Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western civ Episode five hundred and thirteen,
Speaker 1: Slavery's Shadow. Today, we're going to go forward in American
Speaker 1: history and also a little bit back to just talk
Speaker 1: about the incredible influence that shadow slavery is going to
Speaker 1: have on the young American Republic. Honestly, between the end
Speaker 1: of the American Revolution and the end of the American
Speaker 1: Civil War, there really is no issue that permeates every
Speaker 1: aspect of the American economy, politics, social like like chattel slavery.
Speaker 1: It is the elephant in the room in every discussion,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes the addressed elephant in the room. And so
Speaker 1: it's important to understand how it gets to be the
Speaker 1: level that it does, and why in the eighteen forties
Speaker 1: and eighteen fifties it becomes such an intractable problem that
Speaker 1: it results in the only civil war in American history,
Speaker 1: I guess I should say yet, but the only civil
Speaker 1: war in American history to date. Now today, our story
Speaker 1: actually begins by going backwards in the dense, humid tide
Speaker 1: water of seventeenth century Virginia, where back then the tobacco
Speaker 1: fields were like the factories of the modern day, power
Speaker 1: belonged to the plant or elite that possessed them. In
Speaker 1: sixteen seventy six, a young, restless aristocrat named Nathaniel Bacon
Speaker 1: led a rebellion that would reverberate far beyond its immediate violence. Now,
Speaker 1: the cause of Bacon's rebellion is much much less important
Speaker 1: than its impact. Bacon's rebellion was loosely premised on the
Speaker 1: idea of protecting frontier colonists against Native American attacks. Really,
Speaker 1: if you back up, it's a lot more about economic
Speaker 1: tensions between the wealthy plan or elite and poor white farmers,
Speaker 1: in particular former indentured servants who served out their time
Speaker 1: after passage to the New World and then believed that
Speaker 1: they were entitled to a plot of land. The problem
Speaker 1: was the plot that they often got was worthless. That
Speaker 1: bread a lot of resentment. And so what you see
Speaker 1: during Bacon's rebellion is you see the dispossessed peoples of
Speaker 1: the Tide Water region reaching out to one another and
Speaker 1: making connections. And they often reached out over ethnic and
Speaker 1: racial lines. You had some Native Americans involved, you had
Speaker 1: some enslaved Africans, you had some former enslaved Africans. All
Speaker 1: of them were rallied by Nathaniel Bacon against Governor William Berkeley,
Speaker 1: claiming that the colonial government had failed again here's the pretext,
Speaker 1: to protect community governments from Native American attacks. There was
Speaker 1: a bitter social reality though underneath all of this, Virginia
Speaker 1: was a deeply divided colony, divided between wealthy planters and
Speaker 1: a large mass of landless laborers. When Bacon's multi racial
Speaker 1: coalition set the torch to Jamestown, the planter class looked
Speaker 1: on the flames with a new clarity. The rebellion ultimately failed.
Speaker 1: Nathaniel Bacon dies of dysentery, but it reveals something terrifying
Speaker 1: to the elite in Virginia, and that was that poor
Speaker 1: whites and enslaved Africans had the capacity to unite against them,
Speaker 1: and as a consequence from the ashes of Jamestown, a
Speaker 1: new social order started to harden. Over the next decades, Virginia,
Speaker 1: like much of the English Atlantic world, for the first time,
Speaker 1: began to codify race into law, where earlier statutes had
Speaker 1: sometimes been ambiguous. The late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries
Speaker 1: forged a new, brutally simple rule of law. Africans would
Speaker 1: be enslaved for life, their children enslaved after them. That's
Speaker 1: what makes it chattel slavery. It's passed on from generation
Speaker 1: to generation. Then you can be sold like a piece
Speaker 1: of channel, like a piece of livestock, piece of farm equipment.
Speaker 1: That's part of the inhumanity of the cysts, and whiteness
Speaker 1: would become not a badge of class anymore, but a
Speaker 1: badge that meant freedom. Now, I think it's important to
Speaker 1: again back up and sort of walk through the value
Speaker 1: of the transformation of slavery that happens after Bacon's rebellion.
Speaker 1: Because Bacon's rebellion's at the tail end of the seventeenth century.
Speaker 1: You know, it's still very much early colonial American history.
Speaker 1: We're talking about clusters of European settlers really hugging the coast.
Speaker 1: At this point, there's not a great deal of penetration
Speaker 1: to the interior all along the eastern seaboard. But by
Speaker 1: the early seventeen hundreds, so maybe only twenty five thirty
Speaker 1: years from Bacon's rebellion, the Chesapeake Bay had now fully
Speaker 1: embraced racial slavery as the foundation of its agricultural economy.
