded by General John J. Pershing (Black Jack).
*The forces were nicknamed “doughboys” because of the white belts they wore, which they cleaned with
pipe clay or “dough.”
*At first they were used mostly as replacements for European casualties. By April 1918, however,
Pershing convinced the Allies that the Americans should fight as a separate army, under the overall
direction of French Marshall Ferdinand Foch, commander of all Allied armies in Europe.
*Americans troops played a major role in throwing back German attacks at Chateau-Thierry, Belleau
Wood, and Reims, near Paris. They sparked offensives against the Germans at Saint-Mihiel and in the
Meuse-Argonne area.
*All told, the United States lost forty-eight thousand men in battle, with an additional fifty-six thousand
dying of disease.
*Active on the western front were American fighter pilots. Even before the United States entered the war,
Americans had flown in a special unit of the French Flying Corps called the Lafayette Escadrille. After the
United States entered the war, pilots joined one of the American units. Fighter pilots, involved in
dogfights, were probably the most glamorous of America’s war heroes. This was especially true if they
were “aces” who had shot down five enemy planes. America’s leading ace was Captain Edward
Rickenbacker.
Big Four
*Woodrow Wilson of the U.S.: Wilson led the American delegation. Accompanying him were personal
aide Colonel House, Secretary of State Robert Lansing, General Tasker H. Bliss, and diplomat Henry
White. Only one of the four, White, was a Republican, although the 1918 congressional campaign had
given the GOP a majority in both houses. None was a senator, although the Senate would have to ratify the
peace treaty.
*Premier Georges Clemenceau of France: He had lived through two invasions of his country by Germany,
and he was determined to prevent this from happening again.
Prime Minister David Lloyd George of Britain: He had just won reelection on the basis of the slogan of
“Make Germany Pay.”
Prime Minister Vittorio Orlando of Italy: He wanted Austrian territory.
Treaty of Versailles
*The Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919.
*Nine new nations emerged, and the boundaries of other nations were shifted.
*Some areas were carved out of the Turkish territory and given to France and Britain as mandates. A
mandate, or temporary colony, was to be administered by the victorious Allied country until the area was
ready for self-rule and then independence. The mandates included Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine
(now Israel and Jordan).
*Former colonies in Africa and the Pacific islands were likewise turned over to one or another of the Allied
nations as mandates.
*Germany’s armed forces were drastically reduced, and the country was required to pay reparations, or war
damages, of $32 billion.
*Contrary to Wilson’s hopes, the Treaty of Versailles failed to establish any sort of lasting peace. In fact,
there were at least three areas in which the treaty laid the groundwork for postwar international problems
and the Second World War.
1) Area 1: Germany: The treaty contained a war-guilt clause under which Germany acknowledged that it
alone was responsible for World War I. Most historians now consider this unfair. The result of the warguilt clause and the loss of the Saar was that Germans of all political viewpoints hated the treaty.
Opposition to the treaty was one reason for the 1933 rise to power of Nazi dictator Adolph Hitler.
Germany’s national pride was insulted because, when Austria-Hungary was split up, three million Germanspeaking people were placed in an area of northern Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland. These
Germans would much rather have remained part of Austria.
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2) Area 2: Russia: For three years that country had fought on the side of the Allies. Its battle casualties
numbered two million, more than those of any other nation. Yet not only was Russia excluded from the
peace conference, but it lost much more territory than Germany did--some to Poland, some to Romania,
and some to the four new Baltic nations of Finland, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania. These Baltic nations
were created to serve as a buffer zone against the spread of communism. The result was that the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), as Russia was officially called after 1922, became determined to regain
as much of its former territory as possible.
3) Area 3: Southeast Asia: Here the fault did not lie with anything in the treaty itself but rather in what
the treaty left out. In the early 1900’s most of Southeast Asia was ruled by France. Ever since the 1890’s,
a nationalist movement for independence had been developing in what is now Vietnam. At Versailles, a
young Vietnamese man who was later known as Ho Chi Minh appealed to President Wilson for help. Ho
Chi Minh wanted a constitutional government for his country that would give the Vietnamese people the
same civil and political rights as the French. Wilson, however, apparently believed that self-determination
applied only to Europeans. Instead of listening to Ho Chi Minh’s proposal, Wilson had him thrown out
into the hall. Ho Chi Minh later founded the Indochina Communist party and led the fight against
American forces in the Vietnam War.
Article X
*For Wilson, the heart of his proposal for the League of Nations was “Article 10.” This provision pledged
members to regard an attack on one as an attack on all.
*Since the League would not have any military power, the force of the article was moral only.
*Thirty-nine Republican senators or senators-elect signed a statement rejecting it, fearing the loss of
American diplomatic independence.
HARDING
1921-1923
POLITICAL
Teapot Dome Scandal
*This scandal focused on oil reserves.
*As a result of the conservation movement of the Progressive Era, oil-rich public lands at Teapot Dome,
Wyoming, and Elk Hill, California, had been set aside for use by the United States Navy.
*Secretary of Interior Fall managed to get the reserves transferred from the navy to the Interior Department.
He then secretly leased the land to two private oil companies.
*Fall, who had been having financial problems, became the owner of $325,000 in bonds and cash, as well
as a large herd of cattle.
*Eventually, Fall was charged with bribery, convicted, fined $100,000, and sentenced to a year in prison.
ECONOMIC
SOCIAL
Emergency Quota Act
*In 1921 the immigration rate--a modest 110,000 in 1919--shot up to 805,000, and Congress decided that
the time had come to limit immigration from Europe (Immigration from China had already been suspended
in 1902).
*Congress limited immigration to 350,000 a year.
*The Emergency Quota Act of 1921 introduced a quota system based on national origins.
Sheppard-Towner Act
*1921
*This law allocated federal money for prenatal and infant health care.
Cable Act
*1922
*This law allowed women to marry foreigners and still keep their United States citizenship.
Harlem Renaissance
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*Harlem in New York was the center of the nation’s black intellectual and cultural life, and out of it
flooded achievements in literature, music, drama, dance, and painting. These achievements are known
collectively as the Harlem Renaissance, though some of the best work was done elsewhere.
*The most lasting contribution of the Harlem Renaissance may have been in poetry. James Weldon
Johnson was already well established in 1920, but Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Countee Cullen
made their reputations during the decade.
Garvey Movement
*Marcus Garvey came to New York from his native Jamaica in 1916 to establish a new headquarters for his
Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA).
*The UNIA sought to build up African Americans’ self-respect. He originated the slogan, “Black is
Beautiful.” Its message of racial pride attracted masses of followers.
*Garvey urged followers to return to “Motherland Africa.” This was an idea as old as Paul Cuffe’s effort in
Sierra Leone in 1815 and the founding of Liberia. Garvey wanted African Americans to found “a free,
redeemed and mighty nation. Let Africa be a bright star among the constellation of nations.”
*To finance his colonization scheme, Garvey collected money from his followers and started a successful
newspaper, The Negro World. He also invested his followers’ money in the Black Star steamship line.
When Garvey oversold stock in this enterprise, he was jailed on fraud charges in 1925. Upon release, he
was deported to England.
*The UNIA collapsed, but Garvey’s ideas remained an inspiration to later “black pride” movements.
Flapper
*The ultimate symbol of the Jazz Age was the youthful woman known as the flapper. The term came from
a popular drawing of a dancing woman with her boots open and flapping.
*Jazz men had their symbol too--the “rake,” with his careening automobile, reckless drinking, and
irresponsible flirting.
Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co.
*1922
*Unable to use the commerce clause to prohibit child labor, Congress used its power to tax in order to
impose a heavy fine upon the profits of companies employing child labor.
*In an 8-1 decision the Court decided that the tax attempted to regulate an area reserved for the states,
rather than to tax to raise revenue.
*Not until U.S. v. Darby in 1941 were child labor laws found to be constitutional.
FOREIGN POLICY/MILITARY
Washington Naval Conference
*During the Presidential campaign of 1920, the Republicans had talked of having some form of
international cooperation as a substitute for the League of Nations. In August 1921 Harding invited all the
major powers except the Soviet Union to a conference in Washington, D.C., to discuss reducing naval
armaments and preserving the peace in Asia.
*When representatives of the major nations gathered in Washington that November, they were expecting a
routine speech of welcome from Secretary of State Charles Evans Hughes. Instead, they were startled to
hear a series of concrete proposals about arms control.
*Hughes suggested a ten-year naval holiday, during which time the nations would not build any warships.
*Second, he suggested that the five major powers--the United States, Great Britain, Japan, France and Italy-adjust the size of their fleets. The United States, Hughes said, would scrap 845,000 tons of capital ships,
that is, battleships and cruisers. Britain would do the same with 538,000 tons and Japan with 480,000 tons.
That would leave the United States and Britain with 500,000 tons of capital ships each and the Japanese
with 300,000 tons--a ratio of 5:5:3. France and Italy were to restrict themselves to 175,000 tons each (thus,
5-5-3-1.75-1.75). In the end of the conference, they agreed to accept this proposal. It came to be called the
Five-Power Treaty (or Pact).
*The United States, Britain, Japan, and France signed the Four Power Treaty, in which they agreed to
respect one another’s interests in the Pacific.
*The U.S., Britain, Japan, France, China, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, and Portugal signed the NinePower Treaty. In this treaty they promised to uphold the Open Door policy and to keep China from being
carved up further.
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Fordney-McCumber Tariff
*In 1922 the U.S. raised its tax on imported goods to the highest level to date.
*The new tariff openly aimed at keeping foreign goods out of American markets. It succeeded, European
exports to the United States fell from $5 billion in 1920 to $2.5 billion in 1922.
*Since Great Britain and France could not sell their products in the States, they were even less able to pay
their debts.
Dawes Plan
*Charles G. Dawes, an American banker, and Owen D. Young, chairman of General Electric, were
responsible for trying to create a system to deal with debts and reparations.
*Between 1923 and 1930, American investors loaned about $2.5 billion to the German government and to
German corporations. During those same years, Germany paid $2 billion in reparations to Britain and
France, who in turn paid $2.6 billion on their war debts to the United States.
COOLIDGE
1923-1929
POLITICAL
Gitlow v. New York
*1925
*This case involved the arrest of Benjamin Gitlow, an official of the Communist Party, for the violation of
New York’s criminal anarchy law.
*The Court upheld the conviction, 7-2.
*The real significance of the case is that the majority asserted for the first time that the guarantees in the
Bill of Rights also apply to the states because of the Fourteenth Amendment.
ECONOMIC
Model A
*By the mid-1920’s, the Model T began to lose ground. Essentially, it had not changed since 1908.
*General Motors’ Chevrolet had appeared, costing little more than a fully equipped Ford sedan and
providing much more comfort.
*to meet the challenge, Ford shut down his enormous operation for several months to retool.
*In 1928 Ford unveiled the Model A, a well-designed four-cylinder automobile with a standard stick
gearshift.
*The Model A came in a variety of colors.
Adkins v. Children’s Hospital
*1923
*From the 1890s to the 1930s the Supreme Court frustrated congressional and state regulatory efforts. It
invalidated many acts under the freedom of contract doctrine and the due process and equal protection
clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.
*As the government for the District of Columbia, Congress passed an act in 1918 creating a Minimum
Wage Board, authorized to establish minimum wages for women and children working within the District
of Columbia.
*Several female employees at Children’s Hospital were fired because the hospital did not want to pay the
minimum wage for these jobs. Their suit claimed that their individual freedom of contract had been
abridged; the Court agreed, 5-3.
