In the 19th century, the political climate could be closely related to a tooth gritting earthquake or a tremendous volcanic eruption. As Europe transitioned into Romanticism, socialists and classical liberals started rising from all over Europe with many different ideas. In America, slavery and social reforms were a hotbed of debate sparking many controversy’s, one of which almost lead to the secession of South Carolina. No one besides Charles Fourier, Alexis de Tocqueville, and John C. Calhoun represented the potent cocktail of varying social ideas and political theory of the 19th century better. These three were unique in their ideas and have a very impacting legacy.
Charles Fourier was a Utopian Socialist according to Karl Marx. Fourier was one of the earliest known utopian socialists who found out that while industry could produce wealth, its methods of work were alienating. Fourier proposed that work should be done in what he called a phalanx; this means that work was distributed on a rational and rotating basis. Several of these Phalanxes were set up within the United States, although none succeeded for long. The idea, however, took ahold of the institution of the Kibbutz among the Zionist settlers in Palestine. Fourier thought that within a matter of a few years the entire world could be organized into these Phalanxes’ . However unlikely this may sound Fourier wrote many books about an idea that still fascinates us today. Fourier believed vehemently that a Divine social order should be created on Earth to organize the social and domestic relations of the human race, “Liberty, unless enjoyed by all, is unreal and illusory”. Charles Fourier dominated the first quarter of the 19th century as Europe underwent a change to the R...
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...The Visionary and His World. University of California Press. 1986, pp. 195-196.
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Peter Kropotkin. The Conquest of Bread. New York and London, Putnam, 1906.
Siedentop, L. (1994). Tocqueville. New York: Oxford University Press.
Manent, P. (1996). Tocqueville and the Nature of Democracy. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield
Bartlett, Irving H. John C. Calhoun: A Biography (1994)
American National Biography; Dictionary of American Biography; The Yale Biographical Dictionary of American Law; Calhoun, John C. The Papers of John C. Calhoun. Edited by Robert Meriwether, W. Edwin Hemphill, and Clyde N. Wilson. 28 vols. to date.
Capers, Gerald M. John C. Calhoun, Opportunist: A Reappraisal (1960)
Peterson, Merrill D. Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (1987)
There are thousands of years of history that have taken place. History is not like art(less subjective), but there is still plenty of room for speculation, criticism, and debate among historians, professors, as well as average citizens. However, not all these moments are documented, or done successfully specifically. Some of these moments end up becoming movies, books, or even historical fiction novels, but what about those fundamental moments that aren’t readily documented? In the book The Birth of Modern Politics Lynn Hudson Parsons claims that the 1828 election was momentous in the history of both political history, as well as our nation. Parsons not only discusses the behind the scenes of the first public election of 1828, but the pivotal events in Andrew Jackson and John Quincy Adams’ lives leading up to the election as well. Parsons succeeds in proving her thesis that the 1828 election was crucial to American politics as we know it today, as well as provoking evidence from various sources with her own logic and opinions as well.
While some citizens of the United States, between 1825 and 1850, believed that reform was foolish and that the nation should stick to its old conduct, reformists in this time period still sought to make the United States a more ideally democratic nation. This was an age of nationalism and pride, and where there was pride in one’s country, there was the aspiration to improve one’s country even further. Many new reformist and abolitionist groups began to form, all attempting to change aspects of the United States that the respective groups thought to be unfair or unjust. Some groups, such as lower and middle class women and immigrants, sought to improve rights within the county, while other reformers aspired to change the American education system into a more efficient way of teaching the county’s youth. Still other reform groups, particularly involved in the church and the second great awakening, wanted to change society as a whole. This was a time and age of change, and all these reforms were intended to contribute to the democratic way our country operated.
Women, like black slaves, were treated unequally from the male before the nineteenth century. The role of the women played the part of their description, physically and emotionally weak, which during this time period all women did was took care of their household and husband, and followed their orders. Women were classified as the “weaker sex” or below the standards of men in the early part of the century. Soon after the decades unfolded, women gradually surfaced to breathe the air of freedom and self determination, when they were given specific freedoms such as the opportunity for an education, their voting rights, ownership of property, and being employed.
The turmoil between the North and South about slavery brought many issues to light. People from their respective regions would argue whether it was a moral institution and that no matter what, a decision on the topic had to be made that would bring the country to an agreement once and for all. This paper discusses the irrepressible conflict William H. Seward mentions, several politician’s different views on why they could or could not co-exist, and also discusses the possible war as a result.
The presidential elections of 1860 was one of the nation’s most memorable one. The north and the south sections of country had a completely different vision of how they envision their home land. What made this worst was that their view was completely opposite of each other. The north, mostly republican supporters, want America to be free; free of slaves and free from bondages. While on the other hand, the south supporters, mostly democratic states, wanted slavery in the country, because this is what they earned their daily living and profit from.
Democracy in the United States became prominent in the early to mid 19th century. Andrew Jackson, the 7th president of the United States, was inaugurated in 1829 and was best known as the person who mainstreamed democracy in America. Because he came from a humble background, he was the “genuine common man.” (Foner, pg. 303) He claimed he recognized the needs of the people and spoke on behalf of the majority [farmers, laborers]. However, critics of Jackson and democracy called him “King Andrew I” because of his apparent abuse of presidential power [vetoing]. These critics believed he favored the majority so much that it violated the U.S. constitution, and they stated he was straying too far away from the plan originally set for the United States. Because of the extreme shift of power to the majority, the limiting of rights of the few [merchants, industrialists] and the abuse of power under Jackson’s democracy, the foundational documents set in the constitution was violated, and the work of the preceding presidents were all but lost.
