Horace Mann on Education as the Great Equalizer in a Democracy

HORACE MANN ON EDUCATION AND NATIONAL
WELFARE
1848 (Twelfth Annual Report of Horace Mann as Secretary of
Massachusetts State Board of Education)
Horace Mann's appointment as Secretary of the newly organized
Board of Education, in 1837, inaugurated a new era in the
history of American education. In his annual reports Mann
discussed the larger implications of education in a democracy.
.... A cardinal object which the government of Massachusetts,
and all the influential men in the State, should propose to
themselves, is the physical well-being of all the people,—the
sufficiency, comfort, competence, of every individual in regard
to food, raiment, and shelter. And these necessaries and
conveniences of life should be obtained by each individual for
himself, or by each family for themselves, rather than accepted
from the hand of charity or extorted by poor laws. It is not
averred that this most desirable result can, in all instances, be
obtained; but it is, nevertheless, the end to be aimed at. True
statesmanship and true political economy, not less than true
philanthropy, present this perfect theory as the goal, to be more
and more closely approximated by our imperfect practice. The
desire to achieve such a result cannot be regarded as an
unreasonable ambition; for, though all mankind were well fed,
well clothed, and well housed, they might still be half civilized.
According to the European theory, men are divided into
classes,—some to toil and earn, others to seize and enjoy.
According to the Massachusetts theory, all are to have an equal
chance for earning, and equal security in the enjoyment of what
they earn. The latter tends to equality of condition; the former,
to the grossest inequalities. Tried by any Christian standard of
morals, or even by any of the better sort of heathen standards,
can any one hesitate, for a moment, in declaring which of the
two will produce the greater amount of human welfare, and
which, therefore, is the more conformable to the divine will?

The European theory is blind to what constitutes the highest
glory as well as the highest duty of a State....
Our ambition as a State should trace itself to a different origin,
and propose to itself a different object. Its flame should be
lighted at the skies. Its radiance and its warmth should reach the
darkest and the coldest of abodes of men. It should seek the
solution of such problems as these: To what extent can
competence displace pauperism? How nearly can we free
ourselves from the low-minded and the vicious, not by their
expatriation, but by their elevation? To what extent can the
resources and powers of Nature be converted into human
welfare, the peaceful arts of life be advanced, and the vast
treasures of human talent and genius be developed? How much
of suffering, in all its forms, can be relieved? or, what is better
than relief, how much can be prevented? Cannot the classes of
crimes be lessened, and the number of criminals in each class be
diminished? . . .
Now two or three things will doubtless be admitted to be true,
beyond all controversy, in regard to Massachusetts. By its
industrial condition, and its business operations, it is exposed,
far beyond any other State in the Union, to the fatal extremes of
overgrown wealth and desperate poverty. Its population is far
more dense than that of any other State. It is four or five times
more dense than the average of all the-other States taken
together; and density of population has always been one of the
proximate causes of social inequality. According to population
and territorial extent there is far more capital in Massachusetts -
- capital which is movable, and instantaneously available -- than
in any other State in the Union; and probably both these
qualifications respecting population and territory could be
omitted without endangering the truth of the assertion....
Now surely nothing but universal education can counterwork
this tendency to the domination of capital and the servility of
labor. If one class possesses all the wealth and the education,
while the residue of society is ignorant and poor, it matters not
by what name the relation between them may be called: the

latter, in fact and in truth, will be the servile dependents and
subjects of the former. But, if education be equally diffused, it
will draw property after it by the strongest of all attractions; for
such a thing never did happen, and never can happen, as that an
intelligent and practical body of men should be permanently
poor. Property and labor in different classes are essentially
antagonistic; but property and labor in the same class are
essentially fraternal. The people of Massachusetts have, in some
degree, appreciated the truth that the unexampled prosperity of
the State -- its comfort, its competence, its general intelligence
and virtue -- is attributable to the education, more or less
perfect, which all its people have received; but are they sensible
of a fact equally important,— namely, that it is to this same
education that two-thirds of the people are indebted for not
being to-day the vassals of as severe a tyranny, in the form of
capital, as the lower classes of Europe are bound to in any form
of brute force?
Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a
great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance wheel of
the social machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the
moral nature as to make men disdain and abhor the oppression
of their fellow men. This idea pertains to another of its
attributes. But I mean that it gives each man the independence
and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other
men. It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility
toward the rich: it prevents being poor. Agrarianism is the
revenge of poverty against wealth. The wanton destruction of
the property of others -- the burning of hay-ricks, and corn-
ricks, the demolition of machinery because it supersedes hand-
labor, the sprinkling of vitriol on rich dresses -- is only
agrarianism run mad. Education prevents both the revenge and
the madness. On the other hand, a fellow-feeling for one's class
or caste is the common instinct of hearts not wholly sunk in
selfish regard for a person or for a family. The spread of
education, by enlarging the cultivated class or caste, will open a
wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and, if

this education should be universal and complete, it would do
more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in
society.. ..
For the creation of wealth, then,—for the existence of a wealthy
people and a wealthy nation,—intelligence is the grand
condition. The number of improvers will increase as the
intellectual constituency, if I may so call it, increases. In former
times, and in most parts of the world even at the present day,
not one man in a million has ever had such a development of
mind as made it possible for him to become a contributor to art
or science.... Let this development proceed, and contributions . .
. of inestimable value, will be sure to follow. That political
economy, therefore, which busies itself about capital and labor,
supply and demand, interests and rents, favorable and
unfavorable balances of trade, but leaves out of account the
elements of a wide-spread mental development, is naught but
stupendous folly. The greatest of all the arts in political
economy is to change a consumer into a producer; and the next
greatest is to increase the producing power,—and this to be
directly obtained by increasing his intelligence. For mere
delving, an ignorant man is but little better than a swine, whom
he so much resembles in his appetites, and surpasses in his
power of mischief....
Manifest Destiny, Slavery, and the Sectional Crisis
1844-1860
Antebellum Slavery
Southern Cotton Production 1820 and 1860

Distribution of Slaves in the Antebellum South (1860)
The Domestic Slave Trade
The Ideology of Antebellum Slavery
Unlike many slaveholding Founders who saw slavery as a
“necessary evil,” antebellum southerners saw slavery as a
“positive good”
Ideas behind the “Positive Good” theology:
White Supremacy
The Protection of virtuous White womanhood
Paternalism
Neo-Aristocracy
Labor is demeaning
Manifest Destiny and WestWard Expansion
Manifest Destiny
Term coined by John O’ Sullivan in 1839
Not a policy, but an attitude or an ideology
Developed out of the “Empire of Liberty” ideas of
Jeffersonianism
Ideas crossed party lines
Basic notion of Manifest destiny is that the United States was
ordained by God to spread its institutions across the North
American Continent

Texas Revolution
Americans began moving into Texas in the 1820s, and brought
with them American ideas and slavery
These Americans increasingly chaffed under Mexican rule,
especially after General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna
overthrew the Mexican Republic in 1832
Staged a revolt October 2, 1835-April 21, 1836
Ended with Texas becoming independent and forming a
government on the American model, but with considerable
disputes with Mexico over its boundary
Agitation for its union with the United States began almost
immediately after Texan independence on both sides of the
border.
The California and Oregon Trails
President John Tyler (1841-1845)
Born March 29, 1790 in Virginia
Served as a traditional Republican in Congress
Opposed the Missouri Compromise for extending federal
authority
Elected to the Senate in 1827 and opposed the nationalist
programs of Adams and Clay
Broke with Jackson over the Nullification Crisis and later
became a Whig in protest, but never was a Whig philosophically
Put on the 1840 ticket to draw Southern and other disaffected
Jacksonian votes
“His Accidency”

Tyler, the “Whig” President
Constitution is not clear about how a Presidential vacancy is to
be handled. Tyler took it upon himself to declare that he was
President in his own right and would complete Harrison’s term.
This caused considerable controversy
Tyler was only nominally a Whig. He joined the party out of
dislike for Jackson, but shared his principles. When the Whig-
controlled Congress passed the Whig Program, Tyler vetoed the
whole thing
Administration’s only success was the Webster-Ashburn Treaty,
which settled the Maine border with Great Britain
As 1844 approached, Tyler was an unpopular President
basically without a party
The Drive For the Annexation of Texas
As Tyler looked to the election of 1844, he embraced the issue
of Texas annexation to try and gain political legitimacy
Texans were increasingly eager for this as well, as Texas was in
an increasingly untenable economic and political state
After becoming Secretary of State in April 1844, Calhoun
injected Slavery into the issue in an effort to polarize the
country along sectional lines
He largely succeeded, and Tyler’s annexation effort was
defeated and whatever political gains he hoped to make
destroyed, but the issue remained
The Whig Ticket-1844
Former Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky
Former Senator Theodore Frelinghuysen of New Jersey