SOCIAL
McNary-Haugen Bill
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*In 1921 a group of congressmen from the farm states became a unified group of voters known as a farm
bloc, it included members of both political parties who aimed at improving the economic well-being of
their constituents.
*In 1924 Senator Charles L. McNary of Oregon and Representative Gilbert H. Haugen of Iowa introduced
several pieces of legislation.
*The McNary-Haugen bills proposed that the federal government buy surplus wheat, corn, cotton, and
tobacco at a reasonable price. In that way the government would set a floor, or minimum price, for each
crop, since no farmer would be likely to sell it for less.
*As a result of these price supports, the government could then unload the surplus abroad for whatever
price it would bring. Since the world price would be lower than the domestic prices, the difference was to
be made up by a special tax on all farm crops.
*The theory was that while farmers would lose something by paying the tax, on balance they would be
better off.
*The McNary-Haugen bills were introduced repeatedly from 1924 to 1928. Each time Congress passed
them, President Coolidge vetoed them. He believed that they represented an unconstitutional use of federal
power.
The Man Nobody Knows
*One of the decade’s best-selling books was The Man Nobody Knows which was published in 1925.
*Written by Bruce Barton, an advertising executive, it told Jesus’ life story in business terms. Barton
portrayed Jesus as a managerial genius who “picked up twelve men from the bottom ranks of business and
forged them into an organization that conquered the world.”
Lost Generation
*American writers and artists that felt stifled by what they called the “vulgar, money-grubbing” society of
the 1920s. they fled to Europe where they felt they could live a richer cultural and intellectual life.
*A common theme of most novels was opposition to materialism. Most of these writers were against the
modern business culture.
*F. Scott Fitzgerald, fresh from Princeton and the army, published This Side of Paradise in 1920. He won
instant acclaim as the spokesman for the twenties generation. In this novel and others, he described the
confusion and tragedy caused by a frantic search for material success.
*Sinclair Lewis, author of Babbit and Main Street, was the sharpest critic of materialism and of the
narrowness of small-town life. He also attacked American medicine in Arrowsmith and religion in Elmer
Gantry. The harsh views of Lewis had little effect. Nevertheless, he won the Nobel Prize for literature in
1930.
*In The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway expressed disgust with prewar codes of
behavior and the glorification of war. He also developed a clear, straightforward prose that set a new ,
tough, “hard-boiled” literary style.
*Poet T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land was perhaps the most agonizing view of the dehumanizing effects of the
machine age. It is considered by some critics to be the great poem of the twentieth century.
Prohibition
*On January 16, 1920, the Eighteenth Amendment (prohibiting the manufacture, sale, or transportation of
alcoholic beverages) went into effect.
*Progressive reformers saw in the liquor trade a prime source of corruption. They felt that drunkenness led
to crime, child abuse, accidents on the job, and similar problems. They had pushed the measure, but it took
the church-affiliated Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (which regarded
drinking as a sin) to put the amendment across.
*As with woman suffrage, large areas of the country had adopted Prohibition by state law even before the
constitutional amendment was ratified.
*The persistent myth that drinking increased under Prohibition is not true. Drunkenness and alcoholism
declined significantly in spite of speakeasies (places where liquor was illegally sold) that operated almost
openly in working-class neighborhoods.
*Providers of illegal drink were known as bootleggers. They smuggled beer and whiskey in from Canada
or stole it from government warehouses. Often they mixed the liquor with other substances including
embalming fluid. Like large-scale gambling, bootlegging was controlled by hoodlums like Al Capone. It
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could exist only because bribes were paid to police and judges. As a result, many people grew skeptical
about the honesty of public officials, and disrespect for law increased.
*Before the 1920s were far advanced, many Americans decided that Prohibition’s social benefits were not
worth the costs. Organized crime had increased do fantastically that taxes went up to pay the law
enforcement to contain it. Politicians, by and large, were afraid to take Prohibition head-on. Alfred E.
Smith’s open opposition to Prohibition counted heavily against him in two national elections. Other
politicians, such as Robert La Follette, Herbert Hoover, and Franklin D. Roosevelt, skirted the issue.
Hoover, for example, called Prohibition “a noble experiment,” hat is, something that may or may not work.
*The Eighteenth Amendment was finally repealed in 1933 by the Twenty-first Amendment.
Scopes Monkey Trial
*During the early twentieth century, the rising prestige of science, changing social roles for women, and
social gospel reform movements challenged many traditional religious beliefs. In reaction, religious
traditionalists published a series of pamphlets called The Fundamentals. These tracts, which appeared
between 1909 and 1914, insisted that every word in the Bible was inspired by God, and that every biblical
story was literally true. The pamphlets gave birth to a religious movement called fundamentalism.
*In 1923 and 1924, fundamentalist legislators in at least twelve states introduced laws to ban the teaching
of evolution in the public schools. Evolution is the name for Charles Darwin’s theory, put forward in
Origins of the Species in 1859, that hold that humans and all other species developed over time from lower
to more complex forms. Fundamentalists argued that the theory of evolution contradicted biblical accounts
of the creation of the world (creationists).
*Several states passed an antievolution law. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), however, felt
that the laws violated the Constitution. In 1925, the ACLU announced that it would defend any teacher
willing to challenge the statutes.
*John T. Scopes, a young high school biology teacher from Dayton, Tennessee, accepted the offer of the
ACLU. He read to his class a description of Darwin’s theory. His arrest followed.
*Thanks to radio, the Scopes trial became a national sensation. Famed lawyer Clarence Darrow headed the
ACLU defense team. Former presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan defended the antievolution
law.
*The climax came when Bryan insisted that everything in the Bible was literally true. Darrow got Bryan to
admit that even he interpreted figuratively some biblical stories and ideas. Bryan, widely ridiculed, died
soon after the trial.
*Because Scopes had violated the law, the trial jury convicted him and imposed a one-hundred dollar fine.
The Tennessee Supreme Court threw out the fine (and a chance to test the law’s constitutionality) on a
technicality.
KKK
*In June 1920, the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), which had revived in 1915, launched a recruitment campaign
using mass-marketing techniques of the advertising age. By October 1921, it had 85,000 new recruits. At
its high point in the 1920s, the Klan boasted membership of between three and five million.
*In 1928 the Grand Dragon of Indiana, David Stephenson, was jailed on second-degree murder charges.
Stephenson took revenge on the politicians who failed to get him released by revealing the extent of Klan
influence and political corruption in the state. Stephenson’s revelations caused a scandal that broke the
movement.
The Jazz Singer
*The first film with sound, called a Talkie, was The Jazz Singer in 1927.
*It starred Al Jolson.
Charles Lindbergh
*On May 20, 1927, Charles A. Lindbergh began his solo flight across the Atlantic Ocean.
*In May 1927, the twenty-five-year-old competed for a $25,000 prize offered to the first aviator to fly
nonstop across the Atlantic Ocean from New York to Paris. Except for a team of two flyers who landed in
an Irish bog in 1919, everyone else attempting the crossing had crashed or disappeared.
*Flying his Spirit of St. Louis with a dangerous overload of fuel, struggling through ice storms and fatigue,
Lindbergh managed to cross the ocean and land safely on May 21 at Le Bourget airfield near Paris.
*He became an instant hero. To many Americans, he symbolized their national spirit.
FOREIGN POLICY/MILITARY
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Kellogg-Briand Pact
*On January 15, 1929, the United States Senate ratified the Kellogg-Briand Pact.
*Named for United States Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg and French Foreign Minister Aristide
Briand, the pact was eventually signed by sixty-four nations.
*They promised never to make war again and to settle all future disputes by peaceful means.
*The pact was misleading, however, because it still permitted defensive war. Furthermore, the only way of
enforcing the pact was through public opinion. The treaty had no provisions for the use of economic or
military force against any nation that broke the agreement.
HOOVER
1929-1933
POLITICAL
20th Amendment:
*1933
*The so-called lame-duck amendment, it moved the presidential inauguration date up to January 20 (from
March 4) and authorized each new Congress to convene on January 3.
ECONOMIC
Agricultural Marketing Act:
*1929
*Redeeming his pledge to provide relief to farmers, President Hoover signed this measure, which created a
Federal Farm Board to encourage the formation of farm cooperatives and to control farm surpluses.
*The limited authority of the board, however, was insufficient to handle the severe glut in agricultural
products.
*The board was abolished in 1933.
Hawley-Smoot Tariff:
*1930
*It replaced the Emergency Tariff Act of 1921 and the Fordney-McCumber Act of 1922.
*With some misgivings, Hoover signed this protectionist measure because he hoped, in vain, that it would
aid hard-pressed farmers by protecting them from foreign competition.
*Instead, a global tariff war ensued, and all trade suffered.
*Sponsored by Republican Senator Reed Smoot of Utah and Republican Representative Willis C. Hawley
of Oregon, the bill raised the general level of duties to 42 percent, the highest in the nation's history.
*The protective tariff policy was abandoned with the adoption of reciprocal trade agreements in 1934.
Stock Market Crash:
Stock Market Crash:
*There were warning signs--building starts and consumer spending had been slipping, inventories had been
building up--but few were prepared to heed them as prices on Wall Street kept climbing.
*Then on Black Thursday, October 24, 1929, stock prices, after falling off sharply the day before,
continued to slide in heavy trading.
*A group of investment banks hastily agreed to shore up confidence by ostentatiously buying large blocks
of stock, but the tactic only temporarily checked the collapse.
*On October 29, 1929, came the crash as stock losses for the day totaled in the billions of dollars amid
then-record volume of more than 16 million shares. The Dow-Jones Industrial Average, having peaked in
1929 at 381, a level not attained again until the mid-1950s, bottomed out at 41 in 1932.
*The causes of the Great Depression that followed were many including: (1) A chronic surplus in
agricultural products had been depression farm prices. (2) Lack of credit restraints, especially in the
securities industry, where stocks could be purchased on 25 percent margin, spurred a dizzying round of
speculation. (3) High tariffs discouraged world trade. (4) Acceleration of corporate profits at the expense
of higher wages stunted purchasing power.
Norris-LaGuardia Act:
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*1932
*Sponsored by Republican Senator George Norris of Nebraska and Republican Representative Fiorello
LaGuardia of New York and signed by President Hoover; the law restricted the use of the labor injunction
to strikes that threaten public safety and banned the yellow dog contract denying workers the right to
unionize and binding them to a no-strike clause.
Esch-Cummins Act
*1920
*America’s experience during World War I had shown that railroads could be more efficiently run as a
unified system. William G. McAdoo, who had administered the system from 1917 to 1919, proposed a
five-year peacetime trial. Glenn E. Plumb, a lawyer for the railroad brotherhoods, drew up a detailed plan.
*Continued government ownership of a basic industry, however, smacked of socialism. So the Plumb plan
got nowhere.
*Instead, Congress passed the Esch-Cummins Act of 1920, which placed railroads under government
control as to rates and service but left ownership in private hands. However, the railroads were never able
to earn the modest 6 percent return on investment that the new act allowed. Part of the reason was that the
government was unwilling to allow the railroads to abandon lines that were losing money. A more
important reason was the growing competition from trucks, buses, and private automobiles.
RFC
*Hoover established the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to make loans to banks, railroads, and other
industries so that they could get back on their feet.
SOCIAL
Bonus March:
*1932
*In May 1932 some 15,000 veterans descended on Washington to lobby for immediate payment of the
bonus awarded them in 1924 but not due until 1945.
*The bonus marchers, as they came to be called, pitched camp near the capitol.
