History 147 OB Chapter 2

 

For each chapter of OB, you should read the entire chapter and take notes (which you will likely use on the respective assignment, as well as in your Midterm/Final Exam studying and other course work).  Once you have finished reading the Chapter, you should look at the “Post-Reading Questions” at the end of the Chapter and CHOOSE ONE of the Post-Reading Questions answer. Alternatively, you can choose the “Journal Option” (Option 3 below). For each question set, you should write a 1-2 page typewritten response, being sure to use information directly from the documents themselves.  Each answer should also include at least one direct quotation from at least three of the sources referenced in the question (for a total of at least three quotes).  Each question set’s answer is worth a possible 2 points.  Late Assignments will NOT be accepted.  

The questions (you should CHOOSE ONE to answer) for Chapter 2 are:

1. Alexander Hamilton (Document 1) and Thomas Jefferson (Document 2) had very different visions of what the United States should look like. Discuss each man’s vision and the pros and cons of each vision and assess, historically, which one you think would have been more attractive to Americans at the time, being sure to use specific examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this chapter.
2. Using the remainder of the primary source documents in this chapter, discuss some of the changes that occurred with the growth of the federal government in the Early National Period (i.e. how did the federal government grow and why, what did these changes mean for different groups of Americans, what conflicts did these changes create?). You should be sure to use specific examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this chapter.
3. JOURNAL OPTION: Write 1-2 pages of notes on all of the documents you read in this chapter and, at the end, write down 5 questions (i.e. phrases you don’t understand, “aha!” moments you had, contemporary things that you are comparing the reading to).  Please see the Journal Notes/Questions Guide (under “Files” for more guidance).  Notes/Questions should be typewritten and single-spaced.

CHAPTER3: ANTEBELLUM NORTH, Commerce, Labor, and Activism

1

820-1860
Contents
Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: 1

Documents:

6
Document 1, Competing Views of Life for a Lowell Mill Girl, 1840

(Gilder Lehrman 1840) 6
Document 2, Observation on Lowell by Godfrey Vigne, 1833 (library.uml.edu 1833) 7
Document 3, Thomas Woodcock Writes about a Journey on the Erie Canal 8
Document 4, Harper’s Weekly Guide to Railroad Travel, 1856 (University of Michigan 1855-56) 9
Document 5, Anti-Irish Political Cartoons, 1870 and 1881 (Haug 1881) (Nast 1876) 12
Document 6, The First Editorial of The Liberator (Willis 1831) 13
Document 7, David Walker’s Anti-Slavery “Appeal (PBS.org 1829) 15
Document 8, Edward Lawton writes about the Underground Railroad, 1825 (Digital History 1825) 16
Document 9, Frances E.W. Harper’s Poem, “The Slave Mother” (Poet’s Corner 1854) 17
Document 10, Amelia Bloomer on Life with a “Confirmed Drunkard” (5lit.com 1852) 18
Document 11, A Letter from Anne Weston Warren to the Female Anti-Slavery Society, 1837 (Anne Weston Warren 1837) 19
Document 12, Notes on the Seneca Falls Meeting, including the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments (www.sscnet.ucla.edu 1848) 21

Post-Reading Exercises

28
Works Cited 28

Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: This chapter is the first of four chapters that will cover a time period known as the antebellum period. The antebellum period refers to the years preceding the Civil War (“antebellum” means “before the war”). In the next three chapters, we’ll be looking separately at the regions of the North, the South and the West. In this chapter we’ll be focusing on the North—looking in particular at industry, transportation, immigration, western lands and agriculture— and we’ll also be looking at the women who were making waves in the North in this period.

The early nineteenth century was an important period of development for the United States. The population was booming; in 1790, there were 4 million people living in America. By 1820, just thirty years later, the population had grown to 10 million, so it had multiplied by two and a half times. By 1830, the population was at 12 million and by 1840, it was up to 17 million, meaning that the population had increased by 7 million inhabitants in just 20 years! And by 1860, America was the getting close to being the largest nation in the world, nipping at the heels of Germany and France. The majority of this booming population lived in new western lands or, increasingly over the years, in Northern industrial centers. With this rise in population came a rise in commerce which set into place the development of three major contributors to the American economy: canals; railroads; and factories. The first four documents in this chapter cover these massive economic changes. When you read about the Lowell Mills, the life of a factory worker, the Erie Canal, and railroad travel, how transformative do you think the early 19th century was? What must these changes have felt like to people who had been alive during the Revolution? What effect did these changes have on the United States, in general, and on the North, in particular?

All of this economic development took the blood, sweat and tears of workers to achieve. While the massive population growth of the early 19th century certainly helped, the United States also found itself turning to immigrant labor (and becoming a land of promise and hope for immigrants) in order to sustain growth. Between 1840 and 1850, more than one and a half million people moved from Europe to the United States and in the 1850s, the number had reached two and a half million. The majority of the immigrants in this period came from Ireland and Germany and almost all of the Irish immigrants landed in a Northeastern city like Boston or New York City (causing intense anti-Irish sentiment, which you’ll read about in the fifth document). Why do you think there was such strong anti-immigrant sentiment in this period?

With all of the dramatic changes going on in the North, the divide between North and South was growing ever deeper. As the North focused on industry, commerce and economic stability, the South continued to depend on the system of slavery. As the South continued to focus on maintaining traditional gender relationships and cultural traditions, the North began to expand and challenge the old system. And it was women, perhaps the most, who challenged the Northern cultural and social traditions during the antebellum period. Women were able to change public perceptions about women and change their own status in Northern society by getting involved in reform movements, namely the abolitionist and temperance movements. Women eventually became the major players in the reform movements of the antebellum period, from roughly 1820 to 1860, and becoming involved in reform allowed women, for the first time since the American Revolution, to step out of the confines of the domestic sphere and have a public voice—ultimately, this led some women to fight, specifically, for women’s rights.

Abolitionism was one of the reform movements that women got involved in. Abolitionism was the term given to the anti-slavery movement in America. The national crusade against slavery basically began in the 1830s, largely because of the efforts of a man named William Lloyd Garrison and his Boston newspaper, The Liberator. Garrison believed that opponents of slavery should focus not on the evil influence of slavery on white society (this had largely been the way anti-slavery activists argued against slavery—they claimed that it made whites more debased, it brought Africans to America, and so on—all things that don’t take into account the awful effects of slavery on the slaves themselves!), but instead on how evil slavery was to blacks, which you’ll see in Document 6. Other men like Edward Lawton and African-American David Walker also denounced slavery and called for its end in the South (Documents 7 and 8). But it was women like Frances E.W. Harper and others who truly took the reins of the abolitionist movement from the 1830s on, helping to make the antislavery movement a vocal and powerful one, while they simultaneously challenged the separate spheres ideology (Documents 9 and 10). What were the goals and the demands of the abolitionist movement? How do you think these organizations made southerners feel about the institution of slavery?

A second reform movement in the antebellum period, in which women would play a large role, was the temperance movement. The goal of the temperance movement was to outlaw the production and consumption of alcohol in the United States; temperance activists claimed that drunkenness was a moral and religious problem that had an ill effect on families. In the early antebellum temperance movement, like the early antislavery movement, women were not permitted as formal members in temperance societies. But male leaders called on women to assist the movement from a subordinate position, and women, particularly Protestant, middle-class women, became increasingly drawn to the movement. These women were drawn to temperance because of its focus on morality and its goal of ridding American society of one of its great social ills, the drinking of alcohol. Temperance groups like the Daughters of Temperance pushed to make alcohol consumption illegal, organized women and meetings to this end, broke into saloons and emptied out alcohol containers, published newspapers, and held large-scale conventions. At one of these conventions, in New York in 1852, women passed a series of resolutions regarding how wives should deal with drunken husbands (Document 10); their words were revolutionary. As you read this document, think about what would have seemed “out of line” for women to be saying and thinking in this time period. On the other hand, why were abolitionism and temperance appropriate places for women to get involved?

With the challenges the abolitionist and temperance movements posed to the separate spheres ideology, it should come as no surprise that the women’s rights movement, or as it has often been called, the first wave of feminism, largely grew out of these two reform movements. Women’s activism in the temperance movement and the abolitionist movement got women thinking about their own rights, in particular their economic and legal rights. This thinking

brought together a number of women in 1848 to the Seneca Falls Convention, where a discussion was started about what rights women deserved and needed granted by law to them, as well as a discussion about the merits of starting a fight for women’s suffrage. Document 12 covers the Seneca Falls Convention. What demands did women make at Seneca Falls? Do these seem unreasonable for the time period? Why or why not? Why did they model their Declaration after the Declaration of Independence?

The antebellum North was a rapidly developing and modernizing region. The growth of industry, commerce, the population and activism contributed to a diverse and untraditional society, which seemed to fly in the face of southern convention. The differences mounted between the north and the south, contributing to a growing set of tensions between the two halves of the United States.

Documents:

Document 1, Competing Views of Life for a Lowell Mill Girl, 1840 (Gilder Lehrman 1840)[footnoteRef:1] [1: Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes: An Article from the Boston Quarterly Review, Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1840; A Factory Girl, “Factory Girls,” Lowell Offering, December 1840.]

Orestes Brownson, The Laboring Classes: An Article from the Boston Quarterly Review, Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1840.

The operatives are well dressed, and we are told, well paid. They are said to be healthy, contented, and happy. This is the fair side of the picture . . . There is a dark side, moral as well as physical. Of the common operatives, few, if any, by their wages, acquire a competence . . . the great mass wear out their health, spirits, and morals, without becoming one whit better off than when they commenced labor. The bills of mortality in these factory villages are not striking, we admit, for the poor girls when they can toil no longer go home to die. The average life, working life we mean, of the girls that come to Lowell, for instance, from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, we have been assured, is only about three years. What becomes of them then? Few of them ever marry; fewer still ever return to their native places with reputations unimpaired. “She has worked in a Factory,” is almost enough to damn to infamy the most worthy and virtuous girl.

A Factory Girl, “Factory Girls,” Lowell Offering, December 1840

Whom has Mr. Brownson slandered? . . . girls who generally come from quiet country homes, where their minds and manners have been formed under the eyes of the worthy sons of the Pilgrims, and their virtuous partners, and who return again to become the wives of the free intelligent yeomanry of New England and the mothers of quite a proportion of our future republicans. Think, for a moment, how many of the next generation are to spring from mothers doomed to infamy! . . . It has been asserted that to put ourselves under the influence and restraints of corporate bodies, is contrary to the spirit of our institutions, and to that love of independence which we ought to cherish. . . . We are under restraints, but they are voluntarily assumed; and we are at liberty to withdraw from them, whenever they become galling or irksome. Neither have I ever discovered that any restraints were imposed upon us but those which were necessary for the peace and comfort of the whole, and for the promotion of the design for which we are collected, namely, to get money, as much of it and as fast as we can; and it is because our toil is so unremitting, that the wages of factory girls are higher than those of females engaged in most other occupations. It is these wages which, in spite of toil, restraint, discomfort, and prejudice, have drawn so many worthy, virtuous, intelligent, and well-educated girls to Lowell, and other factories; and it is the wages which are in great degree to decide the characters of the factory girls as a class. . . . Mr. Brownson may rail as much as he pleases against the real injustice of capitalists against operatives, and we will bid him God speed, if he will but keep truth and common sense upon his side. Still, the avails of factory labor are now greater than those of many domestics, seamstresses, and school-teachers; and strange would it be, if in money-loving New England, one of the most lucrative female employments should be rejected because it is toilsome, or because some people are prejudiced against it. Yankee girls have too much independence for that. . . . And now, if Mr. Brownson is a man, he will endeavor to retrieve the injury he has done; . . . though he will find error, ignorance, and folly among us, (and where would he find them not?) yet he would not see worthy and virtuous girls consigned to infamy, because they work in a factory.

Document 2, Observation on Lowell by Godfrey Vigne, 1833 (library.uml.edu 1833)[footnoteRef:2] [2: Godfrey T. Vigne, “Six Months in America: Lowell, 1833,” Library of Congress: American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920.]

Lowell, the Manchester of America, is twenty-seven miles from Boston, and may be visited in the way from Burlington to Boston. Twelve years ago there was scarcely a house in the place; and only eight years ago it formed part of a farming town, which was thought singularly unproductive, even in the midst of the sterile and rocky region with which it is surrounded. At present it contains 8000 people, who are all more or less connected with the manufactories; and thirty-three large wheels, which are the movers of all the machinery in the place, are turned by means of canals supplied by the prodigious water-power contained in the rapid stream of the Merrimack river. There is no steam-power there, and consequently little or no smoke is visible, and every thing wears the appearance of comfort and cleanliness. At present there are 50,000 cotton-spindles in operation at Lowell, besides a satinet and carpet manufactory. A good English carpet weaver who understands his business, may earn a dollar a-day; but the calico weaving is chiefly performed by females, whose general neatness of appearance reflects the greatest credit upon themselves and their employers. No less than 40,000 additional spindles had been contracted for, and workmen were employed upon them in the large building called the machine-shop, which of itself is well worth the attention of the traveller. The vast buildings belonging to the Merrimack and Hamilton companies, are very conspicuous from the road by which the town is approached from Boston, particularly the latter, which are ranged along the side of the canal. As yet there is, I believe, no linen manufactory in the United States. Lowell contains the most extensive cotton-works; but as a manufacturing town merely, its population and business are perhaps trebled at Pittsburgh on the Ohio. The scenery about Lowell is not deficient in interest and beauty, but it scarcely merits further description.

Document 3, Thomas Woodcock Writes about a Journey on the Erie Canal (www.eduplace.com 1836)[footnoteRef:3] [3: Thomas S. Woodcock, New York to Niagara, 1836: The Journal of Thomas S. Woodcock, edited by Deoch Fulton, New York Public Library. Copyright 1999 Houghton Mifflin Company. ]

. . . These Boats have three Horses, go at a quicker rate, and have the preference in going through the locks, carry no freight, are built extremely light, and have quite Genteel Men for their Captains, and use silver plate. The distance between Schenectady and Utica is 80 Miles, the passage is $3.50, which includes board. There are other Boats called Line Boats that carry at a cheaper rate, being found for 2/3 of the price mentioned. They are larger Boats, carry freight, have only two horses, and consequently do not go as quickly, and moreover have not so select a company. Some boats go as low as 1 cent per Mile, the passengers finding themselves.

The Bridges on the Canal are very low, particularly the old ones. Indeed they are so low as to scarcely allow the baggage to clear, and in some cases actually rubbing against it. Every Bridge makes us bend double if seated on anything, and in many cases you have to lie on your back. The Man at the helm gives the word to the passengers: “Bridge,” “very low Bridge,” “the lowest in the Canal,” as the case may be. Some serious accidents have happened for want of caution. A young English Woman met with her death a short time since, she having fallen asleep with her head upon a box, had her head crushed to pieces. Such things however do not often occur, and in general it affords amusement to the passengers who soon imitate the cry, and vary it with a command, such as “All Jackson men bow down.” After such commands we find few aristocrats.

Document 4, Harper’s Weekly Guide to Railroad Travel, 1856 (University of Michigan 1855-56)[footnoteRef:4] [4: Harper’s New York and Erie rail-road guide book…with one hundred and thirty-six engravings, by Lossing and Barritt. From original sketches made expressly for this work.: By William Macleod. 8th ed., rev., enl., and cor. to the present date. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library, 2005.]

Document 5, Anti-Irish Political Cartoons, 1870 and 1881 (Haug 1881) (Nast 1876)[footnoteRef:5] [5: “The Ignorant Vote,” Harper’s Weekly, December 9, 1876; “Irish Industries,” Puck magazine, 1881.]

Document 6, The First Editorial of The Liberator (Willis 1831)[footnoteRef:6] [6: Reprinted in Wendell Phillips Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life, Told by His Children, vol. I (New York: The Century Companion, 1885), 224-226.]

TO THE PUBLIC

In the month of August, I issued proposals for publishing “The Liberator” in Washington City; but the enterprise, though hailed in different sections of the country, was palsied by public indifference. Since that time, the removal of the Genius of Universal Emancipation to the Seat of Government has rendered less imperious the establishment of a similar periodical in that quarter.

During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of the people by a series of discourses on the subject of slavery, every place that I visited gave fresh evidence of the fact, that a greater revolution in public sentiment was to be effected in the free States — and particularly in New-England — than at the South. I found contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slave-owners themselves. Of course, there were individual exceptions to the contrary. This state of things afflicted, but did not dishearten me. I determined, at every hazard, to lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of Bunker Hill and in the birthplace of liberty. That standard is now unfurled; and long may it float, unhurt by the spoliations of time or the missiles of a desperate foe — yea, till every chain be broken, and every bondman set free! Let Southern oppressors tremble — let their secret abettors tremble — let their Northern apologists tremble — let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble.

I deem the publication of my original Prospectus unnecessary, as it has obtained a wide circulation. The principles therein inculcated will be steadily pursued in this paper, excepting that I shall not array myself as the political partisan of any man. In defending the great cause of human rights, I wish to derive the assistance of all religions and of all parties.

Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the American Declaration of Independence, “that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights — among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” I shall strenuously contend for the immediate enfranchisement of our slave population. In Park-Street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829, I unreflectingly assented to the popular but pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this moment to make a full and unequivocal recantation, and thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a sentiment so full of timidity, injustice, and absurdity. A similar recantation, from my pen, was published in the Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore, in September, 1829. My conscience is now satisfied.

I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write, with moderation. No! no! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; — but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD. The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal, and to hasten the resurrection of the dead.

It is pretended, that I am retarding the cause of emancipation by the coarseness of my invective and the precipitancy of my measures. The charge is not true. On this question of my influence, — humble as it is,– is felt at this moment to a considerable extent, and shall be felt in coming years — not perniciously, but beneficially — not as a curse, but as a blessing; and posterity will bear testimony that I was right. I desire to thank God, that he enables me to disregard “the fear of man which bringeth a snare,” and to speak his truth in its simplicity and power. And here I close with this fresh dedication:

“Oppression! I have seen thee, face to face,

And met thy cruel eye and cloudy brow,

But thy soul-withering glance I fear not now —

For dread to prouder feelings doth give place

Of deep abhorrence! Scorning the disgrace

Of slavish knees that at thy footstool bow,

I also kneel — but with far other vow

Do hail thee and thy herd of hirelings base: —

I swear, while life-blood warms my throbbing veins,

Still to oppose and thwart, with heart and hand,

Thy brutalising sway — till Afric’s chains

Are burst, and Freedom rules the rescued land, —

Trampling Oppression and his iron rod:

Such is the vow I take — SO HELP ME GOD!”

[by the Scottish poet Thomas Pringle]

Document 7, David Walker’s Anti-Slavery “Appeal (PBS.org 1829)[footnoteRef:7] [7: David Walker’s Appeal, In Four Articles; Together with a Preamble To The Coloured Citizens of the World, But In Particular, And Very Expressly, To Those Of The United States of America, revised Edition with an Introduction by Sean Wilentz. Hill and Wang, New York, 1995.]

My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens.

Having travelled over a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist — the result of my observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that we, (coloured people of these United States,) are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began; and I pray God that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings under those ancient and heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened and Christian nation, no more than a cypher — or, in other words, those heathen nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon, our fathers ourselves and our children, by Christian Americans!…

… I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant himself, to show me a page of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found, which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family. Can the whites deny this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs? O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling-is not this insupportable? Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our miseries, because they have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves? Oh! pity us we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. — Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of our bodies and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should speak so of a set of men in chains. I do not know what to compare it to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an iron cage, where it will be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go, and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty. So far, my brethren, were the Egyptians from heaping these insults upon their slaves, that Pharaoh’s daughter took Moses, a son of Israel for her own, as will appear by the following…

…I must observe to my brethren that at the close of the first Revolution in this country, with Great Britain, there were but thirteen States in the Union, now there are twenty-four, most of which are slave-holding States, and the whites are dragging us around in chains and in handcuffs, to their new States and Territories to work their mines and farms, to enrich them and their children-and millions of them believing firmly that we being a little darker than they, were made by our Creator to be an inheritance to them and their children for ever-the same as a parcel of brutes.

Are we MEN! ! — I ask you, O’ my brethren I are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they not to make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the body, as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as ours? — What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself? How we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as ourselves or not, I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell — but I declare, we judge men by their works…

…See your Declaration Americans! ! ! Do you understand your won language? Hear your languages, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776 — “We hold these truths to be self evident — that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL! ! that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness! !” Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us — men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation! ! ! ! ! !

