A School History of the United States Part 33

This made a change in city government necessary. The constable and the watchman with his rattle had to give place to the modern policeman. The old dingy oil lamps, lighted only when the moon did not s.h.i.+ne, gave place to gas. The cities were now so full of clerks, workingmen, mechanics, and other people who had to live far away from the places where they were employed, that a cheap means of transportation about the streets became necessary. Accordingly, in 1830, an omnibus line was started in New York.[1] It succeeded so well that in 1832 the first street horse-car line in America was operated in New York city.

[Footnote 1: Many did not know what the word "Omnibus" painted along the top of the stages meant. Some thought it was the name of the man who owned them. It is, of course, a Latin word, and means "for all"; that is, the stages were public conveyances for the use of all.]

%323. The Owenite Communities.%--The efforts thus made everywhere and in every way to increase the comforts and conveniences of mankind turned the years 1820-1840 into a period of reform. Anything new was eagerly taken up. When, therefore, a Welshman named Robert Owen came over to this country, and introduced what he considered a social reform, numbers of people in the West became his followers. Owen believed that most of the hards.h.i.+ps of life came from the fact that some men secured more property and made more money than others. He believed that people should live together in communities in which the farms, the houses, the cattle, the products of the soil, should be owned not by individual men, but by the whole community. He held that there should be absolute social equality, and that no matter what sort of work a man did, whether skilled or unskilled, it should be considered just as valuable as the work of any other man.

All this was very alluring, and in a little while Owenite communities were started in Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, Pennsylvania, and New York, only to end in failure.[2]

[Footnote 2: Noyes's _History of American Socialism._]

%324. The Mormons.%--But there was a social movement started at this time which still exists. In 1827, at Palmyra, in New York, a young man named Joseph Smith announced that he had received a new bible from an angel of the Lord. It was written, he said, on golden plates, which he claimed to have read by the aid of two wonderful stones; and in 1830 he gave to the world _The Book of Mormon_.

After the book appeared, Smith and a few others organized a church. Many at once began to believe in the new religion. But the West seemed so much better a field that in 1831 Smith and his followers started for Ohio, and at Kirtland established a Mormon community. There the Mormons lived for several years, and then went to Missouri, whence they were expelled, partly because they were an antislavery people. In 1840 they settled on the banks of the Mississippi in Illinois and built the town of Nauvoo. At Nauvoo they remained till 1846, when, having adopted polygamy, they were driven off by the people of Illinois, and, led by Brigham Young, marched to Council Bluffs, in Iowa. There they stopped to look about them for a safe place of abode, and finally, in 1847, left Council Bluffs for Great Salt Lake, then in the dominions of Mexico.[1]

[Footnote 1: Kennedy's _Early Days of Mormonism_.]

SUMMARY

1. The rise of the new states in the West, and the appearance of the steamboat on the Mississippi, were the causes of a great revival of public interest in internal improvements.

2. The first to build a great western highway was New York state, which, between 1817 and 1825, built the Erie Ca.n.a.l.

3. This cut down the cost of moving freight to the West, led to settlement along the banks of the ca.n.a.l, and made New York city the metropolis of the country.

4. It was during this period, 1815-1830, that many inventions, discoveries, and improvements were made in the arts and sciences.

5. The railroad was introduced, and the steam locomotive successfully used.

6. The cities grew, and in New York the omnibus and the street car began to be used.

The movement of population into the West.--The formation of new states there.--The rise of manufactures in the East.--The fine market the West offers for the products and importations of the Eastern States.

Lead to great rivalry between the Atlantic seaboard cities for Western trade.

This rivalry leads to the development of three routes to the West.

_The New York Route._

1807. Steamboats on the Hudson.

1817-25. Erie Ca.n.a.l 1818. Steamboats on the Lakes.

Chautauqua Lake and Allegheny valley.

Effect of Erie Ca.n.a.l.

_The Pennsylvania Route._

Old Conestoga wagons.

Effect of Erie Ca.n.a.l.

1827. Pennsylvania state ca.n.a.ls and railroads.

The Portage Railroad.

_The Baltimore Route._

1828. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad commenced.

The expansion of the country.--The development of the steamboat, the railroad, and manufactures, and the increased opportunities for doing business.

Lead to demand for labor-saving and time-saving machinery.

Hard-coal grate and stove.

Fire bricks.

Paper made from straw.

Brick-making machine.

Planing machine.

Platform scales.

Reaping machine.

Colt's revolver.

Sewing machine (Hunt).

Steel pens.

Thres.h.i.+ng machine.

Telegraph (electric).

Steam printing press.

Matches, etc., etc.

CHAPTER XXIII

POLITICS FROM 1824 TO 1845

%325. New Political Inst.i.tutions.%--Of the political leaders of Was.h.i.+ngton's time few were left in 1825. The men who then conducted affairs had almost all been born since the Revolution, or were children at the time.[1] The same is true of the ma.s.s of the people. They too had been born since the Revolution, and, growing up under different conditions, held ideas very different from the men who went before them.

They were more democratic and much less aristocratic, more humane, more practical. They abolished the old and cruel punishments, such as branding the cheeks and foreheads of criminals with letters, cutting off their ears, putting them in the pillory and the stocks; they partly abolished imprisonment for debt; they established free schools, reformatories, asylums, and penitentiaries. They amended their state const.i.tutions or made new ones, and extended the right to vote, and introduced new political inst.i.tutions, some of which were of doubtful value, but are still used.

[Footnote 1: John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson were born in 1767; Henry Clay, in 1777; John C. Calhoun, Daniel Webster, Martin Van Buren, and Thomas H. Benton, in 1782.]

%326. Political Proscription; the Gerrymander.%--One of these was the custom of turning men out of public office because they did not belong to the party in power, or did not "work" for the election of the successful candidate. As early as 1792 this vicious practice was in use in Pennsylvania, and a few years later was introduced in New York by De Witt Clinton. Jefferson resorted to it when he became President, but it was not till 1820 that it was firmly established by Congress. In that year William H. Crawford, who was Secretary of the Treasury and a presidential candidate, secured the pa.s.sage of a "tenure of office" act, limiting the term of collectors of revenue, and a host of other officials, to four years, and thus made the appointments to these places rewards for political service.

Another inst.i.tution dating from this time is the gerrymander. In 1812, when Elbridge Gerry was the Republican governor of Ma.s.sachusetts, his party, finding that at the next election they would lose the governors.h.i.+p and the House of Representatives, decided to hold the Senate by marking out new senatorial districts. In doing this they drew the lines in such wise that districts where there were large Federalist majorities were cut in two, and the parts annexed to other districts, where there were yet larger Republican majorities.

[Ill.u.s.tration]