United States, 1765-1861, Fall 2025

Part III, Transformation and Disunion (1800-1861)

Intro | 1 | 2 | 3

Timeline of events: 

• April 1789 George Washington inaugurated as first US president.

• May 1790 Rhode Island Ratifies the Constitution.

• August 1790 Assumption bill signed (US assumes state debts)

• December 1790 Hamilton sens message to Congress calling for creation of a National Bank.

• March 1791 Revenue act signed (includes 25% tax on distilled spirits, like Whiskey)

• December 1791 Bill or Rights Ratified

• December 1792 Washington unanimously re-elected

• December 1793 Jefferson resigns from position as Secretary of State. 

• July 1794 Farmers in in Western Pennsylvania rebel over enforcement of tax on whiskey

• August 1794 Washington sends troops to quell Whiskey Rebellion.

Notes: Understand the opposing visions of Hamilton and Jefferson regarding what kind of country America should become.  In what sense is the Whiskey Rebellion the final battle of the Revolution?  What does the outcome suggest about the result of the American Revolution?

Optional Video: On the Whiskey Rebellion

23. Post-Revolutionary America: An Empire of Liberty

READ: Walter McDougall, The Throes of Democracy (the third book you bought), xxii from "Colonists representing all four cultures ..." to xxvi.

Docs (these four documents are mixed in with the Whiskey rebellion readings.  Use the table of contents at the start of the unit to find them): Sellers, "Merchants and Farmers," The Market Revolution;" People in Motion"; Crevecoeur, "Letters from an American Farmer"; Jefferson, “First Inaugural Address”

Timeline of events

• 1792-93 Hamilton organizes Federalist party;  Jefferson and Madison form Democratic-Republican Party in opposition to the Washington administration and Hamilton

• 1796 Jefferson vs John Adams in presidential election. Adams, the Federalist candidate wins. 

• 1800 Jefferson elected presidents.  Democratic-Republicans take over the House and Senate and dominate national elections for the next quarter-century.  "I am persuaded no constitution was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire & self government. ... Where this progress will stop no-one can say. Barbarism has, in the meantime, been receding before the steady step of amelioration; and will in time, I trust, disappear from the earth" Jefferson in 1809 and 1824."

• 1816-1824 Era of Good Feelings. Party tensions die down as Federalist Party fades. 

• 1824 "Corrupt Bargain" election leads to election of John Quincy Adams.  Candidates ran without party distinctions. 

• 1824-1828. Jackson organizes Democratic Party as protest against the Corrupt Bargain. 

• 1828 Jackson wins presidency as a Democrat in landslide victory over Adams, on the National Republican ticket. 

• 1833 Whig Party founded with Henry Clay as leader.

Notes: What does this reading tell us about who won the Revolutionary question of "Who should rule at home?" How did Americans define their “destiny?” Why were they so restless? Contrast the Whig and Democratic views of the role of government. Where do the parties differ?

24. Andrew Jackson and Democracy

READ McDougall, Throes of Democracy, 47 (bottom) to 54 (bottom) & 102-106; AND Docs: Jackson’s 2nd Message to Congress & Paul Johnson, The Story of the American People (2 excerpts on Andrew Jackson, 267-269 & 328-330)

Notes: Do you see a connection between democracy and the removal of Southern Indians beyond the Mississippi? What were Jackson’s motives in pressing for removal? How did he justify the mass relocation along the “Trail of Tears?” What is your impression of Jackson’s personality and character?

Study guide for the last exam.

25. Land, Capital and Slaves

READ Docs: Charles Sellers, "Market Contradiction";  AND “Slavery and the Market,” Sven Bekert and Seth Rockman;  & “The Market Revolution”

Read the last document first, then Sellers, then Beckert & Rockman.

Notes: How did most ordinary Americans live on the eve of the Market Revolution? Where does Sellers see a “contradiction between capitalist property and use-value communalism? What role did slavery play in the development of American capitalism?

26.  The Argument over Slavery

READ McDougall, Throes of Democracy, 200-203 (middle); AND Docs: William Lloyd Garrison, “The Liberator”;  John C. Calhoun, “On Reception of the Abolition Petitions”; David Walker, “Walker’s Appeal”; and  Frederick Douglass, “Independence Day Speech.”

Notes: Why and how did slavery become the central issue in American politics? How did Garrisonian abolitionism differ from other antislavery efforts? Why does McDougall call the abolition movement “feeble?” What approach to the slavery question strikes you as most effective, given existing political, economic and social circumstances? How do you imagine Douglass’s audience reacted to his July 4 speech?