Speaker 1: The demand that tobacco placed on labor was basically relentless,
Speaker 1: indentured servitude. Once the dominant labor system declined steadily, as
Speaker 1: more reliable and hereditary enslaved labor took its place. Enslaved Africans,
Speaker 1: previously a small percentage of the population, grew rapidly in number.
Speaker 1: During this period. Slave codes were tightened, Baptism no longer
Speaker 1: free to slave, interracial marriage was banned forever, masters were
Speaker 1: legally empowered to use deadly force if they felt it necessary.
Speaker 1: In other words, slavery was no longer merely an economic institution.
Speaker 1: It had become part of the social architecture, a way
Speaker 1: of organizing life and hierarchy. In the colonies, particularly in
Speaker 1: the southern colonies Virginia, Maryland, and the Carolinas. They all
Speaker 1: built societies where race, labor, and law quickly became infused
Speaker 1: into one single system. Other South, in the rice swamps
Speaker 1: of South Carolina and Georgia, no cotton yet, that's going
Speaker 1: to come later. Enslaved Africans carried agricultural knowledge from West
Speaker 1: Africa that made plantation wealth possible. In places like the
Speaker 1: Low Country, Africans formed the majority of the population, working
Speaker 1: under the punishing task system that allowed planters to demand
Speaker 1: immense labor while keeping a distance from the deadly, diseased
Speaker 1: environments that would kill them but not the African slaves.
Speaker 1: Through this brutal system, African languages, spiritual practices, and kinship
Speaker 1: networks persisted. Though The Gulla and Geechee cultures emerged from
Speaker 1: these crucibles of trauma and resilience stronger than ever. But really,
Speaker 1: by the time we're inching up to the middle of
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century, so we're getting close to the revolution.
Speaker 1: At this point, slavery was deeply rooted in the colonies,
Speaker 1: which was fascinating, of course, right because the rhetoric of
Speaker 1: the coming American Revolution would introduce into all of this
Speaker 1: a dangerous tension, just like we saw with the French Revolution.
Speaker 1: Patriots spoke of liberty, natural rights, and resistance to tyranny.
Speaker 1: Enslaved people like they would in San Deman. Now Haiti
Speaker 1: listened to all these words, many began hearing their own
Speaker 1: struggle in these same exact phrases. They started to petition
Speaker 1: to courts. Eventually they fled to the British lines when
Speaker 1: the revolution broke out, and in small scales they tried
Speaker 1: to negotiate their own Freedom. Lord Dunmore, the British commander
Speaker 1: in seventeen seventy five, promised freedom to enslave men who
Speaker 1: joined the British during the American Revolution. This positively electrified
Speaker 1: the South, making the South a lot more fertile ground
Speaker 1: right the way for the British. Throughout the conflict, thousands
Speaker 1: fled plantations to fight for the British Crown. For slave
Speaker 1: holding revolutionaries like, of course, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and
Speaker 1: James Madison, the War for Independence brought moments of reflection,
Speaker 1: but rarely any sort of conviction Publicly. All these men
Speaker 1: wrote about equality privately their plantations ran on enslaved labor.
Speaker 1: But the Revolution did change slavery in a couple of
Speaker 1: really important ways that will start to matter later on
Speaker 1: in our story. First, the Northern States began a process
Speaker 1: of gradual emancipation, beginning with Pennsylvania in the year seventeen eighty.
Speaker 1: Slavery didn't disappear overnight in the northern parts of the
Speaker 1: United States, but by the early eighteen hundreds it had
Speaker 1: essentially faded away from New England and even some parts
Speaker 1: of the mid Atlantic. You're starting, therefore, to see a
Speaker 1: crucial break and divide amongst the country on regional lines,
Speaker 1: where one part would be slave in one part would
Speaker 1: be free. In other words, out of the ashes of
Speaker 1: the American Revolution or some of the seeds of the
Speaker 1: American Civil War. The Upper South saw its numbers rising,
Speaker 1: especially for manumission, particularly in Virginia, where wartime ideology and
Speaker 1: economic changes, albeit briefly, opened opportunities for black freedom. The
Speaker 1: free black population grew steadily, concentrating itself in cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore,
Speaker 1: and New York. The south of the Potomac, another transformation
Speaker 1: was coming, one that would make slavery far more potent
Speaker 1: than ever before. In the seventeen nineties, a young nation
Speaker 1: faced westward expansion with hungry eyes. The cotton gin, patented
Speaker 1: by Eli Whitney in seventeen ninety four, had transformed everything
Speaker 1: and changed Western history. Lands that were once seemed unprofitable
Speaker 1: suddenly promised fortune because now there was a new cash crop,
Speaker 1: king cotton. It would be the white gold of the
Speaker 1: new Republic that required labor, enormous labor. You see, before
Speaker 1: the cotton gin, there was cotton production in the American South,
Speaker 1: but it was relatively limited. Why because picking the seeds
Speaker 1: out of cotton fibers was extremely I'M consuming, and so
Speaker 1: you needed huge amounts of labor on all sides of
Speaker 1: the production capacity in order to produce the cloth that
Speaker 1: was necessary for New England textile mills and textile mills
Speaker 1: in Great Britain. But with the invention of the cotton gin,
Speaker 1: those seeds could be taken out mechanically. All of a sudden,
Speaker 1: your labor was all on the cultivation and harvest side,
Speaker 1: and that changed the formula dramatically, and the Southern states
Speaker 1: responded with renewed vigor. The internal slave trade exploded. Over
Speaker 1: one million enslaved people would be marched or sold from
Speaker 1: the Chesapeake and Upper South to the Deep interior Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas.
