The History of the United States Part 19

H. Lodge, Daniel Webster.

W. Macdonald, Jacksonian Democracy (American Nation Series).

Ostrogorski, Democracy and the Organization of Political Parties, Vol. II.

C.H. Peck, The Jacksonian Epoch.

C. Schurz, Henry Clay.

Questions

1. By what devices was democracy limited in the first days of our Republic?

2. On what grounds were the limitations defended? Attacked?

3. Outline the rise of political democracy in the United States.

4. Describe three important changes in our political system.

5. Contrast the Presidents of the old and the new generations.

6. Account for the unpopularity of John Adams' administration.

7. What had been the career of Andrew Jackson before 1829?

8. Sketch the history of the protective tariff and explain the theory underlying it.

9. Explain the growth of Southern opposition to the tariff.

10. Relate the leading events connected with nullification in South Carolina.

11. State Jackson's views and tell the outcome of the controversy.

12. Why was Jackson opposed to the bank? How did he finally destroy it?

13. The Whigs complained of Jackson's "executive tyranny." What did they mean?

14. Give some of the leading events in Clay's career.

15. How do you account for the triumph of Harrison in 1840?

16. Why was Europe especially interested in America at this period? Who were some of the European writers on American affairs?

Research Topics

Jackson's Criticisms of the Bank.-Macdonald, Doc.u.mentary Source Book, pp. 320-329.

Financial Aspects of the Bank Controversy.-Dewey, Financial History of the United States, Sections 86-87; Elson, History of the United States, pp. 492-496.

Jackson's View of the Union.-See his proclamation on nullification in Macdonald, pp. 333-340.

Nullification.-McMaster, History of the People of the United States, Vol. VI, pp. 153-182; Elson, pp. 487-492.

The Webster-Hayne Debate.-a.n.a.lyze the arguments. Extensive extracts are given in Macdonald's larger three-volume work, Select Doc.u.ments of United States History, 1776-1761, pp. 239-260.

The Character of Jackson's Administration.-Woodrow Wilson, History of the American People, Vol. IV, pp. 1-87; Elson, pp. 498-501.

The People in 1830.-From contemporary writings in Hart, American History Told by Contemporaries, Vol. III, pp. 509-530.

Biographical Studies.-Andrew Jackson, J.Q. Adams, Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, J.C. Calhoun, and W.H. Harrison.

CHAPTER XII

THE MIDDLE BORDER AND THE GREAT WEST

"We shall not send an emigrant beyond the Mississippi in a hundred years," exclaimed Livingston, the princ.i.p.al author of the Louisiana purchase. When he made this astounding declaration, he doubtless had before his mind's eye the great stretches of unoccupied lands between the Appalachians and the Mississippi. He also had before him the history of the English colonies, which told him of the two centuries required to settle the seaboard region. To practical men, his prophecy did not seem far wrong; but before the lapse of half that time there appeared beyond the Mississippi a tier of new states, reaching from the Gulf of Mexico to the southern boundary of Minnesota, and a new commonwealth on the Pacific Ocean where American emigrants had raised the Bear flag of California.

The Advance of the Middle Border

Missouri.-When the middle of the nineteenth century had been reached, the Mississippi River, which Daniel Boone, the intrepid hunter, had crossed during Was.h.i.+ngton's administration "to escape from civilization" in Kentucky, had become the waterway for a vast empire. The center of population of the United States had pa.s.sed to the Ohio Valley. Missouri, with its wide reaches of rich lands, low-lying, level, and fertile, well adapted to hemp.