WEBVTT 1 00:00:18.519 --> 00:00:23.199 Hello, and welcome to Western civ Episode five hundred and thirteen, 2 00:00:24.039 --> 00:00:29.359 Slavery's Shadow. Today, we're going to go forward in American 3 00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:32.960 history and also a little bit back to just talk 4 00:00:33.200 --> 00:00:38.200 about the incredible influence that shadow slavery is going to 5 00:00:38.240 --> 00:00:43.960 have on the young American Republic. Honestly, between the end 6 00:00:44.119 --> 00:00:47.840 of the American Revolution and the end of the American 7 00:00:47.880 --> 00:00:53.439 Civil War, there really is no issue that permeates every 8 00:00:53.560 --> 00:01:01.000 aspect of the American economy, politics, social like like chattel slavery. 9 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:05.200 It is the elephant in the room in every discussion, 10 00:01:05.200 --> 00:01:09.519 and oftentimes the addressed elephant in the room. And so 11 00:01:09.560 --> 00:01:12.879 it's important to understand how it gets to be the 12 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:16.120 level that it does, and why in the eighteen forties 13 00:01:16.159 --> 00:01:20.680 and eighteen fifties it becomes such an intractable problem that 14 00:01:20.840 --> 00:01:24.680 it results in the only civil war in American history, 15 00:01:24.719 --> 00:01:27.400 I guess I should say yet, but the only civil 16 00:01:27.439 --> 00:01:31.799 war in American history to date. Now today, our story 17 00:01:31.879 --> 00:01:36.840 actually begins by going backwards in the dense, humid tide 18 00:01:36.840 --> 00:01:43.400 water of seventeenth century Virginia, where back then the tobacco 19 00:01:43.519 --> 00:01:47.879 fields were like the factories of the modern day, power 20 00:01:48.079 --> 00:01:52.359 belonged to the plant or elite that possessed them. In 21 00:01:52.439 --> 00:01:58.519 sixteen seventy six, a young, restless aristocrat named Nathaniel Bacon 22 00:01:59.159 --> 00:02:05.640 led a rebellion that would reverberate far beyond its immediate violence. Now, 23 00:02:05.840 --> 00:02:11.280 the cause of Bacon's rebellion is much much less important 24 00:02:11.639 --> 00:02:16.599 than its impact. Bacon's rebellion was loosely premised on the 25 00:02:16.639 --> 00:02:22.360 idea of protecting frontier colonists against Native American attacks. Really, 26 00:02:23.000 --> 00:02:26.800 if you back up, it's a lot more about economic 27 00:02:26.919 --> 00:02:31.759 tensions between the wealthy plan or elite and poor white farmers, 28 00:02:31.800 --> 00:02:36.439 in particular former indentured servants who served out their time 29 00:02:36.560 --> 00:02:39.719 after passage to the New World and then believed that 30 00:02:39.759 --> 00:02:42.560 they were entitled to a plot of land. The problem 31 00:02:42.599 --> 00:02:46.479 was the plot that they often got was worthless. That 32 00:02:46.520 --> 00:02:49.479 bread a lot of resentment. And so what you see 33 00:02:49.599 --> 00:02:53.479 during Bacon's rebellion is you see the dispossessed peoples of 34 00:02:53.560 --> 00:02:57.560 the Tide Water region reaching out to one another and 35 00:02:57.639 --> 00:03:02.120 making connections. And they often reached out over ethnic and 36 00:03:02.240 --> 00:03:05.680 racial lines. You had some Native Americans involved, you had 37 00:03:05.719 --> 00:03:09.840 some enslaved Africans, you had some former enslaved Africans. All 38 00:03:09.879 --> 00:03:16.439 of them were rallied by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley, 39 00:03:16.599 --> 00:03:20.960 claiming that the colonial government had failed again here's the pretext, 40 00:03:21.319 --> 00:03:26.879 to protect community governments from Native American attacks. There was 41 00:03:26.919 --> 00:03:30.280 a bitter social reality though underneath all of this, Virginia 42 00:03:30.479 --> 00:03:35.840 was a deeply divided colony, divided between wealthy planters and 43 00:03:35.919 --> 00:03:42.000 a large mass of landless laborers. When Bacon's multi racial 44 00:03:42.039 --> 00:03:47.159 coalition set the torch to Jamestown, the planter class looked 45 00:03:47.199 --> 00:03:53.400 on the flames with a new clarity. The rebellion ultimately failed. 46 00:03:53.560 --> 00:03:59.240 Nathaniel Bacon dies of dysentery, but it reveals something terrifying 47 00:03:59.319 --> 00:04:03.120 to the elite in Virginia, and that was that poor 48 00:04:03.159 --> 00:04:09.080 whites and enslaved Africans had the capacity to unite against them, 49 00:04:09.479 --> 00:04:13.319 and as a consequence from the ashes of Jamestown, a 50 00:04:13.439 --> 00:04:20.399 new social order started to harden. Over the next decades, Virginia, 51 00:04:20.399 --> 00:04:24.079 like much of the English Atlantic world, for the first time, 52 00:04:24.680 --> 00:04:30.160 began to codify race into law, where earlier statutes had 53 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:35.600 sometimes been ambiguous. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries 54 00:04:36.079 --> 00:04:41.360 forged a new, brutally simple rule of law. Africans would 55 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:46.839 be enslaved for life, their children enslaved after them. That's 56 00:04:47.000 --> 00:04:50.399 what makes it chattel slavery. It's passed on from generation 57 00:04:50.480 --> 00:04:53.680 to generation. Then you can be sold like a piece 58 00:04:53.720 --> 00:04:57.839 of channel, like a piece of livestock, piece of farm equipment. 59 00:04:57.879 --> 00:05:02.240 That's part of the inhumanity of the cysts, and whiteness 60 00:05:02.240 --> 00:05:06.160 would become not a badge of class anymore, but a 61 00:05:06.240 --> 00:05:11.319 badge that meant freedom. Now, I think it's important to 62 00:05:11.480 --> 00:05:15.079 again back up and sort of walk through the value 63 00:05:15.759 --> 00:05:20.920 of the transformation of slavery that happens after Bacon's rebellion. 64 00:05:21.120 --> 00:05:24.120 Because Bacon's rebellion's at the tail end of the seventeenth century. 65 00:05:24.120 --> 00:05:28.839 You know, it's still very much early colonial American history. 66 00:05:29.360 --> 00:05:34.360 We're talking about clusters of European settlers really hugging the coast. 67 00:05:34.399 --> 00:05:37.160 At this point, there's not a great deal of penetration 68 00:05:37.279 --> 00:05:41.319 to the interior all along the eastern seaboard. But by 69 00:05:41.360 --> 00:05:45.639 the early seventeen hundreds, so maybe only twenty five thirty 70 00:05:45.720 --> 00:05:50.040 years from Bacon's rebellion, the Chesapeake Bay had now fully 71 00:05:50.120 --> 00:05:55.639 embraced racial slavery as the foundation of its agricultural economy. 72 00:05:56.439 --> 00:06:00.720 The demand that tobacco placed on labor was basically relentless, 73 00:06:01.399 --> 00:06:06.480 indentured servitude. Once the dominant labor system declined steadily, as 74 00:06:06.600 --> 00:06:12.199 more reliable and hereditary enslaved labor took its place. Enslaved Africans, 75 00:06:12.720 --> 00:06:17.839 previously a small percentage of the population, grew rapidly in number. 76 00:06:17.920 --> 00:06:22.879 During this period. Slave codes were tightened, Baptism no longer 77 00:06:22.920 --> 00:06:27.879 free to slave, interracial marriage was banned forever, masters were 78 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:31.439 legally empowered to use deadly force if they felt it necessary. 79 00:06:32.519 --> 00:06:36.800 In other words, slavery was no longer merely an economic institution. 80 00:06:37.399 --> 00:06:41.240 It had become part of the social architecture, a way 81 00:06:41.319 --> 00:06:45.399 of organizing life and hierarchy. In the colonies, particularly in 82 00:06:45.439 --> 00:06:51.040 the southern colonies Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas. They all 83 00:06:51.079 --> 00:06:56.319 built societies where race, labor, and law quickly became infused 84 00:06:56.600 --> 00:07:02.160 into one single system. Other South, in the rice swamps 85 00:07:02.199 --> 00:07:05.199 of South Carolina and Georgia, no cotton yet, that's going 86 00:07:05.240 --> 00:07:10.240 to come later. Enslaved Africans carried agricultural knowledge from West 87 00:07:10.240 --> 00:07:15.560 Africa that made plantation wealth possible. In places like the 88 00:07:15.600 --> 00:07:20.079 Low Country, Africans formed the majority of the population, working 89 00:07:20.160 --> 00:07:23.959 under the punishing task system that allowed planters to demand 90 00:07:23.959 --> 00:07:27.720 immense labor while keeping a distance from the deadly, diseased 91 00:07:27.800 --> 00:07:30.879 environments that would kill them but not the African slaves. 92 00:07:32.000 --> 00:07:37.040 Through this brutal system, African languages, spiritual practices, and kinship 93 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:41.680 networks persisted. Though The Gulla and Geechee cultures emerged from 94 00:07:41.680 --> 00:07:47.160 these crucibles of trauma and resilience stronger than ever. But really, 95 00:07:47.399 --> 00:07:49.959 by the time we're inching up to the middle of 96 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:52.560 the eighteenth century, so we're getting close to the revolution. 97 00:07:52.680 --> 00:07:57.360 At this point, slavery was deeply rooted in the colonies, 98 00:07:58.360 --> 00:08:02.160 which was fascinating, of course, right because the rhetoric of 99 00:08:02.199 --> 00:08:05.800 the coming American Revolution would introduce into all of this 100 00:08:05.920 --> 00:08:09.879 a dangerous tension, just like we saw with the French Revolution. 101 00:08:10.759 --> 00:08:14.480 Patriots spoke of liberty, natural rights, and resistance to tyranny. 