27. The Peculiar Institution

READ McDougall, Throes of Democracy, 63 (from "Southerners talked ") to 65 (bottom); 354 (top) to 356 9bottom); AND in Docs:  Frederick Douglass, Autobiography; Fanny Kemble, “Three Days of Plantation Life”; “Go Down, Moses”;  “Confessions of Nat Turner”           

Notes: How were slaves distributed throughout the South? What impelled Turner to rise up? Was he a freedom fighter or a terrorist? What picture of slavery does Douglass present? What was life like for enslaved people? What does the Kemble reading suggest about the effects of slavery on slaves and their masters?

28. “Mexico Will Poison Us”

READ McDougall, Throes of Democracy, 283-285 (top), and 297 (middle) to 301 (top); 316 (bottom) to 319; 329 (top) to 337 (top); 346 (bottom) to 350 (middle); AND in Docs:  Douglass and Smith, “The Fugitive Slave Act”

ALSO READ: Item 4c on the Paper-Writing Guide. 

Notes: Why did the United States and Mexico go to war? Was it a just war? How do you define “just?” Assess the implications of the Wilmot Proviso. What were Wilmot’s motives? How was Mexico “poisonous” to the U.S.? What were the elements of the Compromise of 1850? Was it the best available solution to the slavery issue? Was there a solution?

29. Lincoln and Douglas

READ McDougall, Throes of Democracy, 365 middle-368 top; 375 middle-382 top; AND in Docs: Abraham Lincoln, “A House Divided”; “The Lincoln-Douglas Debates”; and read this brief description of the Kansas-Nebraska Act. 

ALSO READ: Item 3 including a, b, and especially c on the Paper-Writing Guide. 

Notes: Pin down Lincoln’s position on slavery. Where did Douglas stand? Was Lincoln right to suggest the nation couldn’t survive half slave, half free? What is the significance of Lincoln’s invocation of the Declaration of Independence and Douglas’s invocation of the Constitution? Who gets the better of the debate?

TIMELINE OF RELEVANT EVENTS

• 1848: Lincoln loses re-election bid after opposing Mexican War

• 1854: Kansas Nebraska Act; Lincoln reenters politics

• 1857 March: Dred Scott decision

• 1857 Sept.: Panic

• 1858 June: Lincoln House Divided Speech at Illinois State Republican Convention

• 1858 August 2: third referendum in Kansas, 11,300-1,788 against slavery.

• 1858 August 21 to October 15:  Lincoln-Douglas debates.

30. Secession

READ McDougall, Throes of Democracy, 386 bottom-389 bottom; 392 top-397; AND in Docs 2: Brown, “Address to the Virginia Court”; "On John Brown"; Lincoln, “First Inaugural Address.”  See the secession timeline and map below.

Notes: What is your view of John Brown? Was he guilty of treason? How did Lincoln manage to win the election of 1860? Were South Carolinians rational in responding to the Republican victory with an ordinance of secession? Should Lincoln have done more to reassure the South?

31. Jeopardy (test review). 

Homework is to study the key terms.  Most of the questions will be about the key terms for the upcoming test, but I'm going to throw some in from earlier in the course, to test your retention, and to remind you of some things. 

32. We'll meet in the classroom. 

READ: My very popular Paper-Writing Guide. And follow and read the two bold links. 

I'll give you back your worksheet from the library exercise. We'll strategize about how to write an essay: Introductions, paragraphs, and how to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty. 

33. Final exam. Nov. 13 in Little Grainger again, in the green seats. 

34 & the remaining class meetings in the library. 

FINALS BLOCK: Turn in your research project. Drop off a hard copy in room 319 during class time AND email me a pdf. If you want to turn it in early you don't need to give me a hard copy. HERE ARE A FEW QUESTIONS ANSWERED: 

1. Though you have worked in the library in groups, the thing you turn in at the end must be YOUR OWN WORK.

2. The question you turn in doesn't have to be the same topic you have been working on in the library. 

• Some people were having trouble finding sources for the question they devised. 

• The Problem: posing a question before you have the primary sources.  

• Try this: START with the primary sources; our library has an embarrassment of riches in primary sources from this period of American history. 

• Do you think you could come up with a question that could be answered using the complete collection of Abraham Lincoln's papers (which includes every public speech and private letter that he ever wrote or received)?  How about the 600-page collection of all the letters between Abigail and John Adams; do you think you could come up with a question to ask about that? Or the multi-volume collection of transcripts from the debate over ratification of the Constitution in the states?

• One strategy for finding primary sources: Do an author search of person you know.  I did an author search for Robert Yates (Brutus) but nothing came up, so I did a keyword search of brutus US constitution and I got "The Federalist with Letters of Brutus."

Intro | 1 | 2 | 3