Document 8, Edward Lawton writes about the Underground Railroad, 1825 (Digital History 1825)[footnoteRef:8] [8: Edward Lawton to Thomas Evans, Newport, Rhode Island, 1825.]

In the summer of 1822 or 23, a person by the name of Anthony Barklay, or Barclay came from the south to spend the summer here accompanied by his Family in which was included a black girl held by him as a slave. Although professing great suavity of manners and much apparent kindness the master & mistress of this girl treated her with great severity, so much so as to induce some of the friends of Freedom in this place to assist her in making her escape from such intolerable and cruel servitude. She has been pursued by her master with the most implacable determination and there is reason to fear that if he should succeed in recovering her that her persecutions would be redoubled. Thus far the exertions of her friends have been successful in withholding her from his grasp, but information has reached here that Barclay will be here soon (perhaps this day) that he is still determined to recover his slave, and it is also known that many persons who are not to be trued, nay many who are seeking to betray her are possessed of the leading circumstances of her present condition and only want his arrival to disclose them to him. She has been residing in the Family of Nathaniel Hathaway in New Bedford, whose wife was Anna Shoemaker of Philadelphia, who is on a visit among her connections there and has the girl with her. I am unacquainted with the persons mentioned but have the information from an undoubted source in New Bedford by a Letter received this morning. The object of this letter is obviously to obtain for this unfortunate, and I am informed, very deserving girl, the speedy and effectual protection which her case demands, and which will I presure be a sufficient apology for this hasty address from an entire stranger.

Document 9, Frances E.W. Harper’s Poem, “The Slave Mother” (Poet’s Corner 1854)[footnoteRef:9] [9: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, “The Slave Mother,” American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century (The Library of America, 1993).]

HEARD you that shriek? It rose

So wildly on the air,

It seemed as if a burden’d heart

Was breaking in despair.

Saw you those hands so sadly clasped-

The bowed and feeble heart-

The suddering of that fragile form-

That look of grief and dread?

Saw you the sad, imploring eye?

Its every glance was pain,

As if a storm of agony

Were sweeping through the brain.

She is a mother pale with fear,

Her boy clings to her side,

And in her kirtle vainly tries

His trembling form to hide.

He is not hers, although she bore

For him a mother’s pain;

He is not hers, although her blood

Is coursing through his veins!

He is not hers, for cruel hands

May rudely tear apart

The only wreath of household love

That binds her breaking heart.

His love has been a joyous light

That o’er her pathway smiled,

A fountain gushing ever new,

Amid life’s desert wild.

His lightest word has been a tone

Of music round her heart,

Their lives a streamlet blent in one-

Oh, Father! must they part?

They tear him from her circling arms,

Her last and fond embrace.

Oh! never more may her sad eyes

Gaze on his mournful face.

No marvel, then, these bitter shrieks

Disturb the listening air:

She is a mother, and her heart

Is breaking in despair.

Document 10, Amelia Bloomer on Life with a “Confirmed Drunkard” (5lit.com 1852)[footnoteRef:10] [10: History of Woman Suffrage, Edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Illustrated with Steel Engravings. In Three Volumes. VOL. I, 1848-1861. Rochester, NY: Charles Mann, 1881.]

We believe the teachings which have been

given to the drunkard’s wife, inculcating duty

the commendable examples of angelic wives

which she has been exhorted to follow have

done much to continue and aggravate the vices

and crimes of society growing out of intemper-

ance. Drunkenness is ground for divorce, and

every woman who is tied to a confirmed drunk-

ard should sunder the ties : and if she do it

not otherwise, the law should compel it, espe-

cially if she have children.

“We are told that such sentiments are ex-

ceptional, abhorrent, that the moral sense of

society is shocked and outraged by their pro-

mulgation. Can it be possible that the moral

sense of a people is more shocked at the idea

of a pure-minded, gentle woman sundering the

tie which binds her to a loathsome mass of cor-

ruption, than it is to see her dragging out her

days in misery tied to his besotted and filthy

carcass ? Are the morals of society less endan-

gered by the drunkard’s wife continuing to live

in companionship with him, giving birth to a

large family of children who inherit nothing

but poverty and disgrace, and who will grow

up criminal and vicious, filling our prisons and

penitentiaries and corrupting and endangering

the purity and peace of the community, than

they would be should she separate from him

and strive to win for herself and her children

comfort and respectability ? The statistics of

our prisons, poorhouses, and lunatic asylums

teach us a fearful lesson on this subject of

morals !

The idea of living with a drunkard is so

abhorrent, so revolting to all the finer feelings

of our nature, that a woman must fall very low

before she can endure such companionship.

Every pure-minded person must look with

loathing and disgust upon such a union of vir-

tue and vice ; and he who would compel her to

it, or dissuade the drunkard’s wife from separat-

ing herself from such wretchedness and deg-

radation, is doing much to perpetuate drunk-

enness and crime and is wanting in the noblest

feelings of human nature. Thanks to our legis-

lature, if they have not given us the Maine law

they are deliberating on giving to wives of

drunkards and tyrants a loophole of escape

from the brutal cruelty of their self-styled lords

and masters. A bill of this kind has passed

the house, but may be lost in the senate.

Should it not pass now, it will be brought up

again and passed at no distant day* Then, if

women have any spirit, they will free them-

selves from much of the depression and wrong

which they have hitherto by necessity borne…

Document 11, A Letter from Anne Weston Warren to the Female Anti-Slavery Society, 1837 (Anne Weston Warren 1837)[footnoteRef:11] [11: Anne Warren Weston. “Letter to the Female Anti-slavery Society,” Digital Public Library of America, August 21, 1837. https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1079 (Courtesy of the Boston Public Library Internet Archive).]

Anne Warren Weston has been directed by the Board of the Boston Female Anti-slavery Society to address the members at this time to assure them that, while “the hearts of many appear failing them for fear, yet it is not so with us. It is a solemn duty to renew our vows of consecration to the cause of the American slave.” This epistle is concerned with the public appearances of women as abolitionists.

Transcript:

Boston. Aug. 21 1837
To the Female A. S. Society

Dear Friends
I am directed by the Board of the Boston Female A.S. Society to address you at this time for the purpose of assuring you that though the love of some of those who have been hither to esteemed as the firm supporters of the A.S. cause, seems to be waning[?] cold, & though some who have put their hands to the plough seem to be looking back and though the hearts of many appear failing them for fear, yet it is not so with us. In times like these, it is highly desirable that all who hold the Abolition faith “undimmed & pure” should declare their assurance to others, that the efforts of those who seek to divide the cause of truth may be discouraged, & the hopes of those who seek to strengthen it confirmed & established. Such being our motive, we do now in this moment of addressing you feel it to be our duty solemnly to renew our vows of consecration to the cause of the American slave, our country men in chains, our brother fallen among thieves, and to declare that the inconsistency, the fear & the timidity of others only supplies to us a new and urgent motive for labouring with ten fold zeal and devotedness. It is not the want of zeal abolitionists to[?] rebuke others for the exhibition of too great and warmth and fervor; we therefore trust you will bear with us, if in this epistle we should seem to utter[?] the language of admonition too freely, or should appear to urge the adoption of our own views too warmly upon the minds of others.

As Abolitionists, we have all, I presume, been subjected in greater or less degrees to misrepresentation, contempt, & persecution; by identifying ourselves in a measure with the oppressed & degraded we have been exposed to a portion of the sufferings that have been heaped upon them; but at the present period [?] we are called upon to meet reproach, not as abolitionists, merely, but as women. So corrupting is the influence that a pro slavery spirit exerts both on the intellect and on the heart that in present age of the world, in the city of Boston, men are not wanting who declare that those women who petition for the abolition of slavery, who form themselves into societies to produce this result and who on every suitable occasion express their unfeigned condemnation of the sin of slaveholding and strive by facts and arguments to establish a similar conviction in the minds of others are sinning against the dictates of womanly decorum and propriety and rendering themselves obnoxious to the condemnation of the Apostle as expressed in the 13th of the 5th Church[?] of Timothy. But this is not wonderful. The theologians who justify from the Scripture the enslaving of a certain portion of their fellow men because of their colour are the very people whom we might naturally expect to find perverting the same sacred oracles in a manner almost equally unjustifiable, to sanction the doctrines of woman’s inferiority & subordination. The fanciful illustrations employed by some of these self elected guardians of female manners would be amusing in the extreme were it not for the reflection that in so as these doctrines are received just so for is a most unhappy & prejudicial influence exerted both on the mind and the heart of the believer. The man who looks upon women merely from the fact of her being such, as a creature dependent and subordinate is cherishing a belief that in the very nature of things that cannot fail to exert a more baneful effect on his own character. To render his actions and his opinions consistent, believing women to be inferior, he must ever remember to address them as such; indeed in most cases no effort of the memory will be requisite; he will do so voluntarily & involvuntarily. But with regard to their doctrine, a difference of opinion exists among women themselves, & while one class cheerfully acknowledges its own dependence and subordination, yet there is another who while they cheerfully acknowledge and fulfill all the duties of their various domestic relations, are not prepared merely by virtue of their being women to declare themselves either subordinate to or dependent. By the first class the variety of men will be flattered & soothed, by the latter it will be outraged and wounded and thus all his association with the female sex, the association originally designed by God for his moral improvement must inevitably produce a result directly the reverse. The social intercourse that should exist between men and women as mutual teachers and aides is destroyed; destroyed however not by the fact of a portion of womankind occupying a false position, but mankind remaining in one. It may be said of women as was said of the West India slaves “They are fit for emancipation but their masters are not.” The difficulty arises not because women are exercising their rights but because men are trying to prevent them. To this fact there are many many noble exceptions. Anti Slavery women should be the last to forget this. The men who are laboring in the cause of human rights are not unaware of the vast scope that those words embrace. As a class it will not be found that they are the people who are sorrowing over their aggrieved dignity…

Document 12, Notes on the Seneca Falls Meeting, including the Declaration of Rights and Sentiments (www.sscnet.ucla.edu 1848)[footnoteRef:12] [12: Seneca Falls Convention, Seneca Falls, New York, July 19-20, 1848, including the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions.]

WOMAN’S RIGHTS CONVENTION.-A Convention to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman, will be held in the Wesleyan Chapel, at Seneca Falls, N. Y., on Wednesday and Thursday, the 19th and 20th of July, current; commencing at 10 o’clock am. During the first day the meeting will be exclusively for women, who are earnestly invited to attend. The public generally are invited to be present on the second day, when Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, and other ladies and gentlemen, will address the convention.

This call, without signature, was issued by Lucretia Mott, Martha C. Wright, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Mary Ann McClintock. At this time Mrs. Mott was visiting her sister Mrs. Wright, at Auburn, and attending the Yearly Meeting of Friends in Western New York. Mrs. Stanton, having recently removed from Boston to Seneca Falls, finding the most congenial associations in Quaker families, met Mrs. Mott incidentally for the first time since her residence there. They at once returned to the topic they had so often discussed, walking arm in arm in the streets of London, and Boston, “the propriety of holding a woman’s convention.” These four ladies, sitting round the tea-table of Richard Hunt, a prominent Friend near Waterloo, decided to put their long-talked-of resolution into action, and before the twilight deepened into night the call was written, and sent to the Seneca County Courier. On Sunday morning they met in Airs. McClintock’s parlor to write their declaration, resolutions, and to consider subjects for speeches. As the convention was to assemble in three days, the time was short for such productions; but having no experience in the modus operandi of getting up conventions, nor in that kind of literature, they were quite innocent of the herculean labors they proposed. On the first attempt to frame a resolution ; to crowd a complete thought, clearly and concisely, into three lines ; they felt as helpless and hopeless as if they bad been suddenly asked to construct a steam engine. And the humiliating fact may as well now be recorded that before taking the initiative step, those ladies resigned themselves to a faithful perusal of various masculine productions. The reports of Peace, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery conventions were examined, but all alike seemed too tame and pacific for the inauguration of a rebellion such as the world had never before seen. They knew women had wrongs, but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased from the fact that they themselves were fortunately organized and conditioned ; they were neither “sour old maids,” “childless women,” nor “divorced wives”, as the newspapers declared them to be. While they had felt the insults incident to sex, in many ways, as every proud, thinking woman must, in the laws, religion, and literature of the world, and in the invidious and degrading sentiments and customs of all nations, yet they had not in their own experience endured the coarser forms of tyranny resulting from unjust laws, or association with immoral and unscrupulous men, but they had souls large enough to feel the wrongs of others, without being scarified in their own flesh.

After much delay, one of the circle took up the Declaration of 1776, and read it aloud with much spirit and emphasis, and it was at once decided to adopt the historic document, with some slight changes such as substituting “all men” for “King George.” Knowing that women must have more to complain of than men under ally circumstances possibly could, and seeing the Fathers bad eighteen grievances, a protracted search was made through statute books, church usages, and the customs of society to find that exact number. Several well-disposed men assisted in collecting the grievances, until, with the announcement of the eighteenth, the women felt they had enough to go before the world with a good case. One youthful lord remarked, “Your grievances must be grievous indeed, when you are obliged to go to books in order to find them out.”

The eventful day dawned at last, and crowds in carriages and on foot, wended their way to the Wesleyan church. When those having charge of the Declaration, the resolutions, and several volumes ,of the Statutes of New York arrived on the scene, lo! the door was looked. However, an embryo Professor of Yale College was lifted through an open window to unbar the door; that done, the church was quickly filled. It bad been decided to have no men present, but as they were already on the spot, and as the women who must take the responsibility of organizing the meeting, and leading the discussions, shrank from doing either, it was decided, in a hasty council round the altar, that this was an occasion when men might make themselves pre-eminently useful. It was agreed they should remain, and take the laboring oar through the Convention.

James Mott, tall and dignified, in Quaker costume, was called to the chair; Mary McClintock appointed Secretary, Frederick Douglass, Samuel Tillman, Ansel Bascom, E. W. Capron, and Thomas McClintock took part throughout in the discussions. Lucretia Mott, accustomed to public speaking in the Society of Friends, stated the objects of the Convention, and in taking a survey of the degraded condition of woman the world over, showed the importance of inaugurating some movement for her education and elevation. Elizabeth and Mary McClintock, and Mrs. Stanton, each read a well-written speech; Martha Wright read some satirical articles she had published in the daily papers answering, the diatribes on woman’s sphere. Ansel Bascom, who had been a member of the Constitutional Convention recently held in Albany, spoke at length on the property bill for married women, just passed the Legislature, and the discussion on woman’s rights in that Convention. Samuel Tillman, a young student of law, read a series of the most exasperating statutes for women, from English and American jurists, all reflecting the tender mercies Of men toward their wives, in taking care of their property and protecting them in their civil rights.

The Declaration having been freely discussed by many present, was re-read by Mrs. Stanton, and with some slight amendments adopted.

DECLARATION OF SENTIMENTS

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a course.

We hold these truths to be self-evident; that all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. Whenever any form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly, all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves, by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to which they are entitled.

The history of mankind is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has never permitted her to exercise her inalienable right to the elective franchise.

He has compelled her to submit to laws, in the formation of which she had no voice.

He has withheld from her rights which are given to the most ignorant and degraded men – both natives and foreigners.

Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides.

He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead.

He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns.

He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes, with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband. In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master – the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement.

He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be the proper causes of divorce; in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women -the law, in all cases, going upon the false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands.

After depriving her of all rights as a married woman, if single and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a government which recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it.

He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow, she receives but a scanty remuneration.

He closes against her all the avenues to wealth and distinction, which he considers most honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is not known.

He has denied her the facilities for obtaining a thorough education – all colleges being closed against her.

He allows her in Church as well as State, but a subordinate position, claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and with some exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church.

He has created a false public sentiment, by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude women from society, are not only tolerated but deemed of little account in man.

He has usurped the prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and her God.

He has endeavored, in every way that he could to destroy her confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect, and to make her willing to lead a dependent and abject life.

Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation, – in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States.

In entering upon the great work before us, we anticipate no small amount of misconception, misrepresentation, and ridicule; but we shall use every instrumentality within our power to effect our object. We shall employ agents, circulate tracts, petition the State and national Legislatures, and endeavor to enlist the pulpit and the press in our behalf. We hope this Convention will be followed by a series of Conventions, embracing every part of the country.

The following resolutions were discussed by Lucretia Mott, Thomas and Mary Ann McClintock, Amy Post, Catharine A.F. Stebbins, and others, and were adopted:

Whereas, the great precept of nature is conceded to be that “man shall pursue his own true and substantial happiness.” Blackstone in his Commentaries remarks that this law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries and at all times; no human laws are of any validity if contrary to this, and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their validity, and all their authority, mediately and immediately, from this original; therefore,

Resolved, That such laws as conflict, in any way, with the true and substantial happiness of woman, are contrary to the great precept of nature and of no validity, for this is “superior in obligation to any other.”

Resolved, that all laws which prevent woman from occupying such a station in society as her conscience shall dictate, or which place her in a position inferior to that of man, are contrary to the great precept of nature and therefore of no force or authority.

Resolved, that woman is man’s equal, was intended to be so by the Creator, and the highest good of the race demands that she should be recognized as such.

Resolved, that the women of this country ought to be enlightened in regard to the laws under which they live, that they may no longer publish their degradation by declaring themselves satisfied with their present position, nor their ignorance, by asserting that they have all the rights they want.

Resolved, that inasmuch as man, while claiming for himself intellectual superiority, does accord to woman moral superiority, it is preeminently his duty to encourage her to speak and teach, as she has an opportunity, in all religious assemblies.

Resolved, that the same amount of virtue, delicacy, and refinement of behavior that is required of woman in the social state also be required of man, and the same transgressions should be visited with equal severity on both man and woman.

Resolved, that the objection of indelicacy and impropriety, which is so often brought against woman when she addresses a public audience, comes with a very ill grace from those who encourage, by their attendance, her appearance on the stage, in the concert, or in feats of the circus.

Resolved, that woman has too long rested satisfied in the circumscribed limits which corrupt customs and a perverted application of the Scriptures have marked out for her, and that it is time she should move in the enlarged sphere which her great Creator has assigned her.

Resolved, that it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise.

Resolved, that the equality of human rights results necessarily from the fact of the identity of the race in capabilities and responsibilities.

Resolved, that the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions, and commerce.

Resolved, therefore, that, being invested by the Creator with the same capabilities and same consciousness of responsibility for their exercise, it is demonstrably the right and duty of woman, equally with man, to promote every righteous cause by every righteous means; and especially in regard to the great subjects of morals and religion, it is self-evidently her right to participate with her brother in teaching them, both in private and in public, by writing and by speaking, by any instrumentalities proper to be used, and in any assemblies proper to be held; and this being a self-evident truth growing out of the divinely implanted principles of human nature, any custom or authority adverse to it, whether modern or wearing the hoary sanction of antiquity, is to be regarded as a self-evident falsehood, and at war with mankind.

At the last session Lucretia Mott offered and spoke to the following resolution: Resolved, That the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous and untiring efforts of both men and women, for the overthrow of the monopoly of the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men in the various trades, professions, and commerce.

The only resolution that was not unanimously adopted was the ninth, urging the women of the country to secure to themselves the elective franchise. Those who took part in the debate feared a demand for the right to vote would defeat others they deemed more rational, and make the whole movement ridiculous.

But Mrs. Stanton and Frederick Douglass seeing that the power to choose rulers and make laws, was the right by which all others could be secured, persistently advocated the resolution, and at last carried it by a small majority.

Thus it will be seen that the Declaration and resolutions in the very first Convention, demanded all the most radical friends of the movement have since claimed-such as equal rights in the universities, in the trades and professions; the right to vote; to share in all political offices, honors, and emoluments; to complete equality in marriage, to personal freedom, property, wages, children; to make contracts; to sue, and be sued; and to testify in courts of justice. At this time the condition of married women under the Common Law, was nearly as degraded as that of the slave on the Southern plantation. The Convention continued through two entire days, and late into the evenings. The deepest interest was manifested to its close.

The proceedings were extensively published, unsparingly ridiculed by the press, and denounced by the pulpit, much to the surprise and chagrin of the leaders. Being deeply in earnest, and believing their demands pre-eminently wise and just, they were wholly unprepared to find themselves the target for the jibes and jeers of the nation. The Declaration was signed by one hundred men, and women, many of whom withdrew their names as soon as the storm of ridicule began to break. The comments of the press were carefully preserved, and it is curious to see that the same old arguments, and objections rife at the start, are reproduced by the press of to-day. But the brave protests sent out from this Convention touched a responsive chord in the hearts of women all over the country.

