War with Mexico

I think that the most important perspectives that were missing from this passage is how the Native Americans would of felt since they were probably going to be forced to move once more. Since the first time they were moved was when Andrew Jackson had them leave, when it was known as the Trail of Tears. Another possible perspective that is missing is the slave’s perspective. The Union was deciding the fate of the slaves but the slaves, obviously, had no say in this.

            Well from what I know. The way that people I know, they see the United States as bullies and aggressors. I still see the people of the United States as ambitious people who just want to prosper in this world. The Americans just believed in Manifest Destiny and they wanted to fulfill “the prophecy”.

Original Proposed 13th Amendment to the Constitution Assignment

Well in the first excerpt, Lincoln is saying that he is aware that the South is afraid of the Republican Administration that’s about to get in office. He is clarifying that the South shouldn’t be afraid because no one and nothing will be endangered. The South was afraid that “their peace and personal security” will be endangered. He clarifies his statement even more by saying that he wont “interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exist.” He states that ALL states will be provided with protection when asked for protection. It will provide protection for every state.

In excerpt two, he says that an untitled amendment has been passed that’s says that the “Federal Government shall never interfere with the domestic institutions of the States.” He also says that he cannot promote it and/or change the amendment.

 Abraham Lincoln mentions that slavery won’t be interfered with as long as it’s in its proposed state. Lincoln also says that apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States...” my guess is that Lincoln is speaking directly to the southern states.

I think that the thirteenth amendment is saying that no more new amendments can be made that will interfere with whats going on in the states. In other words, it cant have the power to abolish or interfere with the States.

Ch. 12: An Age of Reform

1.)  Explore why Americans had an impulse to improve American society in the first half of the nineteenth century.

One of the era’s numerous efforts to improve American society was abolitionism. Abolitionism is a favoring to abolish a practice or institution. Womans’ Rights were also becoming a problem so women protested for their rights. There was a lot of antislavery gatherings against slavery. All of these organizations criss-crossed the Atlantic to promote their cause. “Reform was an international crusade.”

2.) Explain the significance of the abolitionist movement to the idea of American freedom.

The abolitionist movement was the movement to abolish slavery. American freedom was, obviously, the freedom of Americans. These two are significant because if they were to abolish slavery then that would mean that there is really American freedom. Before,  Americans would celebrate the freedom of Americans but the slaves had nothing to celebrate. They were still held back from their freedom, so that made Americans hypocrites.

3.) Analyze the pros and cons of the colonization movement and why many blacks were opposed to it.

The pros for the colonization movement was that the white people weren’t going to see the black people anymore, in which some were very hostile towards them. The colonization movement was for the safety of the both races. Another pro is that slavery was going to end already. A con is that African-Americans were seen as a danger to society. They were never going to be able to be equal to the white people. Another con is that “colonization rested on the premise that America is fundamentally a white society. The blacks were opposed to it because they wanted to be noticed as Americans and they wanted their American rights.

4.) Why was this a period of institution building?

This was a period of institution building because America was in the process of getting their mess in order.  The Americans were trying to get the abolitionist movement in which they tried (and succeeded) to get rid of slavery.They were trying to settle out the colonization movement in which they were trying to get rid of the African-Americans by sending them back to their home country. They were also trying to settle the women’s rights’ movement. So the Americans had a lot on their hands on building their country to a stable and powerful nation.

5.) How did the abolitionist movement and the women’s movement influence each other?

These two events both influenced each other because the abolitionist movement was dealing on giving the slaves their release from slavery, in other words, their freedom. Since the African-Americans were going to get their rights then the women felt like they should be able to do the same, which is also known as the womans rights movement.

Chapter 11 The Peculiar Institution

Explain how important slavery was to the national economy and the emergence of the United States as a great power?

Slavery was important to the national economy because slaves worked in cotton plantations, which cotton had replaced sugar as the world’s major crop produced by slave labor. Since cotton was sold world wide, the slaves were a necessity and they needed more slaves to make more cotton. If there was more cotton to be sold, then the nations economy will prosper and that will make the United States into a great powerful country.

Describe slave culture, explaining the similarities and differences among various regions.

The slaves culture originated, obviously, from African culture. It was shown in their music, dance, religious worship, and their remedies to diseases. The slaves in the United States had a culture binded by two others, the African traditions and their American values and experiences. In the Caribbean and Brazil, most slave cultures were just African traditions, since the slave trade continued in the nineteenth century.

Why did many white southerners support slavery even when they did not actually own any slaves?