Speaker 1: Families were torn uparents in staggering numbers. Slaves coffels lined
Speaker 1: the roads, shipped filled with human cargo, sailed up and
Speaker 1: down the coast. This is oftentimes referred to as the
Speaker 1: Second or New Middle Passage, the transition of enslaved peoples
Speaker 1: from states like Maryland and Virginia to states in the
Speaker 1: Deep South. And then, of course, there was the Louisiana
Speaker 1: purchase in eighteen oh three, which opened up new territories
Speaker 1: for slavery. While Jefferson privately hated the institution of slavery
Speaker 1: we know this, he still publicly facilitated its expansion. New
Speaker 1: states now emerged as battlegrounds between freedom and slavery, each
Speaker 1: admission threatening to tip the balance in Congress. Because, of course,
Speaker 1: after the Constitutional Convention, every single new state brought with
Speaker 1: it two senators, regardless of the population of that state.
Speaker 1: The slave owners in the South realized, as long as
Speaker 1: they kept a grip on the Senate, they could keep
Speaker 1: a grip on their property and their power. As cotton
Speaker 1: profits soared, white Southerners rewrote their own history, recasting slavery
Speaker 1: not as the head in the past, as a necessary evil,
Speaker 1: but now as a positive good, vital to national prosperity,
Speaker 1: and ordained by both God and nature. By the early
Speaker 1: nineteenth century, the South's political class defended slavery with a
Speaker 1: zeal that frankly, would have shocked earlier generations that lived
Speaker 1: in the exact same state. And then, of course, there
Speaker 1: was the Haitian Revolution, which cast a long shadow across
Speaker 1: the United States. Here was suddenly an enslaved people who
Speaker 1: had Risen defeated European armies and founded a Black Republic.
Speaker 1: To enslaved Americans, Haiti was a beacon of possibility, but
Speaker 1: to slaveholders positively, it was innatemare to be avoided at
Speaker 1: all costs, and so across the South, legislatures tightened up
Speaker 1: slave codes even further. Any expression of literacy, mobility, or
Speaker 1: independent worship among enslaved people was treated as a potential
Speaker 1: spark for revolt. The possibility of widespread rebellion became a
Speaker 1: justification for even greater repression. As James Madison's tenure in
Speaker 1: the White House, still smoldering from the War of eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: came to an end, the era of good feelings opened
Speaker 1: with President James Monroe. When James Monroe took the oath
Speaker 1: of office on a mild March day in eighteen seventeen,
Speaker 1: the nation watched as a familiar figure rose into leadership.
Speaker 1: These are still the era of all of the Revolutionary Guard.
Speaker 1: Monroe had fought at the Battle of Trenton, It served
Speaker 1: as a diplomat in Paris and London, and he held
Speaker 1: basically every cabinet role that the young American Republic could offer.
Speaker 1: He was in actually a lot of ways, the last
Speaker 1: of the revolutionary generation to guide our country. And yet
Speaker 1: his presidency wouldn't be a nostalgic return to earlier days.
Speaker 1: It would become an era of sweeping transformation, expansion, and
Speaker 1: profound nation building, all of which is going to add
Speaker 1: a fuel to the fiery of the tension growing between
Speaker 1: the North and the South. Now. Monroe's arrival in Washington
Speaker 1: came on the heels of the War of eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: a conflict that had nearly broken the young Republic but
Speaker 1: had ended with a surge of national pride. The Federalist
Speaker 1: Party had collapsed after the Hartford Convention, and the Democratic
Speaker 1: Republicans stood unchallenged. Newspapers hailed the dawn of an era
Speaker 1: of good feelings, a phrase him Monroe himself never used,
Speaker 1: but which clung stubbornly to his administration. Nevertheless, to reinforce
Speaker 1: this sense of unity, Monroe embarked on a series of
Speaker 1: good Wins tours, traveling through New England, the Midwest, and
Speaker 1: the South. Dressed in his Revolutionary War uniform, he visited
Speaker 1: towns and cities still bearing the scars of the British
Speaker 1: invasion from the War of eighteen twelve, crowds greeted him
Speaker 1: with parades, cannons, and patriotic banners. The symbolism was clear.