102 00:08:15.480 --> 00:08:19.120 Enslaved people like they would in San Deman. Now Haiti 103 00:08:19.800 --> 00:08:24.160 listened to all these words, many began hearing their own 104 00:08:24.199 --> 00:08:29.079 struggle in these same exact phrases. They started to petition 105 00:08:29.680 --> 00:08:34.000 to courts. Eventually they fled to the British lines when 106 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:38.279 the revolution broke out, and in small scales they tried 107 00:08:38.279 --> 00:08:43.919 to negotiate their own Freedom. Lord Dunmore, the British commander 108 00:08:44.440 --> 00:08:48.360 in seventeen seventy five, promised freedom to enslave men who 109 00:08:48.440 --> 00:08:54.799 joined the British during the American Revolution. This positively electrified 110 00:08:54.799 --> 00:08:57.679 the South, making the South a lot more fertile ground 111 00:08:57.720 --> 00:09:01.360 right the way for the British. Throughout the conflict, thousands 112 00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:05.759 fled plantations to fight for the British Crown. For slave 113 00:09:05.799 --> 00:09:10.200 holding revolutionaries like, of course, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and 114 00:09:10.360 --> 00:09:15.080 James Madison, the War for Independence brought moments of reflection, 115 00:09:15.279 --> 00:09:20.480 but rarely any sort of conviction Publicly. All these men 116 00:09:20.840 --> 00:09:27.480 wrote about equality privately their plantations ran on enslaved labor. 117 00:09:28.840 --> 00:09:32.320 But the Revolution did change slavery in a couple of 118 00:09:32.519 --> 00:09:36.240 really important ways that will start to matter later on 119 00:09:36.320 --> 00:09:42.159 in our story. First, the Northern States began a process 120 00:09:42.200 --> 00:09:47.440 of gradual emancipation, beginning with Pennsylvania in the year seventeen eighty. 121 00:09:48.440 --> 00:09:53.320 Slavery didn't disappear overnight in the northern parts of the 122 00:09:53.440 --> 00:09:57.679 United States, but by the early eighteen hundreds it had 123 00:09:57.840 --> 00:10:02.200 essentially faded away from New England and even some parts 124 00:10:02.200 --> 00:10:06.360 of the mid Atlantic. You're starting, therefore, to see a 125 00:10:06.480 --> 00:10:11.960 crucial break and divide amongst the country on regional lines, 126 00:10:12.559 --> 00:10:15.440 where one part would be slave in one part would 127 00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:19.480 be free. In other words, out of the ashes of 128 00:10:19.519 --> 00:10:22.799 the American Revolution or some of the seeds of the 129 00:10:22.840 --> 00:10:28.879 American Civil War. The Upper South saw its numbers rising, 130 00:10:29.039 --> 00:10:35.159 especially for manumission, particularly in Virginia, where wartime ideology and 131 00:10:35.320 --> 00:10:41.440 economic changes, albeit briefly, opened opportunities for black freedom. The 132 00:10:41.480 --> 00:10:48.879 free black population grew steadily, concentrating itself in cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, 133 00:10:49.200 --> 00:10:55.840 and New York. The south of the Potomac, another transformation 134 00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:01.279 was coming, one that would make slavery far more potent 135 00:11:01.919 --> 00:11:11.120 than ever before. In the seventeen nineties, a young nation 136 00:11:11.399 --> 00:11:17.320 faced westward expansion with hungry eyes. The cotton gin, patented 137 00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:22.919 by Eli Whitney in seventeen ninety four, had transformed everything 138 00:11:23.600 --> 00:11:30.919 and changed Western history. Lands that were once seemed unprofitable 139 00:11:31.399 --> 00:11:36.559 suddenly promised fortune because now there was a new cash crop, 140 00:11:37.399 --> 00:11:41.360 king cotton. It would be the white gold of the 141 00:11:41.440 --> 00:11:47.320 new Republic that required labor, enormous labor. You see, before 142 00:11:47.480 --> 00:11:51.799 the cotton gin, there was cotton production in the American South, 143 00:11:52.440 --> 00:11:56.879 but it was relatively limited. Why because picking the seeds 144 00:11:56.919 --> 00:12:02.120 out of cotton fibers was extremely I'M consuming, and so 145 00:12:02.720 --> 00:12:06.600 you needed huge amounts of labor on all sides of 146 00:12:06.639 --> 00:12:09.840 the production capacity in order to produce the cloth that 147 00:12:09.960 --> 00:12:13.480 was necessary for New England textile mills and textile mills 148 00:12:13.720 --> 00:12:17.879 in Great Britain. But with the invention of the cotton gin, 149 00:12:18.519 --> 00:12:22.559 those seeds could be taken out mechanically. All of a sudden, 150 00:12:22.919 --> 00:12:26.200 your labor was all on the cultivation and harvest side, 151 