Lecture and Discussion Notes

Sectionalism and Disunion

Lecture and Discussion Notes

I. Sectionalism Grows

A. Regional differences soon surfaced, and the Era of Good Feelings disappeared. People felt a strong tie to the region in which they lived. This promoted sectionalism, or loyaltyto a region.

B. Differences arose over slavery and national policies.

1. Slavery was opposed in the North and protected in the South.

2. National policies

a. tariffs

b. a national bank

c. internal improvements, or federal, state, and privately funded projects to develop the nation’s transportation system––were not accepted in all regions of the Union.

C. John Calhoun, a planter from South Carolina, was the spokesperson from the South.Early on he favored support for internal improvements, developing industries, and a national bank. In the 1820s, he backed state sovereignty, or the belief that states should have power over the federal government, and was against high tariffs. Calhoun said high tariffs raised the prices of manufactured goods planters could not produce themselves and tariffs protected unproductive corporations.

D. Daniel Webster was first elected to Congress in 1812 to represent New Hampshire. In later years, he represented Massachusetts in the House and Senate. He began hiscareer as a supporter of free trade and the shipping interests of New England. In time he began to favor the Tariff of 1816, which protected American industries from foreign competition,and other policies that would strengthen the nation and help the North. He became known as a great orator when, as a senator, he spoke in defense of thenation.

E. Henry Clay of Kentucky, a leader who represented Western states, became Speaker of the House in 1811. He served as a member of the group who negotiated the Treaty ofGhent to end the War of 1812. Clay became known as the national leader who tried to resolve sectional disputes and conflicts through compromise.(Great Compromiser)

II. The American System

A. Henry Clay proposed a program called the American System in 1824. He felt that all regions of the nation would benefit from his program:

1. A protective tariff

2. A program of internal improvements, especially building roads and canals to stimulate trade

3. A national bank to promote one national currency and to lend money to build Industry

B. Not everyone agreed. Thomas Jefferson thought that the American System favored the wealthy manufacturing classes of New England. The South agreed with Jefferson anddid not see how they would benefit from the tariff or internal improvements. The systemwas never passed in Congress, but Congress adopted some internal improvements and created the controversial Second Bank of the United States.

C. The Supreme Court heard several cases that involved sectional and states’ rights issues.

1. McCulloch v. Marylandin 1819 involved the issue of whether or not the state of Maryland had the right to impose a tax on the Second Bank of the United States, a federal institution. Chief Justice John Marshall ruled that Maryland did not havethe right to tax the Bank because it was a federal institution. The federal government can coin money, but the Constitution does not mention paper money. Also, the Constitutional Convention voted against giving the federal government the authority to charter corporations, including banks. Upheld the Elastic Clause or the implied powers.

2. In the case Gibbons v. Ogden, the Supreme Court said that states could not enact legislation that would interfere with congressional power over interstate commerce.Guaranteed federal laws took precedence over state laws.

Northern Industry and Immigration

I.Technology and Industry

A. Industrialization changed the way Americans worked, traveled, and communicated. In the North, manufacturers made products by dividing tasks among workers. They built factories to bring specialized workers together. Products could be made more quickly. The factory workers used machinery to do some of the work faster and more efficiently

II. Northern Factories

A. Factories produced items such as shoes, watches, guns, sewing machines, and agricultural machinery in addition to textiles and clothing. Working conditions worsened as factories grew. Employees worked an average 11.4-hour day, often under dangerous and unpleasant conditions. No laws existed to regulate working conditions or to protect workers.

B. By the 1830s workers began to organize to improve working conditions. Trade unions, or organizations of workers with the same trade or skill, developed.

C. Skilled workers in New York City went on strike or refused to work in the mid-1830s. They hoped for higher wages and a 10-hour day.

D. Striking was illegaland workers could be punished by law or fired from their jobs. AMassachusetts court ruled in favor of workers’ right to strike in 1842, but this was justthe beginning of workers receiving legal rights.

E. Although the North did not have slavery in the 1820s, it did have racial prejudice anddiscrimination. In 1820, although New York stopped requiring white men to ownproperty in order to vote, few African Americans could vote. In fact, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania passed laws prohibiting free African Americans from voting. Free African Americans were not allowed to attend public schools and were barred from public facilities. They were forced into segregated schools and hospitals in most communities.

F. Women were discriminated against in the mills and factories even though they playeda major role in the development of industry. They worked for less pay, were excludedfrom unions, and were kept out of the workplace to make more jobs for men.The Lowell Female Labor Reform Organization in Massachusetts petitioned thestate legislature for a 10-hour day in 1845. The legislature did not even considerthe petition signed only by women.

