Survey of United States History Task 2 PDF

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Survey of United States History – C121 Task 2

Survey of United States History – C121 Maha Judeh Western Governors University

Survey of United States History – C121 Task 2

A. Political parties in the United States are meant to represent the country’s political beliefs in how the country should be led. Through dialogue and compromises, the founding fathers envisioned differences of politics to be a stabilizing factor for the union, in which all voices could be heard and decided upon. Issues such as fair taxation and representation, for citizens and states, and the status of trade and slavery had opposing views depending on the states, so these issues were solved through the first conventions held at Philadelphia. (Norton, 2015) Political parties came into play very early on in the founding of the nation, as there was a split over how much power the federal government should have, and how centralized that power should be. Federalists and anti-federalists made up the founding fathers and first states of the union, so these were the first large scale political differences. (Norton, 2015) Through domestic and foreign turmoil with Europe, George Washington and other founding fathers decided to step in before differences began to generate into larger rebellions against federal laws. Issues such as the Whiskey Rebellion and the XYZ affair with France drove the concept of national unity home as the United States could not count on totally decentralized, or a foreign-leaning government, to guarantee the best interests of both American merchants and farmers. (Norton, 2015)

B-1. In the first part of the 19th century there continued to be divisions over the primacy of state versus federal rights in the matters of taxation and trade. Underlying this debate was the reality of slavery in the south, where states like South Carolina relied almost entirely for its revenue and livelihood. Also, the Bank of the United States was a contentious issue for the Republican party, who wanted to support and enhance it as an arbitrator for credit and fiscal policy in the United States. Opposing parties such as the Whigs saw it as a corrupt and colluding entity that was to the betterment of the rich, neglecting the needs of poorer citizenry. (Norton, 2015)

B-2. The Whig platform was led by ideas of direct and active control of the government to spur on progress and advancement through involvement in education and national institutions of finance. Jacksonian Democrats instead were led by the ideas that citizenry and states know how to best decide their own lives, and that government involvement should be more curtailed in public life. At this time in the 1830s the Democratic party was headed by Martin Van Buren, and the Whigs by Webster, White, and Harrison. (Norton, 2015)

B-3. The divisions of the two-party system led to the democratization due in part to the diversity of coalitions within each party. With Whigs looking to support both free merchants, including blacks and abolitionists, alongside large slavers that wanted to curtail new economic opportunities that would negate their influence, they had to tow a fine line to ensure widespread voter support. On the other side, the Democrats tried to appeal as much as possible to the lower classes, amongst them free white men and non-evangelicals, to become the populist part of the United States. (Norton, 2015)

Survey of United States History – C121 Task 2

A big step in this was universal white male suffrage, greatly increasing voting numbers by removing the restriction requirement property holdings to vote. By increasing the numbers of voters, political parties assumed they were increasing their proportion in governmental control, so this led to further increases in who could legally vote and accessibility, with the election of 1840 receiving 80% of eligible votes available. (Norton, 2015) C-1. Pro-slavery movements in the United States were powerful harbingers of economic development for agriculture in the South and the rest of the United States. Through heavy production of cotton and tobacco for export, they were a powerful class that held sway in political forums from state legislatures to the US congress and presidency. Abolitionists opposed slavery on moral grounds, citing religious texts as well as humane treatment. They had powerful allies, as disenfranchised whites who could not compete with slavers, as well as northern economic interests supported by free labor and trade. Pro-slavers acted on the idea that they were legitimate landowners that were living in the ‘laws of nature’ in which whites were better than blacks, whereas northerners saw the institution of slavery as inhibiting the rise economically of all Americans, particularly entrepreneurial whites. (Norton, 2015)

C-2. Westward movement was an inflammatory issue in slavery. As new territories in west of the Mississippi River and the south west became states, the debate raged between free states and slave-holding states as to who’s policies would the law of the land in the west. States like Texas and California were contentious due to the desire for southerners to move there and continue their planter-based economy. This would have upset the already fragile balance between slaver states and free states in the national government. (Norton, 2015) The Missouri Compromise was held up as a temporary solution so that any state south of Missouri would be a slaver state, and north would be a free state. These compromises boiled over when elements within states like Kansas and the Popular Sovereignty acts wanted to own slaves though it was north of the Missouri Compromise. Violence and colliding north and south interests would lead directly to the Civil War in the following years. (Norton, 2015)

C-3. In the final years before the Civil War, last minute compromises were attempted to prevent violent flare-ups as had happened in new western states already on the matter of slavery. The Fugitive Slave Act was the flare-up that roused suspicions in the North over how much power Southern interests had over laws and liberties, while the free choice of citizens in states like Kansas and Nebraska were coerced externally by the two competing ideologies. In this cauldron the new Republican party of Abraham Lincoln and others was born to combat the spread of slavery and the power of the planter elite. (Norton, 2015) At the same time, the free choice of citizens in states like Kansas and Nebraska were being coerced externally by the two competing ideologies. In this cauldron the new Republican party of Abraham Lincoln and others was born to combat the spread of slavery and the power of the planter elite. With new states and territories being added to the United States, the balance of

Survey of United States History – C121 Task 2

power between a slaving South and slave-free North was in flux, but with Abraham Lincoln’s rise to the presidency, it was clear to the South that this Illinois frontier Lawyer was more interested in the economic emancipation of the working class, including whites disenfranchised due to cheap slave labor, than the planter class. (Norton, 2015) Abraham Lincoln’s rise to presidency was the last straw in the eyes of southern slaver insurrectionists. They saw his election, in which he was predominately voted in by the northern states, as having swung the balance of power entirely to the north. This implied that slaver expansion would be curtailed, and their powerful lobbies would be limited in scope to the southern states, with western and northern states being free of slaver institutions and leanings. (Norton, 2015)

D. Citation:

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Norton, M.B. (2015). A people & a nation. Retrieved from https://lrps.wgu.edu/provision/53540310...