Us History

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Marbury vs. Madison

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Madison vs. Madison involved the issue of the presidential appointment power. Marbury was a last minute appointment, by John Adams the outgoing president, as Justice of the Peace in the District of Columbia. The incoming president, Jefferson told his Secretary of State, Madison to ignore the appointment. Using a law passed by a Federalist congress. At the direction of Jefferson, Madison refused to deliver Marbury’s commission. Marbury sued Madison, and the Supreme Court took the case. Chief Justice John Marshall wrote that the Judiciary act of 1789, which spelled out the practice of delivering such commissions for judges and justices of the peace, was unconstitutional because it gave the Supreme Court authority that was denied it by Article 111 of the Constitution. This was the first time the Supreme Court struck down a law because it was unconstitutional. It was the beginning of the practice of “judicial review”.

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Presidential Election of 1800

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- The election of 1800 between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson was an emotional and hard-fought campaign. Each side believed that victory of the other would ruin the nation.
- Federalist attacked Jefferson as an un-Christian deist whose sympathy for the French Revolution would bring similar bloodshed and chaos to the United States.
- Republicans specifically objected to the expansion of the U.S army and navy, the attack on individual rights in the Alien and Sedition Acts, and new taxes and deficit spending used to support broadened federal action.
- Overall, the Federalists wanted strong federal authority to restrain the excesses of popular majority, while the Democratic-Republicans wanted to reduce national authority so that the people could rule more directly through state governments. Jefferson was elected president his vice president was Aaron Burr.

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Hamiltons Economic Plan

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- Hamilton proposed that the federal government assume payment of the debts contracted by the states during the revolution. To pay the combined state and federal debt, he devised a financial plan.
o Hamilton proposed that the national government borrow money to be repaid over a long period of time.
o He advocated a national bank to help administer the program, and submitted a variety of takes to pay for it. As the government built financial reserves, it would deposit money into the national bank. Then the bank would lend out providing capital for planters and businessmen.
o A substantial portion of this revenue is to be paid off the debt that would come from high tariffs on imported goods. The tariffs would protect new American industries from cheap foreign competition.
o Objections to the plan were by the antifederalists, who thought that these actions would place power and control in the hands of the few wealthy merchants and businessmen.

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Gabriel’s rebellion

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- Organized by a Richmond blacksmith Gabriel; a plot by slaves in Virginia itself to gain their freedom.
- They planned to march in the city from the surrounding plantations. They wanted to kill some white residence and hold the rest hostage including the governor, until their demand for the abolition of slavery was met.
- The plot was soon discovered and the leaders arrested. Twenty-six slaves, including Gabriel, were hanged and dozens more transported out of the state.

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Toussaint L’Ouverture

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an educated slave on a sugar plantation forged the rebellious slaves into an army able to defeat British forces seeking to seize the island and then an expedition hoping to reestablish French authority. The slave uprising led to the establishment of Haiti as an independent nation in 1804. The Haitian Revolution affirmed the universality of the revolutionary eras creed of liberty. It inspired hopes for freedom among slaves in the United States.

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Missouri Compromise

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Agreement put forward by Henry Clay that allowed Missouri to enter the Union as a slave state and Main to enter the Union as a free state. The Compromise also drew an imaginary line, dividing the new Louisiana Territory into two areas, one north and one south. All of the Louisiana Territory north of this line was free territory. The Compromise also encouraged people in the north to return runaway slaves to their homes and did not prohibit slavery, even in the free territories.

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Monroe Doctrine

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Proclamation in 1823 by President James Monroe. It warned European nations not to get involved in political matters in central and South America. The Doctrine was intended to show that the United States was the only country that could influence such political matters. Further, several countries in South America had recently undergone revolutions against their European colonial owners and ended up with republican governments. The United States agreed with their political philosophy and did not want to see those newly free nations become European colonies again.

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Erie Canal

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One of the longest of the great American canals built in the 19th Century. The Erie Canal extends from the Hudson River to Lake Erie, at Buffalo. The idea was to get goods back and forth from the Great Lakes to New York City (via the Hudson River, which connected with the Erie Canal). The Canal was built between 1817 and 1825 and had paid for itself within 10 years. The building of the Canal also helped settle Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and other states on the Great Lakes.

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Market Revolution

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The Market Revolution was a drastic change in how manual labor was conducted in the U.S. This development was marked by improvements in how goods were processed and fabricated as well as by a transformation of how labor was organized to process trade goods for consumption. It was an explosion in printing. The application of steam power to newspaper printing led to a great increase in output and the rise of the mass-circulation “penny press’ priced at one cent per issue instead of the traditional six.

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Jacksonian Democracy

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Andrew Jackson’s equal political policy became known as Jacksonian Democracy. During the Jacksonian era, the electorate expanded to include all white male adult citizens, rather than only land owners in that group. Jacksonian democracy promoted the strength of the presidency and executive branch at the expense of Congress, whole also seeking to broaden the public’s participation in government. They demanded elected (not appointed) judged and rewrote many state constitutions to reflect the new values. In national terms the Jacksonians favored geographical expansion, justifying it in terms of Manifest Destiny. There was usually a consensus among both Jacksonians and Whigs that battles over slavery should be avoided.