00:12:26.600 --> 00:12:31.320 and that changed the formula dramatically, and the Southern states 152 00:12:31.759 --> 00:12:38.960 responded with renewed vigor. The internal slave trade exploded. Over 153 00:12:39.080 --> 00:12:42.559 one million enslaved people would be marched or sold from 154 00:12:42.559 --> 00:12:48.960 the Chesapeake and Upper South to the Deep interior Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas. 155 00:12:49.679 --> 00:12:55.759 Families were torn uparents in staggering numbers. Slaves coffels lined 156 00:12:55.799 --> 00:13:00.279 the roads, shipped filled with human cargo, sailed up and 157 00:13:00.320 --> 00:13:03.159 down the coast. This is oftentimes referred to as the 158 00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:08.039 Second or New Middle Passage, the transition of enslaved peoples 159 00:13:08.080 --> 00:13:11.120 from states like Maryland and Virginia to states in the 160 00:13:11.159 --> 00:13:14.360 Deep South. And then, of course, there was the Louisiana 161 00:13:14.399 --> 00:13:18.279 purchase in eighteen oh three, which opened up new territories 162 00:13:18.320 --> 00:13:23.639 for slavery. While Jefferson privately hated the institution of slavery 163 00:13:23.639 --> 00:13:29.639 we know this, he still publicly facilitated its expansion. New 164 00:13:29.679 --> 00:13:34.759 states now emerged as battlegrounds between freedom and slavery, each 165 00:13:34.799 --> 00:13:39.799 admission threatening to tip the balance in Congress. Because, of course, 166 00:13:39.879 --> 00:13:44.279 after the Constitutional Convention, every single new state brought with 167 00:13:44.360 --> 00:13:48.440 it two senators, regardless of the population of that state. 168 00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:52.240 The slave owners in the South realized, as long as 169 00:13:52.279 --> 00:13:54.799 they kept a grip on the Senate, they could keep 170 00:13:54.799 --> 00:13:59.080 a grip on their property and their power. As cotton 171 00:13:59.120 --> 00:14:04.000 profits soared, white Southerners rewrote their own history, recasting slavery 172 00:14:04.240 --> 00:14:06.960 not as the head in the past, as a necessary evil, 173 00:14:07.480 --> 00:14:12.120 but now as a positive good, vital to national prosperity, 174 00:14:12.320 --> 00:14:15.960 and ordained by both God and nature. By the early 175 00:14:16.039 --> 00:14:19.720 nineteenth century, the South's political class defended slavery with a 176 00:14:19.840 --> 00:14:24.879 zeal that frankly, would have shocked earlier generations that lived 177 00:14:24.879 --> 00:14:28.639 in the exact same state. And then, of course, there 178 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:32.399 was the Haitian Revolution, which cast a long shadow across 179 00:14:32.440 --> 00:14:36.879 the United States. Here was suddenly an enslaved people who 180 00:14:36.960 --> 00:14:41.960 had Risen defeated European armies and founded a Black Republic. 181 00:14:43.080 --> 00:14:47.279 To enslaved Americans, Haiti was a beacon of possibility, but 182 00:14:47.360 --> 00:14:52.399 to slaveholders positively, it was innatemare to be avoided at 183 00:14:52.440 --> 00:14:57.720 all costs, and so across the South, legislatures tightened up 184 00:14:57.759 --> 00:15:03.039 slave codes even further. Any expression of literacy, mobility, or 185 00:15:03.120 --> 00:15:07.440 independent worship among enslaved people was treated as a potential 186 00:15:07.480 --> 00:15:12.639 spark for revolt. The possibility of widespread rebellion became a 187 00:15:12.759 --> 00:15:18.840 justification for even greater repression. As James Madison's tenure in 188 00:15:18.840 --> 00:15:22.559 the White House, still smoldering from the War of eighteen twelve, 189 00:15:22.600 --> 00:15:26.039 came to an end, the era of good feelings opened 190 00:15:26.279 --> 00:15:30.360 with President James Monroe. When James Monroe took the oath 191 00:15:30.399 --> 00:15:33.720 of office on a mild March day in eighteen seventeen, 192 00:15:34.159 --> 00:15:38.639 the nation watched as a familiar figure rose into leadership. 193 00:15:39.080 --> 00:15:43.200 These are still the era of all of the Revolutionary Guard. 194 00:15:43.960 --> 00:15:47.720 Monroe had fought at the Battle of Trenton, It served 195 00:15:47.759 --> 00:15:50.840 as a diplomat in Paris and London, and he held 196 00:15:50.919 --> 00:15:55.120 basically every cabinet role that the young American Republic could offer. 