III. The Rise of Immigration

A. People moved to the cities to fill the factory jobs. In 1860 the population of New York City, the nation’s largest city, reached one million. Philadelphia had more than 500,000 people. City life was often difficult and dangerous due to overcrowding, run-down buildings, and the threat of disease and fire.

B. Immigration to the United States greatly increased between 1840 and 1860. Many of these people were willing to work for low pay and long hours.

1. The largest group came from Ireland, more than 1.5 million, settling mainly in the Northeast. A potato famine, or an extreme shortage, caused by a potato disease destroyed Ireland’s crops, and starvation followed. Potatoes were the staple food of the Irish diet.

2. The men from Ireland worked in factories or did manual labor such as working on the railroads and digging ditches. Women became servants and factory workers.

3. The second-largest group of immigrants came from Germany. They settled in New York, Pennsylvania, the Midwest, and the western territories. Some came for new opportunity, and others came as a result of the failure of the democratic revolution in 1848. More than one million came, most of them men. Many had money, so they prospered, founding their own communities and organizations and buying farms or setting up businesses.

C. Immigration changed the character of the country. People brought their language, customs, religion, and ways of life.Most of the Irish immigrants and about one-half of German immigrants were Roman Catholics. They settled in northeastern cities.

D. The immigrants faced prejudice.Anti-immigrant feelings arose. People opposed toimmigration, called nativists, felt that immigration threatened the future of “native”born citizens. Some nativists thought that immigrants took jobs away from “real”Americans. Others thought they brought crime and disease.

E. The American Party was a group of nativists who joined together to form a newpolitical party in the 1850s. They formed secret anti-Catholic societies. The partybecame known as the Know-Nothing Party, because they answered questions bysaying, “I know nothing.”

F. The Know-Nothing Partywanted stricter citizenship laws and wanted to ban foreignborn citizens from holding office. In the mid-1850s, the movement split over slavery. A Northern branch and a Southern branch formed. Slavery also divided the Northern and Southern states.

Southern Farms and Slavery

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I. Rise of the Cotton Kingdom

A. The economy of the South thrived by 1850 because of cotton. It became the leading cash crop. Tobacco and rice had been profitable in colonial times, but tobacco depended on foreign markets and the price fluctuated. Rice could not be grown in the dry inland areas. In the Deep South—Georgia, South Carolina, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Texas—cotton helped the economy prosper, and slavery grew stronger.

B. Eli Whitney’s cotton gin revolutionized cotton production. The machine removed seeds from cotton fibers. A worker could clean only 1 pound of cotton a day by hand, but with the machine, a worker could clean 50 pounds. The cotton gin led to the need for more workers. Southern planters relied on enslaved laborers to plant and pick the cotton.

C. The British textile industry created a huge demand for cotton and kept the price high. The Deep South was committed to cotton, with some areas also growing rice andsugarcane. The Upper South––Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina––was alsoagricultural and produced tobacco, hemp, wheat, and vegetables.

D. The value of enslaved people increased due to the reliance on them for producingcotton and sugar. The Upper South became a center for the sale and transport ofenslaved people in the region.

II. Industry in the South

A. The South remained rural and agricultural. The entire South produced fewermanufactured goods than the state of Massachusetts in the 1850s.

B. Several barriers to industry developed in the South:

1. Because cotton was so profitable, farming was important, not new business.

2. Because capital, or money to invest in business, was lacking, new industry did not develop. People saw no reason to sell their land or enslaved workers to raise money for industry, and they believed their economy would continue to prosper.

3. Because the market for manufactured goods in the South was smaller than in the North, this also discouraged industrial development.

4. Some Southerners did not want industry.

C. Goods were transported via natural waterways. Most towns were along rivers or onthe coast. Roads were poor and there were few canals. Railroad lines were mostlylocal and did not connect parts of a region.By1860 only about one-third of the raillines were in the South.

III. Small Farms and Plantations

A. Most Southerners were small farmers without enslaved people or were planters with afew enslaved laborers. Only a very few planters could afford the large plantations andnumerous enslaved people to work it.

B. Southerners were of four types: yeomen, tenantfarmers, rural poor, and plantation owners.

C. Yeomen were farmers without enslaved people. They made up the largest group of whites in the South. Most owned land and lived in the Upper South and hilly rural areas of the Deep South. Their farms were from 50 to 200 acres. They grew crops for themselves and to sell or trade.

