Brown Unit 4 1800-1846 Group 2

The Postal Service Act was a piece of United States federal legislation that established the United States Post Office Department. It was signed into law by President George Washington on February 20, 1792.
Congress passed this act to give America quicker means of delivering items and having means of communication. If the Postal Service Act had not been passed then America would not have a postal service system, thus changing our ways of sending items and communicating like we do today.

Expansion of the franchise (right to vote) dramatically symbolized the Democratic Revolution. By the 1830’s, most states allowed nearly all white men to vote. Nowhere else in the world did ordinary farmers and wage earners exercise such political influence. Political parties provided voters with the means to express their preferences. If this wouldn’t have happened, then the rise of democracy wouldn’t have happened which means that both political machines and the spoils system wouldn’t have been created.

In the midst of the tariff crisis, Jackson faced a major challenge from politicians who supported the Second Bank of the United States. The bank was privately managed and operated under a twenty year charter from the federal government. The role of the bank was to stabilize the nation’s money supply, which consisted mainly of notes and bills of credit- in effect, paper money, issued by state chartered banks. Those banks promised to redeem notes on demand with hard money (gold or silver coins minted by U.S. or foreign governments) but there were few coins in circulation. By collecting those notes and regularly demanding specie, the Second Bank kept the state banks from issuing too much paper money and depreciating its value. If this wouldn’t have happened, then Jackson wouldn’t have vetoed the rechartering bill, the bank wouldn’t have been destroyed, and Jackson wouldn’t have won major support.

The factions siding with John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson battled to gain voting favor among the states by creating new tariffs to protect farmers and manufacturers from an economic overtake of British goods, such as the Tariff of 1816 by the Adams administration and the Tariff of 1828 supported by the Jacksonians of the north. If the Tariff Battle hadn't happened then John Quincy Adams wouldn't have lost favor of the south, thus increasing chance of being reelected in 1828.

This event was the election in which Andrew Jackson held the majority of popular votes but did not receive an absolute majority and was beat out by John Quincy Adams in the House's vote. If the election of 1824 did not practice the 12th amendment then the House wouldn't have made JQA president, thus making Andrew Jackson the president by popular vote.

Adams called for bold national action. He called for the establishment of a national university in Washington, scientific explorations in the far west, and a uniform standard of weights and measures. Adams endorsed Henry Clay’s American System which included protective tariffs to stimulate manufacturing, federally subsidized roads and canals to facilitate commerce, and a national bank to control credit and provide a uniform currency. If he wouldn’t have been president, then people in America wouldn’t have been angry. The Tariff of Abominations wouldn’t have been created and Van Buren wouldn’t have spoken about his opposition of a consolidated government.

The Lyceum Movement was sparked by Ralph Waldo Emerson who believed in a single God and caused transcendentalist beliefs, which was an intellectual movement in New England. If the lyceum movement hadn't happened then people would not have written influential books, thus preventing the intellectual movement.

In this election, the Jacksonian campaign and Tariff of Abominations lifted Andrew Jackson to be the favorite among voters and achieve presidency. If the election of 1828 hadn't happened then Jackson would not be president, thus removing the democratic party from presidency.

A tariff enacted in 1828 that raised duties significantly on raw materials, textiles, and iron goods. New York senator Van Buren hoped to win the support of farmers in NY, OH, and KY with the tariff protection and resented the higher cost of imported dutied goods. If the tariff had never been established, then SC would not have boldly adopted the Ordinance of Nullification, thus giving the right to states to determine if a congressional law was unconstitutional and declare it null and void within the state’s borders.

Jackson put this act through Congress, and it gave the Indians the land of the Louisiana Purchase and promised money and reserved land, but violently forced the Indians west to land that was not as rich or as good as the eastern land. If the act had not been placed then Indians would have remained in the east, thus preventing the Trail of Tears and Indian subjugation being continued.

This Ordinance of Nullification was an act placed by a state convention called by South Carolinians that declared the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 to be null and void and threatened secession if the federal government tried to impose the tariff anyway, If this ordinance hadn't happened then the tariff would have remained in place, thus causing the federal government to have power over state legislation.

