Bountiful reforms took the United States by the neck in the eighteen hundreds. The beginning of the industrial revolution sent agriculture and manufacturing industries skyrocketing, as well as increasing the need for workers. The social structure of the country shifted as mass amounts of immigrants moved to the United States. The social, political, and economic changes of the eighteen hundreds made the United States the way it is today in the twenty-first century.
The potato famine in Ireland from 1845-1852 sent thousands of poor farmers to America in hope of finding jobs. The Irish were overly dependent on the potato for a means of income, so when it faltered, so did their source of income. In America, the Irish worked in factories with
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extremely poor conditions with very little pay. They worked in such poor conditions because they needed jobs and no one else would work in such labor intensive jobs. The large influx of desperate workers drove the pay down, and made “native” Americans bitter about the lack of opportunity. As the Irish worked in jobs that most people did not want, they found themselves in some positions of power in the cities such as being policemen or working voting booths. The Irish gained control of Tammany Hall in New York, where they would make life difficult for those who did not vote for whom the Irish wanted them to. The sheer numbers of the Irish population made them good targets for politicians. The politicians would use the Irish’s hatred for Britain to gain their support in local and national elections. This gave them a certain amount of power in the United States government. The minority groups in the united States altered the system of how the country was being run by taking jobs and supporting certain politicians that perhaps would have not been popular otherwise. The debate between states rights and the federal government began to heat up in the eighteen hundreds. The topic had been a problem since the beginning of the United States, but larger conflicts erupted in the 1800’s. In 1832, South Carolina declared that the Tariff of 1828 and the Tariff of 1832, both federal tariffs, would be nullified and not relevant within the state of South Carolina. This caused problems because South Carolina argued that the tariffs were unconstitutional and that they have the right to decide what the laws are for their state. However, it had not been brought into the spotlight if a state could nullify something that the federal government had made a law. President Jackson, even though he was a states rights activist, forced South Carolina to make the tariffs valid within their state. He knew that if the states felt that they could ignore the federal government as they pleased, there was no point of having a union to keep all the states aligned with each other. The continuous battle between states rights activists and strong federal government advocates effected todays government because the Nullification crisis of 1832 showed that states could not completely disregard what the federal government had laid out. The Whig party was established in 1834 and was the foundation for the eighteen hundreds version of the Republican party.
The Whigs were created out of opposition for President Jackson and did not share the same ideas as the Democrats. The Whigs supported a strong central government, a national bank, protection tariffs, and federally funded projects. The Whigs had two presidents; Zachary Taylor and William Henry Harrison. However, both presidents died relatively soon into the first term as president. The lack of a Whig presence in the executive branch never let the Whigs get a firm foothold in politics. The Whigs were a prominent political party from about 1834-1856. After the demise of the party, it allowed for the Republican party to take their place. The two most prominent political parties in the United States today are the Democrats and the Republicans, which was only made possible by the death of the Whig party.
Todays government, society, and the economy were molded into what they are today by the drastic changes made in the eighteen hundreds. The introduction of different racial groups forced changes in society, but especially in the economy and politics. States rights versus federal government is still an issue today, but events such as the nullification crisis in 1832 shaped some ideas. The political parties that are the most paramount today are the Republicans and the Democrats, which are the most prominent because of the demise of the Whig party in the
1850’s.
The Jacksonian Democrats and Whigs were predominantly opposing forces in the 1830-1840’s; however, one can see instances where they worked together in certain Political and Economic issues. Economically, the Jacksonian Democrats were against the National Bank and Protective Tariff, while the Whigs supported it, and politically, the Jacksonian Democrats were more liberal, calling for the rapid expansion and growth of the country and slavery while the Whigs were more conservative on the issues of Manifest Destiny and slavery. Jacksonian Democrats were essentially greatly Anti-Federalist, supporting law and actions that reduce the amount of power of the federal government, while the Whigs were mainly federalists who supported the federal government and sought to make it stronger through their various economic and political policies.
