Court Cases

(1803) Marbury v. Madison

• William Marbury (one of Adams' midnight appointments), sued Secretary of State Madison to force
delivery of his commission as a justice of the peace in the federal district; Marshall would not rule on it,
because he said the law that gave the Supreme Court power to rule over such matter was unconstitutional
• established the policy of judicial review over federal legislation
• Precedent of the Supreme Court's power to rule on the constitutionality of federal laws

(1810) Fletcher v. Peck

• Georgia legislature issued extensive land grants to Yazoo Land Company; afterwards, it was
considered corrupt, so there was a legislative session that repealed the action
• Court ruled that the original contract was valid and could not be broken

(1819) Dartmouth College v. Woodward

• Republicans back the president of the college, Federalists backed the trustees
• president try to make it a public institution (instead of private) by having the charter revoked
• ruled that even though charter was granted by the king, it was still a contract and thus could not be
changed without the consent of both parties

(1819) McCulloch v. Maryland

• state of MD tried to levy a tax on the Baltimore branch of the Bank of the United States (to protect
the competitive position of state banks)
• ruled against state, b/c state had no right to control an agency of the federal gov't

(1824) Gibbons v. Ogden

• NY state had granted monopoly to Ogden of Hudson River. Gibbons obtained a permit from
Congress to operate steamboat there
• Ogden sued, and state ruled in his favor
• Marshall ruled that it was interstate commerce and could not be regulated by a state (only Congress
could) - the monopoly was then voided

(1831) Cherokee Nation v. Georgia

• Court refused to hear case, which the Cherokees brought forward, b/c GA had abolished their tribal
legislature and courts (said that because the tribe was a "foreign nation, the decision should be made by
the Supreme Court)
• Marshall said they really were not foreign nations (they just had special status)

(1832) Worcester v.Georgia

• GA state gov't said any US citizen who wanted to enter Cherokee territory had to obtain permission
from the governor
• GA law was overturned, b/c the federal gov't had the constitutionally mandated role of regulating
trade with the tribes
• Jackson said of Marshall "John Marshall has made his decision. Now let him enforce it"

(1842) Prigg v. Pennsylvania

• Court ruled that states did not have to enforce the return of fugitive slaves
• Chief Justice Roger B. Taney (MD) - Pro-South

(1842) Commonwealth v. Hunt

• Massachusetts Supreme Court ruled that unions and strikes were legal

(1856) Dred Scott v. Sanford

• Dred Scott, (slave from Missouri), had been taken to Illinois (a free state) by his owner for several
years, so he sued for his freedom
• ruled that he, as a slave, was not a slave, and could not sue in court

(1877) Munn v. Illinois

• upheld Granger Laws that regulated railroads

(1886) Wabash Case (Wabash, St.Louis, and Pacific Railroad Co. v. Illinois)

• ruled one of the Granger laws in Illinois was unconstitutional because it tried to control interstate
commerce, which was a power of Congress only
• restricted state regulation of commerce

(1895) United States v. E.C. Knight Co.

• Congress charged that a single trust controlled 98% of refined sugar manufacturing in the US, but
Court rejected case because trust was involved in manufacturing, NOT interstate commerce (which was
what Congress could control), so, trust was not illegal
• weakened Sherman Antitrust Act

(1896) Plessy v. Ferguson

• ruled that segregation was allowed, as long as the facilities were "separate but equal"

(1898) Williams v. Mississippi

• Court allowed literacy tests for voting

(1944) Korematsu v. United States

1. Roosevelt's 1942 order that Issei and Nisei be relocated to concentration camps was challenged
• Court upheld it

(1944) Smith v. Allwright

• Supreme Court stopped the Texas primary elections because they had violated the 15th
amendment by being restricted only to whites

(1950) Sweatt v. Painter

• ruled that blacks must be allowed to attend integrated law schools in OK and TX

(1954) Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

• NAACP lawyer Thurgood Marshall challenge decision from Plessy v. Ferguson

• Court ruled that the separate educational facilities were not equal
• 1955 - said states must "integrate with great speed"
• **(note: when Court announces Brown II decision, Montgomery bus boycotts began)

(1957) Roth v. United States

• greatly limited the authority of local governments to curb pornography

(1962) Engel v. Vitale

• ruled that prayers in public schools were unconstitutional

(1962) Baker v. Carr

• required state legislatures to apportion electoral districts so that all citizens votes would have equal
weight

(1966) Miranda v. Arizona

• confirmed the obligation of authorities to inform a criminal suspect of his or her rights

(1971) Swann v. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education

• Court ruled in favor of forced busog to achieve racial balance in schools

(1972) Furman v. Georgia

• overturned existing capital punishment statutes and established strict new guidelines for such
laws in the future

(1973) Roe v. Wade

• based on new theory of constitutional "right to privacy" (first recognized in Grizwold v. Connecticut)
• invalidated all laws prohibiting abortions during the first trimester of pregnancy

(1989) Webster v. Reproductive Health Services

• Court upheld a law from Missouri that prohibited public employees from performing abortions,
unless the life of the mother was threatened
• because of this decisions, some states tried to create similar laws
 Political Parties

American Independent Party

George Wallace announced on February 8, 1968 that he would run for president as the
candidate of the American Independent Party; shortly afterward, he found a running mate,
General Curtis E. LeMay, former Air Force chief of staff. His appeal was to racist Democrats in
the South where many democratic candidates supported him. Outside the South various
rightist groups helps, but it was his appeal to the dissatisfied that threatened to make serious
inroads to the old party strength.

He offered an antifederal government, pro-state rights and a law-and-order platform with

racism inside the wrapper. He derided intellectuals who he called "pointed heads," beatniks,
the Supreme Court, bureaucrats, school busing, "national lbieral parties," pollsters, and the
national news media. The party polled 10 million votes, or 13.5% of the total national vote,
the highest percentage for a third party since 1924.

In 1972, with Rep. John Schmitz (R-Calif.) heading the ticket, the party received 1,080,670
votes. The remnants of the Wallace movement split in 1976; Lester Maddox (American
Independent) and Thomas Anderson (American) polled 170,000 and 160,000 votes. At the
present, the American Independent party still exists in some states, as California, where it is
under the coalition of the U. S. Taxpayers Party at the present day.

American Party
The Free soil party, a political party organized in 1848 on a platform opposing the extension of
slavery, was rooted in the growing conflict between proslavery and antislavery forces in the
United States. The conflict was intensified by the acquisition of new territories from Mexico
and the ensuing argument whether or not slavery would be permitted into those territories.
The party evolved from antislavery and otherwise discontented elements in the Democratic
and Whig parties. It was eclipsed in the early 1850's by the new Republican Party, which
incorporated free soil goals.

American Party is the name of several political in United States history. The first established
American party—also called the Know-Nothing party was founded in New York City in 1849 as
a secret patriotic organization under the name of the Order of the Star Spangled Banner.