Speaker 1: Monroe wanted to stitch the nation together after years of
Speaker 1: war and partisan bitterness. But of course, beneath the surface,
Speaker 1: regional tensions simmered. Economic instability, Western expansion, and debates about
Speaker 1: national infrastructure hinted that unity wasn't going to come so
Speaker 1: easily now. One of the defining questions of James Monroe's
Speaker 1: presidency was how to modernize this country? After all, Great
Speaker 1: Britain was now already within the throes of the Industrial Revolution.
Speaker 1: How could America catch up? Roads, canals, harbors. These were
Speaker 1: the arteries of a rapidly expanding nation, and many leaders
Speaker 1: called on the federal government to invest heavily in them.
Speaker 1: But Monroe was a strict constitutionalist. While he believed internal
Speaker 1: improvements were essential, he doubted the Constitution gave Congress broad
Speaker 1: authority to fund them. In eighteen seventeen, he vetoed the
Speaker 1: Bonus Bill, which would have created a national fund for infrastructure.
Speaker 1: Yet his veto message was unusually conciliatory. Monroe encouraged Congress
Speaker 1: to attempt a constitutional amendment that would make such programs
Speaker 1: clearly legal. He wasn't necessarily blocking progress. He was safeguarding
Speaker 1: the rule of law, and so states took the hint
Speaker 1: and took the lead. Over the next eight years, it
Speaker 1: was the states themselves, not the federal governments, that launched
Speaker 1: ambitious improvement projects, while private companies built the Erie Canal,
Speaker 1: which opened in eighteen twenty five and reshaped American commerce.
Speaker 1: Monroe's caution on federal power foreshadowed future debates that would
Speaker 1: define the nineteenth century. But in the meantime, of course,
Speaker 1: the country kept spreading westward, hungry for land and an opportunity.
Speaker 1: One of the things I always find really fascinating about Monroe, though,
Speaker 1: is if he's cautious when it comes to domestic policy,
Speaker 1: he was definitely the boldest president to date when it
Speaker 1: came to foreign affairs. Under a brilliant guidance from his
Speaker 1: Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams, the United States quickly
Speaker 1: redefined its place in the world. The first question was Florida.
Speaker 1: For years, Florida had been a problematic frontier, officially a
Speaker 1: still a Spanish colony. The border was as porous as
Speaker 1: it gets, refuge for runaway slaves, frustrating to those Southern states.
Speaker 1: It was a base for the resistance of the Seminole
Speaker 1: people and a launching point for conflicts all along its
Speaker 1: long border with Georgia, and so in eighteen eighteen, General
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Battle of New Orleans,
Speaker 1: was sent to police the frontier, and as soon as
Speaker 1: he got there he decided instead he would just invade
Speaker 1: Spanish Florida. He executed two British subjects and quickly toppled
Speaker 1: the Spanish governor. Diplomatic disaster seemed imminent, but John Quincy
Speaker 1: Adams seized the moment. In the Adams Owners Treaty of
Speaker 1: eighteen nineteen, Spain ceded Florida to the United States and
Speaker 1: recognized the American claim to the Pacific Northwest. In return,
Speaker 1: the US relinquished shaky claims to Texas, at least for
Speaker 1: the moment. More on that soon, Monroe signed the Tree
Speaker 1: with satisfaction. In one stroke, the Republic gained a new
Speaker 1: territory and neutralized a diplomatic crisis. But perhaps no moment
Speaker 1: defines Monroe's presidency more than his message to Congress in
Speaker 1: December of eighteen twenty three. The revolutions which we'll turn
Speaker 1: to in our next episode. That were sweeping. Latin America
Speaker 1: had toppled colonial governments from Buenos Aires to Mexico City.
Speaker 1: The old Spanish Empire was crumbling, and European monarchies Russia, France,
Speaker 1: Austria appeared eager to restore European control. At the same time, Britain,
Speaker 1: with its enormous navy and expanding commercial interests, urged the
Speaker 1: United States to join in a joint declaration warning Europe
Speaker 1: to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. Monroe and Adams
Speaker 1: considered Britain's offer carefully. Adams urged caution. He told Monroe,
Speaker 1: quote we must not come in as a cock boat
Speaker 1: in the wake of a British man of war end quote.