*When Congress voted down the bonus bill, many demonstrators drifted away, but thousands remained, a
squalid reminder of the Depression and its effect on those who once had risked their lives for their country.
*In July President Hoover ordered the bonus camp cleared. General Douglas MacArthur, aided by Major
Dwight Eisenhower and Major George Patton, lead four cavalry troops with drawn sabers, an infantry
column with fixed bayonets and tear gas bombs, and six tanks against the ragged band of veterans and their
families.
*Bernard Myers, a infant recently born in the camp, died from tear gas inhalation. A small boy was
bayoneted in the leg as he scrambled to save a pet rabbit.
*In short order, federal troops dispersed the "enemy" and set fire to their shacks.
*Hoover's use of armed force to defeat the Bonus Army drew widespread criticism and reinforced the
image of a heartless president insensitive to the suffering of the Depression's victims.
Rugged Individualism
*Hoover believed in rugged individualism. This meant that individuals and local government agencies
were the ones to care for children and the sick, old, and disabled. The federal government should direct and
guide relief measures, Hoover believed, but not through a vast federal bureaucracy.
*Hoover feared that direct federal handouts would weaken people’s self-respect. In short, he thought the
depression could best be cured by individual initiative and private charity (volunteerism). Hoover lent
money to the states for relief. He also lent millions to corporations to help them resume production and
employ workers. He refused, however, to permit federal payments to the poor and hungry.
Hoovervilles
*The unemployed did not understand Hoover’s concept of rugged individualism. Not did they understand
why money was going to support failing corporations while people starved.
*The Democratic National Committee hired a public relations expert to further damage the President’s
image.
*Hoover’s name was linked to the depression’s worst features. The groups of shacks filled with homeless
men and women that grew up outside many cities were called Hoovervilles. Old newspapers worn under
clothing for greater warmth were called Hoover blankets. Empty pockets turned inside out were Hoover
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flags.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
London Naval Treaty:
*1930
*It revised the Washington Conference agreement of 1922 to permit Japan to increase its fleet relative to
that of the United States and Great Britain.
*In 1934 Japan renounced the treaty with effect from 1936. A naval race ensued, culminating in World
War II.
Good Neighbor Policy
*One of Hoover’s solid accomplishments was to continue improving relations with Latin America. In
doing so, he was following in the steps of his predecessor.
*Coolidge had made a start in that direction. Mexico’s 1917 constitution had sharply curbed the activities
of foreign oil companies. In 1927 the Mexican government further limited the rights of outsiders in
Mexican oil fields. This action led war hawks to call for an invasion of Mexico. Instead, Coolidge
appointed Dwight W. Morrow as ambassador and told him to try conciliation. Within a year, economic
restrictions on American oil companies were lifted.
*Morrow’s efforts began a more moderate United States foreign policy that guarded against overreaction to
nationalist economic changes in Latin America.
*Hoover continued the policy and expanded it.
*Before assuming office, he made a goodwill tour of eleven Latin American nations. In 1930 he repudiated
the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctine, which had stated that the United Sates would act as a
policeman in the Western Hemisphere. Hoover also denounced dollar diplomacy. He withdrew American
marines from Nicaragua and started withdrawing those stationed in Haiti. He attempted to treat Latin
American nations as equals.
*It was he who first used the term “good neighbor,” though it is part of the political ill-luck that most
people associate the Good Neighbor Policy with his archrival Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Hoover Moratorium
*By 1931 Europe was feeling the effects of the depression. American investors withdrew their money and
financial panic swept central Europe. A month later Hoover proposed a moratorium, or postponement of
payments, on Allied war debts and German reparations.
*Before anyone could agree to this plan, however, Britain and other European countries went off the gold
standard. That is, their paper money could no longer be exchanged for gold. This made gold drop in value,
which meant that Europeans would be buying American goods and repaying American loans with cheap
currency.
*Hoover was furious over the abandonment of the gold standard. His administration was committed to
paper money backed by gold. The President became more upset when the former Allies agreed to reduce
Germany’s war reparations by 90 percent. All Hoover wanted was a postponement.
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT
1933-1945
POLITICAL
Hundred Days
*From March to June 1933, during a period known as the Hundred Days, FDR feverishly pushed program
after program through Congress to provide relief, create jobs, and stimulate economic recovery.
*Some of these programs were based on federal agencies that had controlled the economy during World
War I, or on programs started under Hoover or by state governors.
Three R’s
*Relief, Recovery and Reform
*Relief--immediate help--mainly provided under the First New Deal
*Recovery--get people through the Depression--mainly provided under the First New Deal
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*Reform--Make permanent changes to the capitalist system to stop a Depression from every occurring
again--Mainly found under the Second New Deal
Brain Trust
*From his gubernatorial days, FDR had built up a circle of advisers nicknamed the brain trust.
*This group included Columbia University professors Raymond Moley and Rexford Tugwell and lawyer
Adolph Berle. Of these, Moley was the most conservative; indeed, he eventually repudiated the New Deal.
But Tugwell and Berle, heirs of the progressive reform tradition, rejected laissez faire ideology and
advocated broad programs of federal economic planning and corporate regulation.
*Roosevelt listened to his brain trusters, but they did not (as some critics fancifully charged) manipulate
him like sinister puppet masters. In fact, the New Deal reflected many ideological and political
crosscurrents. FDR by temperament sought a variety of opinions rather than relying on a single core of
advisers.
Frances Perkins
*Perkins was Secretary of Labor under Roosevelt--she was the first woman cabinet member in America’s
history.
*The position, Secretary of Labor, usually went to a labor-union official. Perkins had no such connection.
She was, however, a nationally recognized expert on industrial safety.
Liberty League
*By the mid-1930’s, the air was filled with charges that the New Deal was endangering the Constitution
and slowly establishing a dictatorship. The charges were made by an organization called the Liberty
League.
*Although it invited all classes of people to join, many of its members were rich industrialists, bankers, and
corporation lawyers.
*The kindest thing the Liberty League called FDR was a “traitor to his class.”
*The League was no real threat politically, however. Its message only appealed to the wealthy.
EPIC
*A leading muckraker of the Progressive Era, Upton Sinclair helped bring about the passage of the first
Federal Meat Inspection Act with his novel The Jungle.
*In the 1930’s, he wrote a book called I, Governor of California, and How I Ended Poverty. This novel
helped him win the Democratic nomination for governor of that state in 1934. In the book, he proposed the
EPIC program (End Poverty in California).
*In his campaign, Sinclair called for higher income and inheritance taxes, fifty-dollar-a-month pensions for
the elderly, and consumer cooperatives. Sinclair lost.
*The real significance of the election, however, was that the Republicans used a professional public
relations firm for the first time. Since then, the practice has become commonplace.
Share The Wealth
*Huey Long was governor and later U.S. Senator from the state of Louisiana.
*His championship of the poor against corporate giants made him a hero to many people, and in 1928 he
was elected governor. He gave the state badly needed schools, roads, bridges, and hospitals. He provided
free textbooks for public school students and spent lavishly on the state university, providing it with the
Sugar Bowl football stadium and “the best team that money could buy.” In 1930 the people of Louisiana
sent him to the United States Senate.
*The Kingfish, as he was called, spent the early 1930s building a personal political machine in his home
state and eyeing the Presidency.
*In 1934 he introduced a nationwide social program called Share the Wealth. Its motto was Every Man a
King, and its key provision was a $5,000 guaranteed annual income for every family in the United States.
the money for this program was to be raised by taking over the wealth of the millionaires and by dividing
up some of the nation’s land and mineral treasures.
*According to Long, every American family was entitled to own a house, an automobile, and a radio.
*At the height of his popularity, Long was shot to death in the statehouse of Baton Rouge. the lone killer
was gunned down on the spot by the senator’s bodyguards, and Long’s family continued to dominate
Louisiana politics for many years.
*Until this death, Long was Roosevelt’s greatest political threat. Though unquestionably dictatorial, he
was intelligent, colorful, and lively. He was also unique among Southern politicians of his time and type--
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he appeared to be without racial prejudice. He said he wanted African Americans to share the wealth and
be kings, too.
Radio Priest
*Charles Coughlin, a Catholic priest from the Detroit suburb of Royal Oak, was a major voice during the
depression on the radio.
*Even before the depression, Father Coughlin was delivering Sunday afternoon sermons over a local radio
station. As his audience grew, the talks moved from the religious to social and political topics. Other
stations picked up the broadcasts, and soon they were being carried nationwide. By 1934 some 10 million
persons were listening to Father Coughlin each week and were sending him half a million dollars a year.
*Father Coughlin had originally supported FDR, telling his listeners that it was “Roosevelt or ruin.”
*In late 1934 he formed the National Union for Social Justice, which came out for nationalizing banks,
public utilities, and national resources.
*As time went on, it became clear that Father Coughlin was strongly anti-Semitic.
*Eventually, his superiors in the Roman Catholic Church made him stop broadcasting.
Townshend Plan
*Dr. Francis Townshend was a South Dakota physician who had become an assistant health officer in Long
Beach, California. Many of the town’s residents were retired farmers and small business people,
impoverished by the depression.
*Dr. Townshend devised a plan that would pay everyone over sixty years of age $200 a month. The only
requirement was that the entire amount be spent within thirty days. This was to keep money circulating,
which in turn would keep business healthy.
*The pensions were to be paid by a 2 percent tax on business transactions.
*A bill to set up the plan was defeated in Congress. However, Townshend’s movement helped to push
through the Social Security Act.
Second New Deal
*FDR recommended in 1935 that the federal government shift its emphasis from relief and recovery to
reform. He wanted to save the capitalistic system. The body of legislation that began in 1935 is usually
called the Second New Deal.
Court Packing Plan
*In his second inaugural address, FDR spoke about the need for reform. He promised to do something
about it. Instead of proposing new economic legislation, however, FDR asked congress to reorganize the
federal judiciary.
*Roosevelt’s message to Congress claimed that federal courts could not keep up with their case loads, that
more judges were needed, and that part of the problem was that too many judges were “aged or infirm.” He
proposed that federal judges retire within six months after reaching the age of seventy. If they did not, then
the President should have the power to appoint additional judges.
*The measure was obviously aimed at the Supreme Court. since six of its justices were seventy years old
or older, FDR would be able to enlarge it to fifteen members. He had not yet had the opportunity to
appoint a single Supreme Court justice. Undoubtedly, he believed that the Court had been too conservative
in knocking down the NIRA, the AAA, and the other New Deal measures.
*The President’s bill set off a storm of protest in Congress and in the newspapers. Cries about “separation
of powers” and “independence of the judiciary” were heard from all sides. People began calling the
measures a “court-packing bill” that would fill the Supreme Court with justices who would agree with
FDR’s personal economic ideas. FDR replied that the Nine Old Men were already deciding on the basis of
their personal economic ideas.
*The bill Roosevelt wanted never got through Congress. In the meantime, however, several changes took
place. Two Supreme Court justices shifted their votes in favor of giving the federal government power to
regulate the economy. In a series of five-to-four decisions, the Court declared both the Social Security Act
and the National Labor Relations Act constitutional. Then one of the older, more conservative justices
retired. That opened the way for the President to appoint New Dealer Hugo Black of Alabama to the Court.
*In the end, Roosevelt received the kind of Supreme Court he wanted. He appointed seven justices in the
next four years. However, the attempt to pack the Court turned out to be a serious political mistake. It
antagonized many congressmen and others who believed that the President had been dictatorial. It also
strengthened opposition to the New Deal. As a result, the 1938 congressional elections brought into office
a number of conservative southern Democrats as well as many more Republicans.
