The American Vision © 2008

Chapter 5: Growth and Division

Chapter Overviews

American Nationalism

Section 1 discusses how United States nationalism increased significantly after the War of 1812. The War of 1812 taught Republicans the value of a strong federal government, and a new spirit of unity swept the nation. Republicans established the Second Bank of the United States and passed a tariff that protected American industry from foreign competition. Three important Supreme Court decisions strengthened the power of the federal government over the states and shaped the future of American government. After General Andrew Jackson led an invasion of Spanish Florida to attack Seminole villages, President John Quincy Adams pressured Spain to cede Florida to the United States. The resulting treaty also finalized the western border of the Louisiana Purchase. When Spain’s New World colonies launched wars for independence, the United States issued the Monroe Doctrine which proclaimed the Western Hemisphere closed to further European colonization.

Early Industry

Section 2 describes how revolutions in transportation and industry brought great changes to the northern United States. By the early 1800s, a transportation network of roads, canals, and railroads began to crisscross the country. New machines, such as the steamboat and the locomotive engine, stimulated commerce and travel, while the telegraph revolutionized communications. Factories sprang up throughout the Northeast, and the nature of manufacturing changed. No longer would Americans work in home-based workshops producing their own goods. Large factories employed thousands of workers to perform specific, often unskilled, tasks on large, complex machines. Industrialization led to the rise of large cities as thousands of people left farms and villages to seek higher-paying factory jobs in cities. As they grew larger, cities began establishing professional police and fire departments to protect the public. American cities had high rates of disease and infant mortality.

The Land of Cotton

Section 3 explains how the cultivation of cotton deepened the South’s dependence on the institution of slavery. Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin made cotton a highly profitable cash crop; and, by the 1840s, the South had crowned cotton its "king" crop. As the South’s economy became more dependent upon cotton, the demand for enslaved labor increased. A planter society developed in which a small group of wealthy planters was at the top of the class structure, and enslaved African Americans were at the bottom. Most African Americans lived in slavery, laboring year after year in rice and cotton fields. While some free African Americans prospered in the cities of the upper South, their rights varied from state to state. Free African Americans in the North, where slavery had been gradually abolished, still suffered discrimination and had few opportunities. Enslaved African Americans created their own culture and developed ways to cope with their enslavement.

Growing Sectionalism

Section 4 details how growing sectionalism splintered American unity. With different economies and opposing views on slavery, Northern and Southern leaders found it difficult to agree on national issues. Missouri’s application for statehood sparked a heated debate that was settled by a compromise. Congressional leaders designed the Missouri Compromise to not only preserve the balance of power between free states and slave states in the Senate, but to also draw the borders of slavery. The presidential election of 1824 revealed regional differences within the Republican Party. Among the four Republican "favorite sons," Andrew Jackson won the popular vote, but no candidate won a majority in the Electoral College. When the vote went before the House of Representatives, John Quincy Adams was elected president. Jackson’s supporters angrily protested the outcome, accusing Adams of arranging a “corrupt bargain” to win the election. Adams’s ambitious federal programs received little support in Congress and Jackson easily defeated him in the presidential election of 1828.

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