Speaker 1: The United States, he argued, had to speak alone in
Speaker 1: its own voice to lay claim in a new sphere
Speaker 1: of influence, and Monroe agreed. The statement that emerged soon
Speaker 1: known as the Monroe Doctrine, declared the Western Hemisphere was
Speaker 1: no longer open to European colonization period. Any attempt by
Speaker 1: Europe to interfere in the Americas would be viewed as
Speaker 1: a threat to US peace and security. In return, the
Speaker 1: United States would not meddle in European affairs or in
Speaker 1: any of its existing colonies. That was a virtually meaningless
Speaker 1: code at the end, since the United States had no
Speaker 1: power to do those things, and that's what makes it
Speaker 1: such an incredibly bold pronouncement. The Monroe Doctrine was a
Speaker 1: huge step forward for a still growing republic with a
Speaker 1: modest at best, navy. But the doctrine captured the spirit
Speaker 1: of the age. America didn't see itself as a fragile
Speaker 1: experiment anymore. Now, America saw itself as a rising power,
Speaker 1: confident enough to redraw geopolitical boundaries, and in the decades
Speaker 1: to come, the Monroe Doctrine would become the cornerstone of
Speaker 1: US foreign policy, invoked, expanded, and reinterpreted by nearly every
Speaker 1: single administration. But for all the optimism of the era,
Speaker 1: Americans felt the sharp sting of the first major crisis
Speaker 1: in its national history, the Panic of eighteen nineteen. A
Speaker 1: boom in Western land sales fueled by easy credit, collapsed
Speaker 1: when the United States banked the second one suddenly tightened
Speaker 1: its lending practices, plummeted, banks failed, farms were seized, Unemployment
Speaker 1: surged in Eastern cities. Monroe did what presidents of that
Speaker 1: era typically did. He stepped back, believing that the crisis
Speaker 1: would resolve itself through market forces. The political fallout was
Speaker 1: long lasting, however, Western farmers instantly grew distrustful of Eastern
Speaker 1: financial mechanisms. The calls for banking reform intensified, and the
Speaker 1: crisis also sparked new political movements, particularly among settlers who
Speaker 1: believed the government should play a more active role in
Speaker 1: protecting ordinary citizens and critically, While farmers moving out West
Speaker 1: were impacted a lot by the Panic of eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: King Cotton emerged relatively unscathed, building Southern confidence that their
Speaker 1: slave based economy was the key to their financial security,
Speaker 1: a lesson they wouldn't forget now. Though Monroe remained personally very,
Speaker 1: very popular, the Panic of eighteen nineteen revealed cracks in
Speaker 1: the seemingly calm facade that had become the Era of
Speaker 1: Good Feelings. As Monroe's second term drew to a close, honestly,
Speaker 1: the old Revolutionary generation was fading forever. He would be
Speaker 1: the last president ever to wear a powdered wig, the
Speaker 1: last whose political instincts were shaped on the battlefields where
Speaker 1: the Continental Army had faced off against British imperial might.
Speaker 1: His successor would ultimately be chosen in a hotly contested
Speaker 1: election of eighteen twenty four, an election that James Monroe
Speaker 1: watched with a mixture of pride and apprehension. His presidency
Speaker 1: had overseen growth diplomatic triumphs, but he sensed the storms
Speaker 1: that were coming. Sectional divides were starting to widen. Ambitious
Speaker 1: new leaders men like John Quincy Adams and General Jackson
Speaker 1: were preparing to reshape American politics forever. Monroe would ultimately
Speaker 1: retire to his estate in Virginia. A quiet man by temperament,
Speaker 1: he actually presided over a moment in which the United
Speaker 1: States defined its borders, asserted its place in the world,
Speaker 1: and tasted both the promise and the fragility by the
Speaker 1: fragility is important of national unity. But despite the successes
Speaker 1: of the Monroe administration, the United States future continued to
Speaker 1: be dominated by the question of slavery, bringing us to
Speaker 1: our next touch point, misery. By eighteen nineteen, the nation
Speaker 1: had grown used to a delicate balance. Free states and
Speaker 1: slave states were paired together, neither side gaining advantage in
Speaker 1: the Senate. But when the mis Zuri territory applied for
Speaker 1: stateshood as a slave state. The balance quickly trembled. Representative
Speaker 1: James Talmadge Junior of New York introduced an amendment proposing
Speaker 1: that enslaved people born in Missouri be freed at age
Speaker 1: twenty five. At the proposed Talmadge Amendment, Southern politicians positively erupted. Slavery,
Speaker 1: they argued, must expand in whatever direction settlers chose to
Speaker 1: bring it. Anything else threatened the Constitution, the Union, and
Speaker 1: the Southern way of life. The debates quickly grew venomous.
Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson watched from Monticello, writing that the controversy was
Speaker 1: quote like a fire bell in the night end quote
Speaker 1: the alarm he feared signaled a crisis that could one
Speaker 1: day divide the nation irreparably. Now Luckily, instead, the United
Speaker 1: States reached the Missouri Compromise of eighteen twenty one of
Speaker 1: a first string of compromises we'll be working through over
Speaker 1: the next couple of weeks to show how the United
Speaker 1: States tries to stave off the Civil War but ultimately
Speaker 1: can't stamp down the breaks quite enough. And when we
Speaker 1: get to the outbreak of the conflict, I'll explain why.