D. Tenant farmers rented land or worked on landlords’ estates. The rural poor lived in crude cabins in wooded areas, planted corn, and fished and hunted for food. Theywere self-sufficient and refused any work that resembled enslaved labor.

E. Plantation owners wanted to earn profits, and they did this by selling cotton. Most plantations’ wealth was measured by possessions, including enslaved people.Only about 12 percent of the South’s farms and plantations held more than half the enslaved people. About half of the planters held fewer than five enslaved workers.

IV. Life under Slavery

A. Life was full of hardships and misery. Enslaved African Americans worked longhours, earned no money, and had little hope of freedom. Many were separated fromtheir families when sold to different plantation owners.

1. They had the bare necessities in their slave cabins. Each cabin was shared bydozens of people living together in a single room.

2. Plantation work involved many chores. Some enslaved African Americans worked inthe house, cleaning, cooking, sewing, and doing laundry. Other enslaved AfricanAmericans were skilled workers, trained as carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, orweavers. Some worked in the pastures, but most were field hands, supervised by anoverseer, working from sunrise to sunset.

3. Family life was uncertain. Law did not recognize marriages, but many enslavedAfrican Americans did marry. Families were separated when wives or childrenwere sold. The extended family provided some stability and was an importantaspect of the culture.

4. Although enduring many difficulties, they kept their African culture alive and mixedit with American ways. Even though slavery was legal in the South, the slave tradewas outlawed in 1808. As no new enslaved Africans entered the United States, almostall the enslaved people by 1860 were born here.

5. Many enslaved people accepted Christianity, and it became a religion of hope for them. The spiritual, or African American religious folk song, provided a way to secretly communicate with one another.

6. Slave codes made life more difficult. These were laws that controlled the enslavedpeople, such as prohibiting them from gathering in large groups, leaving their master’s property without a pass, and making it a crime to teach them how to read or write.

V. Resistance to slavery

A. Took the form of working slowly, pretending to be sick, orsometimes setting fire or breaking tools. Armed rebellions were rare.

B. Nat Turner, who taught himself to read and write, led a group on a short violent rampage inSouthampton County, Virginia, in 1831. They killed at least 55 whites before beingcaptured. Turner was hanged. More severe slave codes were passed as a result.

C. Some enslaved people escaped slavery. Most who were successful escaped via theUnderground Railroad, which was a network of safe places to stop along the longjourney to the North in “safe houses” owned by whites and free African Americans.Most runaways were captured and punished. Harriet Tubman and FrederickDouglass, both born into slavery, fled north. They became African American heroesfor their efforts to help free more enslaved people.

VI. Southern Life

A. By 1860 several large cities existed, such as Baltimore and New Orleans. Others wereon the rise such as Charleston, Richmond, and Memphis. Baltimore’s population was212,000. New Orleans had 168,000 people. Population included whites, some enslavedpeople, and free African Americans.

B. Free African Americans became barbers, carpenters, and traders. They foundedchurches and institutions

C. Between 1830 and 1860, Southern states passed laws that limited the rights of free African Americans. Most states would not allow them to migrate from other states. In 1859 in Arkansas, they were ordered to leave the state.

D. Education in the South lagged behind the rest of the country. There was no statewide public education system. By 1860 there were hundreds of public schools throughout the South, but the South still was behind when it came to literacy or the number of people that could read or write. Population density or people per square mile were low in the South and Southerners thought education was private and not a state function.

DISUNION

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I. The Missouri Compromise

A. When Missouri applied for statehood in 1819, it was a territory whose citizens owned about 10,000 enslaved African Americans. At the time the Senate was balanced, with 11 free states and 11 slave states. Missouri’s admission to the Union as a slave state would have upset that balance of power.

B. Representative Henry Clay, Speaker of the House, proposed a solution to the Missouri problem. Clay’s two proposals, which became known as the Missouri Compromise, were passed by Congress in 1820

1. Maine, which had been a part of Massachusetts, had also applied for admission to the Union as a new state.

2. Clay suggested admitting Missouri as a slave state and admitting Maine as a free state at the same time.

3. He proposed prohibiting slavery in all territories and states carved from the Louisiana Purchase north of the latitude line of 36°30”N. The one exception would be Missouri.

C. The Missouri Compromise preserved the balance between free and slave states, and ended the debate in Congress over slavery in new states and territories––at least for a while.

II. New Western Lands

A. The issue of slavery in new Western lands stayed in the background between 1820 and the 1840s. The proposal to add a new set of states and territories (Texas, New Mexico, and California) brought the issue to a head again.

B. After winning independence from Mexico, Texas asked for admission to the Union.