Roark, J.L., Johnson, M.P., Cohen, P.C., Stage, S., Lawson, A., Hartmann, S.M. (2009). The american promise: A history of the united states (4th ed.), The New West and Free North 1840-1860, The slave south, 1820-1860, The house divided 1846-1861 (Vol. 1, pp. 279-354).
“Political and Social Milestones 1800-1860”. Elements of Literature: Fifth Course. Austin: Hold, Rinehart and Winston, 2008. 160-161. Print.
In the nineteenth, the political unification and industrialization causing many results in European nations’ growth in military power in the transatlantic. Towards the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, the political and military strength allowed the United States and Europe to wield unprecedented political, military, and influence around the globe. These powers in their military and politics were achievable by the ideologies, or isms, in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. Liberalism, nationalism, and socialism helped shape the political and economical structure of the North America and Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth century.
Both sides desired a republican form of government. Each wanted a political system that would “protect the equality and liberty of the individuals from aristocratic privilege and…tyrannical power.” (404) However, the north and south differed greatly in “their perceptions of what most threatened its survival.” (404) The secession by the south was an attempt to reestablish republicanism, as they no longer found a voice in the national stage. Prior to the 1850s, this conflict had been channeled through the national political system. The collapse of the two-party system gave way to “political reorganization and realignment,” wrote Holt. The voters of the Democrats shifted their influence toward state and local elections, where they felt their concerns would be addressed. This was not exclusively an economically determined factor. It displayed the exercise of agency by individual states. Holt pointed out, “[T]he emergence of a new two-party framework in the South varied from state to state according to the conditions in them.” (406) The “Deep South” was repulsed by the “old political process,” most Southerners trusted their state to be the safeguards of republicanism. (404) They saw the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln, a member of the “the anti-Southern Republican party,” as something the old system could not
Most of the reasons concerning agrarian discontent in the late nineteenth century stem from supposed threats posed by monopolies and trusts, railroads, money shortages and the demonetization of silver, though in many cases their complaints were not valid. The American farmer at this time already had his fair share of problems, perhaps even perceived as unfair in regards to the success industrialized businessmen were experiencing. Nevertheless, crops such as cotton and wheat, which were once the staples of an agricultural society, were selling at such low prices that it was nearly impossible for farmers to make a profit off them, especially since some had invested a great deal of money in modern equipment that would allow them to produce twice as many goods. Furthermore, improvements in transportation allowed foreign competition to emerge, making it harder for American Farmers to not only dispose of surplus crop, but to transport crops period. Finally, years of drought in the Midwest and the degeneration of business in the 1890's devastated many of the nation's farmers, and as a result of this agricultural depression' many farm groups, most notably the Populist Party, arose to fight what farmers saw as the reasons for the decline of agriculture.
Analysis of the Main Strengths and Weaknesses of Marx’s Sociological Thought “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles” Marx and Engels (1967, p.67) Born in 1818, Karl Marx, using his philosophical and socialist ideas, attempted to show how conflict and struggle in social development were important in the development of a society. The works of Marx were influenced by three distinct intellectual traditions: German idealist philosophy, French socialism and British political economy. German idealist philosophy is an approach based on the thesis that only the mind and its content really exist. This philosophy maintains that it is through the advance of human reason that human beings progress. French socialism is a political doctrine that emerged during the French Revolution and emphasised social progress led by a new industrial class.
Karl Marx noted that society was highly stratified in that most of the individuals in society, those who worked the hardest, were also the ones who received the least from the benefits of their labor. In reaction to this observation, Karl Marx wrote The Communist Manifesto where he described a new society, a more perfect society, a communist society. Marx envisioned a society, in which all property is held in common, that is a society in which one individual did not receive more than another, but in which all individuals shared in the benefits of collective labor (Marx #11, p. 262). In order to accomplish such a task Marx needed to find a relationship between the individual and society that accounted for social change. For Marx such relationship was from the historical mode of production, through the exploits of wage labor, and thus the individual’s relationship to the mode of production (Marx #11, p. 256).
In the 19th century most nationalists also believed in liberalism. Liberals saw the people as the ultimate source of all good government. Also, they agreed that the benefits of self-government would be possible only if the people were united by common traditions that transcended class and local interests. Thus, individual liberty and love of a free nation greatly overlapped. One of the most famous liberal nationalist in the 19th century was Giuseppe Mazzini. In 1860, Mazzini released An Essay on the Duties of Man Addressed to Workingmen, and states that a man's primary duty is to humanity and his family, the next duty, following closely, is to his country and to unity. He declares that united, independent countries are the highest order of
Western civilizations took on many changes during the so called “long” 19th century (1789-1914). These changes were all thought out to be for the better. Some turned out productive and some did not, but even the mistakes led to progress. Sometimes you have to take two steps back to take three steps forward. Continuous progress only exists through setbacks because you have to know what is not right or not working in order to fix something. During this time of progressivism (political direction in favor of progress for a better future), breakthroughs in understanding of freedom, economic productivity, government roles, gender positions, entertainment, communication, and science and technology to improve standard of living altered western civilization. Western Civilization did experience unbridled and continuous progress in all significant aspects of life because of the social, economic, intellectual, and political advances that were put forth.