Andrew Jackson opposed national banking and succeeded in destroying the Second Bank of America by taking out all of their gold and silver and distributing among state banks. If Jackson had not destroyed the bank then it wouldn't have taken away national banking in his presidency, thus preventing the controversial actions he took to act independently from Congress and possibly illegally,

Election in which the Whig party faced Martin Van Buren. If this election had not happened, then Van Buren would not have tallied more votes than the Whigs, thus it would not have been obvious that the party’s message of economic and moral improvement appealed not only to middle-class Americans but also to farmers and workers with little or no poverty.

This took place when the Bank of England tried to curtail the flow of money and credit into the USA to boost their faltering economy. If the British hadn't cut off cash and credit from the US then the Panic of 1837 wouldn't have happened, thus causing the American economy to remain stable.

Forced westward journey of Cherokee’s from their lands in Georgia to present-day Oklahoma in 1838. Nearly a quarter of the Cherokees died en route. If the Trail of Tears had not happened, then other tribes would not have moved west of the Mississippi as well, thus citizenship in Indian acquired land would not have been “racially defined” as the U.S. was a “white man’s territory”.

Whigs exploited Van Buren’s weakness. In 1840, they organized their first national convention and nominated William Henry Harrison of Ohio for president and John Tyler of Virginia for vice president. Whig leaders Henry Clay and Daniel Webster wanted a president who would rubber stamp their program for protective tariffs and a national bank. The depression stacked the political cards against Van Buren, but the election turned as much on style as on substance. The Log Cabin Campaign was the first time two well organized parties competed for votes through a new style of campaigning. If this wouldn’t have happened, then more men wouldn’t have voted and Harrison wouldn’t have been voted into the White House.

Mother Ann believed that she was an incarnation of Christ and began the Shakers group and attempted to form a utopian society. If Mother Ann had not had her "vision" then the Shakers would not have been founded, thus removing the group from history.

Provoked more animosity, known as members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, were utopians with a much more conservative social agenda-continuing the traditional patriarchal family. If Joseph Smith had not founded the Mormon Church , then the idea would not have spread to Nauvoo, IL, thus creating the largest utopian community in the U.S. with 30,000 inhabitants.

The Lyceum Movement was sparked by Ralph Waldo Emerson who believed in a single God and caused transcendentalist beliefs, which was an intellectual movement in New England. If the lyceum movement hadn’t happened then people would not have written influential books, thus preventing the intellectual movement.

Minstrelsy was the making of plays that practiced racism and social mockery. If minstrelsy hadn't happened then racism would not have been encouraged, thus reducing the harassment of immigrants and blacks.

Nat Turner, a slave who was able to read, led an uprising in Virginia, killing 55 white men and leaving a lasting mark. If this rebellion had not happened then slave emancipation would not have happened in Virginia, thus leaving the slaves without as much hope for freedom.

Ralph Waldo Emerson celebrated the liberation of the individual. Emerson’s vision influenced thousands of ordinary Americans and a generation of important artists, who, in the American Renaissance, a mid-nineteenth century flourishing of literature and philosophy, wrote a remarkable number of first class novels, poems, and essays. Emerson was the leading voice of transcendentalism, an intellectual movement rooted in the religious soil of New England. Its first advocates were Unitarian ministers from well-to-do New England families who questioned the constraints of their Puritan heritage. For inspiration, they turned to European romanticism, a new conception of self and society. If this wouldn’t have happened, then many inspiring and powerful books wouldn’t have been written. Life in the Woods, The American Scholar, Woman in the Nineteenth Century, Leaves of Grass, and The Scarlet Letter are some of them.

William Lloyd Garrison was the most determined abolitionist. A Massachusetts born printer, Garrison had worked during the 1820s in Baltimore on an antislavery newspaper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation. In 1830, Garrison went to jail, convicted of libeling a New England merchant engaged in the domestic slave trade. In 1831, Garrison moved to Boston, where he immediately started his own weekly, The Liberator and founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society. He demanded immediate abolition without compensation to slave owners. The society won financial support from Arthur and Lewis Tappan, wealthy silk merchants in New York City. Later on, abolitionists urged to aid fugitive slaves. They provided lodging and jobs for escaped blacks in free states and created the Underground Railroad, an informal network of whites and free blacks in Richmond, Charleston, and other southern towns that assisted fugitives. If this didn’t happen, than close to zero blacks would have been saved. Blacks might have been slaves much longer.

