Slavery in the 1800's
Resistance in Court
Cherokee Indians fought for their rights throughout the courts. They argued that they were a sovereign nation, close to a foreign country, and they appealed to the Supreme Court. In 1831, the Supreme Court ruled that Indians were not like foreign countries, but "domestic dependent nation," without freedom of foreign countries or the rights of U.S. citizens. They said that Indians were subjected to Federal laws, but they didn't have the authority to sue in federal courts.
The picture above, is of a man named Samuel Worcester. This man tested whether the ruling from the Supreme Court applied to state as well, instead of just federal authority. He disobeyed an order from Georgia militia to leave Indian lands. He was arrested, afterwards, he appealed his case to the Supreme Court, bringing up the fact that Georgia had no power over Indian lands. He won this case, as to Chief Justice John Marshall, who ruled in his favor, and limited state power over them. It also said that Federal government had an obligation to protect Cherokee from state governments that were trying to take their land.
The Georgia officials made sure that the victory of the Cherokees and Worcester was long-lived with Jacksons support, by ignoring the Court's ruling and continuing to seize Cherokee lands. Without federal protection, Cherokees could not hold out. In 1835, a group of represented a minority of the Cherokee that signed a treaty that granted Cherokee land to the United States. This meant that the Cherokee would receive land and money in Indian Territory.
The Trail of Tears
By the 1838 deadline of the U.S. having people move West, few of the some 18,000 Cherokee had moved West. Federal troops began forcing the remaining Cherokee to make the journey to Indian Territory. About 4,000 Cherokee died on the the 800-mile journey that came to be known as the Trail of Tears.
The Nullification Crisis
American Indian removal remains one of Andrew Jackson's most controversial legacies. Many Americans at the time faced the issue of state's rights as one of the more immediate concern. In 1828, Congress passed a new tariff that doubled the rates set in 1816 for certain imports. This outraged southern planters and they accused Congress of promoting the interests of the industrial North at the expense of southern agriculture. Ther southerners argued that the tariff would make British goods, which the Southerners relied heavily upon, more expensive. The southerners called this the Tariff of Abominations.
Vice president John C, Calhoun abandoned his earlier nationalist views by 1828. He did not believe that the national government represented the best interests of his native region, the South by this time. He wrote an anonymous essay outlining that as creators of the federal Union that they had the right to refuse to obey any act of congress they considered unconstitutional. This essay became known as the Doctrine of Nullification.
The Tariff debate raged for the next few following years. Henry Clay attempted to create a compromise by pushing a slight tariff reduction through Congress. This reduction was too small to satisfy South Carolina though. The state declared the 1828 and 1832 tariffs null and void in November. They threatened to secede if the federal government tried to collect tariffs within the state. Calhoun sided with his state, resulting in his resignation as vice president. To calm tensions created later, Clay convinced Congress to pass a compromise tariff in 1833, which lowered the rates over a 10-year period. With Calhouns persuading, South Carolina accepted this new tariff, which immediately subsided crisis.
Union Speech
The Union had many great accomplishments, starting with the factory system. This was a system of manufacturing. This was created when Francis Cabot Lowell hired young women to work in his mills. It cut costs and increased output, considering machines did everything under one roof, from spinning thread to weaving the cloth. He hired young, single women from New England farms, because most women had the necessary skills for textile mills since they had experience making cloth at home. Also cheaper to hire than male workers. The women were paid less because they were presumed as not the primary support for their families. These women lived in company-owned boardinghouses where older women acted as chaperones. Lowell's system won widespread praise, but after favorable conditions changed by the 1830's, owners cut wages, increased working hours, and sped up production, because they wanted larger profits. Another great accomplishment was technological developments. Lowell's power looms transformed the factory system, along with new tools that allowed more precise cutting, stamping, and shaping of materials. The Technological innovation was not limited to the textile industry. These included materials that helped with farms and homes. There were others that included, cooking utensils and butter churns as well as better stoves, pots, and pans, and water pumps. Then labor unions came around, which used many methods to press for reforms. A tactic used were strikes, which were the refusal to work until employers met union demands. Union activity forced politicians to pay attention to the problems that followed.
Debatable Arguments for Nativists
Native-Born Americans protested the arrival of immigrants, while others disapproved of the immigrants customs, such as the beer gardens and the isolation of the Germans. They feared the growing political power of the Roman Catholic Irish. They viewed immigrants as politically corrupt and socially inferior. They blamed the newcomers for slum conditions that were actually rooted in joblessness and low wages. Some nativists urged restricting immigrants' rights to vote and hold public office. They wanted to limit Irish Catholics' access to political power because they believed the pope directed decisions for Irish Catholics.
Debatable Arguments for Immigrants
Immigrants that came to America wanted equality, land, and work. The Irish governments got drove from their original home because of discrimination, hunger, and poverty. Most of Ireland's Roman Catholic population rented land. More than one million people died from starvation or disease. Germans came to America for political and religious reasons. Most came in search for economic opportunity though. They were running out of farmland in Germany, lacking economic opportunity at home.