Last Best Hope of Earth

Category: Early Republic

  • The Supreme Court Under Jackson

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    Roger B. Taney. Photograph by: Mathew Brady.

    John Marshall, perhaps the greatest Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, died on July 6, 1835. As his life was coming to a close, he wrote Joseph Story, “I yield slowly and reluctantly to the conviction that our constitution cannot last.” Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 439 quoting John Marshall to Joseph Story, Sept. 22, 1832, quoted in Kent Newmyer, John Marshall and the Heroic Age of the Supreme Court (Baton Rouge, 2001), 386.

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  • The Extermination of Native Americans

    max-d-stanley-trail-of-tears
    Trail of Tears. By: Max D. Stanley.

    Under President Andrew Jackson, and his successor President Martin Van Buren, there was mass removal of Native Americans westward across America.

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  • The Violence of the 1830s

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    Engraving of John Tyler.

    While America had A Tradition of Extra-Legislative Action, including mobs and demonstrations, in the 1830s, America took a turn toward violence.

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  • Challenging White Supremacy

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    Frontispiece of David Walker’s Appeal Pamphlet.

    In the midst of President Andrew Jackson’s presidency, white supremacy was becoming a prominent principle in American society, facilitating confrontation between whites and blacks but also between whites and Native Americans. Just months into Jackson’s first term, David Walker published a controversial and incendiary pamphlet: An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America. (more…)

  • The Responsiveness of the Courts

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    Map of Baltimore, showing construction and location of Barron’s wharf.

    The Nullification Crisis had an impact on the jurisprudence of American law, changing the interaction of the federal government with the states.

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  • The Nullification Crisis

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    Edward Livingston as Secretary of State.

    John Calhoun and his like-minded supporters hoped that nullification would become a legitimate alternative to secession for the South. Nullification was the doctrine that Calhoun believed meant that states could nullify a federal law, on the basis that states had their own sovereignty and the federal government could not infringe on that sovereignty. See Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 402. This approach was designed to primarily perpetuate the institution of slavery, without the conflict culminating in secession, or worse, civil war.

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  • The Fort Hill Address

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    John Calhoun.

    John Calhoun, by 1831, had alienated himself from President Andrew Jackson, and he wanted to “head off talk of secession,” and on July 26, 1831, he published his “Fort Hill Address” in a South Carolina newspaper. Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 399.

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  • The Aftermath of Jackson’s Bank Policies

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    Illustration of the Second Bank of the United States.

    In the aftermath of President Andrew Jackson’s destroying the Second Bank of the United States, there were ramifications throughout the country, from top to bottom.

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  • The Most Important Veto

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    Political Cartoon of Andrew Jackson and Nicholas Biddle. Published in Harpers Weekly in 1834.

    President Andrew Jackson did not want banknotes in the American economy, as he was an adherent to the gold standard. Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 376. He would be forced to confront Nicholas Biddle, the President of the Second Bank of the United States.

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  • The Second Bank of the United States

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    The Second Bank of the United States. Photograph by: Beyond My Ken.

    In 1816, with James Monroe as president, Congress agreed to “charter a Second Bank for twenty years.” Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 374.

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