APUSH Nineteenth Century Notes

Bonus Bill
(1817) A bill proposed in 1817 by John C. Calhoun (though attributed to Henry Clay) to provide Highways linking The East and South to The West using the “Bonus” earnings of the Second Bank of the United States

John Marshall
(1755-1835) Was nominated by John Adams for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. He served from 1801 until his death in 1835. He was a staunch Federalist and is recognized for establishing judicial review.

judicial review
(est. 1803) Judicial review is the power of the courts to annul the acts of the executive or legislative powers where it finds them incompatible with a higher norm (e.g. state laws vs. constitution).

John Quincy Adams
(1767-1848) 6th President of the United States from 1825-1829. He was the son of John Adams and helped formulate the Adam-Onís Treaty and Monroe Doctrine, as Secretary of State.

political machine
A political machine is an unofficial system of a political organization based on patronage, the spoils system, “behind the scenes” control, and political ties within the structure of a representative democracy.

“corrupt bargain”
(1824) The term candidate Andrew Jackson gave to the nomination of Henry Clay as Secretary of State for Pres. John Quincy Adams as a result of the election of 1824 where Clay had helped Adams get into office.

spoils system
The practice where a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its voters as a reward and incentive to keep working for the party. Term was derived from “to the victor go the spoils.”

“Democrats”


Tariff of 1828
Enacted on May 19, 1828 and known as “Tariff of Abominations” because of the effect it had on the southern economy. The high tariff coincided with the election of 1828 leading to Adam’s defeat.

Kitchen Cabinet
The Kitchen Cabinet was Jackson’s informal Cabinet. Jackson soon referred to his Kitchen Cabinet so much that there was a Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of having a second cabinet. It was allowed.

Maysville Road veto
(1830) A famous veto by Pres. Andrew Jackson. The Maysville Road bill proposed funding a road in Kentucky. Was rejected on the grounds that it was unconstitutional dealing a blow to the American System (Clay).

Nicholas Biddle
(1786-1844) An American financier who served as president of the Second Bank of the United States from 1822 to 1839. In 1833, Biddle demonstrated the importance of the 2nd Bank by calling in all loans, sparking a depression.

Roger B. Taney
(1777-1864) Twelfth US Attorney General and 5th Chief Justice of the United States from 1836 to 1864.The Taney Court often favored the states more than the federal government (e.g. NYC vs. Miln).

“pet banks”
(1833) A term for state banks selected by the US. Department of Treasury to receive surplus government funds in 1833 after Jackson “killed” the 2nd Bank of US -> Failure of pet banks -> Specie Circular -> Panic of 1837

Indian Removal Act (1830)
Signed into law by President Andrew Jackson which paved the way for the relocation of tens of thousands of American Indians to the West. Opened up land inhabited by the “Five Civilized Tribes.”

Compromise Tariff
(1833) Proposed by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun as a resolution to the Nullification Crisis. Reduced tariff rates to 1816 lows and lasted until the Blank Tariff of 1842.

The South Carolina Exposition and Protest (1828) Written in 1828 by John C. Calhoun (anonymous at the time), it was a protest against the Tariff of 1828. The document stated that if the tariff was not repealed, South Carolina would secede.

Working Men’s Party
(est. 1828) Founded in 1828 as the first labor union in the United States, located in Philadelphia. Called for 10 hour work period, universal male suffrage and free public education and rejected Jacksonian beliefs. Ultimately failed.

Whig Party
(1833-1856) Political party of Jacksonian democracy era that supported modernization and Congress-dominated government. Was strongly opposed to Andrew Jackson and Democratic party and led by Henry Clay.

Ralph Waldo Emerson
(1803-1882) American writer and Transcendentalist. His teachings directly influenced the New Thought movement of the mid 1800s. He was an abolitionist and strongly supported philosophy of Transcendentalism.

Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862) An American author best known for his book Walden and essay Civil Disobedience. Lifelong abolitionist whose philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the actions of later figures such as Tolstoy, Ghandhi and King.

Transcendentalism
(mid-19th century) A series of new ideas that emerged in New England that protested the general state of culture and society. Their core belief is that an ideal spiritual state ‘transcends’ the physical and empirical and is realized only through intuition.

Walt Whitman
(1819-1892) An American poet who incorporated both transcendentalism and realism in both his views and works. He is best known for his poetry collection Leaves of Grass published in 1855.

Nathaniel Hawthorne
(1804-1864) An American novelist who expressed his negative view of the Transcendentalism movement with his novels epitomized in The Scarlet Letter (1860).

