A Blog Exploring American History and Politics
The Election of 1840 juxtaposed the Whig Party’s policies against the Democratic Party’s more fluid policies. The Whigs “possessed a more coherent program: a national bank, a protective tariff, government subsidies to transportation projects, the public lands treated as a source of revenue, and tax-supported public schools.” Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: Transformation of […]
MoreBy the 1830s and 1840s, slavery had become engrained in the American legal system, enjoying protections and safeguards against its abolition and ultimately ensuring its continuation.
MoreThe labor movement gained significant momentum during the 1830s and 1840s, paving the way for future generations of Americans to secure extensive workers’ rights.
MoreWith President Martin Van Buren in the White House came increasing extermination of the Native Americans. While many will recall the Trail of Tears leading to thousands of Native American deaths, the Second Florida War would be the “longest and most costly of all the army’s Indian Wars,” as it stretched from 1835 to 1842. […]
MoreThe United States Congress was not above adopting its own rules that would silence abolitionist views. While mass mailings to southerners became a regular occurrence for abolitionists, creating significant tension between proslavery and anti-slavery factions, those had occurred outside the purview of government. The House of Representatives, when it used a gag rule to prevent […]
MoreWith the emergence of the Democrats and the Whigs as the two main political parties in the late 1830s and early 1840s, this fostered significant tension on the issue of slavery.
MoreJohn Calhoun, one of the staunchest supporters of states’ rights, was widely known for his view that slavery as a “positive good” in American society.
MoreIn America, slavery was not always an issue that could be separated by the North and the South.
MoreIn 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 […]
MoreFollowing the Election of 1828, Andrew Jackson was preparing to move into the White House, newly a widower and introducing a change in leadership.
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