The Democratic Ticket-1844
Former Governor James K. Polk of Tennessee
Former Senator George M. Dallas of Pennsylvania
1844 Presidential Election
This election had many of the normal personal trappings that
dominated 19th Century Presidential elections-smears and
personal attacks- but they are less important this time
Expansion (Texas, California, Oregon) was the key issue, with
Polk saying yes to all, Clay saying no (mostly)
“54’40 or Fight”
Settling the Oregon Dispute
Polk’s campaign rhetoric was more bellicose towards Great
Britain, he was less eager for war with Britain
That said, after a brief game of Brinksmanship with Britain, the
United States and Great Britain came to an accommodation in
1846
In 1846, the United States and Canada established the northern
border at the 49th Parallel (Vancouver excepted)
This effective ends boundary disputes on the northern border
The War with Mexico and the Beginning of the Sectional Crisis
To War with Mexico
In the final days of the Tyler administration, he got Texas

annexation, claiming all that Texas claimed, inheriting the land
dispute with Mexico
The incoming Polk administration took a far harder line on
Mexico than with Great Britain
Mexico was also increasingly unstable
November 1845- Polk sends an emissary to Mexico to demand
they recognize the Rio Grande as the border and sell New
Mexico and California to the United States. He also sent a
military force into the disputed area pressure Mexico
March 1846- Mexico formally rejects Polk’s proposal. The Polk
administration immediately begins moving toward war.
April 1846- Mexican forces engage American forces in the
disputed zone, resulting in light American casualties and a
defeat. Word of this attack reached Washington, DC 4 hours
after the Polk cabinet approved Polk’s proposed war message to
Congress
May 11, 1846- Polk asks Congress for a declaration of war.
Congress declares war the next day
A Partisan War
“Mr. Polk’s War”
Whigs were always largely in opposition and registered that
opposition throughout the war
Anti-slavery activists saw an effort to expand the institution of
slavery
Calhoun also opposed the war—didn’t think the land in question
was suitable for slavery
The Mexican War
The war itself was a largely one-sided affair
All the major engagements were won by the United States
General Zachary Taylor led the major American invasion out of

Texas into Northern Mexico, and had more trouble from raids
than from the Mexican Army, which he defeated at every turn
American-born Californian rebels with support from a US Army
Captain, John C. Frémont, drove Mexico from California
New Mexico was also easily taken
In 1847, General Winfield Scott landed at Vera Cruz and pushed
to Mexico City, taking the Mexican capital in September
The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The Wilmot Proviso
Background
Proposed by Representative David C. Wilmot, a New York
Democrat
Wilmot and the supporters of his proviso were driven by fear of
a “slave power conspiracy”
Support for the proviso cut across party lines, but not sectional
ones
Text
"Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the
acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the
United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated
between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys
herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude
shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime,
whereof the party shall first be duly convicted."
General Zachary Taylor of Louisiana
Former Rep. Millard Fillmore of New York

Senator Lewis Cass of Michigan
General William O. Butler of Kentucky
The Free Soil Ticket-1848
Former President Martin van Buren of New York
Charles Francis Adams, Sr. of Massachusetts
Slavery, Texas, and the Mexican Cession
Slavery had been legal in Texas, but banned in Mexico. Thus, it
had to be “introduced” to the Mexican Cession
The Missouri Compromise line cut right through the Mexican
Cession
The South demanded legalization of slavery there as protection
of their fundamental property rights. Anti-slavery advocates
wanted to stop expansion of “slave power”
The discovery of gold in California led to a population
explosion there, allowing it to apply for admission as a free
state in 1849
Texas and New Mexico had a disputed boundary
Proposals to Deal with Slavery and the Mexican Cession

Extend the Missouri Compromise line- Polk preferred this plan
while he was President, but no longer acceptable to the South
Henry Clay’s tried to build sectional compromise as he did
during the Missouri Compromise
Admit California as a free state, while organize New Mexico
without addressing the slavery issue
Resolve the boundary dispute in favor or New Mexico, but have
the United States Government assume the debt of Texas
Ban the slave trade in DC, Protect the institution of slavery in
DC
Deny Federal Power to regulate the interstate slave trade
Stronger Fugitive Slave Law
Clay’s proposal was dead-on-arrival. Taylor opposed it, he
wanted the entire territory admitted as free states. The
extremists of both sections opposed it too
Popular Sovereignty- Proposed by Democratic Senators Lewis
Cass and Stephen Douglas called for the local populations to
settle the issue based on their preference
Senator Stephen A. Douglass (D-IL)
Born April 23, 1813 in Vermont
Settled in Illinois in 1833
Lawyer
Elected to Congress in 1842
Supported the Mexican War
Senator in 1848
Popular Soverignity
Senator William H. Seward (W-NY)
Born May 16, 1801 in New York
Lawyer

Freshman Senator during the Crisis of 1850
Slave Power Conspiracy
Higher Law
Irrepressible Conflict
The Compromise of 1850
Taylor’s death opened the door for compromise as Millard
Fillmore was more open to Southern concerns
Compromise a serious of bills that dealt with different issues
California admitted as a free state
New Mexico and Utah territories organized on the basis of
popular sovereignty
Texas was reduced in size, but granted ten million dollars from
the federal treasury to pay debts
The Slave Trade (but not the institution) was abolished in
Washington, DC
A new Fugitive Slave law was passed requiring all citizens to
assist in the return of fugitive slaves
The Compromise ends the immediate crisis, but does not solve
any of the underlying issues.
Any Federal Marshall or other official who did not arrest an
alleged runaway was liable to a $1000 fine
No jury trial, sworn testimony of ownership all needed to prove
ownership
Accused slave could not testify at any proceedings
Anyone assisting an escaped slave, or not reporting a fugitive
slave, was liable for six months imprisonment and a $1000 fine
Bonuses provided for those who arrested escaped slaves
The Fugitive Slave Ace of 1850
The Road to Disunion

The Political Crisis of the 1850s
Former Senator Franklin Pierce or New Hampshire
Senator William R. King of Alabama
Major General Winfield Scott of Virginia
Secretary of the Navy William A. Graham of North Carolina
The Kansas-Nebraska Act
Illinois Democratic Senator Stephen A. Douglas wanted to
organize the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of the
Missouri Compromise Line in 1854
The territory would be divided into two (Kansas and Nebraska),
with slavery decided by Popular Sovereignty
Motivated by desires to support a transcontinental railroad and
Presidential ambitions (he thought this would solve the
sectional crisis)
The End of the Second Party System:
The National Legacy of the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Instead of solving the sectional divide, the Kansas-Nebraska

Act tore it open
Southerners were wildly enthusiastic and demanded its passage
Northerners were generally opposed, even by Popular
Sovereignty Supporters
Pierce openly embraced it, and made supporting it a test of
Democratic loyalty, putting many Northern Democrats in
awkward political positions
9 Northern states passed resolutions refusing to support the law
Mass meetings were held across the North condemning the
“Nebraska Infamy”
The Whig Party was destroyed, unable to reconcile its sectional
factions
The debate in Congress was so long and tense that after months
of arguing, members began to arm themselves
Bleeding Kansas: The Local Legacy of the Kansas-Nebraska Act
Both Northerners and Southerners (in some cases with official
state support) began organizing settlers to move to Kansas
Rigged territorial elections in 1855 (Missourians crossed the
border to vote for pro-slavery candidates) lead to the
establishment of two territorial legislatures
Violence breaks out in November, with both sides receiving
outside support
Kansas Violence Outside Kansas
May 1854- The Burns incident in Boston
May 22, 1856- The Canning of Senator Charles Sumner by
Congressman Preston Brooks
The Whig’s Successor Parties
The American Party

Originated out of a secret society-”The Order of the Star
Spangled Banner”
Commonly called the “Know-Nothings”
Whig economics
Saw slavery as not the real threat to the Republic, but
immigration, especially Catholic immigration
The Republican Party
Founded in 1854 in Wisconsin
Coalition of Free Soilers, Conscience Whigs, and Anti-slavery
Democrats
Whig economics with anti-slavery
Free Labor Ideology
Openly Anti-slavery Party
The “Know-Nothing” Ticket-1856
Former President Millard Fillmore of New York
Andrew Jackson Donelson of Tennessee
The Republican Ticket-1856
Former Senator John C. Fremont of California
Former Senator William L. Dayton of New Jersey
Ambassador James Buchanan of Pennsylvania
Former Congressman John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky

The Dred Scott Case
Dred Scott v. Sanford
Dred Scott was a slave of a US Army officer who, in the course
of his career, had brought Scott into free territory before his
death in 1843
Scott sued for his freedom (first in 1846, then again in 1847),
citing his residency in free territory
The case reached the Supreme Court in 1856
Then President-Elect Buchanan influenced the Court to use the
case to settle the slavery crisis
The Dred Scott Case
Legal Precedent was in Scott’s favor
Scott not only loses the case, but the court ruled beyond that on
several points
Dred Scott, being Black, could not be a citizen because they
were not considered to be citizens at the founding and thus
cannot bring a suit
Further that Blacks could never become citizens because the
founders and viewed them as “so far inferior, that they have no
rights which a white man was bound to respect”
Further that Congress has no right to legislature the status of
slavery in the territories and thus the Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional
Furthermore, territorial legislatures could not keep it out
either...popular sovereignty is also unconstitutional.

The Dred Scott Decision
Dred Scott, being Black, could not be a citizen because they
were not considered to be citizens at the founding and thus
cannot bring a suit
Further that Blacks could never become citizens because the
founders and viewed them as “so far inferior, that they have no
rights which a white man was bound to respect”
Further that Congress has no right to legislature the status of
slavery in the territories and thus the Missouri Compromise was
unconstitutional
Furthermore, territorial legislatures could not keep it out
either...popular sovereignty is also unconstitutional.
sectional Reaction to The Dred Scott Decision
North
Massive outrage
Saw collusion between Taney and Buchanan for the interests of
the South
Increased fear of slave power conspiracy
South
South jubilant
Saw the decision as settling the issue forever
Saw opposition as an attack
Kansas Again:
The Lecompton Constitution
The “official” pro-slavery legislature called for votes for a
constitutional convention in June along with legislative
elections
Buchanan sent a new governor, Robert Walker of Mississippi,
with orders to ensure a fair vote

Fraudulent again, Walker threw it out, causing outrage from
pro-slavery forces
Convention met anyway, produced two versions, one with and
without slavery to be settled by referendum
Boycott by free-staters allowed the slavery version to “win”
which Buchanan accepted uncritically
Free-staters produced their own and sent it to Congress, but
Buchanan tried everything to get Congress to accept the pro-
slavery Lecompton Constitution, but failed
The Lincoln-Douglas Debates
John Brown
Born May 9, 1800 in Connecticut, raised in Ohio
Failed seminary student, tanner, and farmer
Became Abolitionist zealot following the murder of Elijah P.
Lovejoy in 1837
Swore oath to destroy slavery “Here, before God, in the
presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life
to the destruction of slavery!”
Active during Bleeding Kansas, lead the Potawatomie
Massacre in May 1856
Led the October 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry in the hope of
sparking a general slave insurrection in the South leading to the
establishment of a slave republic in the Appalachians
Executed for treason against the Commonwealth of Virginia in
December 1859… “ I, John Brown, am now quite certain that
the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but
with blood.”

