Chapters 7&9Life , Religion, Reform, in the

Pre Civil War Era

I. Religious Revival and Reform Philosophy

Finney and the Second Great Awakening

• On example was the flamboyant Charles Finney who preached every night for six months in Rochester, New York.

• Revivalists toned down the Calvinist rhetoric and preached a religion of inclusiveness. Predestination v. Acts of Faith and good works – a rational approach for pragmatic America

• From the late 1790s to the late 1830s, a wave of religious revivalism swept through the United States.

Charles Finney1792 - 1875

Burnt over district

• Throughout the 1800s religious fervor swept over Western New York. Shakers, Spiritualists, Mormons and others found peace and comfort in a land of free thinkers. (The American Frontier)

The Transcendentalists

• A small but influential group of New England intellectuals who lived around Ralph Waldo Emerson, the era’s foremost thinker.

• The group was called Transcendentalists because of their belief that truth was found in intuition beyond the senses. Faith not always fact.

• They questioned slavery and the pursuit of wealth.• Members included Nathanial Hawthorne and Henry

David Thoreau (“On Civil Disobedience”)

The Transcendentalists

Henry David Thoreau

Walden Pond

Walt Whitman

Ralph WaldoEmerson

II. The Political Response to Change

"Whosoever desires constant success must change his conduct

with the times."

— Niccolo Machiavelli

President Andrew Jackson“Old Hickory” 1829 - 1837

Changing Political Culture• Andrew Jackson’s presidency brought politics

to the center focus of many American lives. No longer just for an elite group. i.e. Virginia dynasty

• Jackson promised a more democratic system of politics.

• Personally not very democratic, owned slaves, and favored the forced removal of Indians to the west.

• His administration did see the actual emergence of a competitive party system. Not just a theory any more.

Old Hickory’s Vigorous Presidency

Jackson’s key principles:• Majority rule• Limited power of the national government• The obligation of the government to defend the

nation’s average people against the tyranny of the wealthy

• Aggressive use of the presidential veto• Favored a rotational system of staffing the

government. “A new broom sweeps clean”

Jackson’s Indian Policy• Andrew Jackson favored forcible removal

and relocation westward on reservations.

• A Supreme Court decision in 1823 stating that Indians could occupy but not hold title to land in the United States made Jackson’s policy easy to implement.

• Using harassment and bribery, Jackson’s administration forced many of the Indian Nations to march west to present-day Oklahoma.

Jackson’s Bank War• The Second Bank of the United States had been

in service since 1823 and had thirteen years left on its charter.

• A responsible organization, the Bank restrained smaller state banks form making unwise loans by insisting payment in the form of specie (gold or silver).

• American business wanted cheap, inflated, paper money to fund expansion.

• Jackson used the struggle to underscore differences between social classes.

• The sound fiscal policy of the Bank won out and caused The Panic of 1837.

The Second American Party System

• Democrats: had a sounder claim of representation of the common man with a broad base of support across the nation, more practical thinking often shaped policy

• Whigs (formerly Republicans): represented majority of wealth in America and big businesses, religion and values often shaped policy

III. Perfectionist Reform and Utopianism

Utopian Communities: Oneida and the Shakers

• Many reformers of the age sought to create the perfect representation in miniature of what life should be.

• John Humphrey Noyles founded a society of “free love” and socialism at Oneida, New York.

• The Shakers believed in communal property, perfectionism, and celibacy.

• Shaker worship featured a wild dance intended to release sin from the body.

Other UtopiasOver 100 communities like the

Shakers and Oneida were founded during the era:

• The Ephrata colony of Pennsylvania

• The Hopedale community of Mass.

• The Harmonists of Indiana

• The Ebenezers in Buffalo NY

o Closely related were the Millerites and Mormons

Ebenezer N.Y.

The woolen mill at Ebenezer, to which was brought some of the machinery from the mill at Arnsburg Hesse GermanyPhotograph from "Seven Villages Practicing Modified Capitalism," printed by the Amana Society in 1936

Christian Metz's home in Ebenezer, New York Photograph from "Seven Villages Practicing Modified Capitalism," printed by the Amana Society in 1936

In September of 1842 a committee led by Christian Metz traveled to America in search of land on which to relocate the Community of True Inspiration.