Know-Nothing Movement, a nativist political movement in the United States in the 1850's. It
was organized to oppose the great wave of immigrants who entered the United States after
1846. Know-Nothings claimed that the immigrants—who were principally Irish and Roman
Catholic threatened to destroy the American experiment. The Roman Catholic church, they
charged, was subservient to a foreign prince (the pope), it was growing in power, and it
potentially could exert political control over a large group of people. Such nativist sentiments
had long existed among many Americans, but they had never before been expressed in such
powerful form.
In several Northern states as early as the 1840's there were local nativist parties that drew
support from the Democratic and Whig parties. By the early 1850's there was a trend to
organize nationally against the presumed immigrant threat. The old parties, the nativists said,
had not confronted the danger. The Democrats, it was charged, were supported by the aliens;
the party needed their votes and catered to their whims. The Whigs appeared helpless before
them.

Originally, nativist party members had worked through a number of secret societies,
clandestinely throwing their support on election day with powerful effect to sympathetic
candidates. Saying that they knew nothing about such activities, the nativists wreaked havoc
with their votes in 1854 in the existing party system. They won sweeping victories at the state
and congressional levels. They attracted many Northern Whigs to their point of view along
with an important number of Democrats. Southern Whigs also joined because of growing
sectional tensions caused by the reintroduction of the slavery issue into national politics in
1854. For a time it seemed as if the Know-Nothings would be the main opposition party in the
United States. Publicly backing Millard Fillmore as a presidential candidate in 1856, they won
more than 21% of the popular vote and eight electoral votes.

Their platform was inspired by the fear and resentment of native Protestants at the flood of
the Roman Catholic immigrants from Europe, and chiefly Ireland, who, on obtaining
naturalization, voted themselves into political office in large cities. Their state and national
platforms demanded that immigration be limited, that politics be "purified" by limiting
officeholding to native-born Americans, and that a 21-year wait be imposed before an
immigrant could become a citizen and vote. They also sought to limit the sale of liquor, to
restrict public-school teaching to Protestants, and to have the Protestant version of the Bible
read daily in classrooms.

Despite their strength and appeal, the Know-Nothings were already in decline as a national
party by 1856. Beset by differences over the slavery issue, many members joined the
Republican Party, which seemed sympathetic to much of their nativism and offered additional
appeals on other important issues. Know-Nothing parties remained strong in a number of
Northern states in the late 1850's, but the party was spent as a national force before the
election of 1860.

Essentially, the party’s tenets were those of the American Republican Party founded a few
years earlier which had subsequently changed its name to the Native American Party. Among
other parties so named was one organized in Philadelphia in 1887. At the convention held in
Washington, D.C., on August 14, 1888 it nominated presidential candidates. The party
platform advocated 14-year residence for naturalization, exclusion of socialists, anarchists and
other supposedly dangerous persons, free schools, a strong navy and coastal defense,
continued separation of church and state, and enforcement of the Monroe doctrine. Its
candidate, James L. Curtis of New York, recieved only 1,591 votes at the November election.
In the 1924 elections a similarly named party sought Ku Klux Klan support for its candidates,
Gilbert O. Nations for president and C.H. Randall for vice president, nominated at Columbus,
Ohio on June 3. This party also gained a negligible fraction of the vote.

Anti-Masonic Party
Timeframe:
1
The Anti-Masonic party was founded in 1827-28, chiefly as a result of the mysterious
disappearance of Willam Morgan of Batavia, New York, a Freemason, who was planning to
publish a book which revealed the secrets of the order. Morgan, an iternant worker, was
arrested in 1826 and charged with stealing and indebtedness, apparently as pretext for seizing
him. He was convicted and jailed, reportedly kidnapped shortly afterward. This incident
touched off an Anti-masonic movement.

Although secret societies in general were frowned upon by early 19th century Americans, the
Freemasons long continued exempt from criticism, perhaps because George Washington and
other statesmen and soldiers of the Revolutionary period had been Masons. Indeed, in the first
quarter of the 19th century membership is a Masonic lodge was almost a necessity for political
preferment. In 1826, general approval of Masonry suffered a sudden, dramatic reversal as the
Morgan incidend came to an end.

It was popularly believed, although never proved, that fellow Masons had murdered Morgan.
Masonry in New York received a nearly mortal blow, membership dwindling in the decade
1826-1836 from 20,000 to 3,000.

Opponents of Freemasonry, including sections of the press, churches, and antislavery

elements, joined together in the condemnation of the order. Thurlow Weed, publisher of the
Rochester Telegraph and the Anti-Masonic Inquirer, led the press attack on Free-masonry and
endorsed anti-Masonic candidates for New York State offices in the election of 1827. When
fifteen of these candidates were elected to the state Assembly, an anti-Masonic party formed
in 1828 and held its first convention.

The Anti-Masonic Party, formed in New York in 1828, reflected the widespread hostility toward
Masons holding public office. Thurlow Weed in 1828 established in Rochester, N.Y., his Anti-
Masonic Enquirer and two years later obtained financial backing for his Albany Evening
Journal, which became the chief party organ. There was a rapid proliferation of anti-Masonic
papers, especially in the Eastern states. By 1832 there were 46 in New York and 55 in
Pennsylvania.

The Anti-Masonic Party was the first party to hold a nominating convention and the first to
announce a platform. On Sept. 26, 1831, convening in Baltimore, it nominated William Wirt of
Maryland for the presidency and Amos Ellmaker of Pennsylvania for the vice presidency. The
political effect of the entrance, for the first time, of a third party into a United States
presidential election was to draw support from Henry Clay and to help President Andrew
Jackson (who was a Mason) win reelection by a wide margin. Vermont gave the party seven
electoral votes and elected an Anti-Masonic governor, William A. Palmer. The party also gained
members in Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New Jersey, and Ohio.

After the elections of 1836, however, the Anti-Masonic party declined. Together with the
National Republican Party, it eventually was absorbed into the new Whig Party. It did win a
considerable amount of seats in the 23rd congress and survived until 1834 when several
prominent leaders founded the Whig Party or switched to the Democratic Party.

Constitutional Union Party

Timeframe:
1

The Free soil party, a political party organized in 1848 on a platform opposing the extension of
slavery, was rooted in the growing conflict between proslavery and antislavery forces in the
United States. The conflict was intensified by the acquisition of new territories from Mexico
and the ensuing argument whether or not slavery would be permitted into those territories.
The party evolved from antislavery and otherwise discontented elements in the Democratic
and Whig parties. It was eclipsed in the early 1850's by the new Republican Party, which
incorporated free soil goals.

The Constitutional Union Party was a short lived political party formed chiefly of the remnants
of the American Party and the old-line southern wing of the Whig Party, organized for the
election of 1860. Persuaded that the agitation over the slavery question could lead only to the
disruption of the Union, its founders presented no platform other than a vague appeal for
adherence to the Constitution, the Union, and the laws of the United States.

Meeting in Baltimore in May 1860, the party had its founding convention, and nominated John
Bell of Tennessee for president and Edward Everett of Massachusetts for vice president. The
formation of the party was prompted by the desire to muster popular sentiment in favor of the
Union and against southern secession. The platform adopted by the party advocated support
for "the Constitution of the country, the union of the States, and the enforcement of the laws,"
but took no stand on the slavery issue.

