Growth and Division of Growth and Division of the Early U.S.the Early U.S.

Ch. 7 notesCh. 7 notes

1) In the early 1800s following the War of 1812 harmony in U.S. national politics had reached a high mostly because only one political party – the Repulicans – had any power.

2) The War of 1812 had taught a new generation of Republican leaders that a stronger federal government was advantageous.

3) In the years following the War of 1812 Henry Clay of Kentucky became known as the Great Compromiser for his role in working out various agreements between leaders of the North and South.

4) In his political career Henry Clay served as Kentucky state legislator, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. senator, and Secretary of State.

5) John Calhoun of S.C. was an influential member of Congress. He was a War Hawk - one who urged war with G.B. in 1812.

6) Calhoun was an ardent nationalist in his early career. In the 1830s Calhoun abandoned his nationalist stance in favor of state’s rights and sectional interests.

7) Throughout the early 1800s, Spanish-held FL was a source of anger and frustration for Southerners. Many runaway slaves fled there, knowing that Americans couldn’t cross the border into Spanish territory.

8) Many of the Creek Indians had retreated to FL as American settlers seized their lands. Originally the Creek Indians occupied a large part of the land that is now Alabama.

9) In 1809 rebellions began to erupt in Spain’s colonies. By 1824 all of Spain’s colonies on the American mainland had declared independence. Spain’s once vast empire had been reduced to three islands: Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo.

10) Russia’s increasing influence on North America worried members of Pres. Monroe’s administration. Russia already claimed Alaska, and in 1821 it announced that its empire extended S into the Oregon country.

11) The Erie Canal was a striking example of a revolution in transportation that swept through the Northern states in the early 1800s. This revolution led to dramatic social and economic changes.

12) As early as 1806, the U.S. took the first steps toward a transportation revolution when Congress funded the building of a major east-west highway, the National Road.

13) Rivers offered a far faster, more efficient, and cheaper way to move goods than did roads, which were often little more than wide paths. A barge could hold many wagonloads of grain or coal. http://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/usa-river-map.html

14) Another mode of transportation-railroads-also appeared in the early 1800s. As railroads expanded, they created national markets for many goods by making transportation cheaper.

15) Industry developed quickly in the U.S. in the early 1800s for several reasons. Perhaps the most important factor was the American system of free enterprise based on private property rights.

16) The industrialization of the U.S. drew thousands of people from farms and villages to towns in search of factory jobs with higher wages. As a result many city populations doubled or tripled in the first half of the 19th century.

17) The South thrived on the production of several major cash crops. In the upper Southern states farmers grew tobacco. Rice paddies dominated the coastal regions of S.C. and GA.

18) No crop played a greater role in the South’s fortunes than cotton. This crop was grown in a wide belt stretching from inland S.C., west through GA, AL, and MS, and into eastern Texas.

19) Social attitudes shaped Southern life and produced a definite class structure for the region. At the top were the planters, who owned the region’s larger plantations and usually owned slaves.

20) Near the bottom of the social ladder stood the rural poor, and at the bottom of society were African Americans who were typically enslaved.

21) The rice and cotton plantations of the South depended on enslaved labor for their existence. Therefore the overwhelming majority of enslaved African Americans toiled in the South’s fields.

22) In the South most African Americans during the first half of the 19th century lived in slavery, however some did not. By 1850 some 225,000 free African Americans resided in the South.

23) Free African Americans occupied an ambiguous position in Southern Society. In cities like Charleston and New Orleans, some were successful enough to become slaveholders themselves.

24) Songs were important to many enslaved people. Field workers often used songs to pass the long workday and to help them enjoy their scant leisure time in the evening.

25) Songs also played a key role in one of the most important parts of African American culture: religion. By the early 1800s, large numbers of African Americans were Christians.

26) The Monroe administration’s Era of Good Feelings could not ward off the nation’s growing sectional disputes and the passionately differing opinions over slavery.

27) Politics in the early 1800s reflected the sectional tensions of the day. The presidential election of 1824 showed how splintered the Republican party was becoming.

28) John Quincy Adams, son of the second president, had earned a reputation as the greatest Secretary of State in the nation’s brief history. A highly intelligent and hardworking man, he intended to leave his mark on the presidency.

29) In his first message to Congress, Adams announced an ambitious program of nationalist legislation that exceeded even Henry Clay’s American System.

30) Alongside standard internal improvements, Adams urged that federal revenue also be used to build a national university and astronomical observatories, and to fund scientific research.