Conventions were held soon after in Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and at different points in New York.

3. JOURNAL OPTION: For this chapter of OB, instead of answering Question 1 or 2, you may instead choose to turn in a 2-4 page typed document (double-spaced) with brief notes on each document in the chapter, as well as 5 questions about the chapter’s material. Please see the handout under Files titled “Journal Notes/Questions Guide” for more specific instructions on how to do this properly.

Post-Reading Exercises

1. Using Documents 1-5, discuss the changes to Northern life that emerged with growing industrialization, being sure to incorporate specific examples and quotes from the primary source documents.

2. List all of the activism that Northerners were involved in during the antebellum period. Then explain the different factors about the North that made this kind of activism possible.

Works Cited
Document 10: 5lit.com. ( 1852, April 20). 5lit.com. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I, Susan B. Anthony: http://5lit.com/gut_library/Anthony_Susan_B_Susan_Brownell_1820-1906/History_of_Woman_Suffrage_Volume_I.mp3.1399/?page=147
Document 8: Digital History. (1825). Digital History. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Edward Lawton, The Underground Railroad: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=55
Document 11: Weston, Anne Warren. (1837, August 21). Digital Public Library of America. Retrieved December 14, 2017, from “Letter to the Female Anti-slavery Society”: https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/sources/1079
Document 5: Nast, Thomas (December 9, 1876). http://elections.harpweek.com/1876/cartoon-1876-Medium.asp?UniqueID=26&Year= Retrieved December 14, 2017 from Elections, Harper’s Weekly: http://elections.harpweek.com/1876/cartoon-1876-Medium.asp?UniqueID=26&Year=; Haug, C. (1881). www.victoriana.com. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Stereotyping of the Irish Immigrant in 19th Century Periodicals: http://www.victoriana.com/Irish/IrishPoliticalCartoons.htm
Document 2: library.uml.edu. (1833). library.uml.edu. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Library of Congress, American Notes: Travels in America, 1750-1920, Six Months in America, by Godfrey Vigne: http://library.uml.edu/clh/All/vig.htm
Document 1: https://www.gilderlehrman.org/content/lowell-mill-girls-and-factory-system-1840. (1840 9). https://www.gilderlehrman.org/content/lowell-mill-girls-and-factory-system-1840. Retrieved December 14, 2017, from “The Lowell Offering Index,” by Judith Ranta, Center for Lowell History, University of Massachusetts Lowell Libraries, : http://library.uml.edu/clh/index.Html.
Document 7: PBS.org. (1829). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Africans in America, David Walker’s Appeal: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931t.html
Document 9: Poet’s Corner. (1854). Poet’s Corner. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Francis E.W. Harper’s The Slave Mother: http://theotherpages.org/poems/2001/harper0101.html
Document 4: University of Michigan. (1855-56). University of Michigan. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Harper’s New York and Erie rail-road guide book: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=moa;idno=AJA2207.0001.001;cc=moa
Document 6: Willis, J. C. (1831, January 1). America’s Civil War, Sewanee.edu. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from The Liberator, Inaugural Editorial by William Lloyd Garrison: http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/documents/Liberator.html
Document 3: www.eduplace.com. (1836). www.eduplace.com. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from An Excerpt from the Journal of Thomas S. Woodcock: http://www.eduplace.com/ss/hmss/8/unit/act4.1.1.html
Document 12: www.sscnet.ucla.edu. (1848, July 19-20). www.sscnet.ucla.edu. Retrieved 9 July, 2012, from Seneca Falls Convention…including Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/dubois/classes/995/98F/doc5.html

1

CHAPTER4: ANTEBELLUM SOUTH, Slavery and Economy,

1

820-1860
Contents
Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: 1

Documents:

4
Document 1, James Henry Hammond Declares “Cotton is King” (Willis, 1858) 4
Document 2, DeBow’s Review Comments on the Economic Relationship Between the North and the South (University of Michigan Library, 1856) 7
Document 3, Henry Tayloe writes about the Domestic Slave Trade (PBS.org, 1835) 10
Document 4, Slave Jacob Stroyer Talks about Being Sold to the Deep South (PBS.org, 1890) 10
Document 5, Slave James Curry Describes Running Away to the North, 1840 (LearnNC.org, 1840) 11
Document 6, Charles Ball discusses City Slavery (Documenting the American South, 1859) 15
Document 7, Southern Angelina Grimke Decries the Institution of Slavery (Digital History, 1839) 17
Document 8, George Fitzhugh Presents a Pro-Slavery Argument (PBS.org, 1857) 17
Document 9, Senator James Henry Hammond Defends Slavery, 1858 (PBS.org, 1858) 18
Document 10, Dr. Samuel Cartwright writes about the “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race” (PBS.org, 1851) 19

Post-Reading Exercises

21
Works Cited 21

Introduction and Pre-Reading Questions: Like the Northern states, the Southern states were experiencing dramatic growth in the years between 1840 and the start of the Civil War. Southerners had moved out into regions in the Southwest and they had brought both cotton and slaves with them. They expanded other markets to the Southwest, as well, such as sugar, rice, and tobacco and with their increased production in the new Southwestern states, some Southern planters were able to make a lot of money. But with all of this economic and territorial expansion, the South still didn’t experience as dramatic a transformation as the North did in these middle years of the nineteenth century. The major reason behind this was that the South continued to focus almost solely on agricultural production; the focus on industry and transportation that had become so revolutionary in the North was almost completely missing in the South. The major differences between the South and the North at this time, then, were that the North had a good deal of industry, they had sophisticated machinery and transportation, and they were creating goods and services that could be used or traded, while the South focused primarily on agricultural production: on making a staple crop for export that required slave labor. And because of this major difference, the divide between North and South only grew larger, paranoia about the differences only grew stronger, and this, of course, was why the Civil War happened.

While tobacco had been the original, profitable staple crop of the south, by the 19th century, cotton was the major crop grown throughout the south. By the 1850s, King Cotton, as it had come to be known, dominated, fueled and exploded the Southern economy, as James Henry Hammond relates in the first document. King Cotton was being exported for nearly $200 million a year in profit—and this meant it was here to stay. But with just one major crop dominating production, and with little in the way of industry, the South was dependent on the North for nearly all of their industrial goods. Now, there certainly were some Southerners who were embarrassed and worried that the North had such a superior, sophisticated economic structure while the South did not, and some Southerners called on the South to change the system. One man, James B.D. De Bow of New Orleans, spoke frequently in the magazine he published, DeBow’s Review, about how troubling it was that the South had an inferior economic system to the North and how problematic it was (Document 2). He argued that this inferiority caused the South to be dependent on the North’s manufactured goods. De Bow feared the South’s dependency on the North because he feared the North and Northern politicians would always have more power than the South and Southern politicians. But because the agricultural system of the South was extremely profitable, particularly cotton production, few southerners wanted to knock King Cotton off of his throne. What did the Southern economy look like, when compared to the Northern economy? Are there any economic factors that you think contributed to the growing tensions between the North and the South?

Rather, people were migrating by the thousands to the regions of the Southwest where cotton production was developing. These migrants were wealthy plantation owners, in some cases, but many more were small slaveholders or farmers who could not afford any slaves, but who hoped to become wealthy, slave-owning plantation owners. The migrants were also slaves—between 1840 and 1860, about 410,000 slaves came with masters to this region or were sold to masters living in this region. The remainder of the documents in this chapter discuss the institution of slavery, which kept the southern economy afloat and King Cotton in charge. Documents 3-7 illustrate the horrors of slavery, while Documents 8-10 explain the pro-slavery argument that became increasingly prominent among white southerners during the antebellum period. Compare and contrast the two sets of documents—can you see why slavery was both abhorrent and popular? If you were a white, southern, cotton grower, why might you have wanted to keep the institution of slavery intact? If you were a black slave, why would you have wanted slavery to be destroyed?

The South’s economy and slavery were inextricably linked to one another, so much so that the notion of untangling the two was unthinkable to most southerners. Yet, as industry, commerce and activism grew in the North, it became nearly impossible to ignore the moral tensions surrounding slavery. This became even more so the case with westward expansion in the antebellum period, which would ultimately completely shatter the tenuous balance between free and slave that the North and South had agreed upon.

Documents:

Document 1, James Henry Hammond Declares “Cotton is King” (Willis, 1858)[footnoteRef:1] [1: Reprinted in Selections from the Letters and Speeches of the Hon. James H. Hammond, of South Carolina (New York: John F. Trow & Co., 1866), pages 311-322.]

As I am disposed to see this question settled as soon as possible, and am perfectly willing to have a final and conclusive settlement now, after what the Senator from New York [William Seward] has said, I think it not improper that I should attempt to bring the North and South face to face, and see what resources each of us might have in the contingency of separate organizations.

If we never acquire another foot of territory for the South, look at her. Eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles. As large as Great Britain, France, Austria, Prussia and Spain. Is not that territory enough to make an empire that shall rule the world? With the finest soil, the most delightful climate, whose staple productions none of those great countries can grow, we have three thousand miles of continental sea-shore line so indented with bays and crowded with islands, that, when their shore lines are added, we have twelve thousand miles. Through the heart of our country runs the great Mississippi, the father of waters, into whose bosom are poured thirty-six thousand miles of tributary rivers; and beyond we have the desert prairie wastes to protect us in our rear. Can you hem in such a territory as that? You talk of putting up a wall of fire around eight hundred and fifty thousand square miles so situated! How absurd.

But, in this territory lies the great valley of the Mississippi, now the real, and soon to be the acknowledged seat of the empire of the world. The sway of that valley will be as great as ever the Nile knew in the earlier ages of mankind. We own the most of it. The most valuable part of it belongs to us now; and although those who have settled above us are now opposed to us, another generation will tell a different tale. They are ours by all the laws of nature; slave-labor will go over every foot of this great valley where it will be found profitable to use it, and some of those who may not use it are soon to be united with us by such ties as will make us one and inseparable. The iron horse will soon be clattering over the sunny plains of the South to bear the products of its upper tributaries of the valley to our Atlantic ports, as it now does through the ice-bound North. And there is the great Mississippi, a bond of union made by Nature herself. She will maintain it forever.

On this fine territory we have a population four times as large as that with which these colonies separated from the mother country, and a hundred, I might say a thousand fold stronger. Our population is now sixty per cent. greater than that of the whole United States when we entered into the second war of independence. It is as large as the whole population of the United States was ten years after the conclusion of that war, and our own exports are three times as great as those of the whole United States then. Upon our muster-rolls we have a million of men. In a defensive war, upon an emergency, every one of them would be available. At any time, the South can raise, equip, and maintain in the field, a larger army than any Power of the earth can send against her, and an army of soldiers — men brought up on horseback, with guns in their hands.

If we take the North, even when the two large States of Kansas and Minnesota shall be admitted, her territory will be one hundred thousand square miles less than ours. I do not speak of California and Oregon; there is no antagonism between the South and those countries, and never will be. The population of the North is fifty per cent. greater than ours. I have nothing to say in disparagement either of the soil of the North, or the people of the North, who are a brave and energetic race, full of intellect. But they produce no great staple that the South does not produce; while we produce two or three, and these the very greatest, that she can never produce. As to her men, I may be allowed to say, they have never proved themselves to be superior to those of the South, either in the field or in the Senate.

But the strength of a nation depends in a great measure upon its wealth, and the wealth of a nation, like that of a man, is to be estimated by its surplus production. You may go to your trashy census books, full of falsehoods and nonsense — they tell you, for example, that in the State of Tennessee, the whole number of house-servants is not equal to that of those in my own house, and such things as that. You may estimate what is made throughout the country from these census books, but it is no matter how much is made if it is all consumed. If a man possess millions of dollars and consumes his income, is he rich? Is he competent to embark in any new enterprises? Can he long build ships or railroads? And could a people in that condition build ships and roads or go to war without a fatal strain on capital? All the enterprises of peace and war depend upon the surplus productions of a people. They may be happy, they may be comfortable, they may enjoy themselves in consuming what they make; but they are not rich, they are not strong. It appears, by going to the reports of the Secretary of the Treasury, which are authentic, that last year the United States exported in round numbers $279,000,000 worth of domestic produce, excluding gold and foreign merchandise re-exported. Of this amount $158,000,000 worth is the clear produce of the South; articles that are not and cannot be made at the North. There are then $80,000,000 worth of exports of products of the forest, provisions and breadstuffs. If we assume that the South made but one third of these, and I think that is a low calculation, our exports were $185,000,000, leaving to the North less than $95,000,000.

In addition to this, we sent to the North $30,000,000 worth of cotton, which is not counted in the exports. We sent to her $7 or $8,000,000 worth of tobacco, which is not counted in the exports. We sent naval stores, lumber, rice, and many other minor articles. There is no doubt that we sent to the North $40,000,000 in addition; but suppose the amount to be $35,000,000, it will give us a surplus production of $220,000,000. But the recorded exports of the South now are greater than the whole exports of the United States in any year before 1856. They are greater than the whole average exports of the United States for the last twelve years, including the two extraordinary years of 1856 and 1857. They are nearly double the amount of the average exports of the twelve preceding years. If I am right in my calculations as to $220,000,000 of surplus produce, there is not a nation on the face of the earth, with any numerous population, that can compete with us in produce per capita. It amounts to $16.66 per head, supposing that we have twelve millions of people. England with all her accumulated wealth, with her concentrated and educated energy, makes but sixteen and a half dollars of surplus production per head. I have not made a calculation as to the North, with her $95,000,000 surplus; admitting that she exports as much as we do, with her eighteen millions of population it would be but little over twelve dollars a head. But she cannot export to us and abroad exceeding ten dollars a head against our sixteen dollars. I know well enough that the North sends to the South a vast amount of the productions of her industry. I take it for granted that she, at least, pays us in that way for the thirty or forty million dollars worth of cotton and other articles we send her. I am willing to admit that she sends us considerably more; but to bring her up to our amount of surplus production — to bring her up to $220,000,000 a year, the South must take from her $125,000,000; and this, in addition to our share of the consumption of the $330,000,000 worth introduced into the country from abroad, and paid for chiefly by our own exports. The thing is absurd; it is impossible; it can never appear anywhere but in a book of statistics, or a Congress speech.

With an export of $220,000,000 under the present tariff, the South organized separately would have $40,000,000 of revenue. With one-fourth the present tariff, she would have a revenue with the present tariff adequate to all her wants, for the South would never go to war; she would never need an army or a navy, beyond a few garrisons on the frontiers and a few revenue cutters. It is commerce that breeds war. It is manufactures that require to be hawked about the world, and that give rise to navies and commerce. But we have nothing to do but to take off restrictions on foreign merchandise and open our ports, and the whole world will come to us to trade. They will be too glad to bring and carry us, and we never shall dream of a war. Why the South has never yet had a just cause of war except with the North. Every time she has drawn her sword it has been on the point of honor, and that point of honor has been mainly loyalty to her sister colonies and sister States, who have ever since plundered and calumniated her.

But if there were no other reason why we should never have war, would any sane nation make war on cotton? Without firing a gun, without drawing a sword, should they make war on us we could bring the whole world to our feet. The South is perfectly competent to go on, one, two, or three years without planting a seed of cotton. I believe that if she was to plant but half her cotton, for three years to come, it would be an immense advantage to her. I am not so sure but that after three years’ entire abstinence she would come out stronger than ever she was before, and better prepared to enter afresh upon her great career of enterprise. What would happen if no cotton was furnished for three years? I will not stop to depict what every one can imagine, but this is certain: England would topple headlong and carry the whole civilized world with her, save the South. No, you dare not make war on cotton. No power on earth dares to make war upon it. Cotton is king. Until lately the Bank of England was king; but she tried to put her screws as usual, the fall before last, upon the cotton crop, and was utterly vanquished. The last power has been conquered. Who can doubt, that has looked at recent events, that cotton is supreme? When the abuse of credit had destroyed credit and annihilated confidence; when thousands of the strongest commercial houses in the world were coming down, and hundreds of millions of dollars of supposed property evaporating in thin air; when you came to a dead lock, and revolutions were threatened, what brought you up? Fortunately for you it was the commencement of the cotton season, and we have poured in upon you one million six hundred thousand bales of cotton just at the crisis to save you from destruction. That cotton, but for the bursting of your speculative bubbles in the North, which produced the whole of this convulsion, would have brought us $100,000,000. We have sold it for $65,000,000 and saved you. Thirty-five million dollars we, the slaveholders of the South, have put into the charity box for your magnificent financiers, your “cotton lords,” your “merchant princes.”

But, sir, the greatest strength of the South arises from the harmony of her political and social institutions. This harmony gives her a frame of society, the best in the world, and an extent of political freedom, combined with entire security, such as no other people ever enjoyed upon the face of the earth. Society precedes government; creates it, and ought to control it; but as far as we can look back in historic times we find the case different; for government is no sooner created than it becomes too strong for society, and shapes and moulds, as well as controls it. In later centuries the progress of civilization and of intelligence has made the divergence so great as to produce civil wars and revolutions; and it is nothing now but the want of harmony between governments and societies which occasions all the uneasiness and trouble and terror that we see abroad. It was this that brought on the American Revolution. We threw off a Government not adapted to our social system, and made one for ourselves. The question is, how far have we succeeded? The South, so far as that is concerned, is satisfied, harmonious, and prosperous, but demands to be let alone.

Document 2, DeBow’s Review Comments on the Economic Relationship Between the North and the South (University of Michigan Library, 1856)[footnoteRef:2] [2: Debow’s Review, Agricultural, commercial, industrial progress and resources. “The Loss of Our Trade with the North.” New Orleans: J.D.B. DeBow, Volume 20, Issue: 3, March 1856, 391a-392a.]

Document 3, Henry Tayloe writes about the Domestic Slave Trade (PBS.org, 1835)[footnoteRef:3] [3: Henry A. Tayloe to “Dear Brother” (B.O. Tayloe), January 5, 1835. Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama.]

Henry A. Tayloe to “Dear Brother” (B.O. Tayloe), January 5, 1835

From Walnut Grove (Marengo County, AL) to Washington City

George and myself only made 30 bales and George about the same. I wish you may visit me early this Spring to make some arrangements about your Negroes. If they continue high I would advise you to sell them in this country on one and two years credit bearing 8 per ct interest. The present high price of Negroes can not continue long and if you will make me a partner in the sale on reasonable terms I will bring them out this Fall from VA and sell them for you and release you from all troubles. On a credit your negroes would bring here about $120 to $130, 000 bearing 8 per ct interest. My object is to make a fortune here as soon as possible by industry and economy, and then return [to VA] to enjoy myself. Therefore I am willing to aid you in any way as far as reason will permit. You had better give your land away if you can get from $6 to $800 round for your Negroes — and if you will incur the risk with me, and allow me time to pay you, I will give a fair price for one half bring them to this country sell the whole number and divide the proceeds of the sale equally. It is better to sell on time as by so doing good masters may be obtained…. I have rented land for your negroes and Henry Key’s, and shall attend to them faithfully. Gowie [?] ran off about the 18th of December and has not been heard of. I hope to hear of him in a few days that I may put him to work. He went off without any provocation. I expect he is a deceitful fellow.

Document 4, Slave Jacob Stroyer Talks about Being Sold to the Deep South (PBS.org, 1890)[footnoteRef:4] [4: Jacob Stroyer, My Life in the South (Salem: Observer Book and Job Print, 1890).]

When the day came for them to leave, some, who seemed to have been willing to go at first, refused, and were handcuffed together and guarded on their way to the cars by white men. The women and children were driven to the depot in crowds, like so many cattle, and the sight of them caused great excitement among master’s negroes. Imagine a mass of uneducated people shedding tears and yelling at the tops of their voices in anguish and grief.

The victims were to take the cars from a station called Clarkson turnout, which was about four miles from master’s place. The excitement was so great that the overseer and driver could not control the relatives and friends of those that were going away, as a large crowd of both old and young went down to the depot to see them off. Louisiana was considered by the slaves as a place of slaughter, so those who were going did not expect to see their friends again. While passing along, many of the negroes left their masters’ fields and joined us as we marched to the cars; some were yelling and wringing their hands, while others were singing little hymns that they were accustomed to for the consolation of those that were going away, such as

“

When we all meet in heaven,

There is no parting there;

When we all meet in heaven,

There is parting no more.”