197 00:15:56.080 --> 00:15:59.279 He was in actually a lot of ways, the last 198 00:15:59.759 --> 00:16:04.480 of the revolutionary generation to guide our country. And yet 199 00:16:04.519 --> 00:16:09.039 his presidency wouldn't be a nostalgic return to earlier days. 200 00:16:09.720 --> 00:16:13.919 It would become an era of sweeping transformation, expansion, and 201 00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:17.919 profound nation building, all of which is going to add 202 00:16:17.919 --> 00:16:21.240 a fuel to the fiery of the tension growing between 203 00:16:21.320 --> 00:16:25.639 the North and the South. Now. Monroe's arrival in Washington 204 00:16:26.080 --> 00:16:28.320 came on the heels of the War of eighteen twelve, 205 00:16:28.919 --> 00:16:31.679 a conflict that had nearly broken the young Republic but 206 00:16:31.759 --> 00:16:36.360 had ended with a surge of national pride. The Federalist 207 00:16:36.399 --> 00:16:40.440 Party had collapsed after the Hartford Convention, and the Democratic 208 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:46.360 Republicans stood unchallenged. Newspapers hailed the dawn of an era 209 00:16:46.480 --> 00:16:51.000 of good feelings, a phrase him Monroe himself never used, 210 00:16:51.600 --> 00:16:56.519 but which clung stubbornly to his administration. Nevertheless, to reinforce 211 00:16:56.600 --> 00:16:59.600 this sense of unity, Monroe embarked on a series of 212 00:16:59.600 --> 00:17:03.120 good Wins tours, traveling through New England, the Midwest, and 213 00:17:03.159 --> 00:17:07.480 the South. Dressed in his Revolutionary War uniform, he visited 214 00:17:07.519 --> 00:17:10.599 towns and cities still bearing the scars of the British 215 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:14.000 invasion from the War of eighteen twelve, crowds greeted him 216 00:17:14.000 --> 00:17:18.559 with parades, cannons, and patriotic banners. The symbolism was clear. 217 00:17:19.519 --> 00:17:23.960 Monroe wanted to stitch the nation together after years of 218 00:17:24.039 --> 00:17:29.039 war and partisan bitterness. But of course, beneath the surface, 219 00:17:29.799 --> 00:17:36.400 regional tensions simmered. Economic instability, Western expansion, and debates about 220 00:17:36.519 --> 00:17:40.480 national infrastructure hinted that unity wasn't going to come so 221 00:17:40.799 --> 00:17:46.240 easily now. One of the defining questions of James Monroe's 222 00:17:46.279 --> 00:17:50.960 presidency was how to modernize this country? After all, Great 223 00:17:50.960 --> 00:17:55.960 Britain was now already within the throes of the Industrial Revolution. 224 00:17:56.759 --> 00:18:02.599 How could America catch up? Roads, canals, harbors. These were 225 00:18:02.640 --> 00:18:06.519 the arteries of a rapidly expanding nation, and many leaders 226 00:18:06.559 --> 00:18:09.960 called on the federal government to invest heavily in them. 227 00:18:10.440 --> 00:18:15.000 But Monroe was a strict constitutionalist. While he believed internal 228 00:18:15.200 --> 00:18:19.640 improvements were essential, he doubted the Constitution gave Congress broad 229 00:18:19.680 --> 00:18:24.319 authority to fund them. In eighteen seventeen, he vetoed the 230 00:18:24.319 --> 00:18:27.680 Bonus Bill, which would have created a national fund for infrastructure. 231 00:18:28.559 --> 00:18:34.279 Yet his veto message was unusually conciliatory. Monroe encouraged Congress 232 00:18:34.599 --> 00:18:38.279 to attempt a constitutional amendment that would make such programs 233 00:18:38.559 --> 00:18:44.200 clearly legal. He wasn't necessarily blocking progress. He was safeguarding 234 00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:48.720 the rule of law, and so states took the hint 235 00:18:49.559 --> 00:18:53.880 and took the lead. Over the next eight years, it 236 00:18:53.960 --> 00:18:57.759 was the states themselves, not the federal governments, that launched 237 00:18:57.799 --> 00:19:02.440 ambitious improvement projects, while private companies built the Erie Canal, 238 00:19:02.880 --> 00:19:06.960 which opened in eighteen twenty five and reshaped American commerce. 239 00:19:08.279 --> 00:19:12.640 Monroe's caution on federal power foreshadowed future debates that would 240 00:19:12.640 --> 00:19:16.200 define the nineteenth century. But in the meantime, of course, 241 00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:23.119 the country kept spreading westward, hungry for land and an opportunity. 242 00:19:23.279 --> 00:19:26.319 One of the things I always find really fascinating about Monroe, though, 243 00:19:26.799 --> 00:19:30.880 is if he's cautious when it comes to domestic policy, 244 00:19:30.960 --> 00:19:34.799 he was definitely the boldest president to date when it 245 00:19:34.839 --> 00:19:39.640 came to foreign affairs. Under a brilliant guidance from his 246 00:19:39.720 --> 00:19:43.400 Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, the United States quickly 247 00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:48.039 redefined its place in the world. The first question was Florida. 248 00:19:49.079 --> 00:19:54.440 For years, Florida had been a problematic frontier, officially a 249 00:19:54.799 --> 00:19:58.680 still a Spanish colony. The border was as porous as 250 00:19:58.680 --> 00:20:03.599 it gets, refuge for runaway slaves, frustrating to those Southern states. 