Both constitutional and social developments greatly changed the United States to a revolutionary proportion between 1860 and 1877. The new amendments and the fight for civil rights altered the previous way of life and forever changed American society. Inequality, fear, and corruption sent the United States into turmoil that would transform the country and lead to a revolution of change.
The first political parties in America began to form at the end of the 18th century. "The conflict that took shape in the 1790s between the Federalists and the Antifederalists exercised a profound impact on American history." The two primary influences, Thomas Jefferson a...
When discussing change in the late 1800’s a few things come to mind, but the progression of capitalism was a major catalyst for most of them. Capitalism is an economic system of free market. It promotes private or corporate ownership of goods from investments based upon price, production, and distribution of goods. This new idea tended to promise wealth and stability, but when the distinction between the working lower class and bourgeoisie became more evident, people were irritated. Capitalism began to exploit the greed in man and bring fear to the strongest of wills. Many dreamed of this as the golden age of man kind and saw new prosperity as a benefit for all “for how could there be greed when all had enough.”(George, p.21) Poverty spread through the working class like disease and forced millions of Americans to fight for survival. In a trip to Chicago Rudyard Kipling furiously describes the dreary, money driven conditions that consumed the earth, water, and air. “I spent ten hours in that huge wilderness, wandering through scores of miles of these terrible streets, and jostling some few hundred thousand of these terrible people who talked money through their noses....
As the young colonies of America broke away from their mother country and began to grow and develop into an effective democratic nation, many changes occurred. As the democracy began to grow, two main political parties developed, the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Federalists. Each party had different views on how the government should be run. The Jeffersonian Republicans believed in strong state governments, a weak central government, and a strict construction of the Constitution. The Federalists opted for a powerful central government with weaker state governments, and a loose interpretation of the Constitution. Throughout the years, the political parties have grown, developed, and even dispersed into totally new factions. Many of the inconsistencies and changes can be noted throughout the presidencies of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
There have been many different parties surface since the beginning of the American political system. They all have had different thoughts, policies, and motivations. Each party has their own agenda some have made significant contributions and others have not. The first split, and beginning of the party system, came with the variation between the Federalists and the Democratic Republicans. These two parties were extremely different in thought, strategies, and status of people involved such as their leaders and believes on how to run the government. The Federalists worked to create a stronger national government, supported British in foreign affairs, and favored a national bank. The Democratic-Republican Party operated to advocate states’ rights, supported the French in foreign affairs and opposed a national bank. These are some of the differences that set apart these two major government Parties.
The years after the civil war left one half of America, the north, satisfied and the other half, the south, mostly dissatisfied. Therefore the last third of the nineteenth century, 1865-1900, was a time period in which America was mending, repairing, improving, reshaping, and reconstructing its society, economy, culture, and policies. Basically it was changing everything it stood for. This continual change can be seen in the following events that took place during this time. These events are both causes and effects of why America is what it is today. These are some examples: the reconstruction of the south, the great movement towards the west, the agricultural revolution, the rise of industrialism, the completion of the transcontinental railroad, and America's growth to gaining world power. All of these are reasons and events that characterize America as being an ever-changing nation.
...d. The Whig and Democratic parties developed as national parties, they advocated throughout the nation, regardless of the regional and sessional differences between the supporters. Due to the economic changes, it affected many of the territories in the United States. For example, the North and the Great Lakes economy, and the East-West economy was growing as well, which strengthened relations with Border States and the North. Unlike the North, the South struggled the workers and the poverty-stricken farmers felt excluded from the new exchanges that were being made by the Democrats. Both Parties battled each other over economical issues, both of the parties had supporters throughout the entire country and stayed devoted to the idea of a unified nation. Since the parties shared interest leaders from the North and South to work together and work through sectional issues.