We arrived at the depot and had to wait for the cars to bring the others from the Sumterville Jail, but they soon came in sight, and when the noise of the cars died away we heard wailing and shrieks from those in the cars. While some were weeping, others were fiddling, picking banjo, and dancing as they used to do in their cabins on the plantations. Those who were so merry had very bad masters, and even though they stood a chance of being sold to one as bad or even worse, yet they were glad to be rid of the one they knew.

While the cars were at the depot, a large crowd of white people gathered, and were laughing and talking about the prospect of negro traffic; but when the cars began to start and the conductor cried out, “all who are going on this train must get on board without delay,” the colored people cried out with one voice as though the heavens and earth were coming together, and it was so pitiful, that those hard hearted white men who had been accustomed to driving slaves all their lives, shed tears like children. As the cars moved away we heard the weeping and wailing from the slaves as far as human voice could be heard; and from that time to the present I have neither seen nor heard from my two sisters, nor any of those who left Clarkson depot on that memorable day.

Document 5, Slave James Curry Describes Running Away to the North, 1840 (LearnNC.org, 1840)[footnoteRef:5] [5: “Narrative of James Curry, A Fugitive Slave.” The Liberator, January 10, 1840.]

After I was sixteen, I was put into the field to work in the spring and summer, and in the autumn and winter, I worked in the hatter’s shop with my uncle. We raised on the plantation, principally, tobacco, some cotton, and some grain. We commenced work as soon as we could see in the morning, and worked from that time until 12 o’clock before breakfast, and then until dark, when we had our dinner, and hastened to our night-work for ourselves. We were not driven as field slaves generally are, and yet when I hear people here say they work as hard as the slaves, I can tell them from experience, they know nothing about it. And even if they did work as hard, there is one striking difference. When they go home at night, they carry to their families the wages of their daily labor; and then they have the night for rest and sleep. Whereas, the slave carries to his family at night, only a weary body and a sick mind, and all he can do for them is done during the hours allowed him for sleep. A slave, who was hired during one summer by Thomas Maguhee, a rich slaveholder in our neighborhood, soon after his return, passed with me, one day, near a field on his plantation. Pointing to it, he said, ‘I never saw blood flow any where as I’ve seen it flow in that field. It flows there like water. When I went there to work, I was a man but now, I am a boy. I could then carry several bushels on my shoulder, but now I cannot lift one to it.’ So very hard had he been worked. When arranging the slaves for hoeing in the field, the overseer takes them, one at a time, and tries their speed, and places them accordingly in the row, the swiftest first and so on. Then they commence, and all must keep up with the foremost. This Thomas Maguhee used to walk into his field, with his hat close down on his head, and holding his cane over his shoulder. When he came up to the poor slaves, as they were tugging at their hoes, he would call out, ‘boys!’ Then they must all raise their hats and reply simultaneously, ‘Sir.’ ‘Move your hoes.’ They would spring forward and strive to increase their speed to the utmost; but presently he would call out again, ‘boys!’ Again the hats were raised as they answered, ‘Sir.’ ‘I told you to move your hoes, and you hav’nt moved them yet. I have twice to threat and once to fall. (That is, if you do not move faster, I shall knock you down.) Now the poor creatures must make their last effort, and when he saw that their every power was exerted, he would set his hat on the top of his head, taking down his cane, set his arms akimbo and strut through the field.…

When in my twentieth year, I became attached to a free colored girl, who lived about two miles from our plantation. When I asked my master’s consent to our marriage, he refused to give it, and swore that he would cut my throat from ear to ear, before I should marry a free nigger; and with thus he left me. I did not expect him to consent, but I had determined to do in this as I pleased; I knew he would not kill me, because I was money to him, and all the time keeping freedom in my view, I knew I could run away if he punished me. And so we were married. We did not dare to have any even of the trifling ceremony allowed to the slaves, but God married us. It was about two months before he said any thing to me about it. He then attacked me one Sabbath morning, and told me I had broken his orders. He said I should not have my free wife, for he would separate us, as far as there was land to carry me. I told him if I was separated from her, I should choose to be sent away. He then told me that she was a bad girl, and endeavored by his falsehoods to make me believe it. My indignation was roused, I forgot whom I was talking to, and was on the point of giving him the lie, when I recollected myself and smothered my feelings. He then again said he would cut my throat from ear to ear, and if he had his pen-knife, he would do it now. I told him he might kill me if he chose, I had rather die than be separated from my wife. A man with whom he had been negotiating for overseer, was standing by, and he said to my master, I would not do that; you know what the Scripture says about separating man and wife; and he soon desisted and never said any more about it.

But notwithstanding my union with the object of my affection, and the comparatively good treatment I received, I still cherished the longing for liberty, which, from my childhood, had been the prevailing desire of my heart. Hitherto, my attachment to my relations, to my mother in particular, had determined me to remain as long as a strict performance of my allotted labors saved me from being whipped; but the time came, when, having obtained a knowledge of the course which would carry me to Pennsylvania, I only waited for an occasion to escape. It is very common for slaves, when whipped or threatened with a whipping, to run into the woods, and after a short time, when subdued by hunger, not knowing whither to flee for relief, to return and throw themselves upon the mercy of their masters. Therefore, when a slave runs away, on such an occasion, it is expected that he will soon return, and little trouble is taken about it for some days. For such an occasion I now waited, and it was not long before it came without my seeking it. In May, 1837, just after I was 22 years old, the overseer sent a boy to me one evening, with a horse, bidding me go with him to feed him. It was then between nine and ten o’clock at night. I had toiled through the day for my master, had just got my dinner, and was on my way to the hatter’s shop for my night’s work, when the boy came to me. I did not think it necessary for me to go with him, so I told him where to put the horse, and that the feed was all ready and he might throw it in; and then I went to my work at the shop, where I was allowed to make hats, using nothing of my master’s, except tools and the dye, which would be thrown away after my uncle had done with it. In a few minutes, the overseer came in and asked me why I did not go with the boy. I began to reply, by by telling him that I thought he did not care if the horse was but fed, and the boy could just as well do it alone; he said he would let me know that I should obey my orders, and if I did not move and feed the horse, he would thrush me as long as he could find me. I went to the house to obey him, and he followed me; but the horse was fed when I got there. He then swore that he would flog me because I had not obeyed his orders. He took a hickory rod and struck me some thirty or forty strokes, over my clothes. My first impulse was to take the stick out of his hand, for I was much stronger than he. But I recollected that my master was in the house, and if I did so, he would be called, and probably I should be stripped and tied, and instead of thirty or forty, should receive hundreds of stripes. I therefore concluded it was wisest to take quietly whatever he choose to inflict, but as the strokes fell upon my back, I firmly resolved that I would no longer be a slave. I would now escape or die in the attempt. They might shoot me down if they chose, but I would not live a slave. The next morning, I decided, that, as my master was preparing for one of his slave-driving expeditions to Alabama, I would wait until he was gone; that when he was fairly started on his journey, I would start on mine, he for the south, and I for the north. In the meantime, I instructed my two younger brothers in my plans. It happened that on the afternoon of the 14th of June, about three weeks after the whipping I received, and just after my master had set off for Alabama, as we were going to the field after breakfast, to ploughing, the overseer got very angry with me and my two brothers, and threatened to whip us before night. He said that as he could not do it himself, there were men in the neighborhood he could get to help him, and then he walked away. This was our opportunity. We took our horses round to the road fence and hitched them, and ran for my wife’s house. There I changed my clothes, and took my leave of her, with the hope of being soon able to send for her from a land of freedom, and left her in a state of distress which I cannot describe. We started without money and without clothes, except what we wore, (not daring to carry a bundle,) but with our hearts full of hope. We travelled by night, and slept in the woods during the day. After travelling two or three nights, we got alarmed and turned out of the road, and before we turned into it again, it had separated, and we took the wrong road. It was cloudy for two or three days, and after travelling three nights, we found ourselves just where we were three days before, and almost home again. We were sadly disappointed, but not discouraged; and so, turning our faces again northward, we went on.

Near Petersburgh, we passed a neat farm-house, with every thing around it in perfect order, which had once been shown to me by a slave, as I was driving my master’s team to the city. ‘That,’ said he, ‘belongs to a Friend; they never hold slaves.’ Now I was strongly tempted to stop there, and ask instruction in my northward course, as I knew the way no farther; but I dared not. So, not knowing the north star, we took the two lower stars of the great bear for our guide, and putting our trust in God, we passed Petersburgh. We suffered much from hunger. There was no fruit and no grain to be found at that season, and we sometimes went two days, and sometimes three, without tasting food, as we did not dare to ask, except when we found a slave’s, or free colored person’s house remote from any other, and then we were never refused, if they had food to give. Thus we came on, until about forty-five miles from Washington, when, having in the night obtained some meal, and having then been three days without food, my poor brothers begged me to go out of the woods in the day time, and get some fire in order to bake us some bread. I went to a house, got some and returned to the woods. We made a fire in the hollow stump of a tree, mixed our meal with water, which we found near, and wrapping it in leaves, threw it in and baked it. After eating heartily, we began to bake some to carry with us, when, hearing a noise in the bushes, we looked up, and beheld dogs coming towards us, and behind them several white men, who called out, ‘O! you rascals, what are you doing there? Catch him! catch him!’ The dogs sprang towards us. My feelings I cannot describe, as I started, and ran with all my might. My brothers, having taken off their coats and hats, stopped to pick them up, and then ran off in another direction, and the dogs followed them, while I escaped, and never saw them more. I heard the dogs barking after them, when I had got as much as a mile from where we started. Oh! then I was most miserable, left alone, a poor hunted stranger in a strange land—my brothers gone. I know not how to express the feelings of that moment. After listening awhile, I went forward. I had lost my way, and knew not where I was, but I looked at the sun, and as near as I could, pursued a northward course. In that afternoon I was attacked by a wild beast. I knew not what it was. I thought, surely I am beset this day, but unlike the men, more ferocious than wild beasts, I succeeded in driving him away, and that night crossed a branch of the Potomac. Just before I reached the town of Dumfries, I came across an old horse in a field with a bell on his neck. I had been warned by a colored man, a few nights before, to beware of Dumfries. I was worn out with running, and I took the bell off the horse’s neck, took the bell collar for a whip, and putting a hickory bark round his head for a bridle, I jumped on his back, and thus mounted, I rode through Dumfries. The bull-dogs lay along the street, ready to seize the poor night traveller, but, being on horse-back, they did not molest me. I have no doubt that I should have been taken up, if I had been on foot. When I got through the town, I dismounted, and said to my horse, ‘go back to your master, I did not mean to injure him, and hope we will get you again, but you have done me a great deal of good.’ And then I hastened on, and got as far from him as I could before morning. At Alexandria, I crossed the Potomac river, and came to Washington, where I made friends with a colored family, with whom I rested eight days. I then took the Montgomery road, but, wishing to escape Baltimore, I turned off, and it being cloudy, I lost my course, and fell back again upon the Potomac river, and travelled on the tow path of the canal from Friday night until Sunday morning, when I lay down and slept a little, and then, having no place to hide for the day, I determined to go on until I could find a place of safety. I soon saw a man riding towards me on horse-back. As he came near, he put his eyes upon me, and I felt sure that he intended to question me. I fell to praying to God to protect me, and so begging and praying fervently, I went forward. When he met me, he stopped his horse, leaned forward and looked at me, and then, without speaking, rode on again. I still fully believe it was at first his intention to question me. I soon entered a colored person’s house on the side of the canal, where they gave me breakfast and treated me very kindly. I travelled on through Williamsport and Hagerstown, in Maryland, and, on the 19th day of July, about two hours before day. I crossed the line into Pennsylvania, with a heart full of gratitude to God, believing that I was indeed a free man, and that now, under the protection of law, there was ‘none who could molest me or make me afraid.’ In the course of the morning, I was spoken to by a man, sitting at the window of a house in Chambersburg, who asked me if I wanted a job of work. I replied that I did, and he took me into his garden, and set me to work. When the job there was done, he told me I might clean his carriage. At dinner, I ate in the kitchen with a colored woman. She inquired where I came from, I told her the name of the town in Pennsylvania. Said she, ‘I didn’t know but you came from Virginia, or Maryland, and sometimes, some of our colored friends come from there hither, and think they are free, but the people about here are very ugly, and they take them and carry them back; and if you haven’t sufficient free papers, I would advise you not to stay here to-night.’ This was enough for me. I had discovered that the man was very curious about me, and seemed disposed to keep me at work upon little jobs until night. I went out, and jumped over the garden wall, and was soon on the turnpike road. I was very fearful, and came on tremblingly; but near Philadelphia, I fell in with members of the Society of Friends, whom I never feared to trust, who ‘took in the stranger,’ and I worked for them until Christmas.

After finding, to my great disappointment, that I was now a free man, and that I could not send for my wife from here, I determined to go to Canada. But the situation of that country at that time was such, that my friends thought it not best for me to go immediately, and advised me to come into the State of Massachusetts, as the safest place for me until the difficulties in Canada were passed away. I was taken by kind friends to New York, from whence the Abolitionists sent me to Massachusetts, and here I have found a resting place, and have met with friends who have freely administered to my necessities, and whose kindness to the poor fugitive I shall ever remember with emotions of heartfelt gratitude. And here I have fulfilled the promise made in slavery to my Maker, that I would acknowledge him before men, when I came into a land of freedom. And although I have suffered much, very much in my escape, and have not here found that perfect freedom which I anticipated, yet I have never for one moment regretted that I thus sought my liberty.

In a few days I start for Canada, fully believing that he who has thus far protected me, will guide me safely, where, under the free goverment of Queen Victoria, I may feel myself a man. I trust in God.

Document 6, Charles Ball discusses City Slavery (Documenting the American South, 1859)[footnoteRef:6] [6: Charle Ball, Fifty Years in Chains; Or, The Life of an American Slave (New York: H. Dayton, Publisher, 1859).]

One Saturday evening, when I came home from the corn field, my master told me that he had hired me out for a year at the city of Washington, and that I would have to live at the Navy Yard.

On the New Year’s day following, which happened about two weeks afterwards, my master set forward for Washington, on horseback, and ordered me to accompany him on foot. It was night when we arrived at the Navy Yard, and everything appeared very strange to me.

I was told by a gentleman who had epaulets on his shoulders, that I must go on board a large ship, which lay in the river. He at the same time told a boy to show me the way. This ship proved to be a frigate, and I was told that I had been brought there to cook for the people belonging to her. In the course of a few days the duties of my station became quite familiar to me; and in the enjoyment of a profusion of excellent provisions, I felt very happy. I strove by all means to please the officers and gentlemen who came on board, and in this I soon found my account. One gave me a half-worn coat, another an old shirt, and a third, a cast off waistcoat and pantaloons. Some presented me with small sums of money, and in this way I soon found myself well clothed, and with more than a dollar in my pocket. My duties, though constant, were not burthersome, and I was permitted to spend Sunday afternoon in my own way. I generally went up into the city to see the new and splendid buildings; often walked as far as Georgetown, and made many new acquaintances among the slaves, and frequently saw large numbers of people of my color chained together in long trains, and driven off towards the South. At that time the slave-trade was not regarded with so much indignation and disgust, as it is now. It was a rare thing to hear of a person of color running away, and escaping altogether from his master: my father being the only one within my knowledge, who had, before this time, obtained his liberty in this manner, in Calvert county; and, as before stated, I never heard what became of him after his flight.

I remained on board the frigate, and about the Navy Yard, two years, and was quite satisfied with my lot, until about three months before the expiration of this period, when it so happened that a schooner, loaded with iron and other materials for the use of the yard, arrived from Philadelphia. She came and lay close by the frigate, to discharge her cargo, and amongst her crew I observed a black man, with whom, in the course of a day or two, I became acquainted. He told me he was free, and lived in Philadelphia, where he kept a house of entertainment for sailors, which, he said, was attended to in his absence by his wife.

His description of Philadelphia, and of the liberty that I determined to devise some plan of escaping from the frigate, and making my way to the North. I communicated my designs to my new friend, who promised to give me his aid. We agreed that the night before the schooner should sail, I was to be concealed in the hold, amongst a parcel of loose tobacco, which, he said, the captain had undertaken to carry to Philadelphia. The sailing of the schooner was delayed longer than we expected; and, finally, her captain purchased a cargo of flour in Georgetown, and sailed for the West Indies. Whilst I was anxiously awaiting some other opportunity of making my way to Philadelphia, (the idea of crossing the country to the western part of Pennsylvania, never entered my mind,) New Year’s day came, and with it came my old master from Calvert, accompanied by a gentleman named Gibson, to whom, he said, he had sold me, and to whom he delivered me over in the Navy Yard. We all three set out that same evening for Calvert, and reached the residence of my new master the next day. Here, I was informed, that I had become the subject of a law-suit. My new master claimed me under his purchase from old Mr. Cox; and another gentleman of the neighborhood, named Levin Ballard, had bought me of the children of my former master, Jack Cox This suit continued in the course of Calvert county more than two years; but was finally decided in favor of him who had bought me of the children.

Document 7, Southern Angelina Grimke Decries the Institution of Slavery (Digital History, 1839)[footnoteRef:7] [7: Weld, Testimony of Angelina Grimke, 1839.]

I will first introduce the reader to a woman of the highest respectability–one who was foremost in every benevolent enterprise…. This lady used to keep cowhides, or small paddles (called ‘pancake sticks’) in four different apartments in her house; so that when she wished to punish, or to have punished, any of her slaves, she might not have the trouble of sending for an instrument of torture. For many years…her slaves, were flogged every day…. But the floggings were not all; the scoldings and abuse daily heaped upon them all, were worse: ‘fools’ and ‘liars,’ ‘sluts’ and ‘husseys,’ ‘hypocrites’ and ‘good-for-nothing creatures’ were the common epithets which her mouth was filled, when addressing her slaves, adults as well as children….

Only two meals a day are allowed the house slaves–the first at twelve o’clock…. As the general rule, no lights of any kind, no firewood–no towels, basins, or soap, no tables, chairs, or other furniture, are provided…. Chambermaids and seamstresses often sleep in their mistresses’ apartments, but with no bedding at all….

Persons who own plantations and yet live in cities, often take children from their parents as soon as they are weaned, and send them into the country; because they do not want the time of the mother taken up by attendance upon her own children, it being too valuable to the mistress…. Parents are almost never consulted as to the disposition to be made of their children; they have as little control over them, as have domestic animals over the disposal of their young. Every natural and social feeling and affection are violated with indifference; slaves are treated as though they did not possess them.

Another way in which the feelings of slaves are trifled with and often deeply wounded, is by changing their names; if, at the time they are brought into a family, there is another slave of the same name; or if the owner happens, for some other reason, not to like the name of the new comer…. Indeed it would be utterly impossible to recount the multitude of ways in which the heart of the slave is continually lacerated by the total disregard of his feelings as a social being and a human creature.

Document 8, George Fitzhugh Presents a Pro-Slavery Argument (PBS.org, 1857)[footnoteRef:8] [8: George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! Or, Slaves Without Masters (Richmond, VA: A. Morris, 1857).]

The negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessities of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are oppressed neither by care nor labor. The women do little hard work, and are protected from the despotism of their husbands by their masters. The negro men and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, not more than nine hours a day. The balance of their time is spent in perfect abandon. Besides, they have their Sabbaths and holidays. White men, with so much of license and liberty, would die of ennui; but negroes luxuriate in corporeal and mental repose. With their faces upturned to the sun, they can sleep at any hour; and quiet sleep is the greatest of human enjoyments. “Blessed be the man who invented sleep.” ’tis happiness in itself-and results from contentment with the present, and confident assurance of the future. We do not know whether free laborers ever sleep. They are fools to do so; for, whilst they sleep, the wily and watchful capitalist is devising means to ensnare and exploitate them. The free laborer must work or starve. He is more of a slave than the negro, because he works longer and harder for less allowance than the slave, and has no holiday, because the cares of life with him begin when its labors end. He has no liberty, and not a single right. We know, ’tis often said, air and water are common property, which all have equal right to participate and enjoy; but this is utterly false. The appropriation of the lands carries with it the appropriation of all on or above the lands, usque ad coelum, aut ad inferos. (Even to heaven or hell.) A man cannot breathe the air without a place to breathe it from, and all places are appropriated. All water is private property “to the middle of the stream,” except the ocean, and that is not fit to drink.

Document 9, Senator James Henry Hammond Defends Slavery, 1858 (PBS.org, 1858)[footnoteRef:9] [9: James Henry Hammond, “The ‘Mudsill’ Theory,” Speech to the US Senate, March 4, 1858.]