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Spoil System

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The Spoil System is a practice where a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working towards victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party.

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Manifest Destiny

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In the 19th century Manifest Destiny was a belief that was widely held. It was the destiny of American settlers to expand and move across the continent to spread their traditions and their institutions. While at the same time enlightening more primitive nations. American settlers of the time considered Indians and Hispanics to be inferior and therefore deserving of cultivation. The settlers considered the United Stated to be the best possible way to organize a country so they felt the need to remake the world in the image of their own country.

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Cotton Kingdom

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The Cotton Kingdom refers to the cotton-producing region of the South up until the Civil War. White settlers from Virginia and the Carolinas forced the original Native American inhabitants farther and farther west, they moved in and established plantations. The predominant feature of the Cotton Kingdom was the employment of slave labor.

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Second Great Awakening

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The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant renewal movement throughout the early 19th century in the US. Membership increased quickly between Baptist and Methodist gathering, whose evangelists led the movement. It has been defined as a reaction against skepticism, deism and rational Christianity, although why those forces became pressing enough at the time to spark revivals is not entirely understood.

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Seneca falls convention

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The Seneca Falls Convention was the first women’s rights convention in the Unites States. It was organized by a handful of women who were active in the abolition and temperance movements. It was held in Seneca Falls, New York on July 19th through the 20th. Intended to call attention to unfair treatment of women, the convention was attended by about 300 people, including about 40 men. The Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions issued by the Convention, which was modeled after the Declaration of Independence, detailed the “injuries and usurpations” that men had inflicted upon women and demanded that women be granted all of the rights and privileges that men possessed, including the right to vote.

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Wilmot Proviso

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The Wilmot Proviso was an amendment to a bill put before the U.S House of Representatives during the Mexican War; it provided an appropriation of 2 million dollars to enable President Polk to negotiate a territorial settlement with Mexico. David Wilmot introduced an amendment to the bill stipulating that none of the territory acquired in the Mexican War should be open to slavery. The Wilmot Proviso created great bitterness between North and South and helped crystalize the conflict over the extension of slavery.

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Dred Scott Case

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It began on April 6th, 1846, when Scott filed suit in Missouri state court. He was in Missouri, still enslaved, and belonging to the wife of Dr. John Emerson, who had bought Scott originally in the early 1830s. Emerson died in 1843 and left Scott as a possession of his wife. Before that Scott had traveled with the Emerson’s around Illinois and Wisconsin, two territories that didn’t allow slavery. In fact, the Emerson’s and Scott had lived in both territories for a period of times. Ehen the lawsuit was filed however, Mrs. Emerson and Scott were living in Missouri. This fact would be a key factor in the ultimate decision of the Supreme Court. Scott filed suit against Mrs. Emerson, claiming that she had beaten him severely and imprisoned him for several hours. He also claimed that he was due freedom because he had lived in Illinois and Wisconsin Territories. The Missouri Supreme Court agreed.

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Underground railroad

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the Underground Railroad was an organization to take slaves to freedom in the North. “Conductors” included Harriet Tubman and many Quakers who believed that slavery was evil and must be opposed. From 1830 to 1860, the Underground Railroad transported more than 50,000 people to safety.

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Nat Turner

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Nat Turners rebellion was one of the bloodiest and most effective in American history. It ignited a culture of fear in Virginia that eventually spread to the rest of the South. In the immediate aftermath of the rebellion, however, many Southern states, including North Carolina, tightened restrictions on African Americans. Over the course of two days, dozens of whites were killed as Turners band of insurrectionists, which eventually numbered over fifty, moved systematically from plantation to plantation in Southampton County. Most of the rebels were executed along with countless other African Americans who were suspected, often without cause, of participation in the conspiracy.

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The Liberator

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The reduction in the cost of printing also made possible the appearance of “alternative: newspapers. The Liberator was one of the two first Native American newspapers.

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Ten percent plan

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Part of Lincolns Reconstruction Plan the Ten Percent plan stipulated that only 10 percent of the electorate had to take an oath of loyalty to the federal government in order for the states to be readmitted into the Union.

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Black codes

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the black codes were a series of statutes passed by the Ex-Confederate States, dealing with the status of the newly freed slaves. They varied greatly from state to state as to their harshness and restrictiveness. Although the codes granted certain basic civil rights to blacks) the right to marry, to own personal property, and to sue court) they also provided for the segregation of public facilities and placed severe restrictions on the freedman status as a free laborer, his right to own real estate, and his right to testify in court. Although some Northern states had black codes before the Civil War, this did not prevent many northerners from interpreting the codes as an attempt by the South to re-enslave blacks. The Freedmen’s Bureau prevented enforcement of the codes, which were later repealed by the radical Republican state governments

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13th Amendment

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Outlawed slavery

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14th Amendment

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anyone who is born in the United States is a United States citizen and should never be deprived Life, Liberty, or Property without due process of law or deny anyone equal protection of the law. (Intended for freed slaves)

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15th Amendment

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Prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on that citizens “race, color.

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Assess the historical significance of the election of 1800 in American political and constitutional history.