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Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S.
*1935
*This case was known as the “sick chicken” case.
*It unanimously found the NIRA unconstitutional. Under the act the NRA was directed to establish codes
for each industry in partnership with industries and unions. If the industry did not establish its code, the
NRA could impose one. This last feature of the law violated the Constitution because it granted legislative
powers to the executive branch. The act also exceeded the government’s interstate commerce authority by
attempting to regulate the killing of chickens for market, which the Court found to be an interstate activity.
*Chief Justice Hughes rejected the argument that a national emergency justified the NRA.
U.S. v. Butler
*1936
*This decision was the second to declare an important New Deal program, in this case the AAA,
unconstitutional.
*This law used the federal government’s taxing power as a means to regulate production. AS such, it
exceeded the powers of the federal government by invading state jurisdiction. In this decision the court
resurrected the doctrine of “dual federalism,” the concept that the states and the national government were
equals, and that the Tenth Amendment limited the delegated powers given to Congress.
NLRB v. Jones and Loughlin Steel Corp.
*1937
*Many students mistakenly believe that most bitter strikes involve wage demands. The most disruptive
strikes have involved union recognition, the industry’s acquiescence in the union’s right to represent the
workers and to engage in collective bargaining.
*The National Labor Relations Board was established to supervise and conduct elections for workers
deciding upon union representation. In a 5-4 decision, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the NLRB.
*The Court broadly defined commerce, asserting Congress’s right to legislate broadly in the “stream of
commerce” because commerce was more than mere transportation.
West Coast Hotel v. Parrish
*1937
*This 5-4 decision upheld state regulation of wages and hours for women and children.
*The Court reversed the decision in Adkins v. Children’s Hospital by putting the contract clause into a
different perspective.
U.S. v. Darby Lumber Co.
*1941
*This case expressly overruled Hammer v. Dagenhart.
*The Darby Lumber Company was charged with violating the federal Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938,
which established minimum wages and maximum hours for workers engaged in interstate commerce.
*The unanimous decision enlarged the definition of interstate commerce to include the production of goods
for commerce, not just the transportation of goods.
U.S. v. Curtiss-Wright Export Co.
*1936
*In 1934 Congress empowered the president to prohibit the sale of military supplies to Bolivia and
Paraguay, who were engaged in a war which threatened the peace of the whole of South America.
*Bolivia purchased her entire air force of thirty-four planes from the Curtiss-Wright Export Corporation
prior to the congressional resolution. In violation of President Roosevelt’s proclamation the Curtiss-Wright
Corporation tried to smuggle fifteen airplane machine guns into Bolovia.
*When the case reached the Supreme Court the key question involved the legality of the congressional
grant of legislative power to the President. The previous year the NIRA had been declared unconstitutional
in the Schechter case on the same grounds.
*In a 7-1 majority opinion the Court differentiated between domestic and foreign policy. The Court ruled
that the president has a “degree of discretion and freedom from statutory restriction which would not be
admissible were domestic affairs alone involved.”
West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette
*1943
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*In a 1940 case, Minersville School District v. Gobitis, the Supreme Court upheld the expulsion from
school of two Gobitas children (misspelled in official legal documents) who refused to salute the flag. The
Gobitas family belonged to Jehovah’s Witnesses, who believe the First Commandment directs them to
worship no other god. The Court upheld the school board, 8-1.
*Just three years later the Court reversed itself, 6-3, in a similar case from West Virginia. Through various
legal contortions students expelled from school for refusing to salute the flag were declared delinquents,
subject to imprisonment in reform schools. Many local and state school boards felt the Gobitis decision
sanctioned broadly based attacks on Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the members of the Supreme Court were
shocked at the consequences of that decision. Thus, their reversal is less dramatic than it seems.
(Ironically, the decision was announced on Flag Day, June 14th.)
*The majority opinion reflected the atmosphere of 1943, which differed from the war preparation and
uncertainty of 1940. In 1943 we knew we would eventually win. The Court strongly defended the First
Amendment.
Korematsu v. U.S.
*1944
*Korematsu was arrested and convicted for noncompliance with the military order that moved all people of
Japanese ancestry from the West Coast into relocation centers after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
*The Court upheld the action in a 6-3 decision based upon a broad interpretation of the nation’s war
powers.
*Fred Korematsu had tried to enlist in the army, but was rejected because of ulcers. He then spent his life
savings of $150 to learn welding to help the war effort. Instead, he was arrested.
Smith v. Allwright
*1944
*Texas Democrats limited membership in their political party to only whites. This tactic negated the black
vote because whites fought their internecine battles in the party primaries, and then almost all of them voted
for the Democratic candidates in the general election.
*The Court ruled that this practice violated the Fifteenth Amendment. The Texas state government gave
parties complete control of the primary procedures, but this attempt to evade state responsibility was
unconstitutional.
Nye Committee
*A series of books published around the middle of the 1930s reinforced the conclusion that fighting in
World War I was a mistake. The United States had been dragged into the war, their authors argued, by
banking and corporate interests desperate to protect their millions in loans and weapons sales to England
and France.
*Walter Millis, a reporter for the New York Herald Tribune, carefully documented this charge in his sober
work Road to War: America, 1914-1917 (1935). More sensational exposes of the international arms traffic
bore such titles as Merchants of Death and One Hell of a Business. Other works probed the propaganda
techniques by which the American people had allegedly been brainwashed into supporting the war.
*Public concern over the “merchants of death” issue led to the creation of a special congressional
investigating committee headed by Senator Gerald Nye, a North Dakota Republican, to look into the
charges. In a series of hearings between 1934 and 1936, the Nye committee compiled mountainous
evidence of the heavy involvement of U.S. banks and corporations in financing World War I and supplying
arms to the Allies. It also documented in detail these groups’ lobbying and public-relations activities in
support of U.S. intervention. In the Nye committee hearings, the old Progressive Era suspicions of “Wall
Street” and “big business” resurfaced with particular intensity.
*These books and investigations hit home. A Gallup poll in January 1937 revealed that an astonishing 70
percent of Americans believed that the United States should have stayed out of World War I. What had
seemed at the time an act of high idealism now appeared to many a surrender to corporate interests.
Court Packing Plan
*1937
*Early in February, President Roosevelt sent Congress a plan for reorganizing the Supreme Court and
making several changes in federal court procedures.
*He had just won reelection y a margin of over 10 million votes, a political victory that seemed to him to
mean that the people wanted the New Deal continued.
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*The Supreme Court when it struck down the NRA and the AAA, as well as some less important New Deal
laws, was the only effective opposition to his program.
*Six of the judges on the Court were over seventy, and Roosevelt had said that they were still living in the
horse-and-buggy days. A popular book referred to them as The Nine Old Men.
*The Roosevelt Court Reorganization plan called for an additional judge for every justice still on the Court
at age seventy, until the number of judges reached fifteen. If none of the six Justices over seventy then on
the Court would retire with full pay, the President would be allowed to appoint six additional judges.
*The debate over the bill lasted about six months, and it soon became clear that this was one political fight
F.D.R. would lose. His own party in Congress failed to go along with him, and public opinion seemed to
consider the move too drastic.
*From late March through May, the Supreme Court declared constitutional the Social Security Act and the
Wagner-Connery Labor Act as well as a few lesser New Deal laws.
*One Justice announced he would resign, and with the prospects good for further retirements and the more
friendly view of the Court toward the New Deal, there seemed no necessity for reorganization.
*On July 22 the Senate killed the Court Reorganization Bill.
*During the next four years, Roosevelt appointed seven judges, and the Supreme Court was then called the
"Roosevelt Court."
ECONOMIC
Bank Holiday
*On Monday, March 6, two days after his inauguration, FDR ordered a bank holiday.
*This meant that every bank in the nation closed to help stop the panic caused by people withdrawing their
money.
*The next step, after declaring the holiday, was to try to get Congress to pass the Emergency Banking
Relief Act.
Emergency Banking Relief Act
*On March 9, Congress met in special session. It listened to the terms of Roosevelt’s Emergency Banking
Relief Bill and passed it in four hours. Before the day was over, the bill was signed into law.
*It authorized the Treasury Department to inspect the country’s banks. Those that were sound could
reopen at once, those that needed help could receive loans, and the insolvent ones were to stay closed.
*About one of every ten banks were left closed.
*Though the measure was drastic, it ended the banking crisis.
*The Emergency Banking Relief Act also forbade the hoarding or exporting of gold. In effect, it took the
United States off the gold standard. Conservatives were outraged. Radicals were likewise outraged, for
they wanted the federal government to nationalize, or to take control of, the banking system. FDR chose a
middle road combining private ownership with government regulation.
Glass-Steagall Banking Reform Act
*This law established the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to protect bank deposits up to $5,000 (the
current amount insured by the FDIC is $100,000).
*As a result of this law, depositors no longer had to worry about losing their life savings if a bank failed.
NIRA
*The National Industrial Recovery Act was one of the most controversial acts of the New Deal.
*The act created the National Recovery Administration (NRA).
*Beginning in June 1933 and continuing through May 1935, almost every store, factory, and office
building in the United States displayed in its windows posters with an enormous blue eagle under which
were the words “We Do Our Part.” The brainchild of General Hugh Johnson, the blue bird was the symbol
of the NRA.
*The two main parts of the act had to do with public works projects and with codes detailing fair practices
for industry. The codes were designed to limit production so that prices would go up and producers would
make a profit. Many small business people pointed out that the codes favored big business.
*The NRA helped about five hundred industries set up codes of “fair competition.” Each code fixed the
prices to be charged for that industry’s products. These prices controls were designed to end cutthroat
competition in which goods were sold for less than it cost to make them.
*The workweek was limited to 40 hours; the minimum wage was set at thirty to forty cents an hour; and
child labor was abolished.
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*The right of workers to unionize was recognized, and a National Labor Board was set up to settle disputes.
PWA
*Part of the NIRA.
*The PWA was to undertake pump priming. That is, the government would spend money to create jobs. It
undertook projects that required many workers and much material in order to provide wages that would
give workers buying power, thus stimulating the economy.
*The PWA was placed under Harold Ickes, who was also Secretary of the Interior. He moved carefully to
make sure that each public works project was worthwhile and a good buy for taxpayers.
*Eventually, more than $4 billion was spent on some 34,000 projects including the Triborough Bridge in
New York; the causeway connecting the Florida mainland and Key West.
WPA
*This agency, the Works Progress Administration, was created at the start of the Second New Deal to have
a central agency to control the relief agencies (The CCC and PWA did not fall under this).
*It was headed by Harry Hopkins.
*The WPA set out to create as many jobs as fast as possible. It received a budget of $5 billion, the largest
sum any nation had ever spent for public welfare at one time.
*Between 1935 and 1941, it employed more than 8 million persons.
*WPA workers, most of them unskilled, built 600 airports throughout the country. They built or repaired
651,000 miles of roads and streets. They put up 110,000 libraries, schools and hospitals.
*The WPA also found work for unemployed writers, artists, musicians, and actors.
*The WPA was efficiently and honestly run on the whole. However, it was criticized for encouraging
people to vote Democratic in return for handouts. Actually, some WPA officials were guilty of shady
election practices. Furthermore, many Americans did not believe the federal government should support
cultural activities. They resented the fact that about 20 percent of WPA funds went into the arts instead of
into construction.
TVA
*Among the longest lasting New Deal projects was the Tennessee Valley Authority.