An informal network of whites and free blacks in the South that assisted fugitive slaves to reach freedom in the North. If the Underground Railroad had ever been created, then one thousand of African Americans would not have found freedom in the North each year, thus abolitionists may not have held a political campaign where they went to congress with a petition that demanded the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, an end to the interstate slave trade and a ban on admission of new slave states.

Word coined by Alexis de Tocqueville to describe Americans as people no longer bounded by social attachments to class, castes, associations, and families. If the idea of individualism had not come about, then Emerson would not have celebrated the liberation of the individual, thus the American Renaissance would not have happened along with transcendentalism.

Racial fears and hatreds led to violent mob actions. White workers in northern towns laid waste to taverns and brothels where blacks and whites mixed, and they vandalized respectable African American churches, temperance halls, and orphanages. By pressing for emancipation and equality, the abolitionists had revealed the extent of racial prejudice and had heightened race consciousness, as both whites and blacks identified across class lines with members of their own race. Politicians joined the fray. President Andrew Jackson asked Congress in 1835 to restrict the use of the mails by abolitionist groups. Congress refused, but in 1836, the House of Representatives adopted the so-called gag rule. Under this informal agreement, which remained enforced until 1844, the House automatically tabled antislavery petitions, keeping the explosive issue of slavery off the congressional stage. If this wouldn’t have happened, then blacks could have been free sooner. Also, women wouldn’t have been recognized earlier.

John Humphrey Noyes began the oneida beliefs based on Shaker beliefs, except for the fact that he defended sexuality and turned to perfectionism for his basis. If Noyes had not formed the oneida community then their radical beliefs would have not existed, thus taking away from how beliefs differed and citizens practiced freedoms in America.

The fourierists believed that socialism would create a utopian society, led by Albert Brisbane. If fouriesm didn't exist then Brisbane would not have been influential, and thus he would not have written his book.

Dorthea Dix was a woman who was emotionally abused as a child, that grew into a compassionate young woman with a strong sense of moral purpose. If she has not persuaded lawmakers to enlarge the state hospitals to house indigent mental patients, then she would not have been able to establish state asylums for the mentally ill, thus many states would not have began to improve their prisons and public hospitals.

Brigham Young led thousands of Mormons westward in this trek to Salt Lake City. If this trek hadn't happened then Mormons would have remained under harassment of opposition, thus causing them to become disheartened and abandon their faith.

Women’s rights activists devised a pragmatic program of reform. Unlike radical utopians, they did not challenge the institution of marriage or the conventional division of labor within the family. Instead, they tried to strengthen the legal rights of married women by seeking legislation that permitted them to own property. This initiative won crucial support from affluent men, who feared bankruptcy in the volatile market economy and wanted to put some family assets in their wives’ names. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott organized a gathering of women’s rights activists in the small New York town of Seneca Falls. 70 women and 30 men attended the Seneca Falls Convention, which issued a rousing manifesto extending to women the egalitarian republican ideology of the Declaration of Independence. If this wouldn’t have happened, than America wouldn’t have noticed how women lack many rights. Even men agreed with the fact that women deserve more.

This was where southerners took on fancy and classy rituals, which became known as southern gentry. If this had not been formed then class differences would have been less vast, thus preventing arguments.

This was the selling of slaves in markets and auction houses in port cities that were bound for the massive New Orleans market. If this hadn't happened then it wouldn't have been visible to abolitionists, thus lessening abolitionist movement.

This was the trading of slaves between owners within the United States borders. The federal government played a key role in this by welcoming slave states like Alabama and Mississippi. If the slave states hadn't been welcomed then there would be less slavery, thus less opposition towards abolition.

Planters seeking labor looked to the Chesapeake region, home in 1800 to nearly half of the nation’s black population. There, the African American population was growing rapidly from natural increase- an average of 27 percent a decade by 1810, thus creating a surplus of enslaved workers on many plantations. Domestic slave trade was a result also. By 1816, the mania for buying negroes from the upper south had resulted in a massive transplantation of more than one million slaves. A majority of African Americans now lived and worked in the deep south, the lands that stretched from Georgia to Texas. This African American migration took two forms- transfer and sale. The domestic market brought wealth to American traders between 1800 and 1860. If this wouldn’t have happened, than there wouldn’t have been many slaves which means southerners would not be near as wealthy. Blacks could have better lives.