At the convention, where it was called "National Union" in the invitations, John Bell was
selected over Sam Houston of Texas, who was the favorite of the American contingent, and
Edward Everett was selected for the vice presidential nomination, which he did not want

In the North the Bell movement attracted remnants of the "Americans" and old Whigs. The
failure of Fillmore in 1856 and the new-found conservatism of the Republicans caused many
former Whigs such as Thomas Ewing of Ohio to support "Lincoln, the Whig" and the Whig
policies in the Republican platform.

In the November election the Constitutional Union party found its greatest strength among
conservatives in the border states, where the effects of civil conflict were especially feared,
although the ticket was supported throughout the nation. The party carried Virginia, Kentucky,
and Tennessee.

Bell trailed the Republican candidate, Abraham Lincoln, and the two Democratic nominees,
Stephen A. Douglas and John C. Breckinridge, receiving 591,658 popular votes (only 12.6% of
the total). He carried the states of Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee with 39 electoral votes.
Leaders of the party, in the ensuing months, called for reconciliation of the sections through a
compromise of the slavery issue, but without success.

With the coming of the Civil War the Constitutional Union Party disappeared from the political
scene, as the party was dissolved.

Democratic Party
Timeframe:
1

In the 1830s, under the starkly new leadership of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the
Democratic party developed the characteristics it retained until the end of the century. It was
willing to use national power in foreign affairs when American interests were threatened, but
in economic and social policy it stressed the responsibility to act cautiously. Democrats argued
that the federal government should do nothing the states could do for themselves, leaving
everything in control to the smallest denominator. Jackson, when president, acted to reinforce
a coalition, and built the foundations of the party.

In the presidential elections of 1824, the former war hero Andrew Jackson, despite receiving
the largest number of popular votes, had lost the election to the House of Representatives.
Rejecting "King Caucus" the Jacksonians were soon joined by Senator Martin Van Buren leader
of New York’s political machine. Thus the Jacksonians built an alliance between those on the
West and Eastern city organizations.

Thus the major source of the party’s cohesion was its strong organization, which enabled it to
fight in elections effectively and shape government decisions. The Democratic organization,
with its local, district, and statewide committees, conventions, and rallies, spread everywhere
to promote the party and principles, drawing up lists of voters. Jackson had to stradle Western
demands for internal improvements and Northeastern objections to large federal expenditures,
Northeastern demands for the protective tariff and Southern demands for tariff reduction, and
Calhoun’s view that any state could nullify a national law.

Calhouns followers, not intent to drop the issue, called a special state nullification convention
to proclaim the federal tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void within the jurisdiction of South
Carolina. However, Jackson responded with a proclamation declaring the federal government
sovereign and indivisible, thus denying that a state could refuse to obey the law. He received
from Congress a force bill that empowered him to use armed forces. Southern Democrats
began to split between pro-Calhoun nullifiers and pro-Jackson unionists. Problems erupted
with the slavery issue when it came to the annexation of Texas.

Van Buren’s administration hedged on Jackson’s unionist view by agreeing in part to a Calhoun
sponsored resolution which said that a state had jurisdiction over slavery within its borders.
However, slavery still remained an issue. Democrats spillet into two camps, the "barnburners"
and the "hunkers." The issue divided local as well as national Democrats; party leaders as
Lewis Cass and Stephen A. Douglas supported "squatter sovereignty". However, this did not
please Southern Democrats. The result was electoral disaster, as many northern Democrats,
seeking to punish their leaders, joined the emerging Republicans. These defections cost the
party northern support.

After the Southern Democrats seceded from the party and the nation, new factional groupings
emerged along East-West, war-peace, and mercantile-agrarian lines. National chairman
August Belmont of New York led the "War Democrats" in support of Lincoln’s conduct of the
war and "sound money programs." Representative Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio became
the spokesman for the "Peace Democrats" who criticized Lincoln’s conduct of the war. The
Democrats, in 1864 succeeded to nominating George B. McClellan, a Civil War general, for
president and giving him a peace platform to run on. President Lincoln in the mean time
recruited Governor Andrew Johnson of Tenesee, a war Democrat, for his vice-presidential
nominee.
The Republicans charged the Democrats for disloyalty, as they opposed the draft, social
changes and government encroachment, and made it an effective campaign slogan for the rest
of the century. The tactic, known as "waving the bloody shirt" always hurt the Democrats in
close elections until powerful emotional memories faded. They did not regain control of either
house of Congress until 1874, and the Presidency until 1884. As the minority party,
Democrats became absorbed in the problems of postwar inflation and agricultural depression.
Factional interests debated "hard" versus "soft" currency and credit policies. After a stalemate,
Horatio Symour agreed to a "soft money" platform while he was a "hard money" leader. From
this election emerged Samuel J. Tilden.

Without a leader, the Democrats turned to endorse the 1872 Liberal Republican nominee, who
had defected from Grant’s administration. The nominee turned out to be Horace Greeley.
Within two years, Tilden became the governor, and in the next election ran as the Democratic
nominee. Though he lost, Tilden was an instrumental factor in the winning candidacy of Grover
Cleveland.

Cleveland returned the Democrats to control of the White House after twenty-four years of
Republican rules. He oversized federal patronage to distribute. Around this time, party
fationalism got out of hand, as three groups fought for control in an increasingly harsh
atmosphere. One bloc comprised the traditional Democrats behind New York’s Grover
Cleveland; they still espoused the conventional policies of limited government activities. A
second group consisted of the urban political machines, which won the support of immigrants
by helping them adjust to conditions in the country. The third faction was made up of the
groups in the South and the West reacting against the industrial economy. Currency and tariff
policies became the major issues of the Cleveland era, complicated by a rising output of silver
mines, and the need to establish a balance between silver and gold currencies.

Cleveland struck hard for tariff reduction, but was opposed by Democratic protectionists.
Angry farmers wanted a shift of government intervention towards there behalf, but were
strongly resisted by traditionalists. They provoked a revolt and found William Jennings Bryan a
presidential candidate who overthrew Cleveland. William Jennings Bryan led the free silver
cause and was supported as well by the Peoples’ Party. The silverites dominated the national
convention, and the gold delegates refrained from voting. Bryan endeavored to forge an
alliance out of agrarian discontent in the South and Midwest.

At the beginning of the 20th century the Democrats’ minority among voters remained central
to their interest. However, a Progressive split in the Republican party helped elect Woodrow
Wilson twice. Wilson conceived his party leadership as a parliamentary role, shaping his
approach to his legislative program, which he promoted vigorously and successfully, and his
patronage and other organizational needs of his party. The Great War, popular at first,
backfired against the Wilson administration when large numbers of German-Americans and
Irish-Americans protested with their votes against involvement on the English side. The
national convention in 1924 was stalemated between the urban-ethnic wing and the older
Bryanite-southern groups.