Speech to the U.S. Senate, March 4, 1858

In all social systems there must be a class to do the menial duties, to perform the drudgery of life. That is, a class requiring but a low order of intellect and but little skill. Its requisites are vigor, docility, fidelity. Such a class you must have, or you would not have that other class which leads progress, civilization, and refinement. It constitutes the very mud-sill of society and of political government; and you might as well attempt to build a house in the air, as to build either the one or the other, except on this mud-sill. Fortunately for the South, she found a race adapted to that purpose to her hand. A race inferior to her own, but eminently qualified in temper, in vigor, in docility, in capacity to stand the climate, to answer all her purposes. We use them for our purpose, and call them slaves. We found them slaves by the common “consent of mankind,” which, according to Cicero, “lex naturae est.” The highest proof of what is Nature’s law. We are old-fashioned at the South yet; slave is a word discarded now by “ears polite;” I will not characterize that class at the North by that term; but you have it; it is there; it is everywhere; it is eternal.

The Senator from New York said yesterday that the whole world had abolished slavery. Aye, the name, but not the thing; all the powers of the earth cannot abolish that. God only can do it when he repeals the fiat, “the poor ye always have with you;” for the man who lives by daily labor, and scarcely lives at that, and who has to put out his labor in the market, and take the best he can get for it; in short, your whole hireling class of manual laborers and “operatives,” as you call them, are essentially slaves. The difference between us is, that our slaves are hired for life and well compensated; there is no starvation, no begging, no want of employment among our people, and not too much employment either. Yours are hired by the day, not cared for, and scantily compensated, which may be proved in the most painful manner, at any hour in any street in any of your large towns. Why, you meet more beggars in one day, in any single street of the city of New York, than you would meet in a lifetime in the whole South. We do not think that whites should be slaves either by law or necessity. Our slaves are black, of another and inferior race. The status in which we have placed them is an elevation. They are elevated from the condition in which God first created them, by being made our slaves. None of that race on the whole face of the globe can be compared with the slaves of the South. They are happy, content, unaspiring, and utterly incapable, from intellectual weakness, ever to give us any trouble by their aspirations. Yours are white, of your own race; you are brothers of one blood. They are your equals in natural endowment of intellect, and they feel galled by their degradation. Our slaves do not vote. We give them no political power. Yours do vote, and, being the majority, they are the depositories of all your political power. If they knew the tremendous secret, that the ballot-box is stronger than “an army with banners,” and could combine, where would you be? Your society would be reconstructed, your government overthrown, your property divided, not as they have mistakenly attempted to initiate such proceedings by meeting in parks, with arms in their hands, but by the quiet process of the ballot-box. You have been making war upon us to our very hearthstones. How would you like for us to send lecturers and agitators North, to teach these people this, to aid in combining, and to lead them?

Document 10, Dr. Samuel Cartwright writes about the “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race” (PBS.org, 1851)[footnoteRef:10] [10: Dr. Samuel Cartwright, “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race,” DeBow’s Review, Southern and Western States, Volume XI, New Orleans, 1951.]

DRAPETOMANIA, OR THE DISEASE CAUSING NEGROES TO RUN AWAY.

It is unknown to our medical authorities, although its diagnostic symptom, the absconding from service, is well known to our planters and overseers…

In noticing a disease not heretofore classed among the long list of maladies that man is subject to, it was necessary to have a new term to express it. The cause in the most of cases, that induces the negro to run away from service, is as much a disease of the mind as any other species of mental alienation, and much more curable, as a general rule. With the advantages of proper medical advice, strictly followed, this troublesome practice that many negroes have of running away, can be almost entirely prevented, although the slaves be located on the borders of a free state, within a stone’s throw of the abolitionists.

If the white man attempts to oppose the Deity’s will, by trying to make the negro anything else than “the submissive knee-bender,” (which the Almighty declared he should be,) by trying to raise him to a level with himself, or by putting himself on an equality with the negro; or if he abuses the power which God has given him over his fellow-man, by being cruel to him, or punishing him in anger, or by neglecting to protect him from the wanton abuses of his fellow-servants and all others, or by denying him the usual comforts and necessaries of life, the negro will run away; but if he keeps him in the position that we learn from the Scriptures he was intended to occupy, that is, the position of submission; and if his master or overseer be kind and gracious in his hearing towards him, without condescension, and at the sane time ministers to his physical wants, and protects him from abuses, the negro is spell-bound, and cannot run away.

According to my experience, the “genu flexit”–the awe and reverence, must be exacted from them, or they will despise their masters, become rude and ungovernable, and run away. On Mason and Dixon’s line, two classes of persons were apt to lose their negroes: those who made themselves too familiar with them, treating them as equals, and making little or no distinction in regard to color; and, on the other hand, those who treated them cruelly, denied them the common necessaries of life, neglected to protect them against the abuses of others, or frightened them by a blustering manner of approach, when about to punish them for misdemeanors. Before the negroes run away, unless they are frightened or panic-struck, they become sulky and dissatisfied. The cause of this sulkiness and dissatisfaction should be inquired into and removed, or they are apt to run away or fall into the negro consumption. When sulky and dissatisfied without cause, the experience of those on the line and elsewhere, was decidedly in favor of whipping them out of it, as a preventive measure against absconding, or other bad conduct. It was called whipping the devil out of them.

If treated kindly, well fed and clothed, with fuel enough to keep a small fire burning all night–separated into families, each family having its own house–not permitted to run about at night to visit their neighbors, to receive visits or use intoxicating liquors, and not overworked or exposed too much to the weather, they are very easily governed–more so than any other people in the world. When all this is done, if any one of more of them, at any time, are inclined to raise their heads to a level with their master or overseer, humanity and their own good require that they should be punished until they fall into that submissive state which it was intended for them to occupy in all after-time, when their progenitor received the name of Canaan or “submissive knee-bender.” They have only to be kept in that state and treated like children, with care, kindness, attention and humanity, to prevent and cure them from running away.

DYSAETHESIA AETHIOPICA, OR HEBETUDE OF MIND AND OBTUSE SENSIBILITY OF BODY–A DISEASE PECULIAR TO NEGROES–CALLED BY OVERSEERS, ” RASCALITY.”

Dysaesthesia Aethiopica is a disease peculiar to negroes, affecting both mind and body in a manner as well expressed by dysaesthesia, the name I have given it, as could be by a single term. There is both mind and sensibility, but both seem to be difficult to reach by impressions from without. There is a partial insensibility of the skin, and so great a hebetude of the intellectual faculties, as to be like a person half asleep, that is with difficulty aroused and kept awake. It differs from every other species of mental disease, as it is accompanied with physical signs or lesions of the body discoverable to the medical observer, which are always present and sufficient to account for the symptoms. It is much more prevalent among free negroes living in clusters by themselves, than among slaves on our plantations, and attacks only such slaves as live like free negroes in regard to diet, drinks, exercise, etc. It is not my purpose to treat of the complaint as it prevails among free negroes, nearly all of whom are more or less afflicted with it, that have not got some white person to direct and to take care of them. To narrate its symptoms and effects among them would be to write a history of the ruins and dilapidation of Hayti, and every spot of earth they have ever had uncontrolled possession over for any length of time. I propose only to describe its symptoms among slaves.

From the careless movements of the individuals affected with the complaint, they are apt to do much mischief, which appears as if intentional, but is mostly owing to the stupidness of mind and insensibility of the nerves induced by the disease. Thus, they break, waste and destroy everything they handle,–abuse horses and cattle,–tear, burn or rend their own clothing, and, paying no attention to the rights of property, steal others, to replace what they have destroyed. They wander about at night, and keep in a half nodding sleep during the day. They slight their work,–cut up corn, cane, cotton or tobacco when hoeing it, as if for pure mischief. They raise disturbances with their overseers and fellow-servants without cause or motive, and seem to be insensible to pain when subjected to punishment. The fact of the existence of such a complaint, making man like an automaton or senseless machine, having the above or similar symptoms, can be clearly established by the most direct and positive testimony. That it should have escaped the attention of the medical profession, can only be accounted for because its attention has not been sufficiently directed to the maladies of the negro race. Otherwise a complaint of so common an occurrence on badly-governed plantations, and so universal among free negroes, or those who are not governed at all,–a disease radicated in physical lesions and having its peculiar and well marked symptoms and its curative indications, would not have escaped the notice of the profession. The northern physicians and people have noticed the symptoms, but not the disease from which they spring. They ignorantly attribute the symptoms to the debasing influence of slavery on the mind without considering that those who have never been in slavery, or their fathers before them, are the most afflicted, and the latest from the slave-holding South the least. The disease is the natural offspring of negro liberty–the liberty to be idle, to wallow in filth, and to indulge in improper food and drinks.

Post-Reading Exercises

1. Pretend you are an abolitionist and write a speech decrying the evils of slavery. Your speech should bring in specific examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this chapter.

2. Pretend you are a pro-slavery advocate and write a speech defending slavery. Your speech should bring in specific examples and quotes from the primary source documents in this chapter.

3. JOURNAL OPTION: For this chapter of OB, instead of answering Question 1 or 2, you may instead choose to turn in a 2-4 page typed document (double-spaced) with brief notes on each document in the chapter, as well as 5 questions about the chapter’s material. Please see the handout under Files titled “Journal Notes/Questions Guide” for more specific instructions on how to do this properly.

Works Cited
Document 7:Digital History. (1839). Digital History. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Weld, Testimony of Angelina Grimke: http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/documents/documents_p2.cfm?doc=85
Document 6: Documenting the American South. (1859). Documenting the American South. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Charles Ball, Fifty Years in Chains: http://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/ball/ball.html
Document 5: LearnNC.org. (1840, January 10). LearnNC.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from James Curry escapes from slavery: http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/nchist-antebellum/5335
Document 3: PBS.org. (1835, January 5). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Africans in America, Letter from Henry Tayloe on the domestic slave trade: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3138t.html
Document 10: PBS.org. (1851). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Africans in America, “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race” by Dr. Cartwright: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3106t.html
Document 8: PBS.org. (1857). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from American Experience, Excerpt from George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! Or, Slaves Without Masters: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/lincolns/filmmore/ps_fitzhugh.html
Document 9: PBS.org. (1858, March 4). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Africans in America,”The ‘Mudsill’ Theory” by James Henry Hammond: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3439t.html
Document 4: PBS.org. (1890). PBS.org. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Africans in America, A slave experience of being sold south: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h3438t.html
Document 2: University of Michigan Library. (1856, March). University of Michigan Library. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from Debow’s Review, The Loss of Our Trade with the North: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=moajrnl;cc=moajrnl;rgn=full%20text;idno=acg1336.1-20.003;didno=acg1336.1-20.003;view=image;seq=0415;node=acg1336.1-20.003%3A15
Document 1: Willis, J. C. (1858, March 4). America’s Civil War, www.sewanee.edu. Retrieved July 9, 2012, from James Henry Hammond, On the Admission of Kansas, Under the Lecompton Constitution: http://www.sewanee.edu/faculty/Willis/Civil_War/documents/HammondCotton.html

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Lecture 3, 1820s Politics and Jacksonian America in the 1830s

Contents
I. The Panic of 1819 ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….2

II. Sectional Crisis: The Missouri Compromise ……………………………………………………………………………..3

III. A Growing Federal Government ………………………………………………………………………………………….5

IV. Jackson’s Presidency ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..10

V. Sectional Crisis: Nullification ………………………………………………………………………………………………..14

VI. The Bank War ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….19

VII. Indian Removal ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..21

Important Terms and People (in order of appearance): Panic of 1819; Speculators;
James Tallmadge; Thomas Cobb; Missouri Compromise; Monroe Doctrine; Gibbons v. Ogden;
Presidential Election of 1824; Caucus System; William Crawford; John Quincy Adams; Henry
Clay; Andrew Jackson; Corrupt Bargain; Presidential Election of 1828; National Republicans;
Democratic Republicans; Era of the Common Man; Mass Politics; Democrats; Whigs; National
Convention; John Calhoun; Tariff of Abominations; Nullification; Robert Hayne; Daniel
Webster; states’ rights versus the power of the federal government; 1832 Tariff; Force Bill; “soft
money” faction; “hard money” faction; Presidential Election of 1832; Nicholas Biddle; Recharter
Bill; Indian Removal; Blackhawk War of 1831 and 1832; the “Five Civilized Tribes”; Indian
Removal Act; Cherokee; Seminole; Worcester v. Georgia; Trail of Tears; the Seminole War;
Reservations

Instructions for reading this lecture: This lecture is broken into the chronologic or thematic
sections shown above in the Table of Contents. I have done this to make it easier to follow the
information being presented. Please also note the list of Important Terms and People that show up
directly below the Table of Contents; this list provides a guide for terms and people you should be
familiar with once you have completed reading the lecture. There may be instances in which you desire
more information regarding an important term or person; I have hyperlinked useful websites throughout
this lecture to important terms or people that you can follow up on and read if you would like more
information (these hyperlinks show up in bright blue and when you click on them, they should direct you
to the appropriate website). Additionally, there are images throughout with captions, to help you better
visualize the information you are reading, as well as film clips that you can watch via YouTube (these
hyperlinks to YouTube show up in maroon and when you click on them, they should direct you to the clip
on YouTube).

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Today we’re going to talk about a period that’s been termed the Jacksonian period, which

spanned the presidency of Andrew Jackson, from 1829-1839. In this discussion, we’ll talk a

little about politics in the period from 1819 up until Jackson’s election to the presidency 10 years

later, focusing on domestic issues like a major sectional crisis that took place in 1819, as well as

the growth and solidification of the power of the federal government during the 1820s. We’ll

then take a look, specifically, at the presidency of Andrew Jackson, to get an idea of what was

going on politically, how slavery was being dealt with, the growing regional rift and westward

expansion and Indian Removal. But first, I’d like to pick up where we left off last time, with the

Era of Good Feelings and the divergent economic Panic of 1819.

I. The Panic of 1819
We left off last time looking at the Era of Good Feelings—that time during James

Monroe’s presidency where bipartisanship, economic growth and national pride seemed

boundless. But when the economic Panic of 1819 occurred, all of these positive developments

took a back seat. What happened to cause the Panic of 1819? Well, the first factor was that in

the period immediately after the end of the War of 1812, there was high demand for American

farm goods, and thus farmers were getting paid high prices for their products. These bigger

paychecks led to a land boom in the Western United States. But it wasn’t really farmers out

there buying land. Instead it was speculators, people who hoped to buy land cheap and then

turn around and sell it to a potential farmer for a higher price. And much to their pleasure, land

prices soared. Both settlers and speculators had easy access to credit from the government and

from state banks and they used this easy credit to purchase expensive land. But in 1819, the

national bank began tightening this credit and calling in payments on the loans they had allowed.

If a debtor couldn’t pay the banks back, the banks would seize his land. The government also

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collected state bank notes and demanded they be paid off in cash by the banks, who often

couldn’t come up with it, causing those state banks to fail. The bank failures put people into a

panic, and a financial depression carried on for the next six years, during which time the price of

manufactured goods and agricultural produce plummeted.

Manufacturers and farmers convinced the government to pass relief acts and protective

tariffs to help them out and the government came through. Though these relief acts and

protective tariffs were welcome actions in 1819, the protective tariffs would become a hot button

issue in the 1820s, which we’ll talk about a little later in this lecture.

II. Sectional Crisis: The Missouri Compromise
To make matters worse, the Panic of 1819 was closely followed by a huge sectional crisis

that almost caused the southern states to break away from the northern ones. The issue was over

a part of the Louisiana Purchase territory—the Missouri territory—whose residents applied for

statehood in 1818 as a slave state. The major problem their application posed was this: as

Missouri began their application for statehood, Congress had a nice, comfortable balance

between slave and free states: there were eleven of each. But when Missouri applied for

statehood in 1818-19, with a system of slavery well in place, that balance was threatened.

Many Northern politicians were worried about admitting a state to the Union as a slave

state, fearing that if slave states had more power than free states, they might use that

Congressional power to undermine the free states or increase the power of the slave states. In

response to this fear, Representative James Tallmadge of New York proposed that an

amendment be added on to the Missouri statehood bill which said that no further slaves would be

allowed in Missouri and that Missouri would gradually emancipate their slaves. In other words,

Tallmadge (and the many Northerners who supported his amendment), only wanted to accept

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Missouri as a slave state if Missouri quickly ceased being a slave state! How do you think this

concept made Southerners/Slave states feel?

This proposal outraged southerners so much that some began to claim, like Thomas

Cobb of Georgia, “If you persist, the Union will be dissolved.” The debate over Missouri—

really, the debate over the balance of power between free and slave states—was growing heated

to the point of threatening the sanctity of the Union. Luckily, however, a compromise was put

together, in which:

1. Maine was carved out of Massachusetts as a separate state;
2. both Maine and Missouri would be approved as states on the same bill;
3. Maine would enter the Union as a free state; and
4. Missouri would enter as a slave state.

This was enough to calm the fears of both Northern and Southern Congressmen regarding

the Missouri issue. But the Missouri statehood application had brought up a much larger

question: should slavery be allowed in the vast Louisiana Purchase territory, should it be limited

in any way, or should it be forbidden altogether? As I’m sure you can imagine, people had very

different opinions on this question and in an effort to answer the question once and for all,

another provision was added to the Missouri/Maine statehood bill. This additional provision

5. prohibited the introduction of slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Territory north of the
southern border of Missouri (the 36/30 parallel, also known as the Mason-Dixon line).

In other words, the Missouri Compromise not only brought Maine and Missouri into the Union,

it also declared that the northern half of the Louisiana Purchase territory would not see the spread

of slavery while the southern half was open to the expansion of slavery. Though the Missouri

Compromise would keep the growing divide between the North and the South at bay for a little

longer, the tensions between the two would continue to be exacerbated at every turn, and we’ll

be talking about this increasingly in the next few lectures.

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Figure 1: The Missouri Compromise1

III. A Growing Federal Government
As the Missouri Compromise was being hammered out, the federal government began

solidifying and strengthening its power. The first demonstration of this came in the international

arena. During the 18-teens, a number of Spanish colonies (many of which were in the western

hemisphere—namely South and Central America, and the Caribbean) revolted against Spanish

rule, beginning a long war between Spain’s colonies and Spain. The United States chose, for a

short time, to remain neutral on paper, though they almost immediately began trading with the

rebellious groups.

In 1822, the Monroe government decided to formally recognize the colonial rebellions as

legitimate by ending the policy of neutrality and establishing diplomatic relations with five of the

insurgent countries, what would become Argentina, Chile, Peru, Colombia and Mexico. The

United States jumped out on a limb here; they were among the first countries to recognize these

1 From http://www.mhschool.com/ss/ca/eng/images/img_g5u7_quiz_missou_comp

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rebellious countries. The United States was clearly siding against Spain and its right to have a

colonial presence in the western hemisphere.

And in 1823, the US went a step farther in this regard, announcing a policy that would

come to be known as the Monroe Doctrine, which declared: “The American continents…are

henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.”2

Figure 2: A Political Cartoon about the Monroe Doctrine3

The United States, though it didn’t challenge or threaten any still-existing European colonies in

the western hemisphere, vowed that any European country that tried to establish a colony

anywhere in the Americas would have to deal with the wrath of the United States. Any ideas on

why the US took this step? The Monroe Doctrine was important in that it formally established

a growing sense of American nationalism, of pride in the country, and saw the first steps of the

2 Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People (McGraw Hill: New
York, 1996), 237.
3 From http://geopolicraticus.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/monroe-doctrine

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United States into the world of real power. By getting involved in Latin America, in opposition

to European countries, the US was setting itself apart and clearly trying to establish ultimate

control over the Western Hemisphere. The federal government demonstrated strong control and

a good deal of centralized power in the international arena with the Monroe Doctrine.

Likewise, the Supreme Court had made a number of decisions in the 1820s that further

strengthened the power of the federal government. Perhaps the most poignant example of this

came via the court case Gibbons v. Ogden—a case about interstate commerce—that declared

that laws passed by the federal government were superior to state laws. This was a major

shifting of course; prior to the 1820s, and based on a tradition that went back to the Articles of

Confederation and the Constitution, states maintained all of the powers that weren’t specifically

designated to the federal government. But after Gibbons v. Ogden, new laws passed by the

federal government were suddenly superior to those passed by states!

Finally, the federal government became stronger in the 18-teens when the Federalist

Party failed to put up a candidate to run for president, ending, albeit briefly, the two-party

system. The dominance of the Republican Party signaled that the “people” had much less power

than before and that those in power, those who controlled the government, held most of the

cards.

