UNITED STATES HISTORY I
LECTURE OUTLINE EIGHT
- ABOLITIONISTS' ARGUMENTS
- a concern for all Americans
- all Americans shoud be "architects" of their own destiny
- OPPOSITION TO ABOLITIONISM
- characteristics
- how this opposition led to the extension of the anti-slavery movement
- INTERNAL DIFFICULTIES OF THE ABOLITIONISTS
- problems with women's rights
- problems over political parties
- split within the abolitionism movement
- DRIVE FOR WOMEN'S RIGHTS
- external restraints were sexual as well as racial
- overview of the status of women in antebellum America
- Cult of Domesticity
- code of norms and mores for women in antebellum America
- women were "placed on a pedestal" in order to be out of the way
- did the Cult resemble reality?
- use of the Cult of Domesticity to bolster reform
- CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ABOLITIONISM AND WOMEN'S RIGHTS
- women abolitionists "moved over" into women's rights
- women identified with slaves
- Seneca Falls Convention (1848) and the Declaration of Sentiments
- Did the drive for the vote hurt the women's rights movement?
- OVERVIEW OF THE SECOND PARTY SYSTEM
- differences between the 1st and 2nd systems (characteristics)
- Democrats' and Whigs' viewpoints about society, economy, and the government
- THE EARLY YEARS OF THE SECOND PARTY SYSTEM
- The Election of 1836--the conflicting views of the Whigs
- Van Buren's victory and the Panic of 1837
- 1840 Independent Treasury Act (culmination of hard money agrarianism)
- 1840-"Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"
- "Van, Van is a Used-Up Man"
- Thurlow Weed--politics as a game of tactics, not principle
- William Henry Harrison and "His Accidency" John Tyler
- Whigs vs. John Tyler
- OVERVIEW OF THE "DOSE OF ARSENIC"
- territories and the status of slavery
- John Tyler and the Texas Question
- Texas's annexation in 1845
- The Election of 1844
- the impact of "Manifest Destiny"
- Van Buren, Clay, and the question of Texas
- 1844 Deocratic Convention and the first "Dark Horse"--James K. Polk
- POLK'S ADMINISTRATION
- Northern Democrats' suspicion of domination by the Southern democrats
- beginnings of a "rift" in the Democracy
- Polk's objectives
- Polk and Oregon--abandoning the "54/40 or Fight"
- THE MEXICAN WAR
- analysis of the War's causes
- the provocation of Mexico with Zachary Taylor
- John Slidell's mission
- Polk's acquisition of a declaration of war
- Whigs and the "Spot" Resolutions
- Northern perception of a Slave Power Conspiracy
- 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
- THE QUESTION OF SLAVERY IN THE TERRITORIES
- The 1846 Wilmot Proviso