Jackson + Van Buren 1829 - 1840 Flashcards
As the Era of Good Feelings ended, the American political scene in the antebellum period was dominated by the struggle between the Jacksonian Democrats and the Whigs. This deck reviews the rise of judicial federalism, tariff controversies, the struggle for states’ rights, and the Bank War.
What is important to remember about the 3rd phase of the 2nd Great Awakening?
Religions like the Millerites and Mormons were created.
Charles Grandison Finney, who was a Presbyterian minister, would reach fame during the 1830s as he moved his camp revivalist to the city (New York City) where tens of thousands would hear him preach about God.
Define:
Kitchen Cabinet
Andrew Jackson’s Kitchen Cabinet was a group of informal advisors upon whose counsel Jackson relied, breaking the tradition of consulting formal Cabinet ministers.
Define:
Spoils System
Under the Spoils System, the newly elected President appointed those who’d helped him to federal office, such as Postmaster.
Jackson believed that no training was necessary for any federal office. He also rotated federal officeholders after his first term, so as to provide jobs to as many Democrats as possible.
Who founded The Liberator, the first radical abolitionist newspaper, in 1833?
William Lloyd Garrison
Taking inspiration from Thoreau, Garrison declared “that which is not just is not law.”
What organization was the first radical abolitionist group in the United States?
The American Anti-Slavery Society
Based in New York City and founded by William Lloyd Garrison in 1833, the American Anti-Slavery Society demanded the immediate abolition of slavery.
The American Anti-Slavery Society issued pamphlets, petitions to Congress, and sponsored speeches, including many by Frederick Douglass.
What’s Nat Turner known for?
Nat Turner was born enslaved on a Virginia plantation where his enslaver taught him how to read and write while also introducing him to religion. As a result, Nat Turner became an enslaved preacher.
Believing in signs and hearing voices in his head, Nat became convinced that God chose him to free the enslaved after witnessing a solar eclipse. With the help of 4 other enslaved men, he became infamous during the 1830s to free enslaved people, from which he successfully freed 80 enslaved people, during a slave uprising on August 21, 1831. Unfortunately, this rebellion against their slavery resulted in the death of 55 white people, mostly women, and children since the men were in a revival meeting in North Carolina.
Explain the major effects of Nat Turner’s Rebellion
Nat Turner was captured and executed with 17 other enslaved Black people, while the other enslaved escaped.
Broadly speaking, it affected southern slavery by making laws with harsher punishments for people who taught their enslaved people how to read. Southern states, starting with Virginia, would also make it illegal for enslaved people to preach Christianity.
Define:
The Underground Railroad
A network to guide escaped slaves to safe houses.
The Underground Railroad, directed by enslaved people themselves, such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, was a network that guided escaped enslaved peoples along secret routes and to safe houses until they reached freedom. Most often, these railroads ended in Canada, where enslaving people was already illegal.
Southern laws had harsh punishments for people who helped anyone along on the Underground railroad. Southern slave catchers were always a danger for enslaved peoples and their liberators, even in northern “free” states.
What were the Gag Rule Debates?
Between 1831-1836, William Lloyd Garrison and other abolitionists sent anti-slavery petitions to Congress. Rather than hear the petitions, in 1836 Congress voted to table any anti-slavery petition without debate, known as a gag rule. From 1836 until the gag rule was repealed in 1844, Congress repeatedly debated whether to keep the gag rule in place.
What was the Indian Removal Act (1830)?
The Indian Removal Act forcibly ejected Indians from lands east of the Mississippi.
Signed by Andrew Jackson and carried out during Martin Van Buren’s presidency, the Native Americans followed the 1,000-mile long Trail of Tears, forced to by the United States military, where 15,000 men, women, and children died, due to hunger, disease, and exhaustion.
Some Native American men had to walk with shackles on their hands and feet.
Explain what the Nullification Crisis was about.
South Carolina told the US government that it didn’t have to follow federal law anymore, specifically, the Tariff of Abominations.
By doing this, South Carolina was, in effect, “nullifying” the law/tariff. According to the John Marshall Supreme Court, Federal power had always been favored over State power. So when South Carolina was still unwilling to follow the law, it caused a crisis since a state was being disloyal to the union by refusing to follow the federal law, which had already been upheld by the Supreme Court.
How did Andrew Jackson respond to South Carolina’s attempt to nullify the Tariff of Abominations?
Jackson considered South Carolina’s actions to be treason.
After asking Congress for a Force Bill, Jackson mobilized the Army, and threatened to hang John C. Calhoun, a South Carolina politician and his former Vice President, from the nearest tree. This was because John C. Calhoun had been responsible for the crisis. Jackson, although in favor of states’ rights, considered South Carolina’s actions to be treason.
