Lecture 1: The US in the early 19th century

In the first few decades of the 19th century, the US was not the great power that it is today. Although
its population increased steadily –both through natural increase and immigration- it counted only 17
million residents by 1840 (to be compared with the United Kingdom’s (including Ireland) 26.7 million
in 1841). Rural life was the lot of 89% of the population.

Another point to keep in mind is that by modern standards the early American republic was not a
democracy. In 1830, two million people (a little more than 15% of the population) were slaves, and the
law considered them as “chattel” rather than as persons vested with certain rights. In contrast with
slaves, white women were considered as citizens and could testify in court, but their rights as
individuals were limited once they married: according to the common law, a set of legal principles that
Americans had inherited from England, wives could not own property or sign contracts under their
own name. The doctrine of “coverture” held that husband and wife were only one person in the eyes
of the law –and that person was the husband. Finally, Native Americans were first considered as foreign
nations, and then as “domestic, dependent nations” as the US Supreme Court held in 1831, which
meant that the laws protecting US citizens did not apply to them.

This lecture depicts some of the changes that transformed US society and politics in the period
between 1800 and 1840. It provides broad context for understanding the events that later precipitated
the country into a terrible Civil War.

1) National and regional trends:

A) The consolidation of US political independence:

The war of 1812, also known as the “Second War of Independence”, pitted the new American
republic against Britain, with some Native-American nations fighting against the US. The advocates of
war charged that the UK encouraged Indian rebellion in the Northwest, then the region around the
Great Lakes around the US-Canada border. They also objected to the way the British seized American
ships, enrolled (or “impressed”) American seamen and in other ways hampered US trade and tried to
compel US merchants to serve British interests in their war against Napoleon’s France.

US military operations met with mixed results: the US proved unable to prevent the British
expedition against the District of Columbia and the burning of the US Capitol and of the White House.
At the end of the war in January 1815, and as negotiations for a peace treaty were already completed
in Ghent, US troops led by young general Andrew Jackson defeated British troops in New Orleans.

Although many Americans originally had misgivings about this war with Britain, the war of 1812
helped clear the way for US settlement of the Great Lakes area: the British dropped their support for
the creation of an Indian state between the US and Canada. The war also boosted patriotism: political
speeches celebrated the defense of American honor against British arrogance, calls for national unity
superseded the strife between the political parties of the revolutionary era. The war inspired patriotic
poems and songs such as the “Star-Spangled Banner”, written during the Battle of Baltimore in 1814,
which later became the US national anthem.

B) Mobility and westward expansion:

Geographical and occupational mobility was an important feature of early-nineteenth century

American society. Foreign observers depicted Americans as restless. A study of a sample of the
population of Boston found that only 44% of the people who lived in the city in 1830 remained
residents of Boston in 1840. Farmers and merchants tried to find new opportunities in the Western
territories acquired by the US in 1783 and 1803.

Census figures document the increase of population in the “West”- now the Middle West, i.e.
the area between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi River: the area already claimed 9% of the US
population in 1820, and 20% by 1840.

The formation of new states in the West generally followed a three-step process: new regions
were first organized into “territories” placed under the authority of the US Congress, then their
inhabitants were allowed to elect their own territorial assemblies. Finally, they became states which
meant that they were represented in the US Congress and enjoyed the same degree of political
autonomy as the other states. Examples of new states formed in the early 19 th century include
Mississippi in 1817, Illinois in 1818, Missouri in 1821. By 1840 the US counted 26 states (to be
compared with the 13 states of the original Republic).

C) Divergent regional paths:

Starting with the 1820s, economic developments in the North-East and the South tended to
sharpen the contrasts between these two regions: the North-East chose the path of industrialization,
while the planters of the South embraced the opportunities offered by the growing demand for cotton.
In Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, merchants and craftsmen experimented
with new ways of manufacturing textiles, shoes, tools and machine parts which they sought to sell
both to the growing population of cities and to the farmers of the West. The manufacturing industry
created new jobs for both skilled craftsmen and for machine-tenders and unskilled workers, most of
whom were women and children.

In contrast, Southerners tended to invest their money in the purchase of land and slaves for
the cultivation of cotton, which they exported to England –and to a lesser extent to the Northern textile
factories- in exchange for various manufactured goods. By 1850, the South of the US was responsible
for two-thirds of the world’s cotton production. As cotton crops tended to exhaust the soil, planters
were particularly interested in buying land in the new territories of the Southwest.

These economic trends went along with different attitudes toward slavery, as Northern states
chose various forms of gradual abolition of slavery while Southern politicians only accepted to prohibit
the further importation of slaves from Africa, which had been the subject of a law passed by the US
Congress in 1807.

2) Government and society:

A) The legacy of the American Revolution:

The political system that early-nineteenth century Americans inherited from their
predecessors reflected the latter’s commitment to a federal system of government which split political
power and decisions between state governments and a relatively weak central government –also
called the federal government or the national (or U.S.) government. This choice was reflected in the
very structure of the national government, as the US Senate represented the states (2 senators per
state) rather than electoral districts representing the same number of people as in the House of
Representatives. This was also reflected in the distribution of power between state and national
governments: the regulation of social and economic life rested mostly in the hands of the state
governments while the national government was in charge of national defense, diplomacy, interstate
commerce as well as the administration of Western territories.

