Learn AP® U.S. History - Monroe + JQ Adams 1817 - 1828

The religious revivals known as “burned-over districts”, which had “set the area on fire with religious devotion”, were created during this phase.

One of the most prominent people of the 2nd Great Awakening was Charles Grandison Finney, a Presbyterian Minister who preached about God at camp meetings in upstate New York, creating more burned-over districts.

Upstate New York saw large numbers of revival meetings, where ministers such as Charles G. Finney converted so many people that the area was lit with the “fire of religious devotion”.

Upstate New York also saw the birth of new Christian sects including Seventh Day Adventism and Mormonism.

Washington Irving

Irving specialized in short stories, such as the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip van Winkle, and gained a large audience on both sides of the Atlantic.

Irving was one of the first writers to write with the avowed purpose of entertainment, rather than to inform his audience.

Several factories hired women, some of whom worked in the Lowell System, where workers lived and labored at the factory. Children as young as seven were employed throughout the Northeast.

The Lowell System, which offered a safe space for women to work, began in the early 1820s.

The three main sections of the country were the North, the South, and the West. The West was generally considered anything beyond the Mississippi River.

Beginning in the 1820s, the interests of the sections of the country began to diverge.

• The South resented the Tariff of Abominations, which was being used to fund improvements such as roads and canals in the West and North.

• Westerners did not like the Bank of the United States, which they felt was being used by Northern merchants to enhance their wealth.

• The North disliked slavery, which was fundamental to the South’s economic prosperity.

Most immigrants settled in the North.

While Irish immigrants remained in many of the urban centers on the Eastern seaboard, Germans took up residence in the Old Northwest (the states that made up the Northwestern Territories), starting farms in locations such as Minnesota, Ohio, and Indiana.

The Old Northwest became the new home of many migrants who left New England. Their migration was the first of many that would continue to push the frontier ever farther westward, and they brought with them much of the culture of the New England colonies.

Blacks in the North had limited property, voting, and legal rights, and received lower wages than whites.

Much like the Irish in the South, many of the Northern Irish resented Blacks as the only inferior group in the social hierarchy.

tobacco; rice

Both tobacco and rice also required large amounts of slave labor. Cotton, however, took precedent over both.

Mountain Men such as Kit Carson and Jim Bridger were primarily fur trappers and hunters. They were some of the earliest explorers of the American West, following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark.

As Americans pushed ever westward, many of these same Mountain Men served to guide the wagon trains over the Rocky Mountains. A large number of these men married American Indian and Hispanic women.

Most Indians lived a nomadic existence, aided by the introduction of the horse. Indian villages were mobile, and the tribes in the Great Plains and Upper Midwest followed the massive buffalo herds that roamed the prairies.

The life of a frontier woman was most often nasty, brutish, and short:

• Most farm houses were miles away from neighbors, and isolation was intense.

• A frontier woman not only had to help her husband in the field, but was responsible for keeping house, cooking, and tending to the sick.

• Many women died in childbirth, or succumbed to disease.

Erie Canal

The Canal’s completion allowed goods to be shipped to New York via the Great Lakes from as far away as Wisconsin, and the Canal soon rivaled the Mississippi River as the nation’s aquatic highway.

In the early 1820s, New York permitted the formation of corporations. A corporation allows many individuals to purchase a percentage of ownership (known as a share).

By allowing companies to issue stock to raise funds, corporations were able to invest capital in property, plants, and equipment, speeding the growth of manufacturing.

Several factors contributed to New York City’s rise:

1. Railroads: New York marked the terminus of many Western railroads, which meant that agricultural products were shipped to New York and New York shipped finished goods to the Midwest

2. Banking: New York banks proved adept at lending capital to distant farmers, in both the West and South

3. Shipping: New York became the largest harbor in the United States, and transported Western agricultural products and finished goods overseas

The Era of Good Feelings began with James Monroe’s election to the Presidency in 1816. With the Federalist Party collapsing, the Democratic-Republicans dominated politics and there was a renewed optimism brought about by a revived American economy and peace in Europe.

The Court ruled that under the Commerce Clause of the Constitution, the federal government had wide authority over interstate commerce (one of the steamboats traveled between New York and New Jersey), and the Federal contract overruled the state-level contract.

This case is important because it showed how the Marshall Court continued to rule in favor of more federal power.