After heated debate, cooler heads prevailed, and South Carolina backed down, thus ending the Nullification Crisis.
What did Andrew Jackson call the “Hydra of Corruption”?
The Second Bank of the United States
Jackson felt that the Bank was unconstitutional, and only served the wealthy. Jackson declared war on the Bank, and on its President, Nicholas Biddle. It did not help the Bank’s public image that Biddle was arrogant and unpopular.
How did Henry Clay respond to Jackson’s hatred towards the Bank of the United States?
Although the Bank’s charter still had a few years left, Clay pushed a recharter bill through Congress, which Jackson promptly vetoed.
Clay had hoped that Jackson’s veto of the recharter bill would swing the election to the Whigs, but the move backfired, and Jackson defeated Clay handily in the 1832 election.
Define:
Pet banks
Pet banks were local banks, rather than the Second Bank of the United States. Following his reelection in 1832, Jackson had withdrawn the United States’ funds from the Bank of the United States, and deposited them in pet banks.
Explain what scrip is.
Scrip was currency printed by a bank.
Banks had an option to accept another bank’s scrip in repayment for a loan, or to demand gold or silver instead. This gold and silver is called “specie”.
When the Pet Banks were loaded with cash, those banks began to issue scrip.
Side note: Today, your (American) money is not printed by Banks, but it’s printed by a part of our U.S. government called the Federal Reserve.
What do Land Speculators do?
Land speculators:
- Purchase land
- Don’t live on it themselves
- Sell it to other people when the value of their land goes up
Some people still do this today, they buy property in an area they think will develop really nicely, so that when the area starts to develop, they can sell it and make a big profit.
Back in the 1830s, just like today, in order to be a land speculator, you need a lot of money. And if you don’t have that money, then you’ll need to go to a bank and get a loan.
What was the effect on the economy of Jackson’s depositing federal money in pet banks?
It helped to create inflation but made it harder to save money.
With a plentiful supply of money, Jackson’s Pet banks were eager to loan their money out to people so that they (Jackson’s Pet banks) could collect interest from the loans they gave out to people, thus making more money.
The first people to come to Jackson’s Pet Banks were land speculators, so the Pet Banks lent money to loads of land speculators.
Then, when lots of people who now had money started buying up the land at around the same time, it drove up the price of the land, helping to create inflation. This also made it harder for people who had no money to buy a property and make a home since it became harder to save.
How did Jackson attempt to deal with the rising inflation that followed his deposit of federal funds in pet banks?
Jackson issued his Specie Circular, which required that purchases of government land be made in gold and silver, rather than paper currency from his Pet Banks.
Since banks were more willing to lend scrip, rather than gold and silver, this led to a sudden curtailment of credit, resulting in the Panic of 1837.
Who was blamed for the Panic of 1837?
The Panic of 1837 was a direct result of Jackson’s Specie Circular, which significantly handicapped the Pet Banks’ ability to lend money since people valued specie greater than the Pet Bank Scrip. The devaluation of the scrip in the economy led to the Panic of 1837, slowing economic growth.
However, the blame for the Panic and the depression which followed fell squarely upon President Martin van Buren, Jackson’s chosen successor, even though the Panic was largely due to Jackson’s withdrawal of funds from the Second Bank of the United States and the resulting Specie Circular.
What was Jacksonian Democracy?
Jacksonian Democracy centered upon the participation of the white male public in elections and the government. Under Jackson’s view, any white man could fill any office in the federal government. Jacksonian Democracy favored a strong Presidency and a weak Congress.
The era of Jacksonian Democracy lasted until the 1850s when slavery once more loomed large as a national political issue.
How did new farming innovations such as Cyrus McCormick’s reaper in 1831 and John Deere’s steel plow (1837) fuel the growth of urban centers?
New farming implements (and larger farms in the American West) meant that for the first time, farmers were able to produce surplus goods, beyond merely what they needed to sustain themselves and their families.
These surplus goods were shipped to the new urban centers that were springing up along canals and railroads.
Why did the new states of Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas experience an influx of Southerners from other states?
Much of the farmland in areas such as Georgia and South Carolina had been exhausted by years of cotton farming and poor crop management. The lands in these new states proved fertile and ideal for cotton growing.
The new arrivals typically brought their enslaved people with them, and the price for buying an enslaved person doubled between 1825 and 1845.
What was the role of unions in the rapidly growing urban manufacturing areas during the Antebellum Period?
To the extent that they existed, unions focused on efforts to limit the workday to 10 hours.
Several factors limited any pressure that unions were able to exert in the economy:
- the depression that followed the Panic of 1837, which led to a surplus of labor
- the constant influx of immigrants, who provided an inexpensive pool of non-union labor.