*Ever since World War I, Congress had been arguing about what to do with some hydroelectric plants the
government had built on the Tennessee River at Muscle Shoals, Alabama, to produce nitrates for
explosives. When the war ended, private utility companies wanted to buy or lease the plants. However, a
group of congressmen led by Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska insisted that the federal government
should continue the Progressive policy of conserving and developing the country’s natural resources.
SEC
*The Securities and Exchange Commission, which had been established in 1934, was given the power to
prevent insider trading. This occurred when people with inside information about companies “rigged” the
stock market, that is, made prices go up or down for their own profit regardless of the real value of the
stock.
*Placed in charge of the new SEC was Joseph P. Kennedy.
SOCIAL
Twenty-first Amendment
*In February 1933, Congress voted to repeal the ban on alcoholic beverages.
*The Twenty-first Amendment was ratified by the end of the year.
*Control of alcohol returned to the states, eight of which chose to continue the ban on liquor sales.
AAA
*The Agricultural Adjustment Act was launched in May 1933 at the urging of Henry A. Wallace, Secretary
of Agriculture.
*The act established the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.
*Under this act the federal government agreed to pay farmers a certain amount for every acre of land left
unseeded. Some crops, however, were too far advanced for the acreage reduction to take effect. So the
government paid cotton growers $200 million to plow under 10 million acres of their crop. It also paid hog
farmers to slaughter 6 million swine.
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*These crop-control measures aroused a lot of criticism. People were upset by the deliberate destruction of
food at a time when many Americans were hungry. In addition, the tax on processors was passed along to
consumers in the form of higher prices for food and clothing.
*The AAA succeeded in its goals. Prices of farm commodities rose, and farmers received more income.
Second AAA
*Issued after the decision in United States v. Butler
*In 1938 Congress passed a new Agricultural Adjustment Act, which the Supreme Court later declared
constitutional.
*The new act worked like this: If two-thirds of the farmers in a district agreed, each was given a certain
quota of acres to plant in staple crops. If a farmer produced a surplus, it was no longer destroyed.
However, it could not be put on the market because that would cause prices to drop. So the AAA kept the
surplus in storage. Meanwhile, it lent the farmer money for living expenses.
*Under the act, farmers were supposed to receive a fair price for their crops. A fair price was one that gave
farmers the same purchasing power they had between 1910 and 1914. That period was considered to be the
last one during which farmers got a fair price for their goods. Another name for this fair price is parity (the
word parity means equal to or equivalent to). When prices reached parity, farmers sold their stored crops
and repaid their loans to the government. If the market price remained below parity, farmers did not pay
back the loans, and the government kept the crops in storage.
CCC
*Civilian Conservation Corps
*This was established during the first month of FDR’s administration.
*Unemployed single males aged seventeen to twenty-eight were put to work building roads, planting trees,
and helping in soil-erosion and flood-control projects.
*The young men lived in camps run by army officers.
*The work was directed by experienced foresters and construction foremen.
*Members of the CCC received thirty dollars a month, twenty-two of which was sent to their dependent
families. They also received free food and uniforms.
*Many of the camps were located on the Great Plains. There, within a period of eight years, the men of the
CCC planted more than 200 million trees. The tremendous reforestation program was aimed at preventing
another dust bowl.
*By the time the program ended in 1941, almost 3 million young men had passed through the CCC.
FERA
*Congress’s second action was to pass the Federal Emergency Relief Act, which gave more general help to
the unemployed.
*It provided $250 million in direct grants-in-aid to the states to be used to furnish food and clothing to the
unemployed, the aged, and the ill.
*An additional $250 million was distributed on the basis of one federal dollar for every three state dollars
contributed.
*Harry Hopkins was placed in charge of the program.
CWA
*Hopkins, unhappy with the limitations of the FERA, created the CWA or Civil Works Administration.
*Instead of channeling aid through the states, it gave aid to people in need through local authorities.
Social Security Act
*In 1935 the United States followed the example of other industrial nations and established a system of
social insurance.
*The centerpiece of the Social Security Act was a pension system for retired workers and their spouses.
*Also included were death benefits and support for surviving children up to the age of eighteen. None of
these provisions were tied to need. Anyone could collect.
*The benefits were to come out of a payroll tax paid half by workers and half by employers.
*The Social Security Act established a joint federal-state unemployment insurance system and provided for
aid to crippled and blind persons, the needy elderly, neglected children, and others.
*Not all groups of workers were covered at that time. Farm workers and domestics, for example, were
exempt.
Indian Reorganization Act
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*The year 1924 had been a turning point for American Indians. They won full citizenship in
acknowledgment of their services to the nation during World War I.
*In 1933 President Roosevelt appointed John Collier, a former officer of the American Indian Defense
Organization, to be Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Collier made several suggestions that became part of
the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934.
*The act strengthened the Pueblo Indians’ claims to their ancient lands. It ended the allotment policy that
been established by the Dawes Act of 1887 under which parts of the reservations were granted to individual
Indians. It also tried to restore reservation land to tribal authority. Indians were now allowed to enter
court. The act provided for practical education for Indians, including farming, animal husbandry, soil
conservation, and marketing.
*Indians who wanted to return to traditional tribal life were pleased with the act. Those who had become
more “Americanized,” however, felt that the act would make it harder for Indians to improve themselves
economically.
Wagner Act
*Passed in response to the Supreme Court decision in Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States
*Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act, more commonly known as the Wager Act after its
sponsor, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York.
*The act reversed the attitude of the federal government toward collective bargaining. Instead of
supporting employers, the federal government was now on the side of unions.
*The Wagner Act said that employers had to bargain with their workers. It listed unfair labor practices that
companies could not follow. Among these were threatening workers, firing union members, and interfering
with union organizing efforts.
*The act also set up the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to hear testimony about unfair practices
and to hold elections among workers to find out if they wished to be represented by a union.
*To replace that part of the NIRA that dealt with wages and hours, Congress in 1938 passed the Fair Labor
Standards Act (not actually part of the Wagner Act). For the first time, there was a national minimum
hourly rate for wages; twenty-five cents an hour at first, forty cents an hour in two years. There was also a
national maximum workweek: forty-four hours to begin with, forty hours in two years. Those under age
sixteen were banned from factory work (age eighteen if the work was hazardous).
CIO
*After the Wagner Act was passed in 1935, John L. Lewis of the United Mine Workers Union, along with
David Dubinsky of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union, Sidney Hillman of the Amalgamated
Clothing Workers, Philip Murray of the United Steelworkers, and Walter P. Reuther of the United
Automobile Workers, among others, formed the Committee for Industrial Organization.
*The CIO began signing up unskilled and semiskilled workers as fast as it could, and within two years it
had succeeded in gaining urban recognition in the steel and automobile industries.
*Among the techniques the CIO used was the sit-down strike. Instead of walking off their jobs, workers
remained inside the plant but did not work. This prevented the plant owners from carrying on production
with strikebreakers.
*The sit-down strike was declared unconstitutional in 1939. By that time the CIO was no longer part of the
AFL. Its organizational success had caused jealousy among the older, more traditional unions. Also, John
L. Lewis did not like AFL president William Green, claiming that he was only a figurehead and did not
actively work for the union.
*In 1937 the CIO went ahead with their organizing drives and by 1938 claimed 4 million members. That
same year the CIO changed its name (but not its initials) to the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
*The split in the labor movement lasted until the AFL and CIO combined again in 1955.
Black Cabinet
*African Americans benefited from New Deal relief measures. Officially, these measures were color blind,
that is, they applied equally to whites and to blacks. The CCC and WPA, for instance, gave help to blacks.
*There also were a number of black administrators in New Deal agencies. For example, Secretary of the
Interior Ickes, who had been president of the Chicago NAACP, hired William Hastie, later the governor of
the Virgin Islands and an appeals court judge. He also hired Robert Weaver, who went on to become the
first Secretary of Housing and Urban Development when he was appointed to that position by President
Johnson in 1965.
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*DR often sought the opinions of highly placed black government workers, who were sometimes referred
to as the Black Cabinet.
Scottsboro Boys
*In March 1931, near Scottsboro, Alabama, nine African American youths had been riding the rails were
arrested and accused of raping two white women on the train.
*Without being given the chance to hire a defense lawyer, eight of the nine were quickly convicted by an
all-white jury and sentenced to die.
*Like the Sacco and Vanzetti case a few years earlier, saving the so-called Scottsboro Boys became a
national cause.
*Eventually the Supreme Court decided the youths had not had a fair trial and ordered new trials.
G.I. Bill of Rights
*To ease the return to civilian life for those whose schooling or careers had been interrupted, Congress, in
1944, passed the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act, commonly called the G.I. Bill of Rights.
*Under the G.I. Bill, veterans attending college or technical school had their tuition paid and received a
small monthly income.
*Between 1944 and 1956, more than 7.8 million veterans took advantage of these educational benefits.
The GI Bill also provided federal guarantees for loans to veterans for buying homes and farms and for
establishing businesses.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Panay Incident
*December 12, 1937
*A navy gunboat, the U.S.S. Panay, and the three oil tankers it was escorting were attacked without
warning by Japanese planes on the Yangtze River.
*Two servicemen were killed and several others wounded.
*The Panay had been clearly marked and had a legal right to be where it was. The attack obviously was no
accident.
*Japanese authorities apologized at once, offering to pay for damages and promising to punish those
responsible. The United States accepted Japan’s offer, and most Americans heaved a sigh of relief.
*A public opinion poll taken one month after the Panay incident showed that 70 percent of the public felt it
would be better to pull out completely from China--withdrawing ships, marines, missionaries, and business
people--rather than to run the risk of getting into war. It was difficult to find any vital United States interest
in China.
Spanish Civil War
*Began in March of 1936 when an army revolt in Spain set off a civil war.
*Hitler and Mussolini made common cause with fascist-minded General Francisco Franco, who had
attacked the Spanish republic government. Both dictators gave Franco all-out aid, including armed forces.
It was an opportunity to try out their soldiers and weapons in a sort of dress rehearsal for bigger battles.
*The Soviet Union gave similar, but considerably less, assistance to the Loyalists, as the Spanish
republican government forces were called. (This made the Loyalists look like communists, although most
of them were not.)
*About three thousand volunteers from the United States formed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to fight
against Franco.
*The civil war ended in March 1939 with the fall of Madrid to Franco. Thus, another fascist state was
established in Europe.
Quarantine Speech
*October 5, 1937
*Roosevelt delivered a speech in Chicago in which he expressed his fears about the international situation
and the behavior of Germany, Italy, and Japan. What was needed, he said, was collective security on the
part of the peace-loving nations of the world. They should behave the way a community behaves when
faced by an epidemic.
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*He added: “[It] joins in a quarantine of the patients in order to protect the health of the community against
the spread of the disease.” In other words, instead of the United States isolating itself from the rest of the
world, Roosevelt was suggesting that democratic nations get together and isolate the aggressor nations.
*FDR was deluged with mail. Some was favorable. Most of the letters, however, accused him of trying to
lead the country into war.
Munich Conference
*Once Hitler had annexed Austria (March of 1938), he began threatening another neighbor,
Czechoslovakia.
*In the western part of Czechoslovakia, along its border with Germany, is a mountainous region called the
Sudetenland. A large German minority lived there. Hitler charged that the Sudeten Germans were being
persecuted by the Czechoslovakian government. By then, this was such a familiar story that everyone
knew what it really meant. Hitler wanted to annex Czechoslovakia.