The black population that was free nearly tripled in a 50 year span. This was due to abolitionist movements and black culture maintained, such as Black Protestantism where blacks were declared equal to whites. If these people hadn't been freed then slavery would have continued to grow, thus continuing the mistreatment of blacks.

Granted all white men suffrage. If this constitution did not exist, then white men would not have gotten the right to vote, thus the secret ballot would not have been created.

For African American families, the domestic slave trade was a personal disaster that underlined their status and vulnerability as chattel slaves. In law, they were the movable personal property of the whites who owned them. Slave property underpinned the entire southern economic system. As a slave owner, Henry Clay knew that property rights were key to slave discipline. Thousands of slaves suffered from that fate, which destroyed about one in every four slave marriages. If this wouldn’t have happened, than more slaves would have ran away or took more action against slavery.

A system of work discipline used on southern cotton plantations in the mid-nineteenth century in which white overseers or black drivers supervised gangs of enslaved laborers to achieve greater productivity. If these systems had never formed, then profits would not have increased productivity, thus the wealth of the planter class would not have skyrocketed.

Cotton was a demanding crop because of its long growing season. Slaves plowed the land in March, dropped seeds in early April, and once the plants began to grow, continually chopped away the surrounding grasses. In between these tasks, they planted the corn and peas that would provide food for them and the plantation’s hogs and chickens. When the cotton bolls ripened in late August, the long four-month picking season began. Slaves in the cotton south worked much harder and more unremittingly than those in the tobacco regions. Moreover, fewer of them acquired craft skills than in tobacco, sugar and rice areas, where slave coopers and engineers made casks, processed sugar, and built irrigation systems. To increase output, profit-seeking cotton planters began, in the 1820s, to use the gang-labor system. Previously, many planters had supervised their workers sporadically or assigned them specific tasks to complete at their own pace. Now, masters with twenty or more slaves organized disciplined teams or gangs supervised by black drivers or white overseers. They instructed the supervisors to work the gangs at a steady pace, clearing and plowing land or hoeing and picking cotton. If this wouldn’t have happened, then profits wouldn’t have enhanced for slave owners. Productivity wouldn’t have increased.

The Americans and Mexicans had disputes over Mexico, and had many different views on how the issue should be solved. There was Sam Houston's war party and Stephen Austin's peace party. If this hadn't happened then disputes wouldn't have taken place over Texas, thus preventing the rift between Americans and Mexicans.

This was the practice of 'kind' slave owning by southern planters, who were good to their slaves and used this to rationalize their ownership. If this idea hadn't happened then slave owners wouldn't have clung to slavery, thus lessening the chance of a civil war.

The slave system in the interior of the country that fed slaves to the Cotton South. If this system had not been created, then white planters would not have been able to utilize interstate trade, thus not having the opportunity to provide young workers for the expanding plantations of the cotton belt.

This event was a battle led by Mexican President Santa Anna on the Alamo and capturing of Goliad against a Texas garrison. If this hadn't happened then the media wouldn't have turned Americans against Mexicans, thus preventing the destruction of Santa Anna's army later on.

Africans carried their traditional religious practices to the United States. Some practiced Islam, but the majority relied on African gods and spirits. Other Protestant crusaders came from the ranks of pious black men and women who had become Christians in the Chesapeake. Swept to the cotton south by the domestic slave trade, they carried with them the evangelical message of emotional conversion, ritual baptism, and communal spirituality. Equally important, these crusaders adapted Protestant doctrines to black needs. Enslaved Christians pointed out that blacks as well as whites were children of God and should be treated accordingly. Black Protestantism generally ignored the doctrines or original sin and predestination, and preachers didn’t use biblical passages that encouraged unthinking obedience to authority. If this wouldn’t have happened, than slaves wouldn’t have realized that the Bible says everyone is a child of God. Culture wouldn’t have spread among African Americans.

Slave owners in the New South faced much less hypocrisy although their treatment of slaves was much worse. If there would not have been slave owning entrepreneurs, then plantation owners would not have developed the gang-labor system, thus there would not have been organized teams or ‘gangs’ that was overseen by black drivers and white overseers. It also would not have given slaves the opportunity to get work done quicker and produce impressive profits and becoming even more prevalent.