But by the 1820s, as the federal government’s powers became stronger and more

absolute, many Americans and American politicians began to comment on and challenge these

developments. The major change came during the presidential election of 1824, in which the

caucus system—a system by which the two major parties, the Federalists and Republicans, had

always nominated their presidential candidate—was overthrown (the way the caucus system

worked was the most powerful men in the Federalist Party would decide who they wanted the

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Federalist presidential candidate to be; the most powerful men in the Republican Party would

decide who they wanted the Republican presidential candidate to be. Then the electoral college,

supposedly influenced by popular will, selected one of those two men to be president. If you

think about it, this doesn’t really provide for much power to the people—it simply lets the

already-powerful decide who will get to run and forces popular will to decide between the two).

As I said a few paragraphs ago, however, the two-party system had essentially ended in

1816 when the Federalist Party failed to put up a candidate for president—negating even the

modest democratic ideals that had been exercised with the caucus, which had at least left voters

with two choices for president. What the Federalists’ failure meant was that in the 1824

presidential election, only the Republican Party nominated a presidential candidate, William H.

Crawford, who, it looked, was going to run unopposed.

But as a response to the frightening consolidation of power in the hands of the

Republican Party and the consolidation of power in the hands of the federal government, state

legislatures and mass meetings ignored the traditional

caucus nominating process and instead began a whole

new process wherein they nominated their own

candidates to run for the presidency. As a result of

these grassroots meetings and state legislative

sessions, three additional candidates were added to the

presidential ballot of 18244: Secretary of State John

Quincy Adams, Speaker of the House Henry Clay,

4 From http://www.teachersparadise.com/ency/en/media/f/f9/electoralcollege1824_large

Figure 3: Votes in the 1824 Election

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and military hero Andrew Jackson (technically, these three guys were not really running for

either the Republican or the Federalist parties; interestingly, after the Republican candidate,

William Crawford, lost the election of 1824, the Republican Party of old virtually ceased to

exist).

In the election, Jackson received a plurality, but not a majority, of both the popular and

electoral vote, but because he did not have a majority, he did not automatically become

president. Instead, the final decision on who the next president would be lay with Congress, who

was expected to choose the winner from the top three candidates. Henry Clay had received the

lowest number of votes, so he was out of the running, but he was a very influential guy with the

House, since he was the Speaker of the House. With this position of influence and power, it’s no

surprise that the three other men tried to get him on their side. Clay quickly dismissed Crawford,

the Republican candidate, because Crawford had been debilitated by a crippling disease. So the

decision was really between Jackson and Adams.

Jackson was the more charismatic, but he was also Clay’s biggest political opponent.

Adams, on the other hand, wasn’t that well-liked, either by the populous or by Clay, but Clay

found Adams to be less threatening, and threw his support to Adams’ camp. The House,

unsurprisingly, chose John Quincy Adams as the victor, and Adams, in thanks, gave Clay the

position of Secretary of State, in what has been termed the “Corrupt Bargain” (people believed

that the only reason Clay gave Adams the presidency was because Adams had promised Clay the

coveted Secretary of State job) Though these kinds of dealings were not terribly unusual, the

“Corrupt Bargain” got a very bad name publicly and proved costly to both Clay and Adams’

political careers. In particular, the cost would be seen in the presidential election of 1828.

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In the presidential election of 1828, John Quincy Adams’ party, now calling themselves

the National Republicans, was challenged by the still-popular Andrew Jackson’s Democratic

Republicans; this time, however, Jackson won a decisive victory.

IV. Jackson’s Presidency
Like the politics of the 1820s, the politics of the 1830s would prove to be extremely

important in the shaping of the nation and in the shaping of the growing controversy between the

North and the South. Jackson entered the White House in March, 1829, with support from

thousands of Americans from all over the country, including many farmers, workers and other

“humble” sorts. These people were hopeful that Jackson would usher in the era of the common

man in this period, they hoped the Democratic Republicans truly did intend on behaving in a

Figure 4: The Common Man Celebrates Jackson’s Presidency5

5 From http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/cph/3a00000/3a05000/3a05500/3a05553v

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democratic fashion and offer more power to the people (and less to the federal government than

had been seen in previous presidencies). Others feared this possibility; they looked to Jackson’s

humble followers as potential problems, as too ignorant and unworldly to really participate in the

American political world. The outcome of Jackson’s two terms as president was a little of both

ideologies—the common man certainly saw a new entrance into politics while the common man

did not see all of his hopes for democracy realized.

One of the major ways in which the common man saw some new power had to do with

the advent of mass politics in the late 1820s and 1830s. What do I mean by mass politics?

Well, until the 1820s, most Americans had been unable to vote because many states had

restricted voting to property owners or taxpayers, or both. But in the early 1820s, this began to

change, as new, western states joined the Union and adopted laws that were more favorable to

those men who didn’t own property or pay taxes. As a result of this liberalization (and to keep

people and tax dollars from moving west for a vote!) many other, older states actually got on

board with this and changed their own voting rules. Though voting remained difficult in areas

like Rhode Island—where the Old Guard held too much power and did not want to let

commoners have the vote—or in the South, where election laws continued to favor planters and

politicians, the overall number of voters increased even more rapidly than the population

increased in the 1820s. This demonstrated that more people were getting out to vote, people who

had never been able to exercise this right before. In the election of 1828, the election that put

Jackson into the presidency, 58% of all males voted and that number only increased through the

1830s.

Accompanying this rise in voting was the acceptance of the party system. Though

political parties had obviously existed prior to the 1820s, with the Federalists and Republicans,

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many people did not like the idea of political parties. Many Americans thought they were

dangerous because they promoted factions and promoted national disunity. But in the 1820s,

Americans began to change their ideas about political parties. A new view was established that

saw stable, permanent and regular parties as a good thing, as part of the political process, and as

a necessity in terms of ensuring democracy. Proponents of political parties argued that the

opposition that parties created was healthy and forced politicians to be sensitive to the issues

surrounding their constituents (obviously, a voice for the “common man”). Likewise, they

argued that political parties would serve as a check and balance on one another, causing the

American government to truly run as it was intended. By the 1830s, a fully operational and

permanent two-party system was put into place. This first two-party system of the 1830s pitted

the followers of Jackson, who had now shortened their name from Democratic Republicans to

the Democrats, against the anti-Jackson forces (many of whom were old National Republicans),

who called themselves the Whigs.

So what did Jackson’s party, what did the Democrats, believe in, how did they define the

term they had grabbed on to for their name, Democracy? Well, the party itself, in the early

years, hadn’t really established a solid answer to what their ideology was, but for Jackson,

democracy was a system in which government should work to ensure equality, in terms of

protection and benefits, to all white male citizens, favoring no one region or class over another.

This was pretty revolutionary stuff—Jackson was rejecting the Eastern aristocracy, the powerful

elite of the nation, and suggesting that all (white) men, regardless of whether they owned

property, regardless of whether they paid taxes, regardless of where they lived, should be able to

vote and to have abundant opportunity.

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And Jackson’s theory went beyond being just a bunch of words. Jackson actively worked

to make his definition of democracy a reality, first targeting officeholders in the federal

government. Many of these officeholders had been in their position for years, placed there as a

favor by that Eastern aristocracy, by the powerful elite. Jackson felt that federal offices should,

instead, enjoy rapid turnover since the offices essentially belonged to the people—the American

citizens—and not to the officeholders themselves. Jackson also saw that getting these

entrenched officeholders out of their position would give him a good deal of power because he

could put his political patrons in office, he could thank those who supported him with federal

positions. Though Jackson really created a system where supporters of the president in power

were able to get federal office positions, his idea that the entrenched officeholders, the elite

officeholders, should be removed made it seem like he was the president of the common man.

Another area in which Jackson came to be seen as the president of the common man was

in his reform of the caucus system. Jackson didn’t like the old caucus system that we talked

about earlier, wherein the powerful parties in Congress elected the presidential candidate.

Instead, Jackson created the national convention, which his party staged to reelect him to the

presidential ticket in 1832. This national convention was seen as a way for the people to have

direct power in electing each party’s presidential nominee (in other words, people had a choice

about who they nominated for president from a particular party and then, once those votes had

been counted and the winners promoted to the presidential candidates, people had a choice about

who they encouraged the Electoral College to vote for for president). But like Jackson’s plan

with the federal officeholders, the reform was really more in theory than in reality. The national

convention, though it had good intentions, was easily and often corrupted, and just became a

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different way for the politically powerful to nominate who they wanted under the guise of

working in the interests of the common man.

Jackson was faced with other issues than those dealing with the common man fairly

quickly into his presidency. I’d like to spend the rest of this lecture talking about three of the

most notable issues that Jackson dealt with—the issue of nullification and federal versus states’

rights; Jackson’s war over the National Bank (the Bank of the United States); and, finally, Indian

Removal.

V. Sectional Crisis: Nullification
The issue of nullification hit Jackson very early on in his presidency and it came from a

surprising place—his own Vice President, John Calhoun. As Jackson’s running mate, Calhoun

was in a good position to succeed Jackson as president, but the powerful issue of the tariff (and

subsequent threats of nullification) led Calhoun in a completely different direction. The tariff

issue amounted to this: During the Panic of 1819, as you know, everyone demanded high

protective tariffs (a taxation on imported goods). But though a protectionist tariff had been

championed by southern states in the 18-teens, by the late 1820s, people in South Carolina—

Calhoun’s home state—began to blame the tariff for economic stagnation in their state. The

tariff wasn’t really to blame—South Carolina’s economic stagnation was instead a result of

exhausted soil, of exhausted farmland, that couldn’t compete with the new, fertile lands of the

Southwest. But Carolinians didn’t want to blame themselves, so they made the tariff the bad

guy, calling it the “tariff of abominations” in 1828.

Some South Carolinians so desperately wanted to see the tariff removed that they began

grumbling about seceding from the Union in order to get their economy back on track. Calhoun

realized that this issue, coming from his home state, and his response, would mean important

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things for his political future. In response to the tariff crisis, Calhoun came up with what he

thought was a viable solution; he put forth the theory of nullification, in which he claimed that

since the federal government had actually been created by the states, and not by the courts

or by Congress, a state could make the final decision about the constitutionality of a federal

law. So, his idea essentially meant that if a state—say South Carolina—thought that Congress

had passed an unconstitutional law—say the protective tariff—then the state could hold a special

state convention in which the state could declare the federal law null and void within the state.

South Carolinians loved this idea and many quickly jumped on board.

Now you’re probably thinking that Calhoun’s idea was pretty crazy given the Gibbons v.

Ogden Supreme Court decision and the growing power of the federal government that had been

taking place in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. Well, Calhoun probably didn’t

think, in these early years, that the nullification theory was that great either; in fact, he hoped it

would never be put to the test. He hoped that the federal government would lower the tariff

rates, and the whole thing could be forgotten,.

But by early 1830, the tariff issue and, more importantly, the theory of nullification

reached a boiling point, beginning with what had appeared to be an unproblematic and seemingly

unconnected debate over the federal policy towards public lands in the west. What happened

was that during this 1830 debate, a northern Senator suggested that land sales in the west be put

on hold for a while. In response, a western Senator declared that Northern senators only cared

about the economic needs and success of the North and that the North was often willing to taking

action—like halting land sales in the west—that would bolster Northern economy while

potentially hurting the Western economy (the western senator believed that the North wanted to

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stop western land sales so that the only people farming and producing in the north were living in

the northeast—westward expansion created competition for northeast markets).

At first, these two men were simply having an argument over the North’s intentions

regarding the West; but the controversy grew when a South Carolina Senator, Robert Hayne,

jumped on board with the western senator. Hayne allied with the west, not because he cared that

much about land in the west, but because he and other Southerners saw this as a way to get the

Western states on their side about lowering the tariff (it was a sort of “you scratch the southern

back regarding the tariff, the south will scratch the western back regarding the sale of western

lands” situation). Hayne dramatically argued that the Northeast had a tyrannical rule over the

South and the West and suggested that the South and West might come together to overthrow

that tyranny.

This dramatic, and technically treasonous, claim caused a number of Northerners to speak

out; the charge was led by a senator from Massachusetts, Daniel Webster. Webster thought that

Hayne, and by extension, John Calhoun, were challenging the primacy, power and safety of the

Union (as governed and protected by the federal government) and he effectively moved the issue

from being about the tariff or about western lands, to an argument about states’ rights versus

the power of the federal government. The battle lines had been drawn.

In a debate between Hayne and Webster, Daniel Webster (a proponent of the belief that

the federal government’s rights were superior to the rights of the states) concluded, “Liberty and

Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!” Calhoun and his followers (states rights

advocates) were interested to see what President Jackson did with all of this, to see if national

battle lines had truly been drawn. And at a Democratic party banquet, Jackson gave Calhoun and

his followers their answer by echoing Webster’s pro-federal government’s-rights conclusion.

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President Jackson toasted the table with the words “Our Federal Union—It must be preserved”

while looking directly at Calhoun. Calhoun returned the president’s pro-federal government

toast with his own: “The Union—next to our liberty most dear,” putting forth the states’ rights

argument in its simplest terms.6

The federal battle lines had been drawn and it didn’t take long for an issue to make it onto

the scene that would further pit the states’ rights advocates against those who favored a stronger

federal government. This issue came about in 1832 over the dreaded tariff problem and the idea

Figure 5: A Northern Cartoon Lambasts the South for their Anti-Tariff Stance7

of nullification. South Carolinians were extremely upset when an 1832 tariff bill was passed by

Congress that offered them no relief from the 1828 “tariff of abominations” that had already

6 From http://bartelby.org/77/1919.html
7 From http://www.mightyware.com/protectionismcivilwar.bhs

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made them want to secede. Calhoun persuaded his state not to take any drastic measures and,

instead, he suggested that they turn to nullification. A state convention was quickly called and

the tariffs of both 1828 and 1832 were declared null and void by the South Carolina convention.

As I’m sure you can imagine, President Jackson was not pleased with this development at

all. He called the nullification idea treasonous and called those who believed it was valid traitors

to the country, to the Union. He responded to this treason by strengthening federal forts in South

Carolina and by placing a warship in the Charleston port. In 1833, Jackson’s followers in

Congress also passed a Force Bill, which gave the president the authority to use the military to

make sure acts of Congress were obeyed. Jackson was clearly demonstrating to South Carolina

that if they went forward with either nullification or, worse, secession, he would not hesitate to

use force to get them back in line.

South Carolina was faced with a diffi cult decision, then; it was clear that the federal

government was stronger than they were, so if they decided to fight the federal government,

South Carolina knew they were in for a trouncing. But they didn’t want to give in to the

government’s demands either. Luckily, Henry Clay came up with a compromise that gradually

lowered the tariff, which appeased South Carolina to some degree. But, South Carolina didn’t

want to let Congress have the last word, so in an act of defiance, they nullified that

Congressional Force Bill. It didn’t really matter since the Force Bill had to do with the tariffs

that had been lowered, but this nullification signaled that the troubling times were far from over.

The nullification crisis also taught South Carolina that, alone, they were too weak to take on the

federal government; next time they needed allies (this is foreshadowing information that will

come in handy as we approach the Civil War!).

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VI. The Bank War
The nullification crisis caused Jackson to put more power into the hands of the federal

government and remove it from the states’ hands, but remember, Jackson was the president of

the common man. He worried about giving the federal government—or the elite institutions that

were closely connected with the federal government—too much power and so he simultaneously

sought to weaken other forms of governmental power. This became most pronounced during the

war Jackson waged against the Bank of the United States. Jackson thought the national bank

was a symbol of those elite institutions that he so hated, he thought it benefited Eastern elites and

got in the way of unfettered, everyman capitalism.

He was joined in his opposition of the Bank of the United States by two very different

groups. The first group, the “soft money” faction, argued that the national bank hurt state banks

from issuing notes more freely. The second group, the “hard money” faction, argued that bank

notes should never be issued, since it was difficult to prove they were supported by gold—the

real hard money. The “hard money” faction thought all banks, including state banks and the

national bank (all banks that issued paper notes) should be eliminated. Though these two groups

had big differences, Jackson used both of their support and claimed that he would not renew the

charter of the Bank of the United States when it expired in four years, in 1836. As a result of this

claim, the charter of the Bank of the United States became the issue of the presidential election

of 1832.

In the run-up to this election, the head of the Bank of the United States—Nicholas

Biddle—obviously didn’t want to see the bank die, so he enlisted the support of Jackson’s

biggest political opponents: Henry Clay and Daniel Webster. They urged Biddle to apply to

Congress for a recharter of the National Bank that year, in 1832, four years before it was set to

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expire. Congress, who liked the National Bank, passed the recharter bill, but Jackson vetoed it

and the bank supporters in Congress didn’t have enough power to override his veto.

So, in the 1832 presidential election, Henry Clay decided to run against Jackson for

President and the National Bank, as I said, was the big platform issue. Andrew Jackson won the

election handily and because of his victory, he felt he had even more authority to destroy the

bank. So while he waited for the charter to expire in 1836, he wanted to weaken it. He pulled all

of the federal funds out of the bank and put them into state banks. The head of the bank,

Nicholas Biddle (a pretty remarkable guy, by the way, who entered the University of

Pennsylvania at age 10 and then went on to graduate from Princeton at 15 as Valedictorian),

responded by calling in all loans and raising the interest rates, explaining that since the

government had pulled their money out of the national bank, the Bank’s resources were spread

Figure 6: Jackson is Celebrated for Destroying the “Demonic” Bank of the United States8

8 From http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2008-01/KingAndrewandtheBank.html

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too thin. He knew that calling in loans and raising the interest rate would cause a recession, but

he hoped Congress would want to avoid this and recharter the Bank.

Indeed, that recession did happen in 1833 and 1834, BUT Jackson actually used this to

his advantage, to end the Bank’s hopes of getting rechartered. Jackson explained to the

American people and to Congress, that the Bank of the United States had caused the recession

and should be destroyed. Unfortunately, the destruction of the Bank of the United States, a bank

that had served, generally, to stabilize the national economy, would lead to years of national

financial instability, a problem that would plague the economy for years to come (it wasn’t until

1862, when the Union was in the midst of the Civil War, that the bank would be rechartered).

VII. Indian Removal
The third major issue that Jackson dealt with during his presidency, and the one he is

most vilified for, was Indian Removal. The American population grew dramatically in the first

thirty years of the 1800s. Now, what happens when the population grows in America? What do

people want more of? Land, of course! As people searched for more land, they pushed out to

more western areas, where the territory seemed ripe for expansion. As you well know by now,

westward migration did not ever mean good things for the Indian populations of North America,

and the migration of the 1820s and 1830s was certainly no different. In fact, the 1830s probably

saw the strongest anti-Native American sentiment that the country had ever seen. This was due

largely to a change in opinion about the Indians in this period.

Prior to the 1830s, many people believed that Indians, though uncivilized, were dignified

and, so, civilization was certainly possible for them if they were just taught how to embrace

white ways properly. But as people migrated to western areas in the early nineteenth centuries,

they stopped viewing Indians as a group that could be assimilated into white society; instead they

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saw Indians as “savages” who were uncivilized and would always remain so. People moving

west used this belief to justify removing tribal groups from the lands they began moving to.

But there were also other reasons why settlers desired removing tribal groups. For one,

Indians were not happy about being removed from their land and they fought back, sometimes

extremely violently, in an effort to maintain their land and way of life. Additionally, white

settlers really wanted to get the prime land that tribes still owned and removal was obviously the

easiest way to do that.

But how did white settlers go about removing the Indians from desired lands, from

western lands? Well, they pressured the government to help them get the Indians off pretty

much all land that whites lived on or wanted to live on, and the federal government—no stranger

to pushing Indians farther and farther west—proved to be of real assistance. For example,

federal troops and the Illinois state militia were successful in driving out the last stronghold of

Native Americans in the Old Northwest region, those western lands that had been expanded into

years before, by fighting the Black Hawk War of 1831 and 1832. In this series of battles, white

militias brutally attacked the Indians, even those who were attempting to retreat or surrender (a

Figure 7: The Black Hawk War9

9 From http://www.historycentral.com/Ant/Blachhawk

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distinct violation of what was then considered appropriate military action).10 But the Old

Northwest and the Indians who lived there weren’t the biggest concern of white, westward-

expanding settlers or the government; these groups were, instead, more worried about the Indians

who remained in the South. In the regions of present-day Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi and

Florida lived the “Five Civilized Tribes”: the Cherokee, Seminole, Chickasaw, Choctaw and

Creek. They were known as the “Five Civilized Tribes” because they had heeded earlier calls

(like the one President Thomas Jefferson had made) for natives to assimilate and adopt white

farming practices if they wanted to keep their land. The fact that they were farmers meant that

they were more tied to their land than nomadic tribes of the Northwest were. This also meant that

since they had followed earlier governmental calls to become more like white farmers, they were

supposed to be able to keep their land.