The Irish began immigrating to North America in the 1820s, when the lack of jobs and poverty forced them to seek better opportunities elsewhere after the end of the major European wars. When the Europeans could finally stop depending on the Irish for food during war, the investment in Irish agricultural products reduced and the boom was over. After an economic boom, there comes a bust and unemployment was the result. Two-thirds of the people of Ireland depended on potato harvests as a main source of income and, more importantly, food. Then between the years of 1845 and 1847, a terrible disease struck the potato crops. The plague left acre after acre of Irish farmland covered with black rot. The failure of the potato yields caused the prices of food to rise rapidly. With no income coming from potato harvests, families dependent on potato crops could not afford to pay rent to their dominantly British and Protestant landlords and were evicted only to be crowded into disease-infested workhouses. Peasants who were desperate for food found themselves eating the rotten potatoes only to develop and spread horrible diseases. ¡§Entire villages were quickly homeless, starving, and diagnosed with either cholera or typhus.¡¨(Interpreting¡K,online) The lack of food and increased incidents of death forced incredible numbers of people to leave Ireland for some place which offered more suitable living conditions. Some landlords paid for the emigration of their tenants because it made more economic sense to rid farms of residents who were not paying their rent. Nevertheless, emigration did not prove to be an antidote for the Famine. The ships were overcrowded and by the time they reached their destination, approximately one third of its passengers had been lost to disease, hunger and other complications. However, many passengers did survive the journey and, as a result, approximately ¡§1.5 million Irish people immigrated to North America during the 1840¡¦s and 1850¡¦s.¡¨(Bladley, online) As a consequence of famine, disease (starvation and disease took as many as one million lives) and emigration, ¡§Ireland¡¦s population dropped from 8 million to 5 million over a matter of years.¡¨(Bladley, online) Although Britain came to the aid of the starving, many Irish blamed Britain for their delayed response and for centuries of political hardship as basi...
During the late 1700’s, the United States was no longer a possession of Britain, instead it was a market for industrial goods and the world’s major source for tobacco, cotton, and other agricultural products. A labor revolution started to occur in the United States throughout the early 1800’s. There was a shift from an agricultural economy to an industrial market system. After the War of 1812, the domestic marketplace changed due to the strong pressure of social and economic forces. Major innovations in transportation allowed the movement of information, people, and merchandise.
Political parties, like interest groups, are organized groups that effort to influence the government by electing their associates to important government offices. The first party system appeared in the 1970s and pitted the federalist beside the Jeffersonian Republican. Over the years, the federalists progressively weakened and disappeared altogether after the pro-British sympathies of some Federalist leaders for the duration of the War of 1812 led to charges of betrayal against the party. From the collapse of the federalist until 1830s, American had only one political party, the Jeffersonian Republicans, who gradually came to be known as the Democrats. There was strong factional conflict within the Democratic Party, principally between the
A party system is the concept that political parties in a democratic country have basic similarities: they control the government, have a stable base of mass popular support, and create internal mechanisms for controlling funding, information and nominations. From 1789 to the 1890’s, the United States had three party systems.
During the mid 1840’s, blight in the potato crops in Ireland caused widespread starvation and migration of Irish citizens to the United States. Yet, the massive loss of life and massive exodus could have been avoided if British taxation upon the working class of Ireland was nullified. Though the struggle for liberation was already taking place, the potato famine furthered the cause and helped spread awareness. Furthermore, the potato famine made the average Irish family more reliant upon the government for subsidies and supports to get by.
The industrial revolution reshaped America’s cities, society and way of life in the 1800’s. America is what it is today because of this shift from farmers, craftsmen, and merchants to factory workers, working middle class, and the wealthy class. News ways of transporting goods by using canals, steamboats and trains helped jump start the revolution. The invention of the cotton gin reshaped American slavery, shifting it to the Deep South. The rise of factories led to a new working class of semi-skilled and unskilled workers. All three of these things are responsible for the industrial revolution and bring America in the modern world of today.
The developments in transportation changed the American economy and society from 1820 to 1860 in ways of an increased land value, faster traded goods, new cities, and a deeper sense of nationalism. Before these changes came about, the US economy and society was based on an agrarian setting. After this time frame, American Society turned into a capitalist marketplace. In the northern US, there were few changes in terms of industry because they were involved in an industrial revolution. However, the new Transportation Revolution blasted the West into an agricultural empire that provided consumable exports to the other parts of the country.