*The spring and early summer of 1938 saw a buildup of German military strength along the Czech border.
Cash and Carry
*When the Spanish civil war broke out, Roosevelt asked Congress to apply the provisions of the neutrality
acts to civil wars as well as international ones.
*This was done in January 1937.
*In May 1937 the third Neutrality Act was passed. It made the first and second ones permanent. It also
made them more flexible. The President could now permit the sale of goods other than weapons on a
“cash-and-carry” basis. These goods had to be paid for on delivery, and they had to be taken from a United
States port by the buyer.
Cairo Conference
*In November of 1943, FDR, Churchill, and Chiang Kai-shek of China met in Cairo, Egypt.
*They agreed on two issues: (1) Korea, then under Japanese domination, would become independent; and
(2) Formosa, now Taiwan, would be returned by Japan to China.
Teheran Conference
*November 1943
*Roosevelt and Churchill proceeded from Cairo to Teheran, Iran. There they promised Stalin that a second
front would soon be opened. Stalin in turn promised to attack Japan after Germany was defeated.
Yalta Conference
*February 1945
*The European war was drawing to a close. The Soviet armies were deep in central Europe. Many
doubted that these troops would draw back to the Soviet Union.
*The Big Three reached some tentative decisions about what to do with Germany after the war. The three
leaders also agreed that German and Japanese leaders would be tried as criminals for the atrocities they had
committed. The three decided to set up the United Nations later in the year.
*Stalin, in exchange for Japan’s Kuril and Sakhalin islands, again promised to enter the war against Japan
two or three months after Germany surrendered. The atomic bomb had not been developed. The United
States felt that it would need Soviet help for the invasion of Japan.
*While these issues were fairly easily resolved, the question of Poland proved sticky. The Soviet Union
supported a Communist regime for that nation. Great Britain and the United States, on the other hand,
favored the Polish government-in-exile that had been in London since 1939. From Stalin’s point of view,
the Soviet Union had to have friendly governments on its western borders. It had suffered over 25 million
casualties during the war, as well as tremendous property damage. It had neither oceans nor mountains to
protect it against invasion. Finally, Britain and the United States agreed to support the Polish Communist
government provided that it was expanded to include a few representatives from the government-in-exile in
London. Stalin then promised that after the war, there would be “free and unfettered elections” in Poland
and other Eastern European countries occupied by Soviet troops. Unfortunately, he never kept this
promise.
Bretton Woods Conference
*1944
*The United States emergence as economic leader of the noncommunist world had been signaled when the
Allied governments met at a New Hampshire resort to hammer out the Bretton Woods Agreement.
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*Under this treaty, foreign currencies were to be valued (“pegged”) in relation to the dollar, and several
important institutions were created to oversee international trade and finance: the International Monetary
Fund (IMF), the General Agreement of Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the World Bank.
*Until the late 1960s, the Bretton Woods system functioned smoothly.
Dumbarton Oaks Conference
*1944
*It met at a beautiful Harvard-owned colonial residence on the outskirts of Washington.
*The representatives of the Big Four (America, Britain, Russia and China) hammered out a tentative draft
of the charter for the yet unborn United Nations organization.
*The Soviets, fearing the anti-Communist prejudices of other nations, were determined to have a veto voice
in the forthcoming Security Council. This roadblock was not removed at Dumbarton Oaks but at Yalta,
where Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill worked out a compromise on voting procedures.
*The call went forth from the Big Three for a conference at San Francisco to whip the Dumbarton Oaks
draft into the charter of the United Nations
World War II
Cause: Poland/Pearl Harbor
*The immediate cause of the war was Germany's invasion of Poland in September 1939.
*Chief among the underlying causes was the rise of fascism in Europe, made possible by the severe
economic dislocation arising from the exacting peace terms at the end of World War I, the global economic
depression of the 1930s, and the fear of Communism.
*The conflict pitted the Axis Powers (Germany, Italy, Japan, Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary, and Finland)
against the Allied Powers (United States, Great Britain, France [free French], Soviet Union, China, India,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and Brazil and much of the rest of Latin America).
*Early Axis occupation of the following countries denied the Allies their men and material: France,
Belgium, Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Greece, Yugoslavia, and Poland.
*At the outbreak of the war, Roosevelt reflected national sentiment in maintaining U.S. neutrality. The
America First Committee, formed in 1940 to keep the United States out of the war, included such
prominent figures as Charles Lindbergh, Senator Burton K. Wheeler, and General Robert E. Wood of
Sears, Roebuck.
*But with the fall of France and the Battle of Britain in 1940 Roosevelt announced plans to deliver 50 old
destroyers to Britain in exchange for the use of certain naval and air bases abroad.
*Under the Lend-Lease Act of March 1941, the United States provided Britain, and later the Soviet Union
and other Allies, military equipment and supplies valued at $50 billion.
*In August 1941 Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill concluded the Atlantic Charter,
in which they looked forward to "the final destruction of Nazi Germany" and vowed to seek a peace in
which "all the men in all the lands may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want."
*On December 7, 1941, Japanese carrier-based aircraft attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, killing 2,300
Americans, wounding 1,200 and destroying much of the U.S. Pacific fleet anchored there.
*The next day Roosevelt asked Congress for a declaration of war. Predicting that the date of the attack
"will live in infamy," he declared, "Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our
territory, and our interests are in grave danger." Congress unanimously voted for war.
Events: Midway/D-Day
*For much of 1942 the Axis Powers seemed invincible. Japanese forces swarmed over Southeast Asia and
the Pacific Islands. General Douglas MacArthur was driven from the Philippines. German troops
advanced deep into the Soviet Union. German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel dominated North Africa.
*But by the end of the first year of U.S. participation, the Allies began to turn the tide, beginning with a
naval victory at Midway in June 1942 and a U.S.-British counteroffensive in North Africa in November
1942.
*At the Casablanca Conference in January 1943 Roosevelt and Churchill agreed to insist on the
unconditional surrender of Germany and laid plans for the aerial bombardment of that country.
*In 1943 British and American forces secured Sicily and proceeded up the Italian peninsula against stiff
German resistance; the Italians meanwhile overthrew dictator Benito Mussolini in July and declared war on
Germany in October 1943.
*In the Soviet Union that year Soviet forces broke the Nazi siege of Leningrad and relentlessly pushed
German forces back west.
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*Meanwhile in the Pacific, General MacArthur and Admiral Chester Nimitz launched an island-hopping
offensive around Japanese strongholds. At the Battle of Leyte Gulf in October 1944, the Japanese Navy
was virtually destroyed. In Europe Allied forces under the command of General Dwight E. Eisenhower
landed at Normandy on June 6, 1944, D-Day. Withstanding heavy casualties, the force secured
beachheads, enabling the Third Army under General George Patton to spearhead the drive inland. In the
Battle of the Bulge, December 1944--January 1945, Germany made one last desperate attempt to throw
back the Allies but only delayed the inevitable.
*With the end of the war in sight, Roosevelt, Churchill, and Soviet Premier Josef Stalin met at Yalta in
February 1945 to consider postwar plans. In return for a Soviet pledge to enter the war against Japan after
Germany's surrender, Churchill and Roosevelt granted certain concessions to Stalin in Europe and Asia that
were to strengthen the Soviet hand in drawing postwar boundaries and spheres of influence.
*FDR died two months later, during the final stages of the war.
Results: A-Bomb/Cold War
*Soon after Truman became president, the war in Europe ended with the surrender of Germany in May
1945, and the Allies began to close in on Japan.
*At the Potsdam Conference, July-August 1945, Truman, Soviet Premier Josef Stalin, and British Prime
Minister Winston Churchill (replaced in mid-conference by the new prime minister, Clement Atlee),
discussed postwar administration of Germany and reiterated demands for the unconditional surrender of
Japan.
*Meanwhile, Truman learned that his predecessor had authorized development of the atomic bomb.
According to notes written by Truman at the time he made the decision to use the weapon and made public
in 1980 by historian Robert Ferrell, who discovered them, the president feared that its use might lead to the
end of the world. Nevertheless, to avoid hundreds of thousands of Allied casualties in an invasion of Japan,
Truman ordered the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, August 6, 1945; some 250,000 were either incinerated
instantly or died of radioactivity within a year. When Japan still refused to surrender, Truman ordered a
second atomic strike, on Nagasaki, August 9, 1945. Japan sued for peace the next day and formally
surrendered on September 2, 1945.
*U.S. casualties in World War II were 292,000 killed in action, 115,000 other deaths, and 672,000
wounded. Of the Allies, the Soviets suffered the heaviest losses, an estimated 7.5 million killed in action.
Of the Axis Powers, Germany suffered the most, an estimated 2.5 million killed in action.
TRUMAN
1945-1953
POLITICAL
Fair Deal
*Theodore Roosevelt offered a square deal, and FDR gave the nation the New Deal. Following his
electoral victory in 1948, Truman began pushing for what he called a Fair Deal for the American people. It
was an extension of the New Deal--only stronger.
*Truman proposed a nationwide system of compulsory health insurance and a steady income for farmers to
replace price supports. Southern and some Northern Democrats combined with Republicans in Congress to
defeat both measures.
*Truman’s other proposals, however, did win congressional approval. They included (1) an increase in the
minimum wage from forty to seventy-five cents an hour, (2) extension of social security coverage to about
10 million more people, (3) more flood control and irrigation projects, and (4) financial help to cities for
slum clearance and for the construction of 810,000 housing units for low-income families.
Dixiecrats
*When Truman was selected by the Democratic party as their presidential candidate in 1948, he insisted
that a strong civil rights plank be incorporated in the party platform.
*This caused Southern delegates to the national convention, the so-called Dixiecrats, to withdraw.
*They formed the States’ Rights Democratic party and ran their own candidate, Governor J. Strom
Thurmond of South Carolina.
*Thurmond received 39 electoral votes; winning Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and South Carolina.
Progressive Party
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*Third party in the 1948 election.
*Former vice-president Henry A. Wallace led supporters into a new Progressive party.
*Wallace disapproved of Truman’s “get tough with Russia” policy.
McCarthyism
*The individual who received the most publicity for anticommunist activity in the 1940’s and early 1950’s
was Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin.
*In 1950, facing reelection, McCarthy looked about for an issue and hit on anticommunism.
*Soon McCarthy was making one reckless accusation after another. At various times he claimed to have in
his hands the names of 57, 81, or 205 Communists in the State Department. (He never actually produced a
single name.) McCarthy charged that the Democratic party was guilty of “twenty years of treason” and that
Secretary of Defense General George Marshall was “serving the world policy of the Kremlin.”
*McCarthy’s technique, which became known as McCarthyism, was never to explain a charge he made or
offer evidence to support it. When he was questioned, he would respond by making another accusation.
He gave the impression of being so overwhelmed by the monstrous conspiracy he had supposedly
uncovered that he had no time to waste on petty details. However, he was always careful to do his namecalling only when inside the Senate, where he had legal immunity. Thus, he could not be sued for slander.
*The Republicans hoped for a victory in the 1952 election and did nothing to stop McCarthy’s attacks.
After General Dwight D. Eisenhower was elected, however, McCarthy turned on the new President and on
other Republicans.
*Finally, in 1954 he accused the United States Army of coddling Communists and of mistreating an
assistant of his who had been drafted. The result was a televised Senate investigation. Some 20 million
persons watched for 36 days as McCarthy bullied witnesses, refused to reveal where he had obtained
information, interrupted proceedings, and made one empty charge after another. He soon lost his
supporters and his power.