Herman Melville
(1819-1891) An American novelist who, like Hawthorne, held a negative view of the Transcendentalist movement and illustrated the problems with extreme individualism in his novel Moby Dick (1831).

Edgar Allen Poe
(1809-1849) A poet and writer considered part of the American Romantic Movement. He was best known for his tales of mystery and macabre.

Emily Dickinson
(1830-1886) An American poet who led a private life producing prolific poetry. She wrote nearly 1800 poems and most of the subjects were on death and immortality. They published for the first time in 1955.

Brook Farm
(est. 1841) A transcendentalist Utopian experiment founded by Unitarian minister George Ripley in 1841. Brook Farmers adopted Fourierism by 1844 and began building a structure the “Phalanstery.” However, by 1847, the farm was closed.

Shakers
(est. 1747) Originated in Manchester, England in 1747. Mother Mary Ann Lee is attributed with bringing this movement to the Untied States. The Shakers believed in perfection and morality.

Fourierism
(19th century) Named after the French socialist and philosopher Charles Fourier (1772-1837). The idea of liberating every human individual, man, woman, and child in two senses: Education and the liberation of human passion. Influenced Brook Farm.

Oneida Community
(est. 1848) A utopian commune founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. The community practiced communalism but dissolved in 1881 into the giant silverware company Oneida Limited.

Joseph Smith
(1805-1844) Founder of Mormonism who in 1830 published the Book of Mormon. Tensions escalated into the 1838 Mormon War which expelled the Mormons from MI. He was killed in 1844 in Nauvoo, Illinois.

Brigham Young
(1801-1877) President of Mormons from 1847 to 1877, founder of Salt Lake City and first governor of Utah. He succeeded Joseph Smith and led the Mormons west where they settled in Salt Lake City.

William Lloyd Garrison
(1805-1879) Founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society and editor of the radical abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator (1831).
American Anti-Slavery Society
(1833-1870) An Abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan in Philadelphia. The society included Frederick Douglass and others. Was strongly opposed by the public and mobs frequently attacked them.

Nat Turner
(Rebellion in 1831) (1800-1831) An American slave who started the largest slave rebellion in the southern United States. The rebellion led to a crackdown on slave education and meetings throughout the South. .

Grimké sisters
Sarah (1792-1873) and Angelina (1805-1879) were 19th century American Quakers who advocated abolition and women’s rights. Lectured throughout the North and were the first to act publicly in social reform movements.

Harriet Tubman
(1820-1913) An African-American abolitionist who made thirteen missions to rescue over seventy slaves on the Underground Railroad. Was known as the “Moses” and never lost a passenger in her operations.

Dorothea Dix
(1802-1887) An American activist who lobbied Congress and state legislatures for the creation of mental asylums. Served as Superintendent of Army Nurses during the Civil War.

Harriet Beecher Stowe
(1811-1896) An abolitionist author renowned for her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). Her book attacked the cruelty of slavery and made the political issues of 1850s tangible to millions, moving anti-slavery forces in the North.

Catharine Beecher
(1800-1878) A noted American educator and sister of Harriet Beecher Stowe who supported women’s education and the incorporation of kindergarten into children’s education. Pronounced women were better educators than men.

Seneca Falls, New York
(1848) Location of the first women’s rights convention in the United States that featured leading reformers including the two below. Presented the “Declaration of Sentiments” (1833) here: “All men and women were created equal…”

Elizabeth Cady Stanton
(1815-1902) Was a leading figure of the early woman’s movement. Her Declaration of Sentiments presented at Seneca Falls is often credited for starting the first organized women’s rights and suffrage movements in the U.S.

Lucretia Mott
(1793-1880) A proponent of women’s rights credited as the first American “feminist” in the early 1800s but was more accurately, the initiator of women’s political advocacy.

Susan B. Anthony
(1820-1906) A prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in women’s rights and suffrage. Gave 75-100 speeches per year on women’s rights for 45 years.

gang-labor system
(pre-1865) The gang-labor system was a harsh but productive division of labor where field “gangs” worked under an overseer and were pushed to the maximum production. This system was essential to economic growth in the South.

“King Cotton”
(etmy. 1855) A phrase used mainly by Southern politicians and authors to demonstrate the importance of cotton to the Confederate economy during the Civil War. The South produced ¾ of the world’s cotton supply at the time.

Free African Societies
(est. 1787) Established in Philadelphia by Richard Allen for the benefit of African-Americans released from slavery. The FAS operated as a church, local government, and charity providing aid and teaching morality and temperance.