But, not surprisingly, as land began to run out in the South, Indian land became highly

desired. The federal government first tried, in the 1820s, to negotiate treaties with the “Five

Civilized Tribes” to get them off of Southern land and onto Western land in Oklahoma. The

negotiation process took longer than many southern whites wanted, however, so President

Jackson passed the 1830 Indian Removal Act, which set aside government funds for negotiating

treaties with the tribes and for settling the tribes in the west, assuming that this additional money

would speed the process along. But white settlers, ever the impatient bunch, had already taken

matters into their own hands to speed the removal of Indians from southern land. They pressured

local and state governments, rather than wait for the federal government, to negotiate treaties

with Indian groups, and were able to succeed in getting some tribes to sign over their land for

small payments.

10 Brinkley, 252.

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There were tribes that didn’t take too kindly to being essentially forced off of their lands

by state governments, in particular the Cherokee and the Seminole. These Native groups were

extremely upset about the prospect of leaving fertile land for unknown and uninhabited desert

land; they were worried that the federal government would never stop taking land from them;

and they were concerned about living in close quarters with ancient rivals.

Accordingly, groups like the Cherokee brought a number of claims against the

government regarding removal. In 1832, the Cherokee brought the case of Worcester v. Georgia

to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court actually granted the Cherokee a victory, declaring

that states had no right to negotiate for tribal land. The Supreme Court said that only the federal

government could do so and the Supreme Court declared that the federal government had to

respect that tribes were sovereign nations, much like states were. Unfortunately, President

Andrew Jackson refused to enforce the decision made by the Supreme Court and did little to

protect the Cherokee from whites encroaching on their land or from states trying to negotiate

treaties with them.

The final blow to the Cherokee came just a few short years later. The federal government

had succeeded in negotiating their own treaty with a minority group within the Cherokee tribe;

that treaty ceded the tribe’s land to the state of Georgia for $5 million and a reservation west of

the Mississippi River. Because the treaty had been negotiated with a minority group of

Cherokeee, most of the 17,000 Cherokee refused to abide by the treaty and declared that they

would not move west. Accordingly, President Jackson sent an army under General Winfield

Scott to forcibly transfer these recalcitrant natives to Oklahoma and the Dakotas.

Beginning in the winter of 1838, then, most of the Cherokee resisters began a long,

forced journey to Oklahoma—a journey that was so difficult and so deadly that it was named the

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Trail of Tears. Between 1830 and 1838, each of those Five Civilized Tribes from the South

were forced to walk similar Trails of Tears to new homes in present-day Oklahoma. The Indian

Territory that was set aside in Oklahoma was seen as perhaps the most undesirable piece of land

Figure 8: The Trail of Tears11

in the nation; many believed the region to be unfit for living.

Like the Cherokee, the Seminole Indians also put forth a viable resistance effort against

being removed to Oklahoma. The Seminole had signed treaties in 1832 and 1833, under

pressure from the government, ceding their land in Florida and agreeing to move to Oklahoma

within three years. And most did make the move within that period of time, but there was a

fairly large minority group that did not want to leave their lands. These rebels started an uprising

in 1835 and their war, the Seminole War, lasted until 1842, when the American government

11 From http://pendulumopinions.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/trail-of-tears

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finally gave up on fighting. But it was a small victory for the Seminole—most had either been

killed or forced westward during the fighting.

So by the end of the 1830s, most Native tribes who had lived east of the Mississippi, in

both the Northern and Southern regions, had been removed to the West. They had signed over

more than 100 million acres of their land east of the Mississippi to the federal government and in

return received about $68 million and land in the far less attractive Midwest. The Indian Land

they were granted was divided into a series of reservations, separating different tribes from one

another and the reservations were surrounded by military forts to keep the Indians in and, for the

most part, to keep whites out. This relocation process was horrible for natives who were forced

off the land they knew so well—where they were able to hunt and grow whatever food they

needed—and forced to relocate to a desert wasteland.

The first thirty years of the nineteenth century was a dramatic and country-changing time:

the federal government grew, the nation spread further west, the common man gained a voice,

and sectional crises began to heat up. What shape would Americans lives take in the period after

Jackson, in the 1840s and 1850s? How would life differ for those in the North from those in the

South or those in the West? To those stories and more, we’ll be turning in the coming lectures.

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Lecture 4, The Antebellum North

Contents
I. The Market Revolution and the Transportation Revolution, 1820s-1840s ……………………………………..2

II. Northern Industry …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..9

III. Transportation ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….11

IV. Immigration ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..12

V. The Northwest ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..14

VI. Women and the Antebellum North ……………………………………………………………………………………..15

A. Abolitionism ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………17

B. Temperance ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..21

C. Women’s Rights Movement ………………………………………………………………………………………………23

Important Terms and People (in order of appearance): Antebellum Period; Market
Revolution; Transportation Revolution; Erie Canal; Corporation; Textile Mills; Unions;
Interchangeable Parts; Working Class; Strike; Anti-Immigrant Sentiment; Native American
Association/ Native American Party/ “Know-Nothing” Party; Nativist; Abolitionism; William
Lloyd Garrison; The Liberator; American Anti-Slavery Society; Fugitive Slaves; Boston Female
Anti-Slavery Society; Petition Campaign of 1835; Antislavery Fairs; Temperance Movement;
Susan B. Anthony; Lucy Stone; Elizabeth Cady Stanton; Amelia Bloomer; Woman’s State
Temperance Convention; Separate Spheres Ideology; Seneca Falls Convention; Lucretia Mott;
Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions; Sojourner Truth; Frances E.W. Harper; Sarah
Redmond

Instructions for reading this lecture: This lecture is broken into the chronologic or thematic
sections shown above in the Table of Contents. I have done this to make it easier to follow the information being
presented. Please also note the list of Important Terms and People that show up directly below the Table of
Contents; this list provides a guide for terms and people you should be familiar with once you have completed
reading the lecture. There may be instances in which you desire more information regarding an important term or
person; I have hyperlinked useful websites throughout this lecture to important terms or people that you can follow
up on and read if you would like more information (these hyperlinks show up in bright blue and when you click on
them, they should direct you to the appropriate website). Additionally, there are images throughout with captions, to
help you better visualize the information you are reading, as well as film clips that you can watch via YouTube
(these hyperlinks to YouTube show up in maroon and when you click on them, they should direct you to the clip on
YouTube).

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We talked last time about the presidency of Andrew Jackson, as well as the state of

politics, the economy and American culture in the period from 1820 through the end of Jackson’s

presidency in 1839. We also focused on the beginning of some sectional differences between the

North and the South last time and we’re going to be following those differences for the rest of

the semester as we talk about how the country moved closer and closer to Civil War. What I’d

like to do today, then, is to begin the first of our lectures about the antebellum period. The

antebellum period refers to the years preceding the Civil War (“antebellum” means “before the

war”). Throughout the next three lectures, we’ll be looking separately at the regions of the

North, the South and the West and we’ll also be spending a little more time looking at the status

of women and slaves during this period. Today, in our first lecture on antebellum America, we’ll

be focusing on the North—looking in particular at industry, transportation, immigration, western

lands and agriculture— and we’ll also be looking at the women who were making waves in the

North in this period.

I. The Market Revolution and the Transportation Revolution, 1820s-1840s
But before we do that, we’re first going to take a very brief look at how the North was

developing in terms of population, transportation, and industry from the 1820s through the early

1840s, to set the stage for our separate discussions over the coming lectures of Northern,

Southern and Western development from the 1840s to the 1860s. In other words, we’ll be

looking at the market revolution and the transportation revolution, both of which truly began

to set the North apart from the South.

Just to give you an idea of what the American population looked like in this period, in 1790,

there were 4 million people living in America. By 1820, just thirty years later, the population

had grown to 10 million, so it had multiplied by two and a half times. By 1830, the population

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was at 12 million and by 1840, it was up to 17 million, meaning that the population had

increased by 7 million inhabitants in just 20 years! And by 1860, America was getting close to

being the largest nation in the world, nipping at the heels of Germany and France. Pretty

remarkable stuff. The majority of this booming population lived in new western lands or,

increasingly over the years, in Northern industrial centers.

So what did the world that all of these people lived in look like? How did the nation deal

with such a rapid increase in the population? Well, disease and epidemics abounded as the

population started to increase around the turn of the nineteenth century, but public health

measures were quickly put into place to try and stop these epidemics. Disease rates slowly

dropped throughout the early nineteenth century as a result, and mortality rates dropped to an all-

time low. So, the massive population growth that took place in the first half of the nineteenth

century could partially be accounted for by the fact that fewer people were dying from

epidemics/ diseases.

But there were other factors involved in the massive population growth that took place, as

well. The most significant factor was the high birth rate that emerged in this period—the white

population found its numbers multiplying at a rapid pace. The population growth was further

aided by a new wave of immigration that took place in the late 1830s and after. Immigration had

been stifled in the first three decades of the nineteenth century because of wars in Europe and the

difficult financial situations in America, but by the late 1830s, immigrants from Ireland and other

northern European countries began coming over.

And it should come as no surprise, then, that this population growth meant that

Americans were looking for their favorite thing: more land. The population boom caused a great

deal of the new population to migrate to lands in the west. We’ll be talking in much more detail

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about this westward migration in the coming lectures, but just know for now that much of the

population growth was absorbed by new lands in the west.

The rest of the newly enlarged population would turn to cities as their new place of

inhabitance and the cities grew rapidly both in terms of population and commerce in the period

from the 1820s to the 1840s. By 1840, one in twelve Americans lived in a city, which was a

dramatic increase from the turn of the century, when only one person in thirty was living in a

city. New York City saw the greatest population growth and by the early 1800s, it was the

Figure 1: Broadway and Trinity Church in Manhattan, 18301

biggest city in the U.S. You see, New York had a lot going for it—it had a great harbor, it gave

the city access to the interior lands with the construction of the Erie Canal (which you’ll read

more about in just a few minutes) in 1825, and the city had really liberal laws with regard to

commerce, which encouraged merchants, traders, peddlers and laborers, among others, to move

1 From http://www.nyc-architecture.com/LM/no14

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to New York City. (Check out this clip from the documentary, New York for a great visual of

New York and it’s growth during this period: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPSCef5iQos&list=PL6B435B2D9E826797&index=10 ).

So, we have population growth in this period, we have the growth of cities, and these

things set the stage for a changing economy. With the stage set, three major developments took

place between 1820 and 1840 that provided the greatest changes to the American economic

landscape: the proliferation of canals; the creation of railroads; and the growth of factories.

Interestingly enough, however, these developments all primarily occurred in the North. Canals

developed as Northern merchants looked for new ways to ship goods from one place to the next

and the first of the major canals, the Erie Canal, was an immediate financial success. The

Figure 2: The Erie Canal2

Canal was seen as a major technological advancement and it meant that goods and people could

travel much faster than ever before. Now, of course, that’s relatively speaking—it was still a

LONG journey, as you can hear with “The Erie Canal Song” (click on the link to listen to the

song!).

2 From http://www.history.rochester.edu/canal/images/1

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Railroad lines also became much more common in the North from the 1820s to the

1840s, allowing more people and more goods to travel to new places. What kind of impact do

you imagine these two developments would have had on the North to make the North

different from the South? Both would’ve made the North easier to travel around, made goods

more available, and encouraged the production of additional goods (causing a “market

revolution,” which encompasses these new and more available goods!). Sophisticated

transportation also made the North a more desirable place to immigrate or migrate to.

The third major economic factor that came into play between the 1820s and the 1840s

was the growth of the factory system in the North. In the 1820s and 1830s, business saw rapid

growth as the idea of the corporation was introduced, allowing businessmen to come together to

make big profits. By the 1830s, corporations were cropping up all over the North and these

corporations quickly used their massive capital to purchase or create large manufacturing and

business enterprises.

The rise of the factory system illustrated the major industrial changes that had been

occurring in the US in the previous 75 years. You may remember that during the colonial

period, industry was mainly centered around the home. Most Americans created goods that were

immediately useful and necessary to running the household economy. People would spin cloth

and make their own clothes, people would create ceramic bowls and cups, people would make

shovels to deal with their land. But as technology improved, this type of industry was slowly

replaced with a much larger-scale, consolidated one.

As early as the early 1800s, textile mills popped up for the first time, like the New

England Lowell Mills we talked about a few lectures ago. These textile mills of the early 1800s

were incredibly innovative in that they brought all methods of production under one roof—with

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the wool spun into thread, and fabric created from that thread on the premises—and by the 1820s

and 1830s, textile factories were able to make cloth for so cheap that they replaced the making of

one’s own cloth in the home entirely. Shoes followed closely behind cloth in the early 1800s,

and by the 1830s, factories for a number of different industries began cropping up across New

England and the Northern United States. Technology became so advanced, so rapidly, that

America, for the first time, became the true innovators. Other countries were now coming to

learn techniques and get new inventions from America, rather than the other way around.

What this new, expanding factory system meant for the American people was not just a

cheaper way to make cloth, not just an easier way to have shoes made, but the factory system

also had the effect of taking more people out of the homes—out of domestic manufacturing—

and into the factories. In particular, the 1820s and 1830s saw factory workers coming, not yet

from immigrant populations, as they would in later years, but instead from native white

populations. Factory owners had to recruit these native populations to leave their self-sufficient

farms, which were already being overshadowed by cheap farm goods that could be shipped to

and from various new regions.

They recruited workers, in some cases, by moving an entire family to a mill, or factory,

town. At these types of factories, mothers, fathers and children would work together and

produce the factory’s goods. In other cases, and this was more common—particularly in the

Massachusetts area where textile production had become so popular and profitable—factories

recruited young, single women to leave their farm families and move to the factory town. This

was a pretty remarkable development because it truly marked the first time that women left the

private sphere and were actively pursued to enter wage labor. These women generally only

worked in the factories for a few years; they usually left once they had saved up some money,

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returned to their home town, married and had children. Other women married men they met in

the factory or in the surrounding town.

Also, these women factory workers were pretty closely looked after during the 1820s and

1830s. People were obviously worried about putting women to work in wage labor, a system

that had been decried as corrupt and disgusting in early years, and many factory owners wanted

to protect the integrity and morality of their female workers via curfews and strict supervision.

Women, at first, were also paid decent wages and given appropriate working hours.

Figure 3: Lowell Mill Girls3

But life in the factories wasn’t all good for these female workers. They often found

working in a more urban, factory life was difficult and strange compared to their farm lives.

Also, the paternalistic system wherein factory owners protected the honor and morality of their

female workers, and where they paid fair wages and had women working reasonable hours,

didn’t last that long. By the 1830s, factory owners began focusing instead on driving up

production and profits while reducing wages and high living standards that were costly. Women

workers created unions and went on strike in the 1830s to combat this, but quickly found that the

employers—the factory owners—were much more powerful, particularly because they could

3 From http://www.dover.lib.nh.us/DoverHistory/millgirls.htm

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replace women who were on strike, women who complained about their situation (such as the

woman who composed the strike song below), with immigrants who started coming over in the

1830s and 1840s.

LOWELL MILLS STRIKE SONG
Oh! isn’t it a pity, such a pretty girl as I-
Should be sent to the factory to pine away and die?
Oh ! I cannot be a slave,
I will not be a slave,
For I’m so fond of liberty
That I cannot be a slave.

Immigrants from Ireland made up the majority of European immigrants to America in

this period, and they were seen as a low form of worker—employers did not feel any obligation

to give them good living or working conditions, to give them fair wages, as they had with

women. Accordingly, running factories became less costly and more profitable for owners.

II. Northern Industry
Now that we’ve set the stage for the antebellum period, I’d like to focus specifically on the

development of the North during the antebellum period. We’ll start off where we just left off—

looking at industry. The factory owners were focused on making big profits and by the 1840s,

Northern factories were very financially successful. In 1840, the US was producing $483 million

worth of manufactured goods; by 1850, that number had jumped to over $1 billion and in 1860 it

had almost doubled, had almost reached $2 billion. This northern industry grew rapidly in the

1840s and 1850s because of technological advances, such as interchangeable parts, which

made for dramatic changes in certain industries, like the railroad industry and in the factories.

Likewise, around this time, coal was replacing wood as fuel and that coal could push new steam

engines and harness water power in factories. So, industry was seeing new technology come in

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to play that allowed factories to run more smoothly and produce goods in a more efficient

manner, and, as a result, industry was booming in the North around the 1840s and 1850s.

One of the immediate results of this industrial growth was the growing need for factory

workers and that growing need led to the development, in America, of a large, permanent

working class. These workers came largely from that new immigrant population who came to

America beginning in the 1830s, a group we’ll talk about a little later.

Beginning in the 1840s, labor conditions for that working class got pretty bad. Affordable

places to live were difficult to come by and, as a result, workers typically lived in horrible slum

apartments in the factory town where they worked. Though living conditions were bad, the

conditions in the factory were worse: factories were large, noisy, unsanitary and dangerous.

Workdays were often twelve or fourteen hours long and wages were going down rather than up,

particularly for women and children.

Workers tried to improve their situation, begging state governments to set up protective laws

or a maximum-hour workday. Some states—New Hampshire in 1847 and Pennsylvania in

1848—did pass laws that barred employers from making employees work longer than ten hours a

day without their consent. But what do you think the problem with a law like this would’ve

been? Laws like this were easily violated—employers could require that a worker agree to

extended workdays as a condition of their employment and someone desperate for work would

give the okay.

Other states passed laws limiting the number of hours children could work, also to ten (can

you imagine children working ten hours a day in the US today??) and employers were able to

easily circumvent these laws, as well. Workers did gain one major legal victory in this period

and that was when the Massachusetts court ruled in 1842 that unions were lawful organizations

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and that the strike was a lawful weapon. Other state courts followed suit, giving labor its first

effective bargaining tool. But the union movement, as a whole, remained extremely weak in this

period and didn’t amount to much, particularly for those workers who probably needed it the

most. Most labor organization happened among skilled workers, tradesmen, and admission to

their unions was restricted to male, skilled workers.

Among the unskilled laborers, the development of labor unions was inhibited by the fact that

new immigrants were often willing to work for lower wages than the current workers and

because there was such a large influx of immigrants needing work, employers could just get rid

of a grumbling employee and replace him with a new, desperate immigrant. Additionally,

industry, and the money behind it, was so powerful in this period, that it was seemingly

impossible to beat the corporations, to beat industry. Industry and the money and power it

created just seemed to grow and grow in the North in this period.

III. Transportation
One factor that fueled this industrial economy was the growth of transportation and

communication in the North. You know from earlier in this lecture that America had already

implemented a canal system that changed the face of domestic trade and production. You also

know that the railroads started to develop between the 1820s and 1830s—not in a way that would

rival the canals, but the groundwork for a powerful network had been laid. Businessmen had

been experimenting with steam-powered locomotives, they had laid railroad tracks—now all

they needed to do was to connect independent lines and try to reach out to some more inland,

rural areas.

Well, that happened from the 1840s to the 1860s in the North, particularly in the Northeast,

where railroad use—for both human and product transportation—would soon far exceed canal

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use. The money for building these railroads came from a variety of sources. Private investors—

those men who had already been thinking about and experimenting with railroads in the early

years— poured money into more railroad development. Local and state governments also

contributed, realizing that having a railroad could only help their region out. Even more

important than these two investing groups was the federal government. Politicians who had seen

the potential of the railroads convinced Congress to grant federal land to the railroad lines and by

the 1860s, Congress had granted over thirty million acres to eleven states to subsidize railroad

lines. The railroads truly set the North apart from the South. In the South, there was no real,

sophisticated railroad system, so people had a difficult time traveling from their local areas. But

in the North, industry was allowed to flourish, people were able to travel, and goods had a way to

make it from raw materials to products because of the railroads.

