Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men
description
Transcript of Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men
Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men
I. Recap: Work in Flux, 1840II. Labor Republicanism
A. IdeologyB. Economic ExpressionC. Cultural ExpressionD. Political ExpressionE. Paranoid Aspects
III. Workers and the G.O.P.A. PoliticsB. Policies
IV. The Civil War and ReconstructionA. Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s FightB. Reconstructing LaborC. Dividing the Working ClassD. Unfinished Revolution
Recap
• Market revolution
• In the North, wage labor replaces servitude, slavery, craft apprenticeship
• Slavery grows stronger in the South
Free Labor Ideology• Nobility of work
– Protestant work ethic
• Freedom of Contract
• Upward mobility
• Political participation
• Anti-slavery
Economic• Unions
– Between 1834 and 1836, number of members grows from 26K to 300K
– Between 1833 and 1837, 175 strikes
– Form National Trades’ Union
Charter, United Order American Mechanics, 1853
Cultural
Mariners’ temperance pledge, 1840s
• Religion offers:– Alternative
status– Advancement
• Temperance allows men to show their manly discipline and independence.
Political
• Jacksonian values
– Economic expansion creates opportunity
– Eliminate special privileges that bar mobility
– Expand individual rights to white men without property
The Dark Side
• Anti-Masonry– Murder of Wm.
Morgan
• Nativism– Know Nothing Party
• Racism– Blackface minstrelsy
Song sheet with minstrel, 1850s
Political Realignm
ent• Slavery shatters
Democrats and Whigs– Albany-Richmond alliance
• New parties emerge– Free Soil Party (1848-54)– Know Nothings (1854-6)
• Republican Party (1854-) – Absorbs Whigs, Know
Nothings, and Free Soilers
– Becomes prime exponent of free labor ideology
Policies
• Land– Homesteading– Land grant colleges
• Industry– Tariffs – Internal
improvements
• Anti-slavery
Rich Man’s War, Poor
Man’s Fight• Refugee
slaves
• Poor Southern white resistance– Pres. Andrew
Johnson
• New York City Draft Riots
NY Governor Seymour addresses the rioters
Reconstructing Labor
Southern industrial school for freedpeople, 1866
Dividing the Working Class
• Opposition to slavery was not equivalent to racial egalitarianism
• Postwar politicians exploit racial resentment to break Radical power
Unfinished Revolution