In the early 1800s, America was expanding in many ways. Part of that expansion was the education of Americans both in the classroom and otherwise.
Tag: Early Republic
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An Increase and Diffusion of Knowledge
James Smithson. -
Jackson’s Farewell
Andrew Jackson. President Andrew Jackson, with his term coming to an end, commissioned the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Roger Taney, to write his farewell address. This was his imitation of George Washington, who had started the tradition of the farewell address. See Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 500.
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Andrew Jackson’s Third Term
Martin Van Buren. Martin Van Buren, President Andrew Jackson’s hand-picked heir, would carry out many of Jackson’s policies, such as the removal of the Native Americans westward, as he was elected in the election of 1836. President Jackson also fundamentally changed the nature of the presidency.
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The Prioritization of Education
Edward Everett. Education was not always such a prominent issue in every state and every American community in the way that modern Americans experience. Horace Mann, who was secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education in 1837, ensured that all schools would have in common: “tuition-free, tax-supported, meeting statewide standards of curriculum, textbooks, and facilities, staffed with teachers who had been trained in state normal schools, modeled on the French école normale.” Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of America, 1815-1848, 453.
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The Supreme Court Under Jackson
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
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
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
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…)
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The Responsiveness of the Courts
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
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.
Last Best Hope of Earth 