John Brown’s Raid on Harper’s Ferry
October 16, 1859
Brown planned it for months
16 white men, 3 free blacks, 1 freed slave, 1 fugitive slave
Plan was to strike the arsenal at Harper’s Ferry for weapons,
spark as slave uprising, and move south along the Appalachians
striking into the plains on other side to cause further uprisings
Went wrong from the start, and they ended up besieged by
Virginia Militia and US military forces led by Colonel Robert
E. Lee
Brown was captured on October 18
He was tried for treason against the state of Virginia and hung
on December 2, 1859
Sectional Reactions of Harper’s Ferry
North
Mainstream Northerners (including antislavery Republicans)
condemned Brown
Radicals initially did as well, but increasingly saw Brown as a
martyr to liberty
South
Mixture of horror and ridicule
They saw the scheme as silly and ridiculous
However, they were horrified by what he tried to do
The “deification” of Brown my some Northerners horrified
Southerners, now feeling that they must either take extreme
steps or embrace disunion
The Democrats Asunder
The Democratic National Convention was scheduled to meet in
Charleston, SC on April 23. It was expected to be a coronation
of Senator Stephen A. Douglas

Southern Democrats, however, insisted on major changes to the
Democratic Platform that tore the Convention apart
National Slave Code for the Territories
Reopening African Slave Trade
Disbanding of all anti-slavery societies throughout the nation
Repeal of Northern State “personal liberty laws” and any other
measures that inhibit the return of fugitive slaves
A ban on amending the constitution with respect to slavery
Platform to embrace Dred Scott Decision
Faced with resistance by Northern Democrats, 50 Southern
Democratic delegates walked out hoping to extract concessions
The Democrats Asunder
Douglas forced tried to use this to rush through his nomination,
but came up short after 57 ballots on May 3. The convention
adjourned and agreed to meet again in Baltimore on June 18.
The June 18 meeting went worse
In the interim, Douglas forces tried to replace dissenting
Southern Democrats with Douglas Democrats, prompting a
second, larger walkout
These Democrats held a rival convention and produced their
own nominee
In short, slavery ripped the Democratic Party apart, producing
two sectional Democratic tickets in 1860
The Northern Democratic Ticket-1860
Senator Stephen A. Douglas of Illinois
Former Governor Herschel V. Johnson of Georgia

The Southern Democratic Ticket-1860
Vice-President John C. Breckenridge of Kentucky
Senator Joseph Lane of Oregon
The Republican Ticket- 1860
Former Representative Abraham Lincoln of Illinois
Senator Hannibal Hamlin of Maine
The Constitutional Union Ticket -1860
Former Senator John Bell of Tennessee
Former Senator Edward Everett of Massachusetts
The Age of Jackson
1824-1844
The Birth of the Second Party System
Political Crisis and Political Transformation
1824 Candidate #1:

William Crawford of Georgia
Secretary of the Treasury
Traditional Jeffersonian
Chosen by the traditional Caucus method, thus the “official”
Republican Candidate
Preferred candidate of President Monroe and former Presidents
Madison and Jefferson
In very poor health
1824 Candidate #2:
John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts
Secretary of State-thus “heir apparent” in the Virginia Game
Son of former President John Adams
Long record of public service, dating to his teens
One of the earliest Federalists to embrace the Republican Party
National Republican
Sectional Appeal: New England
1824 Candidate #3:
Henry Clay of Kentucky
Speaker of the House
“The Great Compromiser”
Also a National Republican
First run of his “American system”
Sectional Appeal: The West
1824 Candidate #4:
Andrew Jackson of Tennessee
United States Senator from Tennessee

Does not have traditional basis of power. His appeal is not
sectional, but popular
Seen as dangerous demagogue by traditional Republican leaders
Secretary of War John C. Calhoun of South Carolina- The Vice-
Presidential Candidate
Long-standing Republican
Was a war hawk and nationalist at the time of the War of 1812
Is now transitioning into a militant southern sectionalist and
defender of slavery
On the whole, the candidates were restrained and genuinely
respected one another
The press, however, provided the traditional personality-based
fireworks
Election provided no clear winner
Jackson- 99
Adams- 84
Crawford- 41
Clay- 37
The House of Representatives will decide the election
¾ of the states held popular votes for electors
The “Corrupt Bargain”1825 Presidential House Vote
The Constitution says the top three electoral vote winners are
eligible in the House, but it was really between Adams and
Jackson
Clay was not eligible
Crawford was sidelined by his declining health

As Speaker of the House, Clay was not without power and
influence and detested Jackson for personal and ideological
reasons and thus endorsed Adams allowing Adams to win
Jackson saw the election of Adams as betrayal of the will of the
people and stealing his own legitimate election
When Adams named Clay Secretary of State, Jackson claimed
Adams election was the result of a “Corrupt Bargain”
Adams Tumultuous Presidency
Adams had an ambitious program of internal development he
wanted to accomplish, but he will achieve almost none of it
Adams had a really poor relationship with Congress
Refused to play politics with Congress
Aloof manner
The “Corrupt Bargain” Charges undermined his legitimacy
Adams got embroiled in a dispute between the Creek Tribe and
the State of Georgia that enflames the passions of state’s rights
and ends only in embarrassment for Adams
1828- Congress passed the highest tariff in American history,
called the “Tariff of Abominations” by its opponents, enflamed
sectional passions that threatens the union in the next
Administration
The National Republican Ticket (1828)
President John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts
Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush of Pennsylvania
The Democratic Ticket (1828)
Former Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee
Vice-President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina

A Campaign of Mud
Jackson was painted as a dangerous, immoral man
An American Napoleon
Uneducated
Reckless
A Murder: the Coffin Handbill
His family: Jackson the adulterer with a bigamist wife
Adams the Monarchist and Tyrant
Jacksonian Democracy?
In 1828, Electors were chosen by popular vote in every state
except South Carolina and Delaware
Over the next several years, voting nationally will extend to all
adult, white males
Jackson encouraged close contact between the people and the
President
Established the “Spoils system”
Jacksonian movement was open to immigrants, but generally
pro-slavery
The Nullification Crisis
The crisis resulting from the Tariff of Abominations continued
into the Jackson Presidency and sent Jackson and Calhoun onto
a collision course
Jackson opposed the tariff, but felt compelled to enforce the law

Calhoun worked against the administration from the beginning,
openly endorsing Nullification
By 1830, this becomes a constitutional crisis threatening
national unity
Nat Turner’s failed 1831 slave uprising added fuel to the fire as
Calhoun linked it to the crisis
The reduction of tariffs in 1832 was not enough for South
Carolina and the state declared it nullified as of February 1,
1833 and called for the raising of 25,000 SC troops
Jackson responded with the December 10, 1832 Nullification
Proclamation
SC backed down, a new 1833 tariff bill was based on sectional
compromise
The Bank War
More than anything, Jackson wanted to destroy the Second Bank
of the United States
More than anything, the head of the Second Bank of the United
States, Nicholas Biddle, wanted to destroy Jackson
The Bank’s supporters, led by Henry Clay, sought to use the
bank as an issue in 1832 brought up a bill for its recharter (due
in 1836) four years early
They horribly miscalculated. Jackson vetoed the bill in a
populist statement that won public support
Killing the Bank
With a mandate for his policy, Jackson moved to finally kill the
bank in his second term

In 1837, he ordered all federal deposits removed from the
Second Bank of the United States and placed into politically
friendly private banks (the “pet banks”)
Biddle responded by calling in all federal debts in specie. He
wanted to cause an economic crisis that would undermine
Jackson and build support for the bank. It further backfired.
1836- Jackson issued the Specie Circular: purchases of federal
land can only be in Gold and silver
The Charter expired on schedule in 1836 and the bank formally
died in 1841.
Indian Removal
Focused on the “Five Civilized Tribes,” The Chickasaw, the
Seminole, the Chocktaw, the Creek, and (especially) the
Cherokee
Primarily a state initiative (especially Georgia) who wanted the
land cleared for gold mining and tobacco cultivation
Jackson was supportive and carried out the move even though
the Supreme Court ruled that the removal efforts were
unconstitutional
Indian RemovalNationPopulation east of the Mississippi before
removal treatyRemoval treaty
(year signed)Years of major emigrationTotal number emigrated
or forcibly removedNumber stayed in SoutheastDeaths during
removalDeaths from warfareChoctaw19,554 + 6000 black
slavesDancing Rabbit Creek (1830)1831-183612,5007,000
2,000-4,000+ (Cholera)n/aCreek22,700 + 900 black slaves
Cusseta (1832)1834-183719,600 unknown3,500 (disease after
removal)unknown (Second Creek War)Chickasaw4,914 + 1,156
black slavesPontotoc Creek (1832)1837-1847over
4,000hundredsa few from diseasen/aCherokee21,500
+ 2,000 black slavesNew Echota (1835)1836-183820,000 +

2,000 slaves1,0002,000-8,000n/aSeminole5,000 + fugitive
slavesPayne's Landing (1832)1832-18422,833 250-500 700
(Second Seminole War)
Henry Clay, The Father of Whiggery
In many ways an updated version of Federalism
Hamiltonian Economics through the “American System”-
Protectionist Tariff, National Banks, Government-funded
Internal Improvements, Support of Manufactures
Non-Expansionist Foreign Policy
Instead of the Deference of the Federalists, looked to reform
society for the promotion of self-discipline and moral self-
improvement through support of things such as public
education, temperance
Whiggery
Democrats nominated Vice-President Martin van Buren over
Southern objections
Whigs had no nominee, but ran four sectional ones, hoping to
send the election to the House where they hoped the choice
would be between three Whigs
Even painting van Buren as connected to the radical Democratic
workingman’s movements (locofocos) could not stop his victory
due to Jackson’s support and popularity
The Second Party System
Parties were the Whig Party and the Democratic Party
It formed over a 15 year period that varied by state.