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a. Vice Presidential Candidates-There were no “official” vice presidential candidates in the election of 1800. According to the US Constitution, electors made two choices for president and whoever received the most votes became president. The person with the second most votes became vice president.
b. Popular Votes- There were no official vice predidential candidate, however Thomas Jefferson ran with Aaron Burr as his running mate. Their “ticket” received the most votes and the decision of who would be president was given to the electors.
c. Electoral Vote-There was an electoral vote tie between Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr at 73 votes each. Because of this, the House of Representatives got to decide who would be president and who would be vice president. Alexander Hamilton played a major role in Jefferson’s campaign (somewhat due to the fact that Hamilton hated Burr). After 35 ballots Thomas Jefferson was selected for presidency.
d. States Won- Within the states Thomas Jefferson won eight stated, John Adams won seven, and they split the electoral vote in the remaining states.
e. Key Campaign Issues of the Election:
i. The desire to have a closer relationship with France or with Britain. The Democratic-Republicans tended to side with France while the Federalists sided with Great Britain.
ii. The legality of the Alien and Sedition Acts passed by John Adams. The Democratic-Republicans felt they violated states rights.
iii. States rights versus federal power was in fact a central focus of the election.
f. Significant Outcomes:
i. The aftermath of the Election of 1800 resulted in the passage of the 12th
ii. The election of 1800 is significant because it was marked the first time that one party had replaced another in power in the United States.

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Why would the “plain folk” in the south –those who did not own slaves- defend the “peculiar institution”?

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a. Slavery was a huge part of the South’s economy, and abolishing it would hurt both southerners who owned slaves, and who didn’t. Not only was it a part of their economy, but it was a part of their life. The “plain folk” wanted to defend slavery because they believed that their state had the right to choose. Southerners especially after the civil war wanted nothing to do with the “Yankees” or the Federal government interfering with an issue lake slavery that they felt shouldn’t leave their state government.

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Explain what had made it possible for the Union to ultimately win the war

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a. It is said that the south was counting on the north to give up and let them succeed, however they didn’t take into consideration just how determined Lincoln was to mending the Union. The North had huge advantages in troops, resources, and a better-trained army/navy. The generals threw these things, in huge quantities, at the South. It was not uncommon for the North to lose 3-4 times as many soldiers in battle as the South lost, but still is able to claim victory. It is argued that the battle of Gettysburg was a crucial battle, and had it not been a Union victory some historian predict that there would have been a different outcome. Perhaps the best military commander of all time, General Robert E. Lee made a detrimental mistake during the battle called Pickett’s Charge”

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Use the Lincoln Douglas debate to analyze the uses that divided the union, as well as the republicans from northern democrats.

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Arguably one of the most famous debates in American history are the Lincoln Douglas debates. Senator Douglas was the most important figure in the Democratic Party. His opponent Abraham Lincoln was a virtually unknown Illinois lawyer, who had served one term in congress as a part of the Whig party.
Lincoln's Tactics
Lincoln did not dare to challenge slavery's existence--it was after all left to the states by the Constitition. Most Americans accepted or supported it. And most of those that opposed it had profoundly racist attitudes toward blacks. The famed Lincoln-Douglas debates framed for the entire country the issue of slavery.
Douglas' Tactics
Douglas understanding the essentially racist attitudes of Americans sought to make the debates a discussion of slavery and blacks. He accused Linclon of codeling the blacks. Douglas also stressed the importance of majority rule.
Lincoln's Rebuttle
Lincon replied that while blacks may not be equal that they are entiled to the income that they earn from their labor. Lincoln evoked moral principles. He challenged Douglas on the Supreme Court Dread Scott decession asking Douglas if the decesion did not invalidate his doctrine of Popular Soverignity. I am not sure that Lincoln fully understood the potential impact of that question. He was probably thinking primarily as a debater trying to show ifalaxcies in his opponents thinking.
Freeport Doctrine
Douglas' answer to Linclon's question about the Supreme Court and Popular soverignity essentially ruined his careet. At Freeport Illinois he aserted that that regardless of the Supreme Court, the people of a territory could exclude slavery (August 27, 1858). This caused a virtual lighting bolt in American politics. It was one that Douglas did not fully appreciate. But the South was outraged. And it split the Democratic Party on a regional basis. Douglas until his statement had every prospect of winning the Democratic nomination and doinfg well in the South. But the Freeport Doctrine made his name anethma in the South. Lincoln had virtually singled hasndedly caused Douglas to split the Democratic Party in two.
Election Result
Lincoln won a small majority in the opular voting, a major accomplishment in heavily Democratic Illinois. He lost the election in the Democratic state legislature.
Larger Impact
In debating with Douglas, a principal Congressional engineer of the Compromise of 1850 which had postponed Civil War, Lincoln gained a national reputation. He continued speaking out, assuming the middle ground between the abolistionists and the slave holders of the South. The Lincoln-Douglas deabates were a key element that was to enable him to win the Republican nomination for President in 1860. And because Douglas has split the Democratic Party, Lincoln was able to win the election. And the South by abandoing Douglas had played a major role in Linclon's election.