Another enduring legacy of the American Revolution was the tension between different
definitions of liberty. Some Americans identified liberty with the rule of law: they viewed national and
state constitutions, laws and the court system as bulwarks against tyranny. On the opposite side of the
political spectrum, radical groups insisted that the “truths” proclaimed in the Declaration of
Independence (that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with
unalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness …”) should be taken
seriously. An American abolitionist movement gathered momentum in the 1830s, led by African-
Americans who had escaped slavery (Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass) and white reformers like
William Lloyd Garrison.

B) The rise of white manhood suffrage :

At the time of the American Revolution, only land-owners and other property-holders were
allowed to vote, on the ground that the people who depended on others for their living were not fully
free and could not be trusted with the power to choose public officials. The transformations of US
society in the first decades of the 19th century tended to undermine this philosophy. With country
merchants, manufacturers, artisans and factory workers becoming more numerous and more
influential in society, the 18th century restrictions on the right to vote were more difficult to justify.

The early- 19th century debates on the voting franchise (“franchise” is an older word for
“right”) took place at the state level rather than at the national level. The US constitution indeed did
not say anything on who had the right to vote in the US. The matter was tackled by state politicians at
different times: the state of New Jersey revised its constitution as early as 1807, granting universal
suffrage to white men, while denying the ballot to women who had previously been allowed to vote.
A constitutional convention (i.e. an assembly called to write a new constitution) in New York state
decided in 1821 that it was no longer necessary to own property to be allowed to vote, except for
blacks. Other Eastern states did away with property and fiscal qualifications, i.e the requirements that
people had to own land or pay a certain amount of taxes in order to participate in elections. The
constitutions of the new states of the West (Kentucky, Illinois, for example) generally embraced white
manhood suffrage.

The result of these laws was that a growing proportion of the adult male population
participated in local and national elections. Around 56% of the adult white men voted in the 1828
presidential election. In 1840, this percentage reached 78%. At that time universal suffrage for white
men existed everywhere in the US, except in a couple of Southern states which followed the general
trend in the next decade.

However, most of the new state voting laws excluded women, blacks and paupers (paupers
were people who depended on public charity) from the vote. The new constitution passed in
Pennsylvania in 1838 disenfranchised the free blacks who had previously been able to vote. As far as
women were concerned, the law-makers of the Jacksonian era held that they were already
represented in politics by their husbands, therefore they did not need the right to vote. According to
the commonly-accepted standards of the time, women should concentrate on their role as wives and
mothers and remain aloof from the public sphere. Public speaking was deemed improper for a woman.
The female activists of the abolitionist movement disagreed. Among them, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth
Cady Stanton organized the first women’s rights convention at Seneca Falls (in New York State) in July
1848. The final Declaration of the convention rephrased the Declaration of Independence, stating that
“all men and women are created equal”.

C) Party politics in the Jacksonian era:

The broad participation of white men in elections increased the importance of political parties
in social life. Instead of being merely elite political clubs, political parties tried to appeal to a broad
spectrum of citizens. More and more public offices in local governments and local courts became
elective offices, and it was understood that government jobs like postmaster or customs house
inspector were controlled by political parties and changed hands when a new party was elected (this
system was called the spoils system) . The rise of disputed elections also gave an impetus to partisan
newspapers such as the New York Sun, launched in 1834.

The success of Andrew Jackson, a military hero who represented the “frontier” of the
Southwest (Tennessee) and depicted himself as the embodiment of the “common man”, exemplifies
the transformation of Jefferson’s old party into a well-organized Democratic Party which effectively
used public offices to foster loyalty and to obtain support and votes in the population at large. Jackson
was personally popular with voters, but he was also backed by the leaders of the Democratic Party in
New York City. Elected President twice (in 1828 and 1832), Jackson left his name to the whole period
between the 1820s and the late 1840s. By 1832, his opponents started calling themselves the Whigs,
using the name of the British critics of royal power.

The main problem of the politicians of the Jacksonian era was to define a national policy that
would suit the diverse economic interests of the different regions of the US. Regional (often called
sectional) conflict flared on at least two occasions: in 1820, when Missouri applied to join the United
States, the New England politicians and their allies objected that Missouri allowed slavery, which could
result in the balance of power between slave and free states tilting on the side of the former. A solution
was found with the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which created a free state in the North, the state
of Maine, to balance the admission of Missouri. The tariff –customs duties on imported goods- was
another bone of contention, as the politicians from Northern industrial states tried to protect their
manufacturing industry against the competition of England and raise revenue for the national
government to finance infrastructure (canals and railroads) in the West. Although the Democrats
generally supported the South and the autonomy of the states, Andrew Jackson had to impose a
compromise on the tariff issue in order to please South Carolina in 1832-1833.

Conclusion:

Overall, the Jacksonian era was a period of growing interest and participation in politics in the US, at
least for white men. The enlargement of the voting franchise highlighted the exclusion of large sections
of the population. Even among the 170 000 free blacks who lived in the North by 1840, only the
residents of five New England states were allowed to vote. Besides this dynamics of exclusion,
however, more inclusive social movements also developed in the Jacksonian era, mostly through
religious institutions and reform associations. Largely ignored by mainstream politicians at first, these
associations gathered momentum and helped change the political agenda of the next decades.

EPV

Bibliography: Alexander Keyssar, The Right to Vote. The Contested History of Democracy in the United
States, New York, Basic Books, 2000.