It was produced by leaders trying to win the presidency, with
contenders building their own national coalitions.
For the first time two-party politics was extended to the South
and West.
In each region the two parties were about equal—a truly
national party system.
Because of the regional balance it was vulnerable to region-
specific issues (like slavery).
The same two parties appeared in every state, and contested
both the electoral vote and state offices.
Methods varied somewhat but everywhere the political
convention replaced the caucus.
The parties had an interest of their own, in terms of the office-
seeking goals of party activists.
The new, popular campaign style became the norm after 1840.
The trying Presidency of Martin van Buren
The Panic of 1837- van Buren reaped the economic results of
Jackson’s bank war (including private bank failures,
unemployment, and inflation) that his own efforts to resolve
(the Subtreasury system) made worse. The economy does not
recover until 1843, during the Presidency of John Tyler.
Slavery- The issue rises again through abolitionist societies
sending petitions to Congress, which was dealt with by a gag
rule 1836. Throughout van Buren’s Presidency, anti-slavery
members of the House, led by former President John Quincy
Adams, kept the issue alive. The 1839-1841 Amistad
controversy kept the issue in the forefront for the election and
enflamed sectional passions.
President Martin van Buren of New York

No Vice-President Candidate nominated
The Democratic Convention refused to renominate Richard
Mentor Johnson, but could not decide on a replacement.
Former Senator William Henry Harrison of Ohio
Senator John Tyler of Virginia
Log Cabin and Hard Cider
The Log Cabin Newspaper
Keep the Ball Rolling
Antebellum Reform
Antebellum Reform

Movement of the 1830s-1840s
Showed similar revival preaching to that of the First Great
Awakening
While showing the same fire-and-brimstone preaching of the
First Great Awakening, it rejected the predestination evident in
“Sinners in the Hands of and Angry God,” instead believing that
sin and sinners can be reformed and saved
Believed that people and society are perfectible if people
practiced industry, self-discipline, sobriety as well as against
greed and sin
Believed that people should be exposed to the word of God as
much as possible…American Bible Society
People had a responsibility to God for their fellow man: You are
your brother’s keeper
Sparked several new denominations (Mormons, Seventh-Day
Adventists) and greatly expanded older ones, especially
Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians
Church attendance rose from 10% in 1790 to 80% in 1840
Second Great Awakening
Optimists: all problems can be solved, no evil permanent, no
person so sinful as to be unredeemable
People had a responsibility to take care of each other, Society
complex and interdependent
Science complimented religion: science provided the means of
fulfilling religious and moral obligations
Reform movements all across society examples: utopian
communities public health, mentally ill, prison reform,
education reform, temperance, abolition, women’s rights
General Characteristics of Antebellum Reform

More than one hundred established in the antebellum period
Had both secular and religious communities
All based on some form of communitarianism ranging from
communal ownership, perfect equality, free love, or all of the
above.
Most Short-lived
Examples: Onieda (perfect equality, free love), New Harmony
(Secular Communitarianism) Deseret (Mormon, religious)
Utopian Communities
Period led to a dramatic revision and expansion of American
education
Horace Mann: Free Public Education (began in Massachusetts)
Normal Schools: Schools to train high school graduates to
become teachers
Expansion of Education to beyond the “3 R’s”
Adoption of the Prussian Education System: Compulsory
education, Teacher Certification, Final Examinations
Education seen as means to create good Republican citizens,
offset the growing economic inequality arising from
industrialization, and prevent mental illness
Education Reform
Eighteenth Century approaches to mental health was to
warehouse the insane
The same period’s approach to criminals was a mixture of
warehousing, branding, corporal punishment, and execution
Reformers took the same approach to trying to reform both: the
introduction of discipline to try to help them function properly
in society
For criminals, this means the introduction of the penitenery, a

place for convicted criminals to learn to follow societal norms
by strict discipline
For the mentally ill, this means the asylum, a place to receive
treatment and discipline
Notable Figures: Horace Mann, Dorothea Dix
Prison and the Asylum
One of the very first truly national mass movements
Largest organization of the period was the American
Temperence Society founded by Lyman Beecher in 1826
By 1831 there were 2,200 chapters and 170,000 members
1836: more than 8,000 chapters and 1 million members
Saw drunkenness as destructive to home life and to proper
functioning in the community
19 separate Temperance journals published
Protestant
Involved both men and women
Notable Figures: Lyman Beecher, William Lloyd Garrison
Temperence
Built upon the original anti-slavery agitation following the
Revolution
Movement of diverse ideas united only by the idea that slavery
was wrong: Some wanted gradual emancipation, some
immediate, some wanted colonization, some full civil rights
Conservative Antislavery: American Colonization Society
Abolitionists: Even the extreme parts of the movement were
divided over whether to use the political system or “moral
suasion” and on whether to allow women to participate in the
movement
Notable Figures: Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison,
Elijah P. Lovejoy, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Elizabeth Cady

Stanton
Abolition
Grew out of the Temperance and especially Abolitionist
movements
Pushed not only for the right to vote for women, but for the
demolition of “separate spheres” and the subordinate legal
status of women.
Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
Notable Figures: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott,
Margaret Fuller, William Lloyd Garrison
Woman’s Suffrage
8 – ABOLITIONISTS
“The American Union”
By: William Lloyd Garrison
Date: January 10, 1845
Explanation of the Source: William Lloyd Garrison was a fiery
orator against the institution of slavery. This speech solidified
the criticisms
against the Abolitionists as being extremists who were splitting
the nation.
“Tyrants of the old world! contemners of the rights of man!

disbelievers in human freedom and equality! enemies of
mankind! console not yourselves with the delusion, that
REPUBLICANISM and the AMERICAN UNION are
synonymous terms—or
that the downfall of the latter will be the extinction of the
former, and, consequently, a proof of the incapacity of the peo
ple for self-
government, and a confirmation of your own despotic claims!
Your thrones must crumble to dust; your sceptre of dominion
drop from
your powerless hands; your rod of oppression be broken;
yourselves so vilely abased, that there shall be “none so poor to
do you
reverence.” The will of God, the beneficent Creator of the
human family, cannot always be frustrated. It is his will that
every form of
usurpation, every kind of injustice, every device of tyranny,
shall come to nought; that peace, and liberty, and righteousnes
s, shall
“reign from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the
earth”; and that, throughout the earth, in the fulness of a sure
redemption,
there shall be “none to molest or make afraid.” Humanity,
covered with gore, cries with a voice that pierces the heavens.
“Hi s will be
done!” Justice, discrowned by the hand of violence, exclaims in
tones of deep solemnity, “HIS WILL BE DONE!” Liberty,

burdened
with chains, and driven into exile, in thunder-tones responds,
“HIS WILL BE DONE!”
Tyrants! know that the rights of man are inherent and
unalienable, and therefore, not to be forfeited by the failure of
any form
of government, however democratic. Let the American Union
perish; let these allied States be torn with faction, or drenched
in blood;
let this republic realize the fate of Rome and Carthage, of
Babylon and Tyre; still those rights would remain undiminished
in strength,
unsullied in purity, unaffected in value, and sacred as their
Divine Author. If nations perish, it is not because of their de
votion to
liberty, but for their disregard of its requirements. Man is
superior to all political compacts, all governmental
arrangements, all
religious institutions. As means to an end, these may sometimes
be useful, though never indispensable; but that end must always
be
the freedom and happiness of man, INDIVIDUAL MAN. It can
never be true that the public good requires the violent sacrifice
of any,
even the humblest citizen; for it is absolutely dependent on his
preservation, not destruction. To do evil that good may come, is
equally absurd and criminal. The time for the overthrow of any

government, the abandonment of any alliance, the subversion of
any
institution, is, whenever it justifies the immolation of the
individual to secure the general welfare; for the welfare of the
many cannot
be hostile to the safety of the few. In all agreements, in all
measures, in all political or religious enterprises, in all attempts
to redeem
the human race, man, as an individual, is to be held paramount
…
Tyrants! confident of its overthrow, proclaim not to your
vassals that the AMERICAN UNION is an experiment of
Freedom,
which, if it fail, will forever demonstrate the necessity of whips
for the backs, and chains for the limbs of the people. Kno w that
its
subversion is essential to the triumph of justice, the deliverance
of the oppressed, the vindication of the BROTHERHOOD OF
THE
RACE. It was conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity;
and its career has been marked by unparalleled hypocrisy, by hi
gh-
handed tyranny, by a bold defiance of the omniscience and
omnipotence of God. Freedom indignantly disowns it, and calls
for its
extinction; for within its borders are three millions of Slaves,
whose blood constitutes its cement, whose flesh forms a large