251 00:20:04.200 --> 00:20:06.799 It was a base for the resistance of the Seminole 252 00:20:06.839 --> 00:20:10.480 people and a launching point for conflicts all along its 253 00:20:10.519 --> 00:20:15.519 long border with Georgia, and so in eighteen eighteen, General 254 00:20:15.559 --> 00:20:18.319 Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans, 255 00:20:18.720 --> 00:20:21.680 was sent to police the frontier, and as soon as 256 00:20:21.680 --> 00:20:25.440 he got there he decided instead he would just invade 257 00:20:25.799 --> 00:20:30.839 Spanish Florida. He executed two British subjects and quickly toppled 258 00:20:30.839 --> 00:20:37.519 the Spanish governor. Diplomatic disaster seemed imminent, but John Quincy 259 00:20:37.559 --> 00:20:41.079 Adams seized the moment. In the Adams Owners Treaty of 260 00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:45.160 eighteen nineteen, Spain ceded Florida to the United States and 261 00:20:45.279 --> 00:20:50.720 recognized the American claim to the Pacific Northwest. In return, 262 00:20:51.200 --> 00:20:55.640 the US relinquished shaky claims to Texas, at least for 263 00:20:55.680 --> 00:21:00.000 the moment. More on that soon, Monroe signed the Tree 264 00:21:00.200 --> 00:21:03.599 with satisfaction. In one stroke, the Republic gained a new 265 00:21:03.680 --> 00:21:09.720 territory and neutralized a diplomatic crisis. But perhaps no moment 266 00:21:09.799 --> 00:21:14.359 defines Monroe's presidency more than his message to Congress in 267 00:21:14.440 --> 00:21:19.039 December of eighteen twenty three. The revolutions which we'll turn 268 00:21:19.119 --> 00:21:22.640 to in our next episode. That were sweeping. Latin America 269 00:21:23.000 --> 00:21:26.960 had toppled colonial governments from Buenos Aires to Mexico City. 270 00:21:27.839 --> 00:21:33.960 The old Spanish Empire was crumbling, and European monarchies Russia, France, 271 00:21:34.079 --> 00:21:40.680 Austria appeared eager to restore European control. At the same time, Britain, 272 00:21:40.759 --> 00:21:45.200 with its enormous navy and expanding commercial interests, urged the 273 00:21:45.279 --> 00:21:50.039 United States to join in a joint declaration warning Europe 274 00:21:50.079 --> 00:21:54.920 to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. Monroe and Adams 275 00:21:54.960 --> 00:22:01.160 considered Britain's offer carefully. Adams urged caution. He told Monroe, 276 00:22:01.279 --> 00:22:05.039 quote we must not come in as a cock boat 277 00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:08.839 in the wake of a British man of war end quote. 278 00:22:08.960 --> 00:22:12.559 The United States, he argued, had to speak alone in 279 00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:15.880 its own voice to lay claim in a new sphere 280 00:22:16.200 --> 00:22:21.720 of influence, and Monroe agreed. The statement that emerged soon 281 00:22:21.759 --> 00:22:26.160 known as the Monroe Doctrine, declared the Western Hemisphere was 282 00:22:26.480 --> 00:22:32.839 no longer open to European colonization period. Any attempt by 283 00:22:32.839 --> 00:22:36.000 Europe to interfere in the Americas would be viewed as 284 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:41.440 a threat to US peace and security. In return, the 285 00:22:41.559 --> 00:22:44.680 United States would not meddle in European affairs or in 286 00:22:44.720 --> 00:22:49.799 any of its existing colonies. That was a virtually meaningless 287 00:22:49.920 --> 00:22:53.200 code at the end, since the United States had no 288 00:22:53.359 --> 00:22:56.559 power to do those things, and that's what makes it 289 00:22:56.599 --> 00:23:01.839 such an incredibly bold pronouncement. The Monroe Doctrine was a 290 00:23:02.039 --> 00:23:05.200 huge step forward for a still growing republic with a 291 00:23:05.240 --> 00:23:09.640 modest at best, navy. But the doctrine captured the spirit 292 00:23:09.680 --> 00:23:13.759 of the age. America didn't see itself as a fragile 293 00:23:13.799 --> 00:23:18.279 experiment anymore. Now, America saw itself as a rising power, 294 00:23:18.720 --> 00:23:23.880 confident enough to redraw geopolitical boundaries, and in the decades 295 00:23:23.920 --> 00:23:27.640 to come, the Monroe Doctrine would become the cornerstone of 296 00:23:27.799 --> 00:23:33.799 US foreign policy, invoked, expanded, and reinterpreted by nearly every 297 00:23:33.839 --> 00:23:38.799 single administration. But for all the optimism of the era, 298 00:23:39.279 --> 00:23:43.720 Americans felt the sharp sting of the first major crisis 299 00:23:43.759 --> 00:23:49.680 in its national history, the Panic of eighteen nineteen. A 300 00:23:49.720 --> 00:23:53.839 boom in Western land sales fueled by easy credit, collapsed 301 