Problems generated in the 18th Amendment set the "wets" against "drys." The South closed
ranks to deatlock the national convention of 1920. By 1924, "dry" Wilson, and "wet" Al Smith
were the leaders of two factions in the party. In 1928, the nomination of Irish Catholic Al
Smith broke the solid South, part of which went Republican for the first time ever in reaction
to the social and cultural values represented by Smith. Nevertheless, the first Catholic to be
nominated, he raised the Democratic turnout by a substantial percentage, particularly in large
cities.

In the mid-20th century, the basic character of the Democratic appeal began to change in a
gradual and then rapid manner. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Democrats became a party of
vigorous government intervention in the economy and on social issues, willing to regulate and
redistribute wealth to protect those least able to help themselves. Urban political machines
brought to the party a commitment to social welfare legislation to help immigrant
constituents.

The election came at a time of a grave national economic crisis; a disenfranchised public
looked to the Republicans as abandoning their interests while the Hoover presidency spent
money on private interests. Franklin D. Roosevelt brought the Democratic message to the
White House and solidified and expanded the new Democratic commitment to the poor ethnic
constituencies in city districts. Increasingly, under Democratic leadership, the government
expanded its role in social welfare and economic regulation. Traditional Democrats surged at
the polls and the party won over new groups, such as the blacks who had previously gone
Republican. The Result was a New Deal coalition which lasted in a dominant role for more than
30 years.

World War II witnessed a new factionalism, as the South prepared to reassert itself. Labor
unions now had potent vote getting capacity and urban Democratic machines were attempting
to modernize themselves. Roosevelt acquiesced to Southern pressures by withholding support
for Vice President Wallace, and instead giving the nomination to Harry S. Truman, who had
gained credibility and prominence through investigations of defense spending.

Truman had become president within a year, upon Roosevelt’s death. The reawakening of
memories of the New Deal and the depression President Truman’s campaign helped bring him
back for a second term. The Republican Congress, seeking to limit union activity, passed the
Taft-Hartley Act over Truman’s veto, gaining Truman support of union members. Truman also
appointed the Committee on Civil Rights to develop race-relations, but it so inflamed the
South that Democratic regulars in Southern states supported a Dixiecrat ticked led by Wallace.

At the next national convention, ideological New Dealers fought to establish a loyalty pledge
that would bind delegates to the convention’s choices. Despite efforts to avoid a candidacy,
Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois was the compromise choice over the sectional
candidacy of Richard B. Russel of Georgia and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. The
Republicans were victorious with their election of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stevenson however
made efforts to improve party organization and serve as an active spokesman. At the
grassroots level, urban machines were working to incorporate new constituents into the party.

The Democrats regained power with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and were able to
pass much vigorous legislation. Kennedy’s victory demonstrated that Catholicism need not be
the handicap that it was for Al Smith. The Kennedy-Johnson campaign conducted a thoroughly
united campaign that brought a narrow victory.

The 1960 election also brought a further breakup of the one-party solid South, as Kennedy’s
New Frontier program included new protections for civil rights in the South and for bringing
blacks into the ranks of the Democratic party. Robert F. Kennedy had a major responsibility
for the implementation of civil rights legislation and registration. Overseas, the Castro regime
of Cuba defeated an American-sponsored invasion by anti-Castro exiles at the Bay of Pigs.
Kennedy also increased Communist pressure on South Vietnam by sending military aid.

The Vietnam War provoked many to challenge it on its anti-Communist foreign policy. At the
same time, the revolt of the youth against the draft and on matters of personal behavior and
discipline contributed a strong challenge; at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in
1968, the police culminated in street battles with groups of protesters.

Many anti-war Democrats turned to the candidacy of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy,
as Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek renomination. New nominating rules,
inspired by the restlessness in the party, led to the nomination of George McGovern. His
campaign ended in overwhelming defeat, but the party bounced back after the excesses of
Watergate and the tapering off of the war induced fervor.

Former governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia swept the primaries and succeeded in unseating
President Gerald Ford in a close contest in which labor, blacks, and the South joined to bring a
Southerner to the presidency. The clash of social values, and changing economic issues shifted
the center of gravity within the party and continued to drive many away. Issues such as
inflation gravely hurt the party. Political parties at this time were in general decline, as fewer
voters remained loyal to them.

The Democrats, with a ticket of the former vice president Walter Mondale were defeated in the
1984 elections by a greater margin than in 1980, where Carter ran for reelection. The
Democrats lost more than a dozen seats in the House, and the Republicans maintained control
of the Senate. In the midterm elections of 1986, the Democrats won control of the Senate and
gained modestly in the House.

Although in 1988, the Democratic nominee for president, Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts
had chosen Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas as his running mate, the South and West carried
the Republicans to victory. However, the Democrats strengthened their hold in the House and
Senate.

In 1992, after twelve years of Presidential rule by the Republican parties, Governor Bill Clinton
of Arkansas was able to regain the Presidency for the party after winning over President
George Bush, blamed for an economic downturn, and Ross Perot. With the country in a
recession, the Democrats succeeded in rallying the public around a call for change and a
commitment to domestic jobs programs. Bill Clinton was able to pull off a reelection in 1996,
though his presidency was plagued with scandals and campaign finance problems. Apathetic
voters failed to pay attention to campaign, and missing the major issues, they handed the
President reelection. However, the 1994 midterm elections brought a stunning defeat to the
Democrats as the Republicans gained control over both hoses of Congress. Democratic support
in the South had eroded, but it showed dissatisfaction with Democratic rule nationwide.

Democratic Party
Timeframe:
1
In the 1830s, under the starkly new leadership of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren, the
Democratic party developed the characteristics it retained until the end of the century. It was
willing to use national power in foreign affairs when American interests were threatened, but
in economic and social policy it stressed the responsibility to act cautiously. Democrats argued
that the federal government should do nothing the states could do for themselves, leaving
everything in control to the smallest denominator. Jackson, when president, acted to reinforce
a coalition, and built the foundations of the party.

In the presidential elections of 1824, the former war hero Andrew Jackson, despite receiving
the largest number of popular votes, had lost the election to the House of Representatives.
Rejecting "King Caucus" the Jacksonians were soon joined by Senator Martin Van Buren leader
of New York’s political machine. Thus the Jacksonians built an alliance between those on the
West and Eastern city organizations.

Thus the major source of the party’s cohesion was its strong organization, which enabled it to
fight in elections effectively and shape government decisions. The Democratic organization,
with its local, district, and statewide committees, conventions, and rallies, spread everywhere
to promote the party and principles, drawing up lists of voters. Jackson had to stradle Western
demands for internal improvements and Northeastern objections to large federal expenditures,
Northeastern demands for the protective tariff and Southern demands for tariff reduction, and
Calhoun’s view that any state could nullify a national law.

Calhouns followers, not intent to drop the issue, called a special state nullification convention
to proclaim the federal tariffs of 1828 and 1832 null and void within the jurisdiction of South
Carolina. However, Jackson responded with a proclamation declaring the federal government
sovereign and indivisible, thus denying that a state could refuse to obey the law. He received
from Congress a force bill that empowered him to use armed forces. Southern Democrats
began to split between pro-Calhoun nullifiers and pro-Jackson unionists. Problems erupted
with the slavery issue when it came to the annexation of Texas.