and
flourishing branch of its commerce, and who are ranked with
four-footed beasts and creeping things. To secure the adoption
of the
Constitution of the United States, it was agreed, first, that the
African slave-trade, —till that time, a feeble, isolated colonial
traffic,—
should for at least twenty years be prosecuted as a national
interest under the American flag, and protected by the national
arm; —
secondly, that a slaveholding oligarchy, created by allowing
three-fifths of the slave population to be rep resented by their
taskmasters,
should be allowed a permanent seat in Congress;—thirdly, that
the slave system should be secured against internal revolt and
external
invasion, by the united physical force of the country; —
fourthly, that not a foot of national territory should be granted,
on which the
panting fugitive from Slavery might stand, and be safe from his
pursuers—thus making every citizen a slave-hunter and slave-
catcher.
To say that this “covenant with death” shall not be annulled—
that this “agreement with hell” shall continue to stand—that this
“refuge of lies” shall not be swept away—is to hurl defiance at
the eternal throne, and to give the lie to Him who sits thereon.
It is an

attempt, alike monstrous and impracticable, to blend the light of
heaven with the darkness of the bottomless pit, to unite the
living
with the dead, to associate the Son of God with the prince of
evil.
Accursed be the AMERICAN UNION, as a stupendous
republican imposture!
Accursed be it, as the most frightful despotism, with regard to
three millions of the people, ever exercised over any portion of
the
human family!
Accursed be it, as the most subtle and atrocious compromise
ever made to gratify power and selfishness!
Accursed be it, as a libel on Democracy, and a bold assault on
Christianity! …
8 – ABOLITIONISTS
Henceforth, the watchword of every uncompromising
abolitionist, of every friend of God and liberty, must be, both in
a
religious and political sense—“NO UNION WITH
SLAVEHOLDERS!””

What To The Slave Is The 4th Of July?"
By: Frederick Douglass
Date: July 5, 1852
Explanation of the Source: Former slave Frederick Douglass’
July 5, 1852 oration “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
stands in stark
contrast to the typical Fourth of July Oration. Not only did
Douglass look different than the typical Fourth of July
orator, but his message was very different. “The rich inheritance
of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence,
bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not me,” Douglass
told his audience. “The sunlight that brought life
and healing to you, has brought stripes of death to me. This
Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I
must mourn.” Throughout the speech Douglass compared and
contrasted what the Fourth of July means to white
Americans (freedom) and what it means to African-Americans
(slavery) and concluded, “What, to the American
slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him,
more than all other days in the year, the gross
injustice and cruelty to which he is constant victim. To him,
your celebration is a sham.” Douglass was already a
famous abolitionist and speaker, but his fiery and dramatic
calling out of American hypocrisy in his Fourth of July

oration solidified his place as one of the greatest American
orators of all time.
“Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could
address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger
nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as
a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with great
er
distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept
over me quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers
of speech.
The task before me is one which requires much previous thought
and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of
this
sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust,
however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at
ease, my
appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I
have had in addressing public meetings, in country school
houses,
avails me nothing on the present occasion. The papers and
placards say that I am to deliver a Fourth of July Oration. This
certainly
sounds large, and out of the common way, for me. It is true that
I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Ha ll,
and to
address many who now honor me with their presence. But

neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have
of Corinthian
Hall seems to free me from embarrassment. The fact is, ladies
and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave
plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable-and the
difficulties to he overcome in getting from the latter to the
former are by no
means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of
astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be
surprised, if
in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor
grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little
experience
and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts
hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient
and
generous indulgence I will proceed to lay them before you.
This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July.
It is the birth day of your National Independence, and of your
political freedom. This, to you, as what the Passover was to the
emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the
day, and
to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the
wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration
also
marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and

reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. l
am
glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six
years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in
the life
of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for
individual men; but nations number their years by thousands.
According
to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your
national career, still lingering in the period of childhood…
Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise
men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this
treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs,
wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men t
here is
always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total
separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a
startling
idea, much more so than we, at this distance of time, regard it.
The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that da y
were, of
course, shocked and alarmed by it…
Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They
succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The
freedom gained is yours; and you, there fore, may properly
celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fac t

in your
nation's history-the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet
undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than
gratitude, prompt
8 – ABOLITIONISTS
you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have
said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringb olt to the
chain
of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles
contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand b y
those
principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places,
against all foes, and at whatever cost…
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called
upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to
do with your national independence? Are the great principles of
political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that De
claration
of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called
upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to
confess the

benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting
from your independence to us?
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of
the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of
this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals
the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which
you,
this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.-The rich
inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence,
bequeathed by your
fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought
light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me .
This
Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.
To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of
liberty,
and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman
mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock
me,
by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your
conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the
example
of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown
down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in
irrevocable
ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and

woe-smitten people!
My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall
see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's
point of view. Standing there identified with the American
bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare,
with all my
soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked
blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the
declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the
conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.
America is
false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself
to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crus hed
and
bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity
which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in
the name
of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and
trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all
the
emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate
slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not
equivocate; I
will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can
command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man,
whose judgment

is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder,
shall not confess to be right and just…
There are seventy-two crimes in the State of Virginia which, if
committed by a black man (no matter how ignorant he be),
subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of the
same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment.
What is
this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral,
intellectual, and responsible being? The manhood of the slave is
conceded. It is
admitted in the fact that Southern statute books are covered
with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, t
he teaching
of the slave to read or to write. When you can point to any such
laws in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may con sent
to
argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets,
when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when
the fish
of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to
distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you
that the slave is a
man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the
Negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are ploughing,
planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools,

erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working
in metals of
brass, iron, copper, silver and gold; that, while we are reading,
writing and ciphering, acting as clerks, merchants and
secretaries,
having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors,
editors, orators and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all
manner of
enterprises common to other men, digging gold in California,
capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on
the hill-
side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in
families as husbands, wives and children, and, above all,
confess ing and
worshipping the Christian's God, and looking hopefully for life
and immortality beyond the grave, we are called upon to prove
that we
are men! Would you have me argue that man is entitled to
liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body?
What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a
day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the
gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.
To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an
unholy
license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of
rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants,
brass

fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow
mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and
thanksgiving s,
with all your religious parade and solemnity, are, to Him, mere
bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy-a thin veil to
cover
up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is
not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and
bloody
than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.”
8 – ABOLITIONISTS
I Will Be Heard!
Date: 1831
Explanation of the Source: The early 1800s witnessed the
emergence of the abolition movement, whose members viewed
slavery as a great moral evil and demanded that the institution
be brought to an immediate end.
With this editorial in the opening issue of his newspaper The

Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison
announced his intention to do whatever was necessary to
achieve this goal. Though Garrison was
far more radical than most abolitionists, he served as the public
face of the movement for three
decades.
“TO THE PUBLIC:
In the month of August, I issued proposals for publishing “The
Liberator” in Washington City; but the
enterprise, though hailed in different sections of the country,
was palsied by public indifference. Since that time,
the removal of the Genius of Universal Emancipation to the Seat
of Government has rendered less imperious
the establishment of a similar periodical in that quarter.
During my recent tour for the purpose of exciting the minds of
the people by a series of discourses on the
subject of slavery, every place that I visited gave fresh evidence
of the fact, that a greater revolution in public
sentiment was to be effected in the free States—and particularly
in New-England—than at the South. I found
contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more
relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen,
than

among slave-owners themselves. Of course, there were
individual
exceptions to the contrary. This state of things afflicted, but did
not
dishearten me. I determined, at every hazard, to lift up the
standard
of emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within sight of
Bunker Hill
and in the birthplace of liberty. That standard is now unfurled;
and
long may it float, unhurt by the spoliations of time or the
missiles of
a desperate foe—yea, till every chain be broken, and every
bondman
set free! Let Southern oppressors tremble—let their secret
abettors
tremble—let their Northern apologists tremble—let all the
enemies
of the persecuted blacks tremble...
Assenting to the “self-evident truth” maintained in the
American Declaration of Independence, “that all men
are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable rights—among which are life, liberty
and the pursuit of happiness,” I shall strenuously contend for

the immediate enfranchisement of our slave
population. In Park-Street Church, on the Fourth of July, 1829,
I unreflectingly assented to the popular but
pernicious doctrine of gradual abolition. I seize this moment to
make a full and unequivocal recantation, and
thus publicly to ask pardon of my God, of my country, and of
my brethren the poor slaves, for having uttered a
sentiment so full of timidity, injustice, and absurdity. A similar
recantation, from my pen, was published in the
Genius of Universal Emancipation at Baltimore, in September,
1829. My conscience is now satisfied.
I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but
is there not cause for severity? I will be as
harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this
subject, I do not wish to think, or to speak, or write,
with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to
give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately
rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to
gradually extricate her babe from the fire into
which it has fallen;—but urge me not to use moderation in a
cause like the present. I am in earnest—I will not
equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—
AND I WILL BE HEARD.”