*The Senate condemned him for improper conduct that tended “to bring the Senate into disrepute.”
McCarthy died a broken man three years later.
Alger Hiss
*Hiss, named by a former member of the State Department, was accused of passing classified government
documents to the Communist party.
*Hiss was eventually convicted of perjury and sent to jail.
Loyalty Review Board
*In September 1945 a Soviet clerk at the Soviet embassy in Ottawa, Canada, defected to the West and
sought political asylum. Several of the documents he brought with him revealed that a few Canadian
government workers had been giving secret information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union (The
Soviets tested their first atomic bomb on September 23, 1949).
*Truman immediately issued an executive order setting up the Loyalty Review Board. Its purpose was to
make sure that a similar situation did not exist within the United States government. The Attorney General
drew up a list of ninety “subversive” organizations, membership in which was grounds for suspicion. From
1947 to 1951, 3.2 million government employees were investigated. Of these, 212 were dismissed as
security risks. Another 2,900 resigned, some because they did not want to be investigated, others because
they felt that the investigation violated their constitutional rights. Individuals being investigated were not
allowed to the evidence against them or even to know who had accused them of disloyalty.
McCarran Internal Security Act
*1950
*This law was created because Congress did not think that Truman’s Loyalty Review Board went far
enough.
*This measure made it unlawful to plan any action that might lead to the establishment of a totalitarian
dictatorship in the United States.
*Truman vetoed the act, saying “In a free country, we punish men for crimes they commit, but never for the
opinions they hold.”
*Congress passed the measure over Truman’s veto.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
*Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were minor activists in the Communist party.
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*In 1950 they were arrested shortly after British physicist Klaus Fuchs admitted giving the Soviet Union
information about America’s atomic bomb. The information probably enabled Soviet scientists to develop
their own atomic bomb eighteen months sooner than they would have otherwise.
*Fuchs implicated the Rosenbergs, who were convicted of espionage.
*The Rosenbergs died in the electric chair in 1953. Fuchs was sentenced to fourteen years in a British
prison.
Presidential Succession Act
*At President Truman's request, Congress passed a Presidential Succession Act, which provided for the
Vice-President to be followed in order by the Speaker of the House, the President pro-tempore of the
Senate, the Secretary of State, and down the Cabinet according to rank.
*This replaced the order in effect since 1885, which had gone right from Vice-President to the Cabinet
officials.
Assassination Attempt
*On November 1, 1950, armed Puerto Rican nationalists Oscar Collazo, 36, and Griselio Torresola, 25,
attacked Blair House, the temporary residence of President Truman.
*In an exchange of gunfire with White House guards in the street, Torresola was killed, Collazo wounded.
*Private Leslie Coffelt was fatally wounded, two other guards were less seriously injured.
*Truman, who observed the disturbance from an upstairs window, was unharmed.
*Collazo was convicted of murder, assault, and attempted assassination of the president and sentenced to
death.
*In July 1951 Truman commuted his sentence to life imprisonment.
*President Jimmy Carter freed Collazo in 1979.
22nd Amendment
*Ratified in 1951.
*It limited future presidents to two terms in office.
ECONOMIC
Employment Act of 1946
*For the first time, the federal government committed itself to promoting “maximum employment,
production, and purchasing power.”
*Americans could expect the government to act vigorously to counter a depression.
*The act also established the Council of Economic Advisers, whose job was to analyze economic trends
and recommend programs to the President.
Taft-Hartley Act
*The 4.6 million workers who went on strike in 1946 set a record. The public became frightened. It felt
that the booming economy would be seriously hurt unless organized labor was curbed.
*In the 1946 election, the Republican party gained control of both the Senate and the House of
Representatives for the first time since 1930.
*The following year the 80th Congress passed a new labor law, the Taft-Hartley Act, over Truman’s veto.
*The law prohibited the closed shop, an arrangement requiring that a person be a union member in order to
be hired. It abolished the checkoff system by which employers collected union dues. In addition, union
officials had to take a loyalty oath, swearing that they were not Communists.
*Union funds could not be used in political campaigns (This provision was later declared unconstitutional).
*Finally, if a strike threatened the nation’s health or safety, the President could obtain an injunction
delaying the strike for an eighty-day cooling-off period.
*Labor leaders were furious. They felt that the loyalty oath was an insult, and they called the act a “slavelabor law.”
*Yet despite Taft-Hartley, union membership climbed from 14.3 million in 1945 to 17 million in 1952.
SOCIAL
To Secure These Rights
*As early as 1945, Truman asked black leaders what they considered their top priorities. The first, they
said, was a federal antilynching law that would make prosecution of lynching a federal rather than a state
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concern. The second priority was the abolition of the poll tax as a voting requirement. The third priority
was the establishment of a permanent commission to replace the wartime Fair Employment Practice
Committee that was due to expire in 1946.
*Congress would not pass any of these measures. (Truman in the 1948 election would refer to group as the
Do-Nothing Congress.)
*In 1946 Truman appointed a biracial Committee on Civil Rights to investigate the situation and to report
its findings to the nation.
*The report, issued in 1947, was called “To Secure These Rights.”
*In addition to the antilynching, poll-tax, and FEPC measures, it recommended that a permanent civil
rights commission be established and that federal legislation be passed to eliminate discrimination in
voting.
*In February 1948 Truman sent these recommendations to Congress. Again, Congress did nothing.
*Accordingly, Truman turned to executive action. In July 1948 he issued an executive order calling for
“equality of treatment and opportunity” for members of the armed forces “without regard to race, color,
religion, or national origin.” The order was issued despite the opposition of almost every general and
admiral. As it turned out, the shift to full integration of the services went more smoothly than anyone had
hoped. Truman also set up a Fair Employment Board within the Civil Service Commission.
Jackie Robinson
*The color line in major league baseball was broken in 1947 when Jackie Robinson signed a contract to
play for Branch Rickey’s Brooklyn (later Los Angeles) Dodgers.
Levittown
*In 1949 William J. Levitt bought a fifteen-hundred-acre potato field on Long Island thirty miles east of
New York City, and a new American life style was inaugurated--the suburb.
*Levitt was the Henry Ford of housing industry. He pioneered the use of mass production in the building
of private homes. Levitt created four room, one-story ranch houses in the standard two-tone color scheme.
*Levitt standardized not only the houses themselves, but also the way they were built. First came the
bulldozers to clear and level the land. These were followed by street pavers, who laid down pavement.
Next came electricians to install signs. Once the streets were in, the lots were marked off.
*Then it was time to put up the house. Within days, several hundred identical homes were ready for
occupancy. By 1951 Levittown contained 17,500 homes.
*Levitt did not advertise his homes. News spread by word of mouth. When his sales office opened on
March 7, 1949, more than a thousand young married, some of whom had been waiting outside for four
days, were in line ready to pay the standard price of $6,990. When kitchen appliances, landscaping, and
bank charges were included, the whole package came to less than $10,000.
Dennis v. U.S.
*1951
*Decided in the middle of the McCarthy era, this case upheld the conviction, 6-2, of eleven leaders of the
Communist Party for violating the 1940 Smith Act.
*The case revived the division among judges over the “clear and present danger” and the “bad tendency
test” in regard to subversive activities. The “clear and present danger” doctrine announced in Schenck v.
U.S. stated, “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances of such a
nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress
has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree.”
*The “bad tendency test” formulated in the decision of Gitlow v. U.S. was based upon a government’s
inherent right of self-preservation. A government could restrict any freedom of speech or press that had the
tendency to injure the government.
*In the majority opinion in the Dennis case the Court declared, “Whatever theoretical merit there may be to
the argument that there is a ‘right’ to rebellion against dictatorial government is without force where the
existing structure of the government provides for peaceful and orderly change.”
Sweatt v. Painter
*1950
*Several cases over the years foreshadowed judicial disenchantment with the “separate but equal” Plessy
doctrine.
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*Two cases were announced the same day in 1950. The first, McLauren v. Oklahoma State Regents, ended
the segregation against a black student after admission to the state graduate school. He had been assigned
his own cafeteria table, his own library table, and an entire row in his classrooms.
*Sweatt was denied admission to the University of Texas Law School solely on the basis of race. After he
had filed suit the state government hurriedly put together a “separate but equal” law school for blacks. In a
unanimous decision the Court found the two schools unequal, denying Sweatt the equal protection of the
laws.
Youngstown Sheet and Tube Co. v. Sawyer
*1952
*After a long, bitter dispute between the United Steelworkers Union and the steel companies a strike date
was announced. Various federal agencies intervened unsuccessfully to settle the strike. The nation was
engaged in the Korean War, a limited war which, had not been declared. The Korean War was technically
a police action, not a war.
*Truman ordered Secretary of Commerce Sawyer to take possession of the mills for the federal
government. The steel companies sued to regain control, and won in a 6-3 decision.
*The majority judges wrote six different opinions. Two common threads held that the president received
no grant of power from Congress authorizing him to so act, and even in his capacity as Commander in
Chief he could not seize property. Neither Congress nor the Constitution supported the seizure, and
Truman quickly and quietly complied. The union went on strike.
MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY
Potsdam Conference
*July 1945
*President Truman went to Postdam, Germany, for the final wartime conference.
*Although final decisions were reached about the postwar treatment of Germany, it seemed to many
observers that the wartime alliance was definitely breaking up. Stalin made it clear that he had no intention
of allowing free elections in Eastern Europe. Nor could the Big Three decide on Poland’s western
boundary. They did, however, decide to move 6.5 million Germans out of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and
Poland and into Germany.
Iron Curtain
*In March of 1946 Winston Churchill, who was no longer Britain’s Prime Minister but simply a member of
Parliament, delivered a speech at Fulton, Missouri.
*In the speech, Churchill was the first to use the phrase “iron curtain” to describe how the eastern portion
of Europe was being cut off from the rest of the world.
San Francisco Conference
*April 1945
*Representatives of fifty nations met in San Francisco to establish an international peace-keeping body. By
then the Soviet Union was displaying considerable suspiciousness and stubbornness. The country was
made up fifteen separate Soviet republics and wanted all fifteen to be represented in the United Nations.
The other countries refused. A compromise was reached. Two Soviet republics--the Ukraine and
Byelorussia (White Russia)--as well as the Soviet Union as a whole, were given a seat.
Nuremberg Trials
*During 1945 and 1946, Nazi leaders went on trial at Nuremberg, Germany, before an international tribunal
representing twenty-three nations. Some thirty American judges took part in the proceedings.
*Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson was a chief counsel for the prosecution.
*Defendants in the Nuremberg trials included industrialists and government officials, as well as generals
and admirals.
*The charges were (1) waging aggressive war and (2) violating generally accepted rules about how to treat
prisoners of war and how to behave toward civilians in occupied territory.
*Twelve of the twenty-two defendants received death sentences, seven received prison terms, and three
were acquitted. Later, trials of lesser leaders were held. In all, about five hundred thousand Nazis were
found guilty of war crimes.
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*Similar trials were held in Tokyo. Top officials were charged with war crimes and atrocities. Former
Premier Hideki Tojo and six other Japanese leaders were executed, while about four thousand Japanese
were convicted and received prison terms of varying lengths.
Containment
*To address the Soviet threats to American interests, American officials developed a policy known as
containment.
*The definition of containment came from George Kennan, a top-ranking American diplomat stationed in
Moscow. In early 1946, he sent an eight-thousand-word telegram back to the State Department analyzing
Soviet policy. The Soviet Union was not going to yield, he believed, and the United States needed to
remove any opportunities for its enemy to establish communist governments in other countries.