Van Buren’s administration hedged on Jackson’s unionist view by agreeing in part to a Calhoun
sponsored resolution which said that a state had jurisdiction over slavery within its borders.
However, slavery still remained an issue. Democrats spillet into two camps, the "barnburners"
and the "hunkers." The issue divided local as well as national Democrats; party leaders as
Lewis Cass and Stephen A. Douglas supported "squatter sovereignty". However, this did not
please Southern Democrats. The result was electoral disaster, as many northern Democrats,
seeking to punish their leaders, joined the emerging Republicans. These defections cost the
party northern support.

After the Southern Democrats seceded from the party and the nation, new factional groupings
emerged along East-West, war-peace, and mercantile-agrarian lines. National chairman
August Belmont of New York led the "War Democrats" in support of Lincoln’s conduct of the
war and "sound money programs." Representative Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio became
the spokesman for the "Peace Democrats" who criticized Lincoln’s conduct of the war. The
Democrats, in 1864 succeeded to nominating George B. McClellan, a Civil War general, for
president and giving him a peace platform to run on. President Lincoln in the mean time
recruited Governor Andrew Johnson of Tenesee, a war Democrat, for his vice-presidential
nominee.
The Republicans charged the Democrats for disloyalty, as they opposed the draft, social
changes and government encroachment, and made it an effective campaign slogan for the rest
of the century. The tactic, known as "waving the bloody shirt" always hurt the Democrats in
close elections until powerful emotional memories faded. They did not regain control of either
house of Congress until 1874, and the Presidency until 1884. As the minority party,
Democrats became absorbed in the problems of postwar inflation and agricultural depression.
Factional interests debated "hard" versus "soft" currency and credit policies. After a stalemate,
Horatio Symour agreed to a "soft money" platform while he was a "hard money" leader. From
this election emerged Samuel J. Tilden.

Without a leader, the Democrats turned to endorse the 1872 Liberal Republican nominee, who
had defected from Grant’s administration. The nominee turned out to be Horace Greeley.
Within two years, Tilden became the governor, and in the next election ran as the Democratic
nominee. Though he lost, Tilden was an instrumental factor in the winning candidacy of Grover
Cleveland.

Cleveland returned the Democrats to control of the White House after twenty-four years of
Republican rules. He oversized federal patronage to distribute. Around this time, party
fationalism got out of hand, as three groups fought for control in an increasingly harsh
atmosphere. One bloc comprised the traditional Democrats behind New York’s Grover
Cleveland; they still espoused the conventional policies of limited government activities. A
second group consisted of the urban political machines, which won the support of immigrants
by helping them adjust to conditions in the country. The third faction was made up of the
groups in the South and the West reacting against the industrial economy. Currency and tariff
policies became the major issues of the Cleveland era, complicated by a rising output of silver
mines, and the need to establish a balance between silver and gold currencies.

Cleveland struck hard for tariff reduction, but was opposed by Democratic protectionists.
Angry farmers wanted a shift of government intervention towards there behalf, but were
strongly resisted by traditionalists. They provoked a revolt and found William Jennings Bryan a
presidential candidate who overthrew Cleveland. William Jennings Bryan led the free silver
cause and was supported as well by the Peoples’ Party. The silverites dominated the national
convention, and the gold delegates refrained from voting. Bryan endeavored to forge an
alliance out of agrarian discontent in the South and Midwest.

At the beginning of the 20th century the Democrats’ minority among voters remained central
to their interest. However, a Progressive split in the Republican party helped elect Woodrow
Wilson twice. Wilson conceived his party leadership as a parliamentary role, shaping his
approach to his legislative program, which he promoted vigorously and successfully, and his
patronage and other organizational needs of his party. The Great War, popular at first,
backfired against the Wilson administration when large numbers of German-Americans and
Irish-Americans protested with their votes against involvement on the English side. The
national convention in 1924 was stalemated between the urban-ethnic wing and the older
Bryanite-southern groups.

Problems generated in the 18th Amendment set the "wets" against "drys." The South closed
ranks to deatlock the national convention of 1920. By 1924, "dry" Wilson, and "wet" Al Smith
were the leaders of two factions in the party. In 1928, the nomination of Irish Catholic Al
Smith broke the solid South, part of which went Republican for the first time ever in reaction
to the social and cultural values represented by Smith. Nevertheless, the first Catholic to be
nominated, he raised the Democratic turnout by a substantial percentage, particularly in large
cities.

In the mid-20th century, the basic character of the Democratic appeal began to change in a
gradual and then rapid manner. In the 1930s and 1940s, the Democrats became a party of
vigorous government intervention in the economy and on social issues, willing to regulate and
redistribute wealth to protect those least able to help themselves. Urban political machines
brought to the party a commitment to social welfare legislation to help immigrant
constituents.

The election came at a time of a grave national economic crisis; a disenfranchised public
looked to the Republicans as abandoning their interests while the Hoover presidency spent
money on private interests. Franklin D. Roosevelt brought the Democratic message to the
White House and solidified and expanded the new Democratic commitment to the poor ethnic
constituencies in city districts. Increasingly, under Democratic leadership, the government
expanded its role in social welfare and economic regulation. Traditional Democrats surged at
the polls and the party won over new groups, such as the blacks who had previously gone
Republican. The Result was a New Deal coalition which lasted in a dominant role for more than
30 years.

World War II witnessed a new factionalism, as the South prepared to reassert itself. Labor
unions now had potent vote getting capacity and urban Democratic machines were attempting
to modernize themselves. Roosevelt acquiesced to Southern pressures by withholding support
for Vice President Wallace, and instead giving the nomination to Harry S. Truman, who had
gained credibility and prominence through investigations of defense spending.

Truman had become president within a year, upon Roosevelt’s death. The reawakening of
memories of the New Deal and the depression President Truman’s campaign helped bring him
back for a second term. The Republican Congress, seeking to limit union activity, passed the
Taft-Hartley Act over Truman’s veto, gaining Truman support of union members. Truman also
appointed the Committee on Civil Rights to develop race-relations, but it so inflamed the
South that Democratic regulars in Southern states supported a Dixiecrat ticked led by Wallace.

At the next national convention, ideological New Dealers fought to establish a loyalty pledge
that would bind delegates to the convention’s choices. Despite efforts to avoid a candidacy,
Governor Adlai E. Stevenson of Illinois was the compromise choice over the sectional
candidacy of Richard B. Russel of Georgia and Sen. Estes Kefauver of Tennessee. The
Republicans were victorious with their election of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Stevenson however
made efforts to improve party organization and serve as an active spokesman. At the
grassroots level, urban machines were working to incorporate new constituents into the party.

The Democrats regained power with the election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 and were able to
pass much vigorous legislation. Kennedy’s victory demonstrated that Catholicism need not be
the handicap that it was for Al Smith. The Kennedy-Johnson campaign conducted a thoroughly
united campaign that brought a narrow victory.