The white southerners that did not own any slaves supported slavery because they believed that their economic and personal freedom rested on slavery.

What meanings of freedom were most important to the slaves?

At the time, most blacks were freed already. The most important things were the little things. Free blacks just wanted the same rights as a fellow white man. Blacks had few economic opportunities and they weren’t allowed to vote. They were prohibited from owning dogs, firearms, and/or liquor. Blacks had a lot of restrictions.

What forms of slave resistance were practiced in the American South?

One form of resistance was individual forms of rebellion. That was the most common form of rebellion and it was just sabotaging their masters’ things like the rails, tools, fences, boats, etc., and even thefts of food. Another form of slave resistance was rebelling in a physical way. A group of slaves eventually took over a ship that was transporting them to be sold and they eventually gained their freedom after taking over “The Amistad”.  Another uprising was Nat Turner’s Rebellion in which over 80 slaves killed 60 white people in a form of slavery resistance.

Chapter 10 Democracy in America

How did John Quincy Adams envision the United States becoming the “freest and mightiest nation in the world”?

He wanted the United States to be the mightiest nation in the world by telling legislation to promote agriculture, commerce, manufacturing, and the mechanical and elegant arts.

How did democrats and Whigs differ in their understanding of American freedom and its relationship to governmental power?

The democrats believed that “the government should adopt a hands-off attitude toward the economy and not award special favors to entrenched economic interest.” In the other hand, the Whigs believed that  “via a protective tariff,, a national bank, and aid to internal improvements, the federal government could guide economic development.

What were the main arguments for and against Indian removal?

The first main argument against Indian removal was that the Indians were hostile when they tried to reclaim “their” land. The second main argument was that the Court  had said that they didn’t own the land, they just had the right to occupy it.

How did the Missouri Compromise and the nullification crisis demonstrate increasing sectional differences in antebellum America?

These two events increased sectional differences because the Missouri Compromise just a predicament that the United States was going through. Missouri wanted to get in the union but as a slave state and that was just going to ruin the balance of states which was 11 free states and 11 slave states. So to compromise they made Maine a free state. That caused some controversy but so did the nullification crisis. The nullification crisis was when congress imposed a series of tariffs. Then South Carolina nullified it but President Jackson still sent troops to collect taxes . That caused most of the differences.

Chapter 9 The Market Revolution

What were the major social effects of the market revolution?

The major social effects of the market revolution was that Americans were able to communicate from a distance and travel long distances. They were able to communicate from a distance by using the telegraph and communicate using Morse code which is just a bunch of complicated beeps. Americans and other races were able to travel long distances by using their newly found technology, steamboats for the journeys across bodies of water and trains, for journeys across large bodies of land.

How did ideas of American freedom change in this period?

Well women were deprived of their full rights. Women were seen as quiet and nice people who had to stay home and take care of the kids and of the house while the men went off to work. The man was basically the owner of the woman. He had to manage all of her wages if she had a job. Women didn’t feel free and so they wanted to be independent with the same rights as men.

What revolutionary changes did American slavery undergo in this period?

Enslaved blacks and even free blacks were discriminated in every way just because of their color. Free blacks would always get harassed by the white people and their would even be mobs going to their neighborhoods just to harass them. The blacks were excluded from the new economic oppurtunities.

What role did immigration play in the market revolution?

Immigration waves were “infesting” American land and the Americans didn’t like it. To the native-born Americans, the immigrants were just taking up space and making the United States look bad by their addiction to liquor. They were also taking all the jobs for the whites. So the Americans were pissed and they rebelled and protested to limit the number of immigrants coming to America. So immigration didn’t go good in the market revolution.

The Second Great Awakening both took advantage of the market revolution and criticized its excesses. Explain this statement.

The ministers of the Second Great Awakening took advantage of the oppurtunities of the market revolution and  they started spreading the word. They started raising funds for themselves. It was a contradiction though because the revivalists “railed against greed and indifference to the welfare of others as sins.” But the revivals still thrived in areas caught up in the rapid expansion of the market economy.

Princeton Review Chapter 10 Summary with BOLD Terms

                   The Election of John Quincy Adams 

The congressional caucuses chose their parties’ nominee and once a group of individuals challenged the nomination, that brought on the demise of the caucus system. 

Andrew Jackson was supposed to become the 6^th president of the United States but he was cheated by The Speaker of the House Clay, in which he appointed John Quincy Adams. John Adams then made him secretary of state. That was known as a corrupt bargain. Jackson’s supporters supported states’ rights so all of John Adams ideas to better the nation were rejected.

