Chapter 8 - Creating a Republican Culture (1790-1820) Flashcards
Neomercantilist
A system of government-assisted economic development embraced by republican state legislatures throughout the nation, especially in the Northeast. This system of activist government encouraged private entrepreneurs to seek individual opportunity and public welfare through market exchange.
Panic of 1819
The first major economic crisis of the United States. Farmers and planters faced an abrupt 30 percent drop in world agricultural prices, and as farmers’ income declined, they could not pay debts owed to stores and banks, many of which went bankrupt.
Commonwealth System
The republican system of the political economy was created by state governments by 1820, whereby states funneled aid to private businesses whose projects would improve the general welfare.
Sentimentalism
A way of experiencing the world that emphasized emotions and a sensuous appreciation of God, nature, and people. Part of the Romantic movement, it spread to the United States from Europe in the late eighteenth century.
Companionate Marriages
A marriage based on the republican values of equality and mutual respect. Although husbands in these marriages retained significant legal power, they increasingly came to see their wives as loving partners rather than as inferior or dependents.
Demographic Transition
The sharp decline in birthrate in the United States beginning in the 1790s was caused by changes in cultural behavior, including the use of birth control. The migration of thousands of young men to the trans-Appalachian west was also a factor in this decline.
Republican Motherhood
The idea that the primary political role of American women was to instill a sense of patriotic duty and republican virtue in their children and mold them into exemplary republican citizens.
Manumission
The legal act of relinquishing property rights in slaves. Worried that a large free black population would threaten the institution of slavery, the Virginia assembly repealed Virginia’s 1782 manumission law in 1792.
Herrenvolk Republic
A republic based on the principle of rule by a master race. To preserve their privileged social position, southern leaders restricted individual liberty and legal equality to whites.
American Colonization Society
A society founded by Henry Clay and other prominent citizens in 1817. The society argued that slaves had to be freed and then resettled, in Africa or elsewhere.
Missouri Compromise
A series of political agreements devised by Speaker of the House Henry Clay. Maine entered the Unionr as a free state in 1820 and Missouri followed as a slave state in 1821, preserving a balance in the Senate between North and South and setting a precedent for future admissions to the Union. Most importantly, this bargain set the northern boundary of slavery in the lands of the Louisiana Purchase at the southern boundary of Missouri, with the exception of that state.
Established Church
A church given priviledged legal status by the government. Historically, such established churches in Europe and America were supported by public taxes and were often the only legally permitted religious institution.
Voluntarism
The funding of churches by their members. It allowed the laity to control the clergy, while also supporting the republican principle of self-government.
Unchurched
Irreligious Americans, who propably constituted a majority of the population in 1800. Evangelical Methodist and Baptist churches were by far the most successful institutions in attracting new members from the unchurched.
Second Great Awakening
Unprecendented religious revival that swept the nation between 1790 and 1850; it also proved to be a major impetus for the reform movements of the era.