Speaker 1: But The Missouri of Compromise of eighteen twenty was pretty basic.
Speaker 1: They had a few parts. One Missouri will enter now
Speaker 1: as a slave state. Two Maine, which would break off
Speaker 1: from Massachusetts, would enter simultaneously as a free state, which
Speaker 1: would preserve that balance in the Senate. Then slavery north
Speaker 1: of the thirty six thirty parallel in the remaining Louisiana
Speaker 1: purchase territory would be banned forever. This is always confusing
Speaker 1: because if you look at a map, the thirty six
Speaker 1: thirty line is actually the southern border of Missouri. So
Speaker 1: the compromise itself is kind of contradictory in that it says, well,
Speaker 1: Missouri can come in as a slave state, but we're
Speaker 1: also going to ban slavery north of Missouri's southern border,
Speaker 1: which should have bannoned in Missouri. Now, none of this
Speaker 1: is actually going to matter, by the way, because all
Speaker 1: of these compromises are going to be quickly superseded by
Speaker 1: other compromises. They're going to obviate the ones that come
Speaker 1: before them. So just understand that it's a little bit
Speaker 1: of a catch twenty two here. Now, the end of
Speaker 1: the day, of course, was that this was a temporary piece.
Speaker 1: It was a political tourniquit at best, wrapped around a
Speaker 1: gaping wound. The compromise settled the debate for the moment,
Speaker 1: but revealed the inescapable truth. The United States have been
Speaker 1: built on slavery, and slavery would shape its future as
Speaker 1: violently as it had shaped its past. And speaking to violence,
Speaker 1: I mean first, next must to the presidency of John
Speaker 1: Quincy Adams and the corrupt Bargain of eighteen twenty four.
Speaker 1: At the beginning of John Quincy adams presidency was rocky
Speaker 1: at best. He was like a man stepping into a storm. Now,
Speaker 1: Adams had spent his entire life in service to the
Speaker 1: United States. He had been a minister to Europe before
Speaker 1: he was even a teenager, a diplomat in half a
Speaker 1: dozen capitals, of course, related to the former President, John
Speaker 1: Adams Secretary of State during most of the triumphant years
Speaker 1: of American expansion. He was, I guess, by just about
Speaker 1: any measure, one of the most qualified men ever to
Speaker 1: enter the White House. However, when he took the oath
Speaker 1: of office in March of eighteen twenty five, the air
Speaker 1: was thick not with gratitude and admiration for this management
Speaker 1: accomplished so much, but suspicion because the election that had
Speaker 1: brought John Quincy Adams to power, the election of eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty four was unlike anything the Republic had ever seen.
Speaker 1: So this was the first time that we had a
Speaker 1: divided field. Four different candidates had run for president, Adams,
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson, William Crawford, and Henry Clay. Now, Jackson won
Speaker 1: the popular vote, and he won most of the electoral votes.
Speaker 1: But that's not what it says. Under the constitution, you
Speaker 1: cannot just simply win a plurality. You have to win
Speaker 1: a majority. Under the constitution, you have to win fifty
Speaker 1: one percent of the electoral votes to win outright. If
Speaker 1: you don't, then again pursue it to the Constitution. The
Speaker 1: House of Representatives gets to decide who wins. Now, I
Speaker 1: went through this once before in the election of eighteen hundred.
Speaker 1: In that case, the circumstances were different. Though Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 1: had won the popular vote, it was essentially a tie
Speaker 1: in the electoral college. In this case, Jackson had won
Speaker 1: the popular vote and he had won the most electoral votes,
Speaker 1: albeit he hadn't won fifty one percent. Now, one of
Speaker 1: the four men running, Henry Clay happened to be the
Speaker 1: Speaker of the House of Representatives and therefore the most
Speaker 1: powerful broker available. Now, he hadn't come close to winning
Speaker 1: enough electoral votes or popular votes to justify the House
Speaker 1: voting for him, but instead, what Clay did was he
Speaker 1: threw his support behind John Quincy Adams, even though Adams
Speaker 1: had not won as many popular votes and as many
Speaker 1: electoral votes as Jackson, and almost immediately after Adams took power,
Speaker 1: he named Clay Secretary of State, which was the unseen
Speaker 1: is really the second most powerful position in the United States.
Speaker 1: To Jackson's supporters, the deal was unmistakable. For years thereafter.