                     

                    The Jackson Presidency And Jacksonian Democracy

In the next election, Jackson rallied up plenty of people and that was the first known political party, the Democratic party. The first political debate was between Adams and Jackson, in which it got very hostile. Then the Coffin Handbill was released to try to get Jackson out of the election. The Coffin Handbill accused of murdering his own men. Jackson was accused of practicing the spoils system, which is “trading jobs for political favors.”

Jacksonian Democracy was simply benefitting from the universal white manhood suffrage, which was voting rights to ALL white men. Jefferesonian Democracy was basically limiting the power of the central government. Jackson was one of the most criticized presidents of the time and his policies were at fault. The Indian Removal Act speaks for itself. But the mistreatment of the Indians had started way before Jackson, for example the Proclamation of 1763 which had to get rid of the Indians so there could be 4 new colonies right after the French and Indian War. Jackson was focusing a lot on plainly nullification, which is just disobeying laws if you find them unconstitutional. The judicial review is just a review of legislative and executive actions.

The Tariff of 1828 turned bad when Americans started rebelling against it and since Jackson believed in states’ rights so he threatened to send in the troops.

Jackson tried his best to downsize the central government by vetoeing the Second Bank of the United States. Money shortages helped trigger the Panic of 1837.

In slavery, the black people were subjected to the black codes, which were special laws for slaves. Slavery was a big problem and Nat Turner’s Rebellion was a rebellion in which the slaves killed sixty white males.

                   The Election of 1836 And The Rise of the Whigs

A new political party was the Whigs and they believed in activism.

Martin Van Buren became president when there was a major economic crisis.

William Henry Harrison was the first Whig president but he died soon after of pneumonia, and his vice president took over which was John Tyler.

                               Beginnings of a Market Economy

The revolution of transportation caused companies to transport their products world wide and that caused a market economy. Market economy isn’t a safe system, any miscommunication can lead to a hault in production which could effect the economy drastically, that is called the boom-and-bust cycles. The War of 1812 caused the U.S. so they improvised and Eli Whitney created the cotton gin which made it easier to take out the seed in cotton. His inventions promoted assembly line production,which was just assigning one worker one task for the creation of the product. That made things faster. Machine-tool industry made machines that specialized in textiles and transportation.

                                    The North and the Textile Industry

The power loom was created so workers could finish the thread and fabric in the factory. The Lowell system was created to guarantee employees housing. Labor Unions were also created to protect workers rights. It was all a cycle, Clothing Manufacturers would finish the product, Retailers sold the product, Brokers were the middlemen, Commercial Banks lent money.

                        Transportations: Canals, Railroads, Highways, and Steamships

The Erie Canal is a man made canal which helped transportation expand and it was part of the canal era. This helped steamships have shorter and/or easier routes to cover. Another form of transportation was railroads which helped alot for land transportation. To communicate from a distance they used the telegraph and created morse code to communicate with each other.

                                                  Westward Expansion

America tried to copy Great Britains idea of Manifest Destiny and they called it Americas Manifest Destiny, which ment that it was God's plan for them to expand westward.

For a time being, Texas was its own country for a while and they were referred to as the Republic of Texas. They became an independent country after they declared independence from Mexico and after the fight in the Alamo. People also started pouring into California once they discovered gold in there and that was known as the gold rush.

                          Economic Reasons for Regional Differences

There was alot of sectional differences in the United States. The North was industrializing. The South just sticked to farming their crops. And the West was sort of in the middle.

                        The North and American Cities

The middle class consisted of "tradesman, brokers, etc." The working class consisted, obviously, of the working families. Many beneath the working class and the middle class lived near poverty or in poverty. Especially the Irish and the Germans who had come through in the immigration waves.

                                                   The South and the Rural Life

Slaves were always known to be inferior to the whites back then that they had to treat them like children. That was known to be Southern Paternalism. Not all white people had slaves though, like the Yoeman farmers never had ANY slaves at all. Landless whites were also deemed inferior to the rest of the whites.

Religious and Social Movements

The Second Great Awakening was the second religious revival in North America. That was an intense period for evangelicalism. There were religious groups that stopped gambling and outlawed lotteries and prostitution.

The Abolition Movement

Immedialists were whites who wanted slavery abolished immediately. A famous member was William Lloyd Garrison. Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, and Sojourner Truth were all african Americans who were tired of the whites oppression and wanted a change.