The 1960 election also brought a further breakup of the one-party solid South, as Kennedy’s
New Frontier program included new protections for civil rights in the South and for bringing
blacks into the ranks of the Democratic party. Robert F. Kennedy had a major responsibility
for the implementation of civil rights legislation and registration. Overseas, the Castro regime
of Cuba defeated an American-sponsored invasion by anti-Castro exiles at the Bay of Pigs.
Kennedy also increased Communist pressure on South Vietnam by sending military aid.

The Vietnam War provoked many to challenge it on its anti-Communist foreign policy. At the
same time, the revolt of the youth against the draft and on matters of personal behavior and
discipline contributed a strong challenge; at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in
1968, the police culminated in street battles with groups of protesters.

Many anti-war Democrats turned to the candidacy of Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy,
as Lyndon Johnson announced that he would not seek renomination. New nominating rules,
inspired by the restlessness in the party, led to the nomination of George McGovern. His
campaign ended in overwhelming defeat, but the party bounced back after the excesses of
Watergate and the tapering off of the war induced fervor.

Former governor Jimmy Carter of Georgia swept the primaries and succeeded in unseating
President Gerald Ford in a close contest in which labor, blacks, and the South joined to bring a
Southerner to the presidency. The clash of social values, and changing economic issues shifted
the center of gravity within the party and continued to drive many away. Issues such as
inflation gravely hurt the party. Political parties at this time were in general decline, as fewer
voters remained loyal to them.

The Democrats, with a ticket of the former vice president Walter Mondale were defeated in the
1984 elections by a greater margin than in 1980, where Carter ran for reelection. The
Democrats lost more than a dozen seats in the House, and the Republicans maintained control
of the Senate. In the midterm elections of 1986, the Democrats won control of the Senate and
gained modestly in the House.

Although in 1988, the Democratic nominee for president, Governor Dukakis of Massachusetts
had chosen Senator Lloyd Bentsen of Texas as his running mate, the South and West carried
the Republicans to victory. However, the Democrats strengthened their hold in the House and
Senate.

In 1992, after twelve years of Presidential rule by the Republican parties, Governor Bill Clinton
of Arkansas was able to regain the Presidency for the party after winning over President
George Bush, blamed for an economic downturn, and Ross Perot. With the country in a
recession, the Democrats succeeded in rallying the public around a call for change and a
commitment to domestic jobs programs. Bill Clinton was able to pull off a reelection in 1996,
though his presidency was plagued with scandals and campaign finance problems. Apathetic
voters failed to pay attention to campaign, and missing the major issues, they handed the
President reelection. However, the 1994 midterm elections brought a stunning defeat to the
Democrats as the Republicans gained control over both hoses of Congress. Democratic support
in the South had eroded, but it showed dissatisfaction with Democratic rule nationwide.

Federalist Party
Timeframe:
1
The Federalist Party was born out of the controversy over adoption of the proposed Federal
Constitution in 1787-1788, before the American party system itself had been conceived. A
well-defined Federalist party did not exist before 1794. After Washington's inauguration in
1789, debate arose in Congress and the cabinet over the proposals of Secretary of the
Treasury Alexander Hamilton, subsequently enacted into law, that the national government
assume state debts, fund the national debt at par value, and charter a national bank. The
opposition to Hamilton rallied around Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson and Congressman
James Madison.

Hamilton pushed through schemes for paying the foreign debt, restoring national credit, and
assuming state debts. A United States bank and postal system soon followed, as well as a
protective tariff and bounty system to develop manufactures and agriculture. The effortless
crushing of the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794 gave ample evidence of the new national strength.

In the meantime, the refusal of the Federalists to form an alliance with France had fused the
Democrats and the Republicans, the two opposition groups to which most of the Anti-
federalists belonged. Thomas Jefferson organized and James Madison joined the new
Democratic-Republican Party. Not until these congressional debates over Jay's Treaty of 1794
did two parties emerge clearly: the Federalist party led by Hamilton and the Democratic-
Republican party of Madison and Jefferson From then on, the Federalists championed
commercial and diplomatic harmony with Britain, domestic stability and order, and strong
national government under powerful executive and judicial branches.

The most influential of the Federalists besides Hamilton were John Adams and John Jay, and
Fisher Ames, Roger Sherman, Jonathan Trumbull, Rufus King, John Marshall, and the
members of the "Essex Junto".

By the end of his second term Washington had become closely identified with the Federalists.
Washington's Farewell Address of 1796, prepared in association with Hamilton, may be read
as a basic text of Federalism. Washington's vice president, John Adams, was elected president
as a Federalist in 1796. Adams retained Washington's cabinet officers and sought to continue
his predecessor's policies. He prosecuted an undeclared naval war with France, and after the
Federalists had gained control of Congress, he supported the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
But Adams met increasing opposition within his own party from the Hamilton faction,
especially over his military priorities.

When, as much to undercut mounting Democratic-Republican opposition as to end the war,

Adams opened negotiations with France in 1799 and reorganized the cabinet under his own
control, the Hamiltonians broke with him. His actions probably enhanced the Federalist party's
position in the presidential election of 1800 but not enough to defeat Jefferson.

The party was irreparably split. In the waning days of his presidency Adams was able to
conclude a peace with France and to appoint moderate Federalist John Marshall as chief
justice. Long after the party was dead, Marshall preserved its principles from the bench.

Finding themselves in the opposition, the Federalists at last created a well-disciplined system
of state party organizations and adopted the trappings of democracy in order to lure the
voters. Concentrated primarily in the Northeast, they also assumed more of the aspect of a
sectional minority. Neglecting ideological consistency and turning against their previous
commitment to strong national power, they opposed Jefferson's popular Louisiana Purchase of
1803 as too costly and destructive of Northern influence. As a result, they continued to lose
power at the national level, carrying only Connecticut, Delaware, and part of Maryland against
Jefferson in 1804.

Strong opposition of Jefferson’s Embargo Act, however, reinforced the Federalists. In 1808
they carried every New England state except Vermont, and also won in Delaware, in parts of
Maryland, and in North Carolina. Moreover, the War of 1812 proved so unpopular in the North
that in the elections that year, New York and New Jersey also voted Federalist, along with the
remainder of Maryland. This resurgence was only temporary, however, for when the war
ended, the northern commercial sections withdrew their support.

Meanwhile, many of the party’s old leaders were gone, leaving Rufus King and Charles C.
Pinckney leading the party. Other Federalist leaders, as a result of the Hartford Convention of
1814 had been driven from public life.

In 1816, the Federalists carried only Massachusetts, Connecticut and Delaware, and by 1820
when they failed to have a national candidate, they ceased as a national party. Locally,
Federalists managed to retain control in Connecticut and Delaware until after 1820 and in
Massachusetts until 1823. The party also lingered for some time in Maryland and North
Carolina.