They purchased a 5,000-acre site in western New York, near Buffalo, and by the end of 1843 nearly 350 Inspirationists had immigrated to the new

settlement, which they named "Ebenezer," meaning "hitherto hath the Lord helped us." From the start, in order to facilitate all members of the community

to come to America and live together, all property in Ebenezer was held in common. The initial plan was that after some time the land would be divided

among the people according to their contribution of money and labor. However, leaders saw that the disparity in wealth, skills and age would make it difficult for all to purchase a portion of land--the community would fall apart as a result. Therefore in 1846 a constitution was adopted which established a permanent communal system. Any debate on this was resolved when Metz

spoke a divine pronouncement endorsing the communal system. Ebenezer flourished. By 1854 the population reached 1,200 people. Six

villages were established, each with mills, shops, homes, communal kitchens, schools and churches. To accommodate this growth, additional land had been purchased, but more was needed. However, the booming growth of nearby Buffalo put land prices at a premium. Furthermore, the community leaders perceived a threat from the economic development

around them. It was felt that capitalist and worldly influences were bringing about a growing interest in materialism and threatened the spiritual focus of

the Inspirationist community. The leadership decided it was time to move the community again--this time to the unsettled west.

IV. Reforming Society

Slavery and Abolition

• Abolition = a call to outlaw slavery in America, ****** William Lloyd Garrison ******

(ABOLITIONIST)Goal: an immediate “emancipation / abolition” of slavery with no payment to the slaver owner!

– Started his own newspaper called ****The Liberator*** – spoke of ways to end slavery- (most famous abolitionist paper)Also founded the “American Anti-Slavery Society”

Abolitionists

• David Walker

*Published the “Appeal” to the Colored Citizens of the World

- literature passed around the South – Spoke of “standing up and fighting

for your freedom as a slave”

(Don’t wait on emancipation….

FIGHT for it)

(D.W. = Don’t walk…RUN!)

Frederick Douglass– An escaped slave that supported Garrison and

The Liberator– Lecturer or Orator at the American Anti-

Slavery Society conventions.– Wrote his own newspaper:

******The North Star******

Published in Rochester NY also

Worked in Buffalo NY

Nat Turner’s Rebellion

• Considered the “most successful” slave rebellion• Followed “DAVID WALKER’S ideas”• Nat Turner –a preacher born into slavery in 1800

in Virginia• Saw an eclipse in the sky (divine message) to

free slaves• Attacked 4 plantations with 80 followers (killed

60 white people)• Nat Turner – hid, found, tried, hanged

Main result of the Nat Turner Rebellion

Whites killed roughly 200 African Americans

*****This bloody rebellion made the white slaveholders become more STRICT and more controlling!

*(SLAVE CODES) – state legislation over slaves!

Slave owners = VERY NERVOUS!

Slave Owners DEFEND Slavery(1) Bible – citing passages that claimed servants should

obey their masters / Slaves are being “Christianized”

(2) Myth of a “happy” slave / happy addition to the plantation family

(3) Abolitionists would SWAMP Congress with anti-slavery petitions and Southern representatives countered by securing a “GAG RULE” – a rule limiting the reading of an issue in Congress – repealed years later

(4) Southern economy is kept up

Temperance

• Nineteenth century Americans drank to excess.

• Early efforts at curbing the public’s consumption focused on moderation.

• The American Temperance Society (1826) was dedicated to total abstinence.

• The Society successfully used revival techniques of the Second Great Awakening to motivate “converts.”

Humanizing the Asylum

• Some efforts of reform were not aimed at the salvation of the individual but towards organizations such as hospitals or asylums.

• Dorothea Dix championed the cause of the mentally ill, believing adequate facilities and proper living conditions would go far to produce some sort of a “cure.”

Working-Class Reform

• In America, the institution most in need of reform was the factory.

• The reform movement gradually was adapted to the plight of workers and trade unions began to appear.

• Skilled workers began to organize to protect their crafts and to negotiate better conditions.

• The National Trades Union (1834) was the first attempt at a nation-wide labor organization.

Tensions Within the Antislavery Movement

• William Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator—America’s first antislavery journal and helped establish the American Anti-Slavery Society.

• Garrison’s message was an immediate end to slavery with no conditions.

• The majority of abolitionists in America disagreed on how to reform slavery in America; most preferred religious education, political action, boycotts of slave-harvested goods, or downright rebellion.