00:23:53.880 --> 00:23:57.480 when the United States banked the second one suddenly tightened 302 00:23:57.480 --> 00:24:04.599 its lending practices, plummeted, banks failed, farms were seized, Unemployment 303 00:24:04.920 --> 00:24:09.359 surged in Eastern cities. Monroe did what presidents of that 304 00:24:09.480 --> 00:24:13.039 era typically did. He stepped back, believing that the crisis 305 00:24:13.079 --> 00:24:18.039 would resolve itself through market forces. The political fallout was 306 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:23.759 long lasting, however, Western farmers instantly grew distrustful of Eastern 307 00:24:23.839 --> 00:24:29.160 financial mechanisms. The calls for banking reform intensified, and the 308 00:24:29.200 --> 00:24:33.839 crisis also sparked new political movements, particularly among settlers who 309 00:24:33.920 --> 00:24:36.960 believed the government should play a more active role in 310 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:42.960 protecting ordinary citizens and critically, While farmers moving out West 311 00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:45.720 were impacted a lot by the Panic of eighteen nineteen, 312 00:24:46.559 --> 00:24:53.839 King Cotton emerged relatively unscathed, building Southern confidence that their 313 00:24:53.960 --> 00:24:59.880 slave based economy was the key to their financial security, 314 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:07.759 a lesson they wouldn't forget now. Though Monroe remained personally very, 315 00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:12.319 very popular, the Panic of eighteen nineteen revealed cracks in 316 00:25:12.359 --> 00:25:15.559 the seemingly calm facade that had become the Era of 317 00:25:15.599 --> 00:25:21.039 Good Feelings. As Monroe's second term drew to a close, honestly, 318 00:25:21.119 --> 00:25:26.559 the old Revolutionary generation was fading forever. He would be 319 00:25:26.640 --> 00:25:30.359 the last president ever to wear a powdered wig, the 320 00:25:30.440 --> 00:25:34.000 last whose political instincts were shaped on the battlefields where 321 00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:38.319 the Continental Army had faced off against British imperial might. 322 00:25:39.599 --> 00:25:43.480 His successor would ultimately be chosen in a hotly contested 323 00:25:43.519 --> 00:25:47.839 election of eighteen twenty four, an election that James Monroe 324 00:25:47.880 --> 00:25:52.559 watched with a mixture of pride and apprehension. His presidency 325 00:25:52.799 --> 00:25:57.319 had overseen growth diplomatic triumphs, but he sensed the storms 326 00:25:57.400 --> 00:26:02.720 that were coming. Sectional divides were starting to widen. Ambitious 327 00:26:02.759 --> 00:26:07.039 new leaders men like John Quincy Adams and General Jackson 328 00:26:07.319 --> 00:26:13.279 were preparing to reshape American politics forever. Monroe would ultimately 329 00:26:13.359 --> 00:26:18.359 retire to his estate in Virginia. A quiet man by temperament, 330 00:26:18.759 --> 00:26:21.359 he actually presided over a moment in which the United 331 00:26:21.359 --> 00:26:24.920 States defined its borders, asserted its place in the world, 332 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:28.039 and tasted both the promise and the fragility by the 333 00:26:28.039 --> 00:26:33.640 fragility is important of national unity. But despite the successes 334 00:26:33.720 --> 00:26:38.599 of the Monroe administration, the United States future continued to 335 00:26:38.680 --> 00:26:43.599 be dominated by the question of slavery, bringing us to 336 00:26:43.599 --> 00:26:49.799 our next touch point, misery. By eighteen nineteen, the nation 337 00:26:50.079 --> 00:26:53.599 had grown used to a delicate balance. Free states and 338 00:26:53.640 --> 00:26:57.759 slave states were paired together, neither side gaining advantage in 339 00:26:57.799 --> 00:27:01.799 the Senate. But when the mis Zuri territory applied for 340 00:27:01.920 --> 00:27:09.160 stateshood as a slave state. The balance quickly trembled. Representative 341 00:27:09.240 --> 00:27:14.920 James Talmadge Junior of New York introduced an amendment proposing 342 00:27:15.119 --> 00:27:19.200 that enslaved people born in Missouri be freed at age 343 00:27:19.240 --> 00:27:29.880 twenty five. At the proposed Talmadge Amendment, Southern politicians positively erupted. Slavery, 344 00:27:30.000 --> 00:27:35.720 they argued, must expand in whatever direction settlers chose to 345 00:27:35.759 --> 00:27:41.319 bring it. Anything else threatened the Constitution, the Union, and 346 00:27:41.400 --> 00:27:47.160 the Southern way of life. The debates quickly grew venomous. 