Free-Soil Party
Timeframe:
1

The Free soil party, a political party organized in 1848 on a platform opposing the extension of
slavery, was rooted in the growing conflict between proslavery and antislavery forces in the
United States. The conflict was intensified by the acquisition of new territories from Mexico
and the ensuing argument whether or not slavery would be permitted into those territories.
The party evolved from antislavery and otherwise discontented elements in the Democratic
and Whig parties. It was eclipsed in the early 1850's by the new Republican Party, which
incorporated free soil goals.

Free soil became a political movement and slogan in the 1840's. Abolitionists in the North had
already stirred antislavery sentiment, and government plans for annexing Texas created fears
that this territory might enter the Union cut up into as many as six slave states. These fears
were reflected in the Wilmot Proviso of 1846. The achievement of the small abolitionist Liberty
party in defeating Henry Clay's presidential aspirations in 1844 demonstrated that political
abolitionism could be effective.

The refusal of the two parties, Whig and Democrat, to endorse principles of the provio
convinced the opposition groups of the need for a new party. The major groups involved in the
organization of the Free Soil party at a convention in Buffalo, New York, were the abolitionist
Liberty Party, the antislavery Whigs, and a radical faction of the New York Democrats, the
Barnburners, who had broken with the state party when it came under control of the
conservative Hunkers.
Led by Salmon P. Chase and John P. Hale, free-soilers, abolitionists, and others convened in
Buffalo, N.Y., in August 1848 to set up a broadly based party. Among those present were
discontented New York Democrats known as Barnburners," headed by former President Martin
van Buren, who became the convention's presidential nominee.

The Free soil convention nominated Martin van Buren and Charles Francis Adams as
candidates for president and vice-president, respectively, adopting a platform opposed to the
extension of slavery and calling for a homestead law and a tariff for revenue only. The slogan
of the party ws "free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men." Van Buren polled 291,616
votes in November; more important, the Free Soil party elected fourteen congressmen and
two senators. The Compromise of 1850 created more ardent free-soilers, who were outraged
by its fugitive slave provision and were generally fearful of the expansion of slavery westward.
Such increasing partisanship, however, did not help the Free Soil party itself. Hale, its
presidential candidate in 1852, polled only 156,297 votes.

By 1854 the crisis over slavery in the territories had reached proportions beyond the resources
of the party, and free-soilers flocked to the Republican party. The passage of the Kansas-
Nebraska Act and the duel over whether Kansas was to be a free or a slave state turned the
North irrevocably toward free soil. Finally, the Dred Scott Case of 1857, in which the U.S.
Supreme Court ruled, in effect, that slavery could not be constitutionally restricted to the
Southern states, made abolitionists out of most free-soilers and laid the ground for a final
confrontation with the slaveholders. Louis Filler Antioch College

Greenback-Labor Party
Timeframe:
1

The greenback idea came up again in March, 1875, when a national convention met at
Cleveland to organize a new party. This was soon followed by a nominating convention at
Indianapolis in May, 1876, which named Peter Cooper President. Its platform included the
repeal of the Resumption Act of 1875 and issuance of legal tender notes convertible into
government bonds with an interest rate not to exceed one cent a day per hundred dollars.
Peter Cooper was a well known philanthropist and did not lead much of a campaign.

In the next two years, the party grew rapidly and Labor Reformers had greatly aided the
cause and a conference at Toledo in February, 1878, arranged a farmer-labor partnership
under the name "National" party, but it became better known as the Greenback Labor Party.
In fall elections the third party won a million votes and fifteen members of Congress. The
Greenbacks sought labor support which called for an issuance of the greenback and a
bimetallistic money policy. The labor groups desired Greenback support for a reduction of
working hours, establishment of a labor bureau and a curtailment of Chinese immigration.

In the following year, economic conditions in the nation improved and interest in politics
among farmers and workers decreased. At the national convention in Chicago on June 9, 1889
agrarian and labor delegates, including members of a Socialist Labor party composed their
differences and adopted a platform.
The convention named for President General James B. Weaver of Iowa, who was a Civil War
veteran and a former Republican, elected to Congress in the Greenback wave of 1878. B.J.
Chambers of Texas was named for Vice President. Weaver made an active campaign, speaking
in all parts of the country and giving a leadership that it needed to dispel the impression it was
a refuge for radicals. The return of prosperity and the success of the Resumption Act however
removed agrarian and labor discontent. In the election they received only 308,578 votes, but
eight Greenback Labor candidates were elected to Congress. In the ensuing years the party
continued to decline. Its last national campaign was for the 1884 elections where it ran Civil
War general Benjamin Butler, winning 175,370 votes.

Libertarian Party
Timeframe:
1

The Libertarian Party was founded in 1971, on December 11th, in the home of David Nolan.
Dissillusioned Republicans, Democrats, and political newcomers hoped to create an alternative
to the old parties, standing on firm principles of individual freedoms and a commitment to
government non-intervention. The first national convention was later held in Denver,
Colorado. John Hospers, a philosophy professor at the University of Southern California, was
nominated as the presidential candidate, and the vice presidential candidate was Tonie
Nathan. She became the first woman in United States history to recieve an electoral vote.

The next national convention, in New York city, nominated Roger MacBride and David Bergland
on the presidential ticket; they were able to recieve ballot status in 32 states but still only
recieved a little amount of popular vote--common for third parties facing the system set up in
laws by the two established political parties. Two years later, Ed Clark, a Libertarian candidate
for Governor of California, recieved 5% of the vote, and Randolph of Alaska became the first
Libertarian legislator.

By 1980, the Libertarian party had recieved ballot status in all 50 states, and the party made
their most impressive showing, and were at this time first considered as a political force, albeit
one through ideology rather than political presence. The campaign by Ed Clark ran extensive
television advertisements, offering the public a look at what the libertarian party had to offer.
The next election, the Libertarian party made significant headway; the Louisiana congressional
candidate James Agnew recieved 23% of the vote, and the Alaskan gubernatorial candidate
Randolph recieved 13% of the vote. The Libertarian party continued to grow in a slow, painful
process. Former Congressman Ron Paul of the Republican Party left to join the Libertarian
party.

A decade later, in 1990, Libertarian congressional candidates were able to recieve up to about
twenty percent of the vote, but would still not be able to win. Yet, the Libertarian party was
proud that the Libertarian candidates for Senate recieved over one million votes, the highest
total for a nationally organized party since 1914. However, this was greatly dwarfed in 1996,
when in every race, candidates of the newly formed Reform Party came in third place, ahead
of every Libertarian candidate in the race.

In 1996, the Libertarian party ran Harry Browne as their presidential candidate, with running
mate Jo Jorgeson. This year, the Libertarian party recieved the most press coverage, as did all
third political parties, who gained significantly higher visibility since the founding of the Reform
Party by Ross Perot. The Libertarian candidate, along with other third party candidates were
allowed to speak on Larry King Live and in third party debates, being shut out from the
televised presidential debates. Yet, this increased visibility was not enough, and the
Libertarians still recieved less than one percent of the presidential vote nationwide.
Libertarians at this time were dissilusioned by the fact that they were overshadowed by the
new Reform Party, and many people with Libertarianistic positions joined the Reform Party
instead of them, who were increasingly called by the media, a "fringe group."

