Download Chapter 12 Shaping America in the Antebellum Age

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