HORACE MANN ON EDUCATION AND NATIONAL
WELFARE
1848 (Twelfth Annual Report of Horace Mann as Secretary of
Massachusetts State Board of Education)
Horace Mann's appointment as Secretary of the newly organized
Board of Education, in 1837, inaugurated a new era in the
history of American education. In his annual reports Mann
discussed the larger implications of education in a democracy.
.... A cardinal object which the government of Massachusetts,
and all the influential men in the State, should propose to
themselves, is the physical well-being of all the people,—the
sufficiency, comfort, competence, of every individual in regard
to food, raiment, and shelter. And these necessaries and
conveniences of life should be obtained by each individual for
himself, or by each family for themselves, rather than accepted
from the hand of charity or extorted by poor laws. It is not
averred that this most desirable result can, in all instances, be
obtained; but it is, nevertheless, the end to be aimed at. True
statesmanship and true political economy, not less than true
philanthropy, present this perfect theory as the goal, to be more
and more closely approximated by our imperfect practice. The
desire to achieve such a result cannot be regarded as an
unreasonable ambition; for, though all mankind were well fed,
well clothed, and well housed, they might still be half civilized.
According to the European theory, men are divided into
classes,—some to toil and earn, others to seize and enjoy.
According to the Massachusetts theory, all are to have an equal
chance for earning, and equal security in the enjoyment of what
they earn. The latter tends to equality of condition; the former,
to the grossest inequalities. Tried by any Christian standard of
morals, or even by any of the better sort of heathen standards,
can any one hesitate, for a moment, in declaring which of the
two will produce the greater amount of human welfare, and
which, therefore, is the more conformable to the divine will?
The European theory is blind to what constitutes the highest

glory as well as the highest duty of a State....
Our ambition as a State should trace itself to a different origin,
and propose to itself a different object. Its flame should be
lighted at the skies. Its radiance and its warmth should reach the
darkest and the coldest of abodes of men. It should seek the
solution of such problems as these: To what extent can
competence displace pauperism? How nearly can we free
ourselves from the low-minded and the vicious, not by their
expatriation, but by their elevation? To what extent can the
resources and powers of Nature be converted into human
welfare, the peaceful arts of life be advanced, and the vast
treasures of human talent and genius be developed? How much
of suffering, in all its forms, can be relieved? or, what is better
than relief, how much can be prevented? Cannot the classes of
crimes be lessened, and the number of criminals in each class be
diminished? . . .
Now two or three things will doubtless be admitted to be true,
beyond all controversy, in regard to Massachusetts. By its
industrial condition, and its business operations, it is exposed,
far beyond any other State in the Union, to the fatal extremes of
overgrown wealth and desperate poverty. Its population is far
more dense than that of any other State. It is four or five times
more dense than the average of all the-other States taken
together; and density of population has always been one of the
proximate causes of social inequality. According to population
and territorial extent there is far more capital in Massachusetts -
- capital which is movable, and instantaneously available -- than
in any other State in the Union; and probably both these
qualifications respecting population and territory could be
omitted without endangering the truth of the assertion....
Now surely nothing but universal education can counterwork
this tendency to the domination of capital and the servility of
labor. If one class possesses all the wealth and the education,
while the residue of society is ignorant and poor, it matters not
by what name the relation between them may be called: the
latter, in fact and in truth, will be the servile dependents and

subjects of the former. But, if education be equally diffused, it
will draw property after it by the strongest of all attractions; for
such a thing never did happen, and never can happen, as that an
intelligent and practical body of men should be permanently
poor. Property and labor in different classes are essentially
antagonistic; but property and labor in the same class are
essentially fraternal. The people of Massachusetts have, in some
degree, appreciated the truth that the unexampled prosperity of
the State -- its comfort, its competence, its general intelligence
and virtue -- is attributable to the education, more or less
perfect, which all its people have received; but are they sensible
of a fact equally important,— namely, that it is to this same
education that two-thirds of the people are indebted for not
being to-day the vassals of as severe a tyranny, in the form of
capital, as the lower classes of Europe are bound to in any form
of brute force?
Education then, beyond all other devices of human origin, is a
great equalizer of the conditions of men,—the balance wheel of
the social machinery. I do not here mean that it so elevates the
moral nature as to make men disdain and abhor the oppression
of their fellow men. This idea pertains to another of its
attributes. But I mean that it gives each man the independence
and the means by which he can resist the selfishness of other
men. It does better than to disarm the poor of their hostility
toward the rich: it prevents being poor. Agrarianism is the
revenge of poverty against wealth. The wanton destruction of
the property of others -- the burning of hay-ricks, and corn-
ricks, the demolition of machinery because it supersedes hand-
labor, the sprinkling of vitriol on rich dresses -- is only
agrarianism run mad. Education prevents both the revenge and
the madness. On the other hand, a fellow-feeling for one's class
or caste is the common instinct of hearts not wholly sunk in
selfish regard for a person or for a family. The spread of
education, by enlarging the cultivated class or caste, will open a
wider area over which the social feelings will expand; and, if
this education should be universal and complete, it would do

more than all things else to obliterate factitious distinctions in
society.. ..
For the creation of wealth, then,—for the existence of a wealthy
people and a wealthy nation,—intelligence is the grand
condition. The number of improvers will increase as the
intellectual constituency, if I may so call it, increases. In former
times, and in most parts of the world even at the present day,
not one man in a million has ever had such a development of
mind as made it possible for him to become a contributor to art
or science.... Let this development proceed, and contributions . .
. of inestimable value, will be sure to follow. That political
economy, therefore, which busies itself about capital and labor,
supply and demand, interests and rents, favorable and
unfavorable balances of trade, but leaves out of account the
elements of a wide-spread mental development, is naught but
stupendous folly. The greatest of all the arts in political
economy is to change a consumer into a producer; and the next
greatest is to increase the producing power,—and this to be
directly obtained by increasing his intelligence. For mere
delving, an ignorant man is but little better than a swine, whom
he so much resembles in his appetites, and surpasses in his
power of mischief....
The Age of Jackson
1824-1844
The Birth of the Second Party System
Political Crisis and Political Transformation
1824 Candidate #1:
William Crawford of Georgia

Secretary of the Treasury
Traditional Jeffersonian
Chosen by the traditional Caucus method, thus the “official”
Republican Candidate
Preferred candidate of President Monroe and former Presidents
Madison and Jefferson
In very poor health
1824 Candidate #2:
John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts
Secretary of State-thus “heir apparent” in the Virginia Game
Son of former President John Adams
Long record of public service, dating to his teens
One of the earliest Federalists to embrace the Republican Party
National Republican
Sectional Appeal: New England
1824 Candidate #3:
Henry Clay of Kentucky
Speaker of the House
“The Great Compromiser”
Also a National Republican
First run of his “American system”
Sectional Appeal: The West
1824 Candidate #4:
Andrew Jackson of Tennessee
United States Senator from Tennessee
Does not have traditional basis of power. His appeal is not
sectional, but popular

Seen as dangerous demagogue by traditional Republican leaders
Secretary of War John C. Calhoun of South Carolina- The Vice-
Presidential Candidate
Long-standing Republican
Was a war hawk and nationalist at the time of the War of 1812
Is now transitioning into a militant southern sectionalist and
defender of slavery
On the whole, the candidates were restrained and genuinely
respected one another
The press, however, provided the traditional personality-based
fireworks
Election provided no clear winner
Jackson- 99
Adams- 84
Crawford- 41
Clay- 37
The House of Representatives will decide the election
¾ of the states held popular votes for electors
The “Corrupt Bargain”1825 Presidential House Vote
The Constitution says the top three electoral vote winners are
eligible in the House, but it was really between Adams and
Jackson
Clay was not eligible
Crawford was sidelined by his declining health
As Speaker of the House, Clay was not without power and
influence and detested Jackson for personal and ideological

reasons and thus endorsed Adams allowing Adams to win
Jackson saw the election of Adams as betrayal of the will of the
people and stealing his own legitimate election
When Adams named Clay Secretary of State, Jackson claimed
Adams election was the result of a “Corrupt Bargain”
Adams Tumultuous Presidency
Adams had an ambitious program of internal development he
wanted to accomplish, but he will achieve almost none of it
Adams had a really poor relationship with Congress
Refused to play politics with Congress
Aloof manner
The “Corrupt Bargain” Charges undermined his legitimacy
Adams got embroiled in a dispute between the Creek Tribe and
the State of Georgia that enflames the passions of state’s rights
and ends only in embarrassment for Adams
1828- Congress passed the highest tariff in American history,
called the “Tariff of Abominations” by its opponents, enflamed
sectional passions that threatens the union in the next
Administration
The National Republican Ticket (1828)
President John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts
Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush of Pennsylvania
The Democratic Ticket (1828)
Former Senator Andrew Jackson of Tennessee
Vice-President John C. Calhoun of South Carolina

A Campaign of Mud
Jackson was painted as a dangerous, immoral man
An American Napoleon
Uneducated
Reckless
A Murder: the Coffin Handbill
His family: Jackson the adulterer with a bigamist wife
Adams the Monarchist and Tyrant
Jacksonian Democracy?
In 1828, Electors were chosen by popular vote in every state
except South Carolina and Delaware
Over the next several years, voting nationally will extend to all
adult, white males
Jackson encouraged close contact between the people and the
President
Established the “Spoils system”
Jacksonian movement was open to immigrants, but generally
pro-slavery
The Nullification Crisis
The crisis resulting from the Tariff of Abominations continued
into the Jackson Presidency and sent Jackson and Calhoun onto
a collision course
Jackson opposed the tariff, but felt compelled to enforce the law
Calhoun worked against the administration from the beginning,
openly endorsing Nullification