The Court held that Maryland could not tax the Bank. The Constitution gave the government the implied power to create a bank, and because the power to tax is the power to destroy, Maryland could not tax an institution created by the federal government.

Another court case where the Marshall Court ruled in favor of stronger federal power.

The Spanish sold it to the United States.

With American troops already in Florida (Andrew Jackson had captured Pensacola in 1818), the Spanish government recognized that the United States would likely conquer Florida and agreed to sell it to the United States, as well as give up its rights to the Oregon Territory.

For payment, the U.S. government assumed $5 million in claims against Spain and also abandoned any claim to Spanish Texas based upon the Louisiana Purchase.

Temperence refers to a total abstention from alcohol.

Founded in the 1820s, the American Temperance Society equated alcohol with sin, and argued for its complete ban.

The Monroe Doctrine asserted that no further European colonization would be allowed in the New World and any attempt to do so would result in American intervention.

The American System’s three components were:

1. Impose a high tariff on foreign goods to protect American manufacturing and provide revenue for internal improvements

2. Establish a National Bank to provide stable currency and a credit to the federal government

3. Stimulate internal improvements (transportation projects) to aid the development of the West and to funnel agricultural goods to eastern ports

The Second Bank of the United States responded to the inflation that resulted from the end of the War of 1812 by tightening public credit. As a result, the economy collapsed.

The West was especially hard-hit as the government foreclosed on farms and debtors were thrown into prison. As a result, the Bank was exceedingly unpopular in the West.

The Missouri Compromise:

1. Missouri admitted as a slave state

2. Maine admitted as a free state

3. Slavery disallowed in future territories north of 36°30' except within Missouri itself

Henry Clay

The Missouri Compromise preserved the balance of power in the Senate, ensuring that for each free state admitted to the Union, a slave state would also be admitted.

Portions of the Missouri Compromise would be repealed by the Kansas Nebraska Act of 1854, which allowed new states to vote on whether or not they wanted to allow slavery, and others would be struck down in the Scott v. Sandford decision.

The Missouri Compromise began the trend of sectionalism, and citizens began viewing the effect of political and economic activity on one's section as equally important to the effect of the activity on the nation as a whole.

The three sections are generally considered to be the North, the South, and the West.

1. John Quincy Adams

2. Henry Clay

3. Andrew Jackson

4. William Crawford

Andrew Jackson won the popular vote, but failed to win a majority of the electoral college. John Quincy Adams finished second, and William Crawford third (although he was nearly dead). Since none of the candidates won a majority of the electoral college, the election of the President was sent to the House of Representatives.

In 1824, the House of Representatives was under the control of Henry Clay (who also finished fourth in the Electoral College that year). Although Andrew Jackson had won the popular vote, Clay's efforts convinced the House to vote for John Quincy Adams as President.

Upon his election, Adams promptly nominated Clay as Secretary of State (considered a stepping stone to the Presidency). Outraged Jacksonians saw a conspiracy afoot, and denounced what they considered a "corrupt bargain."

Each of the four candidates was ostensibly from the same political party, the Democratic-Republican Party. After the election, the Party split into Democrats (who supported Jackson), and the National Republicans, who became the Whig Party in 1828.

They nicknamed the 1828 Tariff the "Tariff of Abominations." Ironically, the Tariff had been originally proposed by South Carolina Congressman John C. Calhoun.

In response to the Tariff of Abominations, the British sharply reduced their cotton imports from the South, ravaging the South's economic base.

Jackson's supporters characterized him as the champion of the common man. Jackson had no higher education, had been in several duels, and was a military hero.

Jackson's background readily appealed to the newly enfranchised voters of the West, from where he drew much of his support.

Changes in many states' electoral laws had removed the rule that a voter must own land in order to vote. Thousands of newly enfranchised white male voters flocked to the polls, many of them supporting Andrew Jackson.

The Lowell System provided employment for thousands of women in the factory towns of Massachusetts. Women from nearby farms lived in factory dormitories for short periods, working long hours in miserable conditions to earn enough for a dowry or to help their families.

Women were most often employed either as teachers, or as domestic servants. Following marriage, it was expected that a woman would cease having any profession at all.

There were more Northern Representatives in the House, since the North had a greater population. In the Senate, however, there were 11 free state Senators, and 11 slave state Senators.

Missouri's admission as a slave state threatened to upset the even numbers in the Senate, worrying many in the North.