Truman Doctrine
*For several hundred years, one of Russia’s goals had been to acquire an ice-free seaport on the
Mediterranean. During World War II, Stalin asked for postwar control of the Dardanelles, the Turkish
straits that lead out from the Black Sea. He was turned down by the United States and Britain. When the
Soviet Union persisted in pressuring Turkey for bases in the area, Truman sent a naval task force into the
eastern Mediterranean.
*Britain told the U.S. that it could no longer afford to give economic aid to Turkey. Britain also said that it
could no longer help the Greek monarchy, which was trying to put down a revolt by communist-led
guerillas.
*The next month Truman went before Congress and asked for $400 million in economic and military aid
for the two Eastern European nations. In his speech the President also said that the United States should
prevent communist governments from being set up anywhere in the world where they did not already exist.
This statement later became known as the Truman Doctrine.
*The doctrine aroused considerable controversy. Some people felt that it meant interfering in the internal
affairs of other nations. Other people argued that America’s power would be spread too thin if the country
tried to carry on a global crusade against communism. Still others were opposed to helping dictatorial
governments even if they were anticommunist. A few people favored trying to improve American-Soviet
relations.
*Congress, however, decided that the doctrine was essential to keeping Soviet influence from spreading in
Europe. So between 1947 and 1950, about $660 million in aid was sent to Turkey and Greece. As a result,
the danger of communist governments being established in those nations was greatly reduced.
Marshall Plan
*After World War II, there was economic chaos in western Europe. Most of their factories had been looted
by the Germans or bombed to the ground by the Allies. There were no raw materials, nor was there any
power. As a result, millions of Europeans could not find work, and many turned to the black market and
theft in order to survive. Additional millions of people who had been uprooted by the Nazis or who had
fled before the advancing Soviets were living in refugee centers while European governments tried to
figure out where they could go.
*To make matters worse, the winter of 1947 was the bitterest in several centuries. Temperatures remained
below zero, and snow piled up in record-breaking amounts. Crops were severely damaged, and a fuel
shortage developed when all the rivers froze, cutting off water transportation. In Britain, the use of
electricity was limited to a few hours each morning, and food rations were lower than they had been during
the war. Fore President Herbert Hoover, whom Truman sent to visit twenty-two countries and to report on
conditions there, said that many people, especially children, were on the brink of starvation.
*In June 1947 General George Marshall, who was now Secretary of State, delivered a historic speech at
Harvard College commencement exercises. He offered United States aid to all European nations that
needed it, saying that this move was directed “not against any country or doctrine but against hunger,
poverty, desperation, and chaos.” However, the nations receiving aid had to agree to remove trade barriers
and to cooperate economically with one another.
*Sixteen Western European nations applied for aid, the Soviet Union, which had been included in
Marshall’s offer, refused. It denounced the plan as an “imperialistic plot” by the United States to dominate
Europe.
*Congress debated the Marshall Plan for several months. It was expensive (about $12.5 billion) and was
opposed by people who felt that the country could not afford it. They referred to the provision of further
aid to Europe as “Operation Rathole.” Then in February 1948, Soviet tanks rumbled into Czechoslovakia
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and took over the country, which had a sizable Communist minority. The takeover was followed by a
purge in which many democrats disappeared or died, including Foreign Minister Jan Masaryk, son of the
nation’s founder, who reportedly fell to his death from his office window. In response to these events,
Congress approved the Marshall Plan.
*The plan was a great success both economically and politically. Malnutrition disappeared. Industry
improved. By 1952 Western Europe was flourishing and Communist parties were weakened.
Point Four
*Enheartened by his triumph in the 1948 election, Truman highlighted his inaugural address by urging,
under Point Four, a “Bold New Program.” It ranks in significance with the Truman Doctrine and the
Marshall Plan.
*The Point Four Program was very global since it embraced most of the underdeveloped and backward
countries of the earth. It was not a “giveaway” program, like the Marshall Plan, but a Technical Assistance
Program. The underprivileged nations would be taught by American technicians how to help themselves.
The United States would export skills and “know-how” rather than money.
*The program would provide new markets and reduce the appeal of communism.
NATO
*The Soviet advance into Czechoslovakia led not only to American approval of the Marshall Plan but also
to the formation of a defensive military alliance called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
*At first members included Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Great Britain, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg,
the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States. In 1951 Greece and Turkey joined, and in 1955
West Germany, which had been allowed to rearm, was admitted.
*All fifteen countries promised that an attack on one would be regarded as an attack on all. They also
promised to resist such an attack with armed force if they thought it necessary.
Berlin Blockade
*The Soviet Union, whose land had been invaded and devastated by German armies twice in thirty years,
wanted Germany to remain weak and divided. The United States, Great Britain and France disagreed.
They believed that Europe would be more stable if German industry were producing and the German
people were not agitating for unity. In 1948 they decided to combine the three western zones within
Germany. The Soviets responded by cutting off all surface traffic into West Berlin in an attempt to force
the Western nations to surrender.
*West Berlin’s 2.1 million inhabitants had food for only 36 days and coal for 45. American and British
officials gambled on an airlift. For 327 days, planes took off and landed every few minutes around the
clock.
*By May 1949 the Soviets realized that they were beaten and lifted the Berlin blockade.
*That same month voters in the three western zones approved a constitution. By fall the Federal Republic
of Germany, commonly called West Germany, was established, with its capital in Bonn. The Soviet Union
thereupon turned its zone into the German Democratic Republic, commonly called East Germany, with its
capital in East Berlin.
Warsaw Pact
*When West Germany became a member of NATO, the Soviet Union formed its own defensive military
alliance, the Warsaw Pact.
*It included Eastern European satellite nations (Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, East Germany,
Hungary, Poland and Romania) that were dominated by the Soviet Union. Albania later withdrew.
White Paper
*The State Department, hoping to head off what it regarded as expensive injections into the dad dragon of
Nationalist China, issued a sensational White Paper, on August 5, 1949.
*This handpicked collection of documents not only absolved the United States of responsibility for
Chiang’s collapse, but put the blame squarely on the Nationalist regime (a regime that was represented as
inept, selfish and faithless).
*This astounding denunciation of a friendly government, though condemned by many Republicans,
received wide public support.
NSC-68
*In response to the fall of China, the National Security Council spelled out American policy in a document
known as NSC-68.
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*The National Security Council had been created in 1947 to develop broad policy concepts on which the
President could build specific strategies.
*NSC-68 outlined several policies that the United States might adopt in light of the current state of
international affairs. The paper said, however, that only one of these policies could be seriously
considered.
*It stated that the United States should triple its defense budget--and some leaders suggested quadrupling it
from about $13 billion to $50 billion annually. This unprecedented level of peacetime defense spending
was justified by NSC-68 and its supporters on the basis of the new demands of global security. According
to this policy, only a vigorous defense effort could keep communism in check and ensure the survival of the
free world.
Vietnam
*Prior to the Second World War, the Vietnamese revolted against French rule in their land. Most of the
peasant uprisings during the 1930s were organized by the Indochina Communist party under the leadership
of Ho Chi Minh. In 1941 the Communists combined with other nationalists to form an organization called
the Vietminh.
*During World War II, Vietnam was occupied by the Japanese. The United States sent weapons and
medical supplies to the Vietminh. In turn, the Vietminh carried on guerrilla warfare against the Japanese
and kept American intelligence informed about Japanese military movements.
*In August 1945, one week after Japan surrendered, the Vietminh proclaimed the establishment of the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam. Ho Chi Minh quoted from the American Declaration of Independence
and warned that if his country did not receive its freedom from the French, “we will keep on fighting until
we get it.” A month later, French soldiers disembarked in Vietnam from American troopships that had
brought them from Europe.
*Over the next five months, Ho sent eight messages to President Truman asking for support. Truman,
however, believed that communists everywhere were part of a worldwide conspiracy directed by Moscow,
so he ignored Ho’s messages.
*In 1946, after months of negotiation, a full-fledged war broke out between the Vietminh and the French.
At first French troops were successful. The Vietminh, however, retreated to the mountains and began
waging guerrilla warfare against the French in the cities. In 1949 the French set up a puppet government in
Saigon headed by Bao Dai, a former Vietnamese emperor. The following year, Ho Chi Minh, apparently
with help from Communist China, launched a major offensive against the French.
*That same year, 1950, marked the beginning of substantial American aid to the French. Many Americans
had been shocked by the loss of China to the Communists previously. Then North Korea invaded South
Korea, and Senator Joseph McCarthy accused the State Department of being a hotbed of Communist
sympathizers. With that as a background, Truman recognized Bao Dai’s regime and sent it almost $1
billion in military and economic aid.
National Security Act
*1947
*Congress passed the National Security Act, which reorganized the military. The three services--army,
navy, and air force--were brought under a new executive department, the Department of Defense.
*The National Security Council was established to the coordinate the country’s defense policies and to
advise the President on matters involving national security.
*Under the council the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was set up to gather intelligence, or information,
from abroad. The CIA later received power to carry out covert actions, or secret political warfare in
support of American foreign policy. This included the actual or attempted overthrow of several
governments.
H-Bomb
*In October 1952 the United States detonated the first hydrogen bomb at Eniwetok, Marshall Islands.
*Truman had authorized its development.
Korean War
Cause: 38th Parallel/U.S. and U.S.S.R.
*At both Cairo in 1943 and Potsdam in 1945, it was agreed by the major powers that Korea would "in due
course" be free and independent.
*Russia reaffirmed this pledge when it declared war on Japan on August 8, 1945.
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*When Japan accepted surrender terms, the United States proposed that the Japanese in Korea north of the
385h parallel surrender to Russian troops, and those south of the parallel surrender to Russian troops, and
those south of the parallel surrender to U.S. forces.
*While it was not the intention of the United State that the division of Korea would be permanent, it soon
became clear that the Soviet Union has assumed otherwise.
*In November 1947 a United Nations Temporary Commission was formed to supervise the drafting of a
constitution for a national Korean government.
*Russia claimed that the UN had no jurisdiction and refused to allow their commission to enter North
Korea.
*So the UN formed a representative government chosen by free elections, and thus the Republic of Korea
(South Korea only) was officially established on August 15, 1948.
*Russia set up the People's Republic of Korea, a militarized Communist dictatorship, north of the 38th
parallel.
*On June 25, 1950, the North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel in force.
Events: Inchon/Ridgeway
*It was a UN force under General Douglas MacArthur that launched a counteroffensive during SeptemberOctober 1950 in Korea, but in fact more than 90 percent of the forces were either American or South
Korean.
*With a daring amphibious landing at Inchon in September 1950, MacArthur seized the initiative and
pursued the Communists back north across the 38th parallel.
*However, he misread the intentions of Red China.
*As U.S. forces approached the Yalu River, hundreds of thousands of Chinese poured across the border in
January 1951 and drove MacArthur back south.
*MacArthur now called for all-out war against China.
*When Truman refused to extend the conflict for fear of touching off World War III and a possible nuclear
exchange with the Soviet Union, MacArthur publicly criticized U.S. policy.
*Unwilling to tolerate such insubordination, Truman in April 1951 relieved the popular general of his
command and replaced him with General Matthew Ridgeway.
Results: 38th Parallel/DMZ
*In April the UN forces started a spring offensive, which, by June, took them back to the 38th parallel and
just a bit beyond it.
Israel
*With the end of the British mandate in Palestine, Jews proclaimed the state of Israel.
*The United States promptly recognized the new nation.
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