By 1830, this becomes a constitutional crisis threatening
national unity
Nat Turner’s failed 1831 slave uprising added fuel to the fire as
Calhoun linked it to the crisis
The reduction of tariffs in 1832 was not enough for South
Carolina and the state declared it nullified as of February 1,
1833 and called for the raising of 25,000 SC troops
Jackson responded with the December 10, 1832 Nullification
Proclamation
SC backed down, a new 1833 tariff bill was based on sectional
compromise
The Bank War
More than anything, Jackson wanted to destroy the Second Bank
of the United States
More than anything, the head of the Second Bank of the United
States, Nicholas Biddle, wanted to destroy Jackson
The Bank’s supporters, led by Henry Clay, sought to use the
bank as an issue in 1832 brought up a bill for its recharter (due
in 1836) four years early
They horribly miscalculated. Jackson vetoed the bill in a
populist statement that won public support
Killing the Bank
With a mandate for his policy, Jackson moved to finally kill the
bank in his second term
In 1837, he ordered all federal deposits removed from the
Second Bank of the United States and placed into politically

friendly private banks (the “pet banks”)
Biddle responded by calling in all federal debts in specie. He
wanted to cause an economic crisis that would undermine
Jackson and build support for the bank. It further backfired.
1836- Jackson issued the Specie Circular: purchases of federal
land can only be in Gold and silver
The Charter expired on schedule in 1836 and the bank formally
died in 1841.
Indian Removal
Focused on the “Five Civilized Tribes,” The Chickasaw, the
Seminole, the Chocktaw, the Creek, and (especially) the
Cherokee
Primarily a state initiative (especially Georgia) who wanted the
land cleared for gold mining and tobacco cultivation
Jackson was supportive and carried out the move even though
the Supreme Court ruled that the removal efforts were
unconstitutional
Indian RemovalNationPopulation east of the Mississippi before
removal treatyRemoval treaty
(year signed)Years of major emigrationTotal number emigrated
or forcibly removedNumber stayed in SoutheastDeaths during
removalDeaths from warfareChoctaw19,554 + 6000 black
slavesDancing Rabbit Creek (1830)1831-183612,5007,000
2,000-4,000+ (Cholera)n/aCreek22,700 + 900 black slaves
Cusseta (1832)1834-183719,600 unknown3,500 (disease after
removal)unknown (Second Creek War)Chickasaw4,914 + 1,156
black slavesPontotoc Creek (1832)1837-1847over
4,000hundredsa few from diseasen/aCherokee21,500
+ 2,000 black slavesNew Echota (1835)1836-183820,000 +
2,000 slaves1,0002,000-8,000n/aSeminole5,000 + fugitive
slavesPayne's Landing (1832)1832-18422,833 250-500 700

(Second Seminole War)
Henry Clay, The Father of Whiggery
In many ways an updated version of Federalism
Hamiltonian Economics through the “American System”-
Protectionist Tariff, National Banks, Government-funded
Internal Improvements, Support of Manufactures
Non-Expansionist Foreign Policy
Instead of the Deference of the Federalists, looked to reform
society for the promotion of self-discipline and moral self-
improvement through support of things such as public
education, temperance
Whiggery
Democrats nominated Vice-President Martin van Buren over
Southern objections
Whigs had no nominee, but ran four sectional ones, hoping to
send the election to the House where they hoped the choice
would be between three Whigs
Even painting van Buren as connected to the radical Democratic
workingman’s movements (locofocos) could not stop his victory
due to Jackson’s support and popularity
The Second Party System
Parties were the Whig Party and the Democratic Party
It formed over a 15 year period that varied by state.
It was produced by leaders trying to win the presidency, with
contenders building their own national coalitions.

For the first time two-party politics was extended to the South
and West.
In each region the two parties were about equal—a truly
national party system.
Because of the regional balance it was vulnerable to region-
specific issues (like slavery).
The same two parties appeared in every state, and contested
both the electoral vote and state offices.
Methods varied somewhat but everywhere the political
convention replaced the caucus.
The parties had an interest of their own, in terms of the office-
seeking goals of party activists.
The new, popular campaign style became the norm after 1840.
The trying Presidency of Martin van Buren
The Panic of 1837- van Buren reaped the economic results of
Jackson’s bank war (including private bank failures,
unemployment, and inflation) that his own efforts to resolve
(the Subtreasury system) made worse. The economy does not
recover until 1843, during the Presidency of John Tyler.
Slavery- The issue rises again through abolitionist societies
sending petitions to Congress, which was dealt with by a gag
rule 1836. Throughout van Buren’s Presidency, anti-slavery
members of the House, led by former President John Quincy
Adams, kept the issue alive. The 1839-1841 Amistad
controversy kept the issue in the forefront for the election and
enflamed sectional passions.
President Martin van Buren of New York
No Vice-President Candidate nominated
The Democratic Convention refused to renominate Richard

Mentor Johnson, but could not decide on a replacement.
Former Senator William Henry Harrison of Ohio
Senator John Tyler of Virginia
Log Cabin and Hard Cider
The Log Cabin Newspaper
Keep the Ball Rolling
Antebellum Reform
Antebellum Reform
Movement of the 1830s-1840s

Showed similar revival preaching to that of the First Great
Awakening
While showing the same fire-and-brimstone preaching of the
First Great Awakening, it rejected the predestination evident in
“Sinners in the Hands of and Angry God,” instead believing that
sin and sinners can be reformed and saved
Believed that people and society are perfectible if people
practiced industry, self-discipline, sobriety as well as against
greed and sin
Believed that people should be exposed to the word of God as
much as possible…American Bible Society
People had a responsibility to God for their fellow man: You are
your brother’s keeper
Sparked several new denominations (Mormons, Seventh-Day
Adventists) and greatly expanded older ones, especially
Methodists, Baptists, Congregationalists, and Presbyterians
Church attendance rose from 10% in 1790 to 80% in 1840
Second Great Awakening
Optimists: all problems can be solved, no evil permanent, no
person so sinful as to be unredeemable
People had a responsibility to take care of each other, Society
complex and interdependent
Science complimented religion: science provided the means of
fulfilling religious and moral obligations
Reform movements all across society examples: utopian
communities public health, mentally ill, prison reform,
education reform, temperance, abolition, women’s rights
General Characteristics of Antebellum Reform
More than one hundred established in the antebellum period

Had both secular and religious communities
All based on some form of communitarianism ranging from
communal ownership, perfect equality, free love, or all of the
above.
Most Short-lived
Examples: Onieda (perfect equality, free love), New Harmony
(Secular Communitarianism) Deseret (Mormon, religious)
Utopian Communities
Period led to a dramatic revision and expansion of American
education
Horace Mann: Free Public Education (began in Massachusetts)
Normal Schools: Schools to train high school graduates to
become teachers
Expansion of Education to beyond the “3 R’s”
Adoption of the Prussian Education System: Compulsory
education, Teacher Certification, Final Examinations
Education seen as means to create good Republican citizens,
offset the growing economic inequality arising from
industrialization, and prevent mental illness
Education Reform
Eighteenth Century approaches to mental health was to
warehouse the insane
The same period’s approach to criminals was a mixture of
warehousing, branding, corporal punishment, and execution
Reformers took the same approach to trying to reform both: the
introduction of discipline to try to help them function properly
in society
For criminals, this means the introduction of the penitenery, a
place for convicted criminals to learn to follow societal norms
by strict discipline

For the mentally ill, this means the asylum, a place to receive
treatment and discipline
Notable Figures: Horace Mann, Dorothea Dix
Prison and the Asylum
One of the very first truly national mass movements
Largest organization of the period was the American
Temperence Society founded by Lyman Beecher in 1826
By 1831 there were 2,200 chapters and 170,000 members
1836: more than 8,000 chapters and 1 million members
Saw drunkenness as destructive to home life and to proper
functioning in the community
19 separate Temperance journals published
Protestant
Involved both men and women
Notable Figures: Lyman Beecher, William Lloyd Garrison
Temperence
Built upon the original anti-slavery agitation following the
Revolution
Movement of diverse ideas united only by the idea that slavery
was wrong: Some wanted gradual emancipation, some
immediate, some wanted colonization, some full civil rights
Conservative Antislavery: American Colonization Society
Abolitionists: Even the extreme parts of the movement were
divided over whether to use the political system or “moral
suasion” and on whether to allow women to participate in the
movement
Notable Figures: Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison,
Elijah P. Lovejoy, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton
Abolition

Grew out of the Temperance and especially Abolitionist
movements
Pushed not only for the right to vote for women, but for the
demolition of “separate spheres” and the subordinate legal
status of women.
Seneca Falls Convention of 1848
Notable Figures: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott,
Margaret Fuller, William Lloyd Garrison
Woman’s Suffrage
8 – ABOLITIONISTS
“The American Union”
Date: January 10, 1845
Explanation of the Source: William Lloyd Garrison was a fiery
orator against the institution of slavery. This speech solidified
the criticisms
against the Abolitionists as being extremists who were splitting
the nation.
“Tyrants of the old world! contemners of the rights of man!
disbelievers in human freedom and equality! enemies of

mankind! console not yourselves with the delusion, that
REPUBLICANISM and the AMERICAN UNION are
synonymous terms—or
that the downfall of the latter will be the extinction of the
former, and, consequently, a proof of the incapacity of the peo
ple for self-
government, and a confirmation of your own despotic claims!
Your thrones must crumble to dust; your sceptre of dominion
drop from
your powerless hands; your rod of oppression be broken;
yourselves so vilely abased, that there shall be “none so poor to
do you
reverence.” The will of God, the beneficent Creator of the
human family, cannot always be frustrated. It is his will that
every form of
usurpation, every kind of injustice, every device of tyranny,
shall come to nought; that peace, and liberty, and righteousnes
s, shall
“reign from sea to sea, and from the rivers to the ends of the
earth”; and that, throughout the earth, in the fulness of a sure
redemption,
there shall be “none to molest or make afraid.” Humanity,
covered with gore, cries with a voice that pierces the heavens.
“Hi s will be
done!” Justice, discrowned by the hand of violence, exclaims in
tones of deep solemnity, “HIS WILL BE DONE!” Liberty,
burdened