Speaker 1: It would be referred to as the corrupt bargain, an
Speaker 1: absolute theft of the people's will. Now Adams, an honest
Speaker 1: man to his core, denied any wrongdoing, but the shadow
Speaker 1: of that bargain would trail him for the four long
Speaker 1: years of his presidency, turning his presidency into a battle
Speaker 1: notp between parties, but between vision and resentment, national ambition,
Speaker 1: and what was turning into regional or sectional anger. Because Jackson,
Speaker 1: among everything else that he represented, represented the poor farmers
Speaker 1: of the West and southern interests and so for the
Speaker 1: first time, really what you are starting to see is
Speaker 1: the rise of sectionally related parties. And this has everything
Speaker 1: to do with slavery again. And that is the mole
Speaker 1: that we're going to see dominate American politics all the
Speaker 1: way through. Where the South is going to vote effectively
Speaker 1: as one enormous block, the North is going to do
Speaker 1: the same. And then there's a question about where the
Speaker 1: Western States as they come into the United States are
Speaker 1: going to land. Now that being said, Adam's presidency was
Speaker 1: relatively successful. He came into office with what had been
Speaker 1: seen as the most probably ambitious domestic agenda of any
Speaker 1: president before. Some say sense he believed that the federal
Speaker 1: government shouldn't be hands off, that it should lift the
Speaker 1: nation upward, that it was actually it's his responsibility to
Speaker 1: build roads and canals, promote science, support the arts, foster
Speaker 1: higher education, and create infrastructure that would slowly but surely
Speaker 1: bind the continent together. And so he sent to Congress
Speaker 1: of sweeping domestic proposal calling for a one national University,
Speaker 1: two naval Academy, three vast networks of roads and canals,
Speaker 1: for federal support for scientific research, including astronomical observatories, and five,
Speaker 1: a coherent national strategy for the country to moderize and
Speaker 1: above all industrialize. It was, in many ways a blueprint
Speaker 1: for the America of the twentieth century presented in the
Speaker 1: Americas of the eighteen twenties, but Adam had misjudged the
Speaker 1: mood the country was drifting towards a more democratic, anti elitist,
Speaker 1: states rights political culture. To many Southerners and Westerners, Adam's
Speaker 1: proposals felt like federal overreach, a government of Boston intellectuals
Speaker 1: telling the frontiers meant how they should live. To Jackson's supporters,
Speaker 1: every proposal was further proof that the corrupt Bargain had
Speaker 1: put an out of touch aristocrat in the White House,
Speaker 1: and so Congress stonewalled grand projects, stalled before they had
Speaker 1: a chance to take off, and Adams himself, though brilliant
Speaker 1: and principled, lacked the political instincts to compromise. He governed
Speaker 1: as if Congress should simply see the wisdom of his ideas. Congress, however,
Speaker 1: saw an opportunity to weaken him before the next election.
Speaker 1: As Secretary of State under Monroe, Adams had engineered some
Speaker 1: of the most significant diplomatic achievements in US history. The
Speaker 1: Adams Owners Treaty, the joint occupation of Oregon with Great Britain,
Speaker 1: and of course, the articulation of the Monroe Doctrine. As President,
Speaker 1: Adams hoped to continue shaping America's role in the world,
Speaker 1: but even here Congress resisted his efforts. When Adams proposed
Speaker 1: sending US delegates to the Panama Congress, that was a
Speaker 1: hemispheric conference organized by the Columbian liberator Simon Bolivar, who
Speaker 1: was going to start to get into in the next
Speaker 1: few episodes, the Southern politicians revolted. They feared that the
Speaker 1: conference would force the United States to address the issue
Speaker 1: of slavery, because several Latin American nations, freed from the
Speaker 1: Spanish yoke, had already abolished it. And so, after months
Speaker 1: of delay, Congress grudgingly approved the mission, but they did
Speaker 1: so too late for the delegates to actually get there
Speaker 1: on time. Was again, slavery had intervened, this time in
Speaker 1: American foreign policy, and the moment was lost. Now Adams
Speaker 1: could read the writing on the wall. The foreign policy
Speaker 1: vision he had crafted the United States as a leader
Speaker 1: among free republics was colliding with domestic distrust and the
Speaker 1: volatile politics of slavery. Now, Adams was able to achieve
Speaker 1: some well say, quieter successes. His administration strengthened commercial treaties,
Speaker 1: it defended fishing rights, and maintained peaceful relations during a
Speaker 1: period of global instability, which, like I said, we'll start
Speaker 1: to get into in the next episode. But these accomplishments,
Speaker 1: steady as they were, didn't do much to shift the
Speaker 1: political wins that were already just so heavily blowing against him,
Speaker 1: and an enter stage left the Tariff of eighteen twenty eight.