347 00:27:47.200 --> 00:27:51.240 Thomas Jefferson watched from Monticello, writing that the controversy was 348 00:27:51.319 --> 00:27:55.240 quote like a fire bell in the night end quote 349 00:27:55.519 --> 00:27:58.640 the alarm he feared signaled a crisis that could one 350 00:27:58.720 --> 00:28:05.119 day divide the nation irreparably. Now Luckily, instead, the United 351 00:28:05.160 --> 00:28:10.799 States reached the Missouri Compromise of eighteen twenty one of 352 00:28:10.839 --> 00:28:14.160 a first string of compromises we'll be working through over 353 00:28:14.200 --> 00:28:17.079 the next couple of weeks to show how the United 354 00:28:17.160 --> 00:28:20.680 States tries to stave off the Civil War but ultimately 355 00:28:20.720 --> 00:28:23.279 can't stamp down the breaks quite enough. And when we 356 00:28:23.319 --> 00:28:25.920 get to the outbreak of the conflict, I'll explain why. 357 00:28:27.200 --> 00:28:30.880 But The Missouri of Compromise of eighteen twenty was pretty basic. 358 00:28:31.359 --> 00:28:35.279 They had a few parts. One Missouri will enter now 359 00:28:35.359 --> 00:28:39.559 as a slave state. Two Maine, which would break off 360 00:28:39.559 --> 00:28:43.720 from Massachusetts, would enter simultaneously as a free state, which 361 00:28:43.720 --> 00:28:48.440 would preserve that balance in the Senate. Then slavery north 362 00:28:48.720 --> 00:28:52.640 of the thirty six thirty parallel in the remaining Louisiana 363 00:28:52.759 --> 00:28:57.400 purchase territory would be banned forever. This is always confusing 364 00:28:57.720 --> 00:29:00.160 because if you look at a map, the thirty six 365 00:29:00.200 --> 00:29:05.279 thirty line is actually the southern border of Missouri. So 366 00:29:05.759 --> 00:29:09.799 the compromise itself is kind of contradictory in that it says, well, 367 00:29:10.039 --> 00:29:11.920 Missouri can come in as a slave state, but we're 368 00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:15.759 also going to ban slavery north of Missouri's southern border, 369 00:29:15.759 --> 00:29:18.559 which should have bannoned in Missouri. Now, none of this 370 00:29:18.599 --> 00:29:21.240 is actually going to matter, by the way, because all 371 00:29:21.279 --> 00:29:24.640 of these compromises are going to be quickly superseded by 372 00:29:24.640 --> 00:29:27.319 other compromises. They're going to obviate the ones that come 373 00:29:27.359 --> 00:29:31.079 before them. So just understand that it's a little bit 374 00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:34.079 of a catch twenty two here. Now, the end of 375 00:29:34.119 --> 00:29:37.440 the day, of course, was that this was a temporary piece. 376 00:29:38.119 --> 00:29:41.440 It was a political tourniquit at best, wrapped around a 377 00:29:41.440 --> 00:29:45.039 gaping wound. The compromise settled the debate for the moment, 378 00:29:45.359 --> 00:29:48.799 but revealed the inescapable truth. The United States have been 379 00:29:48.839 --> 00:29:52.519 built on slavery, and slavery would shape its future as 380 00:29:52.640 --> 00:29:58.000 violently as it had shaped its past. And speaking to violence, 381 00:29:58.799 --> 00:30:02.400 I mean first, next must to the presidency of John 382 00:30:02.480 --> 00:30:07.920 Quincy Adams and the corrupt Bargain of eighteen twenty four. 383 00:30:13.079 --> 00:30:16.279 At the beginning of John Quincy adams presidency was rocky 384 00:30:16.519 --> 00:30:20.960 at best. He was like a man stepping into a storm. Now, 385 00:30:21.480 --> 00:30:24.200 Adams had spent his entire life in service to the 386 00:30:24.279 --> 00:30:27.079 United States. He had been a minister to Europe before 387 00:30:27.079 --> 00:30:29.839 he was even a teenager, a diplomat in half a 388 00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:34.519 dozen capitals, of course, related to the former President, John 389 00:30:34.559 --> 00:30:38.480 Adams Secretary of State during most of the triumphant years 390 00:30:38.480 --> 00:30:42.119 of American expansion. He was, I guess, by just about 391 00:30:42.160 --> 00:30:45.279 any measure, one of the most qualified men ever to 392 00:30:45.440 --> 00:30:48.839 enter the White House. However, when he took the oath 393 00:30:48.880 --> 00:30:52.160 of office in March of eighteen twenty five, the air 394 00:30:52.319 --> 00:30:55.920 was thick not with gratitude and admiration for this management 395 00:30:55.920 --> 00:30:59.599 accomplished so much, but suspicion because the election that had 396 00:30:59.599 --> 00:31:03.240 brought John Quincy Adams to power, the election of eighteen 397 00:31:03.319 --> 00:31:07.920 twenty four was unlike anything the Republic had ever seen. 398 00:31:08.759 --> 00:31:11.960 So this was the first time that we had a 399 00:31:12.000 --> 00:31:18.039 divided field. Four different candidates had run for president, Adams, 400 00:31:18.440 --> 00:31:25.039 Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. Now, Jackson won 401 00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:29.240