with chains, and driven into exile, in thunder-tones responds,
“HIS WILL BE DONE!”
Tyrants! know that the rights of man are inherent and
unalienable, and therefore, not to be forfeited by the failure of
any form
of government, however democratic. Let the American Union
perish; let these allied States be torn with faction, or drenched
in blood;
let this republic realize the fate of Rome and Carthage, of
Babylon and Tyre; still those rights would remain undiminished
in strength,
unsullied in purity, unaffected in value, and sacred as their
Divine Author. If nations perish, it is not because of their de
votion to
liberty, but for their disregard of its requirements. Man is
superior to all political compacts, all governmental
arrangements, all
religious institutions. As means to an end, these may sometimes
be useful, though never indispensable; but that end must always
be
the freedom and happiness of man, INDIVIDUAL MAN. It can
never be true that the public good requires the violent sacrifice
of any,
even the humblest citizen; for it is absolutely dependent on his
preservation, not destruction. To do evil that good may come, is
equally absurd and criminal. The time for the overthrow of any
government, the abandonment of any alliance, the subversion of
any

institution, is, whenever it justifies the immolation of the
individual to secure the general welfare; for the welfare of the
many cannot
be hostile to the safety of the few. In all agreements, in all
measures, in all political or religious enterprises, in all attempts
to redeem
the human race, man, as an individual, is to be held paramount
…
Tyrants! confident of its overthrow, proclaim not to your
vassals that the AMERICAN UNION is an experiment of
Freedom,
which, if it fail, will forever demonstrate the necessity of whips
for the backs, and chains for the limbs of the people. Kno w that
its
subversion is essential to the triumph of justice, the deliverance
of the oppressed, the vindication of the BROTHERHOOD OF
THE
RACE. It was conceived in sin, and brought forth in iniquity;
and its career has been marked by unparalleled hypocrisy, by hi
gh-
handed tyranny, by a bold defiance of the omniscience and
omnipotence of God. Freedom indignantly disowns it, and calls
for its
extinction; for within its borders are three millions of Slaves,
whose blood constitutes its cement, whose flesh forms a large
and

flourishing branch of its commerce, and who are ranked with
four-footed beasts and creeping things. To secure the adoption
of the
Constitution of the United States, it was agreed, first, that the
African slave-trade, —till that time, a feeble, isolated colonial
traffic,—
should for at least twenty years be prosecuted as a national
interest under the American flag, and protected by the national
arm; —
secondly, that a slaveholding oligarchy, created by allowing
three-fifths of the slave population to be rep resented by their
taskmasters,
should be allowed a permanent seat in Congress;—thirdly, that
the slave system should be secured against internal revolt and
external
invasion, by the united physical force of the country; —
fourthly, that not a foot of national territory should be granted,
on which the
panting fugitive from Slavery might stand, and be safe from his
pursuers—thus making every citizen a slave-hunter and slave-
catcher.
To say that this “covenant with death” shall not be annulled—
that this “agreement with hell” shall continue to stand—that this
“refuge of lies” shall not be swept away—is to hurl defiance at
the eternal throne, and to give the lie to Him who sits thereon.
It is an
attempt, alike monstrous and impracticable, to blend the light of

heaven with the darkness of the bottomless pit, to unite the
living
with the dead, to associate the Son of God with the prince of
evil.
Accursed be the AMERICAN UNION, as a stupendous
republican imposture!
Accursed be it, as the most frightful despotism, with regard to
three millions of the people, ever exercised over any portion of
the
human family!
Accursed be it, as the most subtle and atrocious compromise
ever made to gratify power and selfishness!
Accursed be it, as a libel on Democracy, and a bold assault on
Christianity! …
8 – ABOLITIONISTS
Henceforth, the watchword of every uncompromising
abolitionist, of every friend of God and liberty, must be, both in
a
religious and political sense—“NO UNION WITH
SLAVEHOLDERS!””

What To The Slave Is The 4th Of July?"
By: Frederick Douglass
Date: July 5, 1852
Explanation of the Source: Former slave Frederick Douglass’
July 5, 1852 oration “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”
stands in stark
contrast to the typical Fourth of July Oration. Not only did
Douglass look different than the typical Fourth of July
orator, but his message was very different. “The rich inheritance
of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence,
bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not me,” Douglass
told his audience. “The sunlight that brought life
and healing to you, has brought stripes of death to me. This
Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I
must mourn.” Throughout the speech Douglass compared and
contrasted what the Fourth of July means to white
Americans (freedom) and what it means to African-Americans
(slavery) and concluded, “What, to the American
slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him,
more than all other days in the year, the gross
injustice and cruelty to which he is constant victim. To him,
your celebration is a sham.” Douglass was already a
famous abolitionist and speaker, but his fiery and dramatic
calling out of American hypocrisy in his Fourth of July
oration solidified his place as one of the greatest American

orators of all time.
“Mr. President, Friends and Fellow Citizens: He who could
address this audience without a quailing sensation, has stronger
nerves than I have. I do not remember ever to have appeared as
a speaker before any assembly more shrinkingly, nor with great
er
distrust of my ability, than I do this day. A feeling has crept
over me quite unfavorable to the exercise of my limited powers
of speech.
The task before me is one which requires much previous thought
and study for its proper performance. I know that apologies of
this
sort are generally considered flat and unmeaning. I trust,
however, that mine will not be so considered. Should I seem at
ease, my
appearance would much misrepresent me. The little experience I
have had in addressing public meetings, in country school
houses,
avails me nothing on the present occasion. The papers and
placards say that I am to deliver a Fourth of July Oration. This
certainly
sounds large, and out of the common way, for me. It is true that
I have often had the privilege to speak in this beautiful Ha ll,
and to
address many who now honor me with their presence. But
neither their familiar faces, nor the perfect gage I think I have
of Corinthian

Hall seems to free me from embarrassment. The fact is, ladies
and gentlemen, the distance between this platform and the slave
plantation, from which I escaped, is considerable-and the
difficulties to he overcome in getting from the latter to the
former are by no
means slight. That I am here to-day is, to me, a matter of
astonishment as well as of gratitude. You will not, therefore, be
surprised, if
in what I have to say I evince no elaborate preparation, nor
grace my speech with any high sounding exordium. With little
experience
and with less learning, I have been able to throw my thoughts
hastily and imperfectly together; and trusting to your patient
and
generous indulgence I will proceed to lay them before you.
This, for the purpose of this celebration, is the Fourth of July.
It is the birth day of your National Independence, and of your
political freedom. This, to you, as what the Passover was to the
emancipated people of God. It carries your minds back to the
day, and
to the act of your great deliverance; and to the signs, and to the
wonders, associated with that act, and that day. This celebration
also
marks the beginning of another year of your national life; and
reminds you that the Republic of America is now 76 years old. l
am

glad, fellow-citizens, that your nation is so young. Seventy-six
years, though a good old age for a man, is but a mere speck in
the life
of a nation. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for
individual men; but nations number their years by thousands.
According
to this fact, you are, even now, only in the beginning of your
national career, still lingering in the period of childhood…
Oppression makes a wise man mad. Your fathers were wise
men, and if they did not go mad, they became restive under this
treatment. They felt themselves the victims of grievous wrongs,
wholly incurable in their colonial capacity. With brave men t
here is
always a remedy for oppression. Just here, the idea of a total
separation of the colonies from the crown was born! It was a
startling
idea, much more so than we, at this distance of time, regard it.
The timid and the prudent (as has been intimated) of that da y
were, of
course, shocked and alarmed by it…
Citizens, your fathers made good that resolution. They
succeeded; and to-day you reap the fruits of their success. The
freedom gained is yours; and you, there fore, may properly
celebrate this anniversary. The 4th of July is the first great fac t
in your

nation's history-the very ringbolt in the chain of your yet
undeveloped destiny. Pride and patriotism, not less than
gratitude, prompt
8 – ABOLITIONISTS
you to celebrate and to hold it in perpetual remembrance. I have
said that the Declaration of Independence is the ringb olt to the
chain
of your nation's destiny; so, indeed, I regard it. The principles
contained in that instrument are saving principles. Stand b y
those
principles, be true to them on all occasions, in all places,
against all foes, and at whatever cost…
Fellow-citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called
upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to
do with your national independence? Are the great principles of
political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that De
claration
of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called
upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to
confess the
benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting

from your independence to us?
But such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of
the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of
this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals
the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which
you,
this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common.-The rich
inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence,
bequeathed by your
fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought
light and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me .
This
Fourth July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn.
To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of
liberty,
and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman
mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock
me,
by asking me to speak to-day? If so, there is a parallel to your
conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the
example
of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown
down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in
irrevocable
ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and
woe-smitten people!

My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is American slavery. I shall
see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's
point of view. Standing there identified with the American
bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare,
with all my
soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked
blacker to me than on this 4th of July! Whether we turn to the
declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the
conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting.
America is
false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself
to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crus hed
and
bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity
which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in
the name
of the constitution and the Bible which are disregarded and
trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all
the
emphasis I can command, everything that serves to perpetuate
slavery-the great sin and shame of America! "I will not
equivocate; I
will not excuse"; I will use the severest language I can
command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man,
whose judgment
is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder,
shall not confess to be right and just…

Horace Mann on Education as the Great Equalizer in a Democracy

Horace Mann on Education as the Great Equalizer in a Democracy

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