Speaker 1: In eighteen twenty eight, Congress passed a new tariff designed
Speaker 1: to protect American manufacturers. That tariffs come up a lot today,
Speaker 1: and they're going to come up a lot in American
Speaker 1: history during this particular period. So let's just go over
Speaker 1: really quickly what a tariff is. A tariff is a
Speaker 1: tax on an imported good. It is generally paid by
Speaker 1: the importer. So the moment that you take the item,
Speaker 1: whatever the heck that item is, let's just say, a
Speaker 1: widget off the ship, you have to pay the tariff
Speaker 1: duty for that good. Now, most of the time an
Speaker 1: importer will try to pass that cost along to the
Speaker 1: customer in some way, shape or form. Or maybe get
Speaker 1: the manufacturer to eat some of it. In any event,
Speaker 1: the purpose behind a tariff is to try to make
Speaker 1: imported goods more expensive so that your domestic purchasers will
Speaker 1: buy domestic goods, thereby supporting your own industry. That's the
Speaker 1: whole purpose of it. It's trade protectionism, one on one. Now.
Speaker 1: The Tariff of eighteen twenty eight was a complex, heavily
Speaker 1: political bill drafted in part by Jackson's allies to trap Adams.
Speaker 1: They expected him either to lose northern support by vetoing it,
Speaker 1: or to anger the South by signing it. Now, the
Speaker 1: tariff dutally passed and became known in the South as
Speaker 1: the Tariff of Abominations, sailed through Congress fairly easily. Now. Technically, Adams,
Speaker 1: interestingly enough, didn't sign it. He didn't evolve for the trap,
Speaker 1: and so under the law it simply became a law
Speaker 1: without presidential signature at the end of Adam's term. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: John Quincy Adams was blamed for the Tariff of Abominations
Speaker 1: throughout the South. Southern planters saw their export driven economy threatened,
Speaker 1: and so South Carolina began whispering about a radical new
Speaker 1: doctrine nullification, the idea that a state could invalidate a
Speaker 1: federal law it deemed unconstitutional. Now Adams recognized the danger immediately.
Speaker 1: It always believed in the strong, cohesive national government envisioned
Speaker 1: by the Constitution. The tear of crisis revealed now just
Speaker 1: how fragile that unity was becoming because of the underlying
Speaker 1: issue of shadow slavery. Now, as the election of eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty eight approached, the contrast between John Quincy Adams and
Speaker 1: Andrew Jackson, who was running again, became stark. Jackson's supporters
Speaker 1: organized mass rallies, They published campaign songs, and pioneered modern
Speaker 1: political messaging. Adams, who believed that public canvassing was beneath
Speaker 1: the dignity of his office, refused a campaign. But the
Speaker 1: nation was changing and Adams didn't get it. Politics was
Speaker 1: becoming democratic, emotional, and highly personal. Adams restraint, which he
Speaker 1: thought was positive, looked like he was standing aloof looked
Speaker 1: like he was another elite out of touch with the people.
Speaker 1: Jackson's populism looked like authenticity, and so the attacks grew
Speaker 1: more and more vicious. Adams was smeared as a corrupt aristocrat,
Speaker 1: a monarchist in disguise. Jackson was attacked ultimately as a murderer, adulterer,
Speaker 1: and an unstable military triumph. It was a dawn of
Speaker 1: modern American politics, brutal, partisan, and utterly relentless. In November
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty eight, to the verdict came there would be
Speaker 1: no backdoor deals this time, because Andrew Jackson won the
Speaker 1: election of eighteen twenty in an absolute landslide. John Quincy
Speaker 1: Adams left the presidency with his reputation battered and his
Speaker 1: ambitions unfulfilled. He was the first president who, not by choice,
Speaker 1: didn't serve two terms. Interestingly enough, though, just a real
Speaker 1: quick code to here, John Quincy Adams's story was far
Speaker 1: from over. He returned to Massachusetts expecting a quiet retirement,
Speaker 1: but instead he found a second life in Congress. In
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty, his neighbors elected him to the House of Representatives,
Speaker 1: making him the only former president in history to serve
Speaker 1: in that chamber. There he became a fearce champion of
Speaker 1: civil liberties, a relentless critic of slavery, and one of
Speaker 1: the most influential congressmen in American history. He fought the
Speaker 1: gag rule that sought to silence anti slavery petitions, and
Speaker 1: as we'll talk about soon, he defended enslaved Africans in
Speaker 1: the Amistad case. He stood year after year as a
Speaker 1: moral counterweight against the rising tide of sectionalism. But all
Speaker 1: of those facts will have to wait, as will Andrew Jackson,
Speaker 1: because next week we're going to shift south and deal
Speaker 1: with the years and convulsions of revolutions and counter revolutions
Speaker 1: that are going to sweep Central and South America, creating
Speaker 1: all that instability I talked about before, and creating the
Speaker 1: conditions for which the Spanish would, finally, with the exception
Speaker 1: of Cuba, be hurled completely out of the Western hemisphere.