Liberty Party
Timeframe:
1

The Liberty Party was the first antislavery party, grown out of a split in the ranks of the
American Anti-Slavery Society between followers of William Lloyd Garrison’s radical program
and a conservative group which held that abolitionist aims could be best obtained by orthodox
political means.

The leading initiators of the anti-Garrison movement and the new party were the New York
philanthropists Gerrit Smith, Arthur Tappan, and Judge William Jay, and the Ohio antislavery
stalwart, Salmon P. Chase. At a state convention in Warsaw, New York on November 13,
1839, James G. Birney, an abolitionist crusader and one-time Alabama slave-holder, was
tentatively nominated the Liberty Party’s candidacy for president, with Francis J. Lemoyne for
vice president.

At a national convention in Albany, New York, on April 1, 1840, delegates from six states
confirmed the nominations, officially adopted the party name, and declared abolition of slavery
to be the single plank in its platform.

In the ensuing 1840 national elections, the Liberty party candidates polled only around seven
thousand votes, but thereafter the party nominated candidates for local elections and gained
strength. Since 1840 the Liberty party had gained recruits and newspaper support and was
becoming a threat to the two major parties in close northern states, where it aimed to swing
the balance of power. Birney was nominated again in November 1844 and ran with Thomas
Morris, this time polling 62,300 votes, which could have secured the election of Henry Clay,
but tipped it in favor of James K. Polk. When Texas became a major issue, the Liberty party
was in a difficult position; a heavy third party vote might reduce the Whig vote and elect Polk
over Clay, committed against Texas. Birney had accepted a Democratic nomination for the
Michigan legislature, making it seem as if there was a Liberty-Democratic bargain to defeat
Clay. Birney attempted to explain it in terms of local issues, but that hurt his candidacy. The
party was also hurt by a forged letter, appearing in Whig newspapers, where Birney promised
not to agitate the slavery issue.

In 1848, although the Liberty party had nominated John P. Hale and Leicester King, the party
leaders urged the members to vote for candidates of the newly organized Free Soil party
instead. Chase presided over Buffalo, New York for the convention of the Free Soil Party on
August 9, 1848, which led to the demise of the short lived Liberty party. As such, Hale
withdrew his candidacy.
National Republican Party
Timeframe:
1

While Jackson was establishing control over the Democratic Party, the opposition, assuming
the name National Republican began to form. In the campaign of 1828, these opposing groups
had no official names. Both were Democratic-Republicans and were distinguished by such
designations as "administration" and "opposition" or Adams men and Jackson men. About
1830 the term "National Republican" began to be used by the Clay following thus combining
the old party name with the adjective which suggested its policies.

The new National Republican group was having its troubles; the Adams-Clay group had never
been effectively organized into a party, and after the defeat in 1828 it lapsed into the status of
a discredited minority with little strength outside of New England, and only portions of the mid
Atlantic states and the Ohio valley could be regarded as fighting ground. National leadership
was supplied by the Senate, where Clay joined Webster in 1831. The National Intelligencer
was at the center of the opposition, edited by Joseph Gales and William W. Seaton. Soon after
Henry Clay had seized upon the Maysville veto, his presidential campaign was underway.

Public meeting halls were filled with his speeches where he reiterated his devotion to the
"American System" and criticized the administration and was ready to go before the country
with the same policies Adams had favored and the same economic appeal.

The National Republicans took issue with the leading policies and acts of Jackson, as they
remained committed to the protective tariff, federal support for internal improvements, the
recognition of the Supreme Court on Constitutional questions and the importance of the
balance of power given by the Senate. They vigorously attacked Jackson for his spoils system
and for his handling of relations with Great Britain with regard to the Maine boundary and
West India trade. But the campaign did not turn on these points as other movements such as
the Antimasons sprung up. Wirt, the Antimason nominee, probably would have withdrawn had
the National Republicans and Antimasons been able to unite later on one man.

The leaders of the National Republican party, such as Henry Clay and Daniel Webster, would
later united in the next elections of 1836 to form an opposition Whig party to attack Jackson’s
presidency.

People's Party
Timeframe:
1

A product of the Populist movement, which had ignited the Agrarian west for decades
previously, the People’s Party was the successor of the Greenback-Labor party which was
formed in the 1880s. One of its chief organizers was the journalist Ignatius Donnelly who was
the leader of the Farmer’s Alliance. Aggrieved farmers furnished the driving force and most of
the votes; labor’s role was significant but only secondary.
A small group in the Southern Alliance called a convention, which met at Cincinnati on May 19,
1891, with fourteen hundred delegates present including labor representatives. Few
Southerners came, for sentiment that the South was against a third party because of
successes with the Democratic party. The convention formed the People’s party, but called a
conference at St. Louis to secure the cooperation of farmer, labor, and other liberal groups.
The conference in St. Louis adopted a platform, the nominating convention set for Omaha in
July.

The platform that was adopted called for the free coinage of silver and the issuance of large
amounts of paper currency as inflationary measures that it hoped would ease the financial
burdens of the nation’s debt-ridden farmers. Its other demands included abolishing the
national banking system, nationalizing the railroads, instituting a graduated income tax,
electing senators by popular vote, and people participating in the government by means of a
referendum. Two thirds of the platform was a bitter indictment of the American economic
system and a condemnation of the two parties. Supplementary resolutions, not regarded as
part of the platform, declared for the Australian ballot, further restriction of undesirable
immigration and contract labor, rigid enforcement of the eight-hour law, abolition of the
Pinkerton detective system, adoption of initiative, referendum, and recall, limitation of the
Presidency to one term, and an end to subsidies.

In 1892, the party nominated James Baird Weaver for the presidency, over a choice of Colonel
Polk, Walter Gresham, and Senator James Kyle. The spirit of the convention carried into the
West, but not so much in the South, as Southern Alliance men refused to leave the Democratic
party. With the Democrats taking a lot of their issues, Weaver lost but received more than a
million votes and 22 electoral ones, and several Populist candidates made it to Congress. In
the West, a coalition with the Democrats on electoral tickets resulted in a victory of five and a
number of state and Congressional successes.

However, the next election gave the Populists a hard choice, as the Democrats under William
Jennings Bryan stole much of their thunder. They managed to win control of the Democratic
convention in St. Louis and secured Bryan’s nomination, who they supported and endorsed for
the presidency, becoming "Popocrats." After Bryan was defeated, the People’s party split over
the issue of continued alliance with the Democrats. In 1900 the Democrats renominated Bryan
and the anti-Democrats nominated Wharton Barker. They reunited in 1904, but then its
influence was declining and ceased to exist by 1908.

People's Party
Timeframe:
1

A product of the Populist movement, which had ignited the Agrarian west for decades
previously, the People’s Party was the successor of the Greenback-Labor party which was
formed in the 1880s. One of its chief organizers was the journalist Ignatius Donnelly who was
the leader of the Farmer’s Alliance. Aggrieved farmers furnished the driving force and most of
the votes