IV. Immigration
As a result of the massive economic and industrial growth of the North in the 1820s and

1830s, Northern cities became much larger and more powerful. One of the factors contributing to

this growth was, of course, a population boom. In the 1840s, 1850s and 1860s, the population

growth was dramatic and those who didn’t head west made their way into Northern cities. The

population growth from the 1840s to the 1860s was due partially to higher birth rates in the

country, but also to increased immigration from abroad to America. Between 1840 and 1850,

more than one and a half million people moved from Europe to the United States and in the

1850s, the number had reached two and a half million. The majority of the immigrants in this

period came from Ireland and Germany and almost all of the Irish immigrants landed in a

Northeastern city like Boston or New York City (causing intense anti-Irish sentiment).

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As the immigrant population was increasing, anti-immigrant sentiment in the North

simultaneously grew. But why? Well, first, these immigrants quickly became a political factor.

Politicians saw them as an important potential voting constituency and so they set out, quickly,

to encourage state governments to liberalize state voting laws to allow immigrants who hadn’t

yet become citizens to vote. Once they were able to secure the state legislation in favor of

immigrant voting, politicians would court the new immigrant population with money or other

favors. What this meant, of course, was that the tenets of democracy were being violated—

people were supposed to be informed voters who voted based on personal conviction; the

immigrants who were voting fresh from Ireland, were often poorly educated (but generously

bribed to vote a certain way) on the matters they were voting on.

Second, some Americans saw immigrants as mentally and physically inferior and believed

immigrants were bringing the stock of the American race, if there was such a thing, down.

Third, still others feared the job competition that immigrants posed; they felt that immigrants

were stealing jobs from native workers because immigrants were willing and able to work for

lower wages.

All of this anti-immigrant sentiment and paranoia led to the creation of a number of anti-

immigrant societies. The largest of these societies was an association known as the Native

American Association, which became a political party, the Native American party, in 1845.

The Native American party wanted to ban immigrants from holding public office, enact stricter

laws for immigrants to gain citizenship, and put a literacy test for voting in place to prohibit

much of the immigrant population from voting. The party functioned much like a fraternal

order, holding meetings in lodges and requiring members to give a secret password for entry.

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That secret password (not so secret anymore), was “I know nothing,” and the Native American

party was often referred to as the Know-Nothing party.

After the 1852 presidential election, the Know-Nothings created a new political organization

out of the Native American party and they were able to secure a number of victories in the

Congressional elections of 1854, even winning control of the state government in Massachusetts

(demonstrating how hated the Irish were in Boston!). Though the party would never do much

else beyond this, their ideas about immigration, their nativist sentiment, would carry over for

decades to come.

Figure 4: A Know-Nothing Party Flag4

V. The Northwest
It wasn’t just cities that were seeing major changes during the antebellum period. Rural

areas also saw some massive transformations. Most notable was the decline of agricultural

production in the Northeast, a phenomenon that occurred largely because of the fertility and

abundance of the Northwestern lands. Keep in mind, this isn’t yet the Far West, which we’ll talk

about in a few lectures from now… these are simply the western regions of the North; places like

4 From http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/immigration/know-nothing-flag

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Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Michigan. With the shift west, white settlers began moving from

eastern areas to Northwestern lands where they would generally set up pretty nice family farms.

The Northwest was particularly important, though, because the growth of the agricultural

economy in the Northwest would have profound effects on the growing divide between the North

and the South, between slave and free. You see, the relationship between the Northeast and the

Northwest became increasingly tight in the 1840s and 1850s; the Northeast sold many of its

industrial products to the prospering Northwest; the Northwest sold many of its agricultural

goods to the Northeast. This relationship strengthened the bond between these two regions and

contributed to a growing isolation of the North from the South (in other words, the South began

to feel unneeded and the North began to feel like they were superior—in their self-sufficiency—

to the South).

VI. Women and the Antebellum North
With all of the dramatic changes going on in the North, the divide between North and

South was growing ever deeper. As the North focused on industry, commerce and economic

stability, the South continued to depend on the system of slavery. As the South continued to

focus on maintaining traditional gender relationships and cultural traditions, the North began to

expand and challenge the old system. And it was women, perhaps the most, who challenged the

Northern cultural and social traditions during the antebellum period and I’d like to spend the rest

of this lecture looking at women and some of the strides they made in the North in this period.

Women were able to change public perceptions about women and change their own status in

Northern society by getting involved in reform movements. Women were also the major players

in the reform movements of the antebellum period, from roughly 1820 to 1860, and becoming

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involved in reform allowed women, for the first time since the American Revolution, to step out

of the confines of the domestic sphere and have a public voice.

The post-Revolutionary period saw women’s role in the economy completely limited,

particularly for middle- and upper-class women. Though women had demonstrated the ability to

run farms and deal with the household economy while their husbands were off fighting the

Revolution, the industrial, market economy that developed in America (which had established

itself by the 1800s), set up a sexual division of labor in economics that was even more

pronounced than before. In this new economy, rather than working on small farms, many men

went to work for wages; women’s roles as workers (it was thought), were in service to the needs

of others, particularly their husbands. Likewise, women were forced into financial dependence

since it was only men who really had the ability to earn money.

The industrial economy was also often depicted as a corrupt, immoral, and dangerous

world that women needed to be shielded from. The domestic sphere provided a safe haven, it

seemed, from the masculine, grimy public sphere. Furthermore, the feminine characteristics that

made women helpless in the face of the crafty, deceitful business and political world highlighted

the opposing characteristics assigned to femininity, such as morality, honesty, and safety. Ideas

about women’s nature suggested that they could only function in the safe haven of the private

sphere while men toiled in the public world to provide for the family—and this notion became

the basis for the SEPARATE SPHERES IDEOLOGY, which ruled gender relations for

much of the 18th, 19th and even 20th centuries.

This exclusion from economic and political life seems to suggest that women were not

only seen in an inferior light, but accepted their subordinate status without questioning it, but

today we’ll see that women did, indeed, challenge their subordination, though they did so at

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times in a rather sneaky way. Although the antebellum period did not see women make any

widespread gains or pathways into the public sphere—such as voting rights or equal pay—

women found many ways to actually use the idea of femininity and rhetoric appropriate to the

domestic sphere to gain autonomy and power within the private sphere (the home), and a voice

and position within the public one. Women found that becoming involved in reform movements

fit with ideas about women’s nature because these reform movements hoped to better society, to

make society moral and good. These reform movements were often started by men, but it was

women who actually helped the reform movements gain strength and get something done.

Women’s involvement in reform movements led to a use of rhetoric which seemed to agree

with the separate spheres ideology, but instead justified the public, sometimes masculine

actions of women in their reforming crusade and women’s involvement in abolitionism and

temperance really highlights this.

A. Abolitionism
So first let’s take a look at abolitionism. Abolitionism was the term given to the anti-

slavery movement in America. The national crusade against slavery basically began in the

1830s, largely because of the efforts of a man named William Lloyd Garrison and his Boston

Figure 5: Garrison and The Liberator5

5 From http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2950b.html and http://www.theliberatorfiles.com/wp-
content/uploads/2008/02/Page_1_The_Liberator_No_17_April_23_1831

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newspaper, The Liberator. Garrison believed that opponents of slavery should focus not on the

evil influence of slavery on white society (this had largely been the way anti-slavery activists

argued against slavery—they claimed that it made whites more debased, it brought Africans to

America, and so on—all things that don’t take into account the awful effects of slavery on the

slaves themselves!), but instead on how evil slavery was to blacks. He called for the

“immediate, unconditional, universal abolition of slavery and the extension to blacks of all the

rights of American citizenship.”6 Garrison quickly attracted a number of Northern followers with

his message and he founded the American Antislavery Society in 1833. Just a few years later,

by the end of the 1830s, Garrison’s Antislavery Society had over 250,000 members.

In the years after the development of the American Antislavery Society, Garrison grew

increasingly radical in his abolitionist rhetoric and in his ideas for ending slavery, which caused

some followers to abandon abolitionism and others to call for a change in leadership. You see,

Garrison had begun arguing by the 1840s, that women be allowed to participate in the antislavery

movement and the Society on terms of full equality with men (this probably doesn’t sound very

radical to you, but in the 1840s, this was very radical stuff!). He also began arguing that all

forms of coercion, such as prisons and asylums, should be outlawed (imagine how this

suggestion went over!) and he called for the North to break away from the South, thus getting rid

of slavery in the Union (secession?! Yikes!). So, as I said, as Garrison grew more radical, the

abolitionist movement began going in different directions.

The movement split into various cohorts. Some abolitionists tried to plead with Southern

slave owners to get rid of the horrible institution of slavery. When that didn’t work, many tried

6 Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People (McGraw Hill: New
York, 1996), 319.

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using politics to enact change. For example, some of these political abolitionists helped slaves to

escape to the north or to Canada and, more importantly, won a Supreme Court victory in 1842

(although the victory was short-lived, being overturned in 1850) that said that states did not need

to aid in enforcing a law that had been passed in the 1790s that required the return of runaway or

fugitive slaves to their owners. In other words, northerners no longer had to return runaway

slaves to owners in the south. Likewise, political abolitionists also encouraged the federal

government to outlaw slavery in the new territories that were being added to the US. Other

abolitionists, frustrated with how long it was taking to get slavery abolished, took matters into

their own hands, using violence as a means to their end (that’s a little foreshadowing of what’s to

come in future lectures—mayhem, madness, violence!!).

But women really took the reins of the abolitionist movement from the 1830s on, helping

to make the antislavery movement a vocal and powerful one. As I said a few minutes ago,

people thought William Lloyd Garrison’s idea that women be granted full equality within the

American Antislavery Society was seen as extremely radical. In response to this, female anti-

slavery societies formed alongside (and as technical subordinates to) male-dominated societies as

a way to maintain the unwritten gender laws of the time. Women widely participated in the

movement, citing a hatred for human suffering, which meshed well with the roles as mother,

wife, moral guardian, and nurturer that women were expected to follow. The best known of

these corollary female groups was the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, created as an

adjunct to the Garrison-led Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, which became an arena for women to

perform their moral duties, and, for some, a way to voice political opinion.

These women made their first foray into public life with the abolitionist Petition

Campaign of 1835, which was largely run by women. These women collected signatures to

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show support for a growing call to outlaw slavery in Washington, DC—in the nation’s capital.

But their petition campaign was something much bigger, too—women were now going beyond

the private, domestic sphere. In their quest for signatures, these women found themselves

enormously successful. The vast number of signatures obtained by female abolitionists

suggested that rather than simply gaining support from obvious sympathizers, these women were

actually educating new people—new petition signers, who were male—on the ills of slavery by

sharing their own political opinions.

Not only were women involved in politics, they also played an economic role in the

antislavery movement, a role that was supposed to fall to men. This economic support came

largely from the antislavery fairs that women began to hold, which were the primary fundraisers

for the antislavery movement. Though women were still not supposed to be involved in the

economy, the public sphere or politics, at the fairs women were selling goods (like potholders

embroidered with slogans like “any holder but a slaveholder” and sugar bowls that read “sugar

not grown by slaves”), raising money, keeping accounting books, meeting with people and

Figure 6: An Anti-Slavery Sugar Bowl7

7 From http://www.history.org/history/teaching/enewsletter/volume2/february04/iotm.cfm

An inscription inside this sugar bowl read:
East India Sugar not made

By Slaves.
By Six families using
East India, instead of
West India Sugar, one
Slave less is required

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discussing the politics of slavery and abolition with those people. This was all revolutionary

behavior for women, but behavior that worked under the veil of feminine activity (because

women were pursuing the moral cause of saving slaves). Women contributed dramatically to the

growing popularity of abolitionism in the North.

B. Temperance
A second reform movement in the antebellum period, in which women would play a large

role, was the temperance movement. The goal of the temperance movement was to outlaw the

production and consumption of alcohol in the United States; temperance activists claimed that

drunkenness was a moral and religious problem that had an ill effect on families. In the early

antebellum temperance movement, like the early antislavery movement, women were not

permitted as formal members in temperance societies. But male leaders

called on women to assist the movement from a subordinate position, and

women, particularly Protestant, middle-class women, became increasingly

drawn to the movement. These women were drawn to temperance because

of its focus on morality and its goal of ridding American society of one of

its great social ills, the drinking of alcohol.8

The most notable group of women in the temperance movement was

known as the Daughters of Temperance.9 In the first few years of its

existence, the Daughters of Temperance focused on changing moral

views on alcohol, mainly by telling stories about the detrimental effects

8 Barbara Leslie Epstein, The Politics of Domesticity: Women, Evangelism and Temperance in Nineteenth-
Century America (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 1981), 89.
9 Image from http://www.njwomenshistory.org/Period_3/daughters.htm

Figure 7: Daughters of Temperance
Pledge

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of intemperance on the family. But they quickly shifted gears to focus on the more public issue

of making alcohol consumption illegal and with this shift came a movement of these women into

a radical position, into the public sphere. One Daughter of Temperance, Susan B. Anthony,

began fundraising, organizing women and organizing larger meetings. Simultaneously, other

Daughters began to take more militant action. A few of the women “‘took power in their own

hands, visiting saloons, breaking windows, glasses, bottles and emptying [beer bottles] and

barrels into the street.’”10 Other women began voicing public opinion in forums such as poetry,

literature, and newspapers.

Figure 8: Temperance Activists Destroying Alcohol11

Anthony and her supporters, women like Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and

Amelia Bloomer, whose names you’ll hear again, continued to defy femininity by organizing a

committee and making the arrangements for a Woman’s State Temperance Convention, which

10 Ross Evans Paulson, Women’s Suffrage and Prohibition: A Comparative Study of Equality and Social
Control, (Glenview: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1973), 70-71.
11 From http://www1.assumption.edu/WHW/old/DowNapoleonofTemperance

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was held in April, 1852, in Rochester, New York. Building upon the resolutions made at the

Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, which we will talk about in more detail in a few minutes, this

meeting made even more radical and controversial resolutions.

Most important was the Convention’s resolve to, “Let no woman remain in the relation

of wife with a confirmed drunkard. Let no drunkard be the father of her children…Let us

petition our State government so to modify the laws affecting marriage and the custody of

children, that the drunkard shall have no claims on wife or child.” Not only does this

resolution propose reforms in divorce laws that would favor women, it insinuates that women are

capable of living, in fact, of raising children, with no help, emotionally or economically from

men. Although the resolution was clearly designed to help women, particularly those who were

mothers (the traditional role for women), the resolution defied tradition, defied the separate

spheres ideology (public sphere=male world; private sphere/home=female world), and called

into question the traditional definition of feminine difference.12 The temperance movement was

not very successful in this period, but it did call attention to drunkenness and it led to eventual

reform in the 20th century. Perhaps more important, the temperance movement provided women

with a way to challenge separate spheres ideology.

C. Women’s Rights Movement
With the challenges the abolitionist and temperance movements posed to the separate spheres

ideology, it should come as no surprise that the women’s rights movement, or as it has often

been called, the first wave of feminism, largely grew out of these two reform movements.

12 Ida H. Harper, Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Vol. 1, (New York: Arno & New York Times, 1969),
68.

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Women’s activism in the temperance movement and the abolitionist movement got women

thinking about their own rights, in particular their economic and legal rights. This thinking

brought together a number of women in 1848 to the Seneca Falls Convention13, where a

discussion was started about what rights women deserved and

needed granted by law to them, as well as a discussion about the

merits of starting a fight for women’s suffrage.

Immediately before the Seneca Falls Convention, its two

leaders, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, drafted their

“Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions,” (also known as the

“Declaration of Rights and Sentiments”) which was modeled after

the Declaration of Independence, and claimed, “We hold these

truths to be self-evident, that all men and women are created

equal.”14 “The Seneca Falls convention made this bold claim for

full citizenship—including the right of suffrage—in a way that

claimed republicanism for women not as mothers responsible for

rearing good little citizens but as autonomous individuals deserving of that right.”15. So the

Seneca Falls Convention was making some pretty bold statements and calling for major social

change.

The logical question, then, is what happened after the Seneca Falls Convention? After

all, we know that the right to vote was not extended to women until the early twentieth century

13 Image from http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/vc006195
14 http://www.ku.edu/carrie/docs/texts/seneca.htm
15 Sara Evans, Born for Liberty: A History of Women in America (New York: Free Press, 1997), 95.

Figure 9: The Declaration of Sentiments and
Resolutions

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(1920), decades after the end of the Civil War; decades, even, after the right to vote had been

granted to former male slaves. Unfortunately, at least on the national level, not much came

about after Seneca Falls. The women’s rights movement lacked a strong, central leadership and

even more importantly, many disagreed on exactly what was being fought for. In fact, most of

the women involved in women’s rights in this period were not all that interested in getting the

right to vote; Elizabeth Cady Stanton and a few others believed the vote was necessary, but many

more women thought that women should first fight for the control of property and earnings,

guardianship of children in the event of a divorce, favorable divorce laws, education and

employment rights and for legal status such as being able to sue and bear witness. But without

the right to vote, Stanton argued, women’s rights activists found it difficult to change conditions,

and, more importantly, get legislation passed.

Despite their disagreements, however, women’s rights activists worked tirelessly, on the

state level to make changes for women. In New York, for example, from 1851 to 1859 women

collected petitions calling on the New York State Legislature to give women control over their

earnings, guardianship of their children in cases of divorce, and the right to vote. What they got,

in 1860, was the passage of a bill giving “women the right, in addition to owning property, to

collect their own wages, to sue in court, and to have…property rights at their husband’s death.”16

Not quite what they were hoping for, but it was a start.

Though the women’s rights movement, at this time, was largely made up of white

middle-class women, there were also some African American women involved in the movement.

African-American women, such as Sojourner Truth, Frances E.W. Harper, and Sarah

Redmond, brought new life and powerful testimony into the women’s rights movement. While

16 Evans, 83.

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these women were simultaneously abolitionists, they powerfully pointed out the problem with

any type of inequality—be it based on skin color, gender or something else.

I’d like to look a little more closely at one of these African-American women, Sojourner

Truth. Born into slavery in New York, Truth’s experience with slavery, a system which forced

her to endure frequent beatings by her master, a forced marriage, and the bearing of thirteen

children, most of whom she was forced to watch be sold into slavery, was a difficult one. She

was freed in 1827, when New York State freed all of its slaves and was a domestic worker until

the abolitionist movement drew her in. But unlike other women in the abolitionist movement,

Truth was not immediately welcomed into the women’s rights movement. Because she was

African-American, some women feared that she would put the cause of anti-slavery before

women’s rights at a detriment to the women’s rights movement.

Luckily, however, Truth was given the pulpit at an 1851 women’s rights convention in

Ohio, where she easily countered the claims of an earlier speaker who had argued that women

were too weak and dependent to be trusted with the right to vote.17 In fact, Truth used her

doubly inferior status as a Black Woman to refute the clergyman’s claims, stating “The man

over there says women need to be helped into carriages and lifted over ditches, and to have

the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriage or over puddles, or gives

me the best place—and ain’t I a woman?”18 Truth’s powerful speech caused others at the

convention, mostly white women, to draw similar conclusions about their power, strength and

capability. Yet, no set of women’s rights would become uniform across even the Northern

states, as women’s rights activists continued to focus on local, state-centered issues and politics.

17 Evans, 85.
18 Evans, 88.

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Further, no women’s rights movement would develop in the South, where a dominant social code

of chivalry, paternalism and hierarchy kept women firmly rooted in the domestic sphere.

So, where did all of this leave women and the women’s rights movement on the brink of

the Civil War? Well, first, the development of the women’s rights movement, beginning in the

abolitionist and moral reform societies, allowed women to slowly enhance their position and

influence in American society. Additionally, without the support of women in such public

activities as moral reform societies, religious groups, and the temperance and abolitionist

movements, these reform movements may never have made it out of their infant stages. And

though the Civil War forced women to put their demands on hold, the lessons learned during this

first foray into politics were instrumental in the fight women would wage after the war.

And to answer the question of where did this leave the women’s rights movement, by 1860, the

women’s rights movement had created large, local and even a few national populations of

women who believed that women deserved to participate in public life and could question the

confines of domesticity. The lessons that women’s rights activists in the antebellum period

learned about organization, protest, and gathering support would prove incredibly important in

the women’s rights movement after the Civil War.

You see, the demands and trials of the Civil War would draw attention away from

women’s rights temporarily, but, the Civil War offered women new, more public roles as nurses,

spies, heads of plantations, and office workers, which we’ll be looking at as we get to the end of

our course. As a result of these new roles, at the end of the Civil War, women quickly renewed

their efforts to gain equality and the right to vote. But these new female behaviors were limited,

almost entirely through the Civil War period and the antebellum period, to women of the North.

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Why was this the case? Why did the South develop so differently from the North? What was

life in the South like? To those stories and many more, we’ll turn next time.