Chapter 11: The Growth of Democracy 1824-1840

11.1: The New Democratic Politics In North America

• The Upper and Lower Canadian rebellion against the limited representative government imposed in the constitutional Act of 1791 by the British government in 1837. 

  • In predominantly French Lower Canada the most serious revolt was by far.

• Prior to 1800, most of the original 13 states had limited voting to property owners, excluding approximately half of the white male population.

• The election of 1824 marked the dramatic end of James Monroe's political truze in 1817, and of a small non-partisan political elite's idea of leadership.

• In 1834 a night parade was organized in support of Andrew Jackson by the French visitor Michel Chevalier.

• The election of 1828 was the first time that the new popular democratic culture and party system demonstrated its power and effectiveness.

11.2: The Jackson Presidency 

• Jackson was raised in North Carolina and was born in 1767.

  •  In 1788 he moved to the west of the border resort in Nushville, Tennessee, as a young man without wealth or family support.

• Jackson's personal style quickly removed the polite, gentlemanly aura of cooperation acquired by national politics during the era of good feelings.

• Jackson was a true national figure despite his Western origins. 

  • He believed that the president should rule the government, symbolizing the popular will of the people.

11.3: Changing the course of Government

• The resisting Cherokees were driven to Oklahoma West in 1838, during the last and most infamous removal, along which the "Trail of Tears" had been made.

• Most traders and business people of the nation endorsed the concept of a strong national bank controlled by wealthy investors, not the federal government. 

  • The Bank, however, had many adversaries.

• Jackson rejected the notion of coordinated government economic planning in the case of domestic improvements, in favor of popular democracy. 

  • His refusal set the conditions for a frenzy of speculation. 

  • In his epic battle with the Second Bank of the United States the same result happened exactly

• In 1833 the bank's Managing Director, Nicholas Biddle, counterattacked the government with the withdrafts of its depots, calling for business loans, which in the winter of 1833–34 caused severe panic and recession.

11.4: The Second American Party System

• The Democrats had inherited the belief of Thomas Jefferson in the small, independent yeoman farmer's democratic rights. 

  • They had a national attraction, particularly in the rural areas in the south and west.

• In 1840, the Whigs beat the Democrats by nominating the elderly Indian fighter William Henry Harrison, former Governor of Indiana, from 1801 until 1812, as much as Andrew Jackson could.

• Although the Whig victory in American politics in 1840 was a milestone, the Whig triumph had not been long in existence. 

  • A month after his inauguration, William Henry Harrison, who was 68 years old, died of pneumonia.

11.5: American Arts and Letters

• For western readers, the Crockett almanacs provided Davy Crockett with a mixture of humorous stories, stories and tall tales.

• The USA was a provincial culture, which still sought to find values, standards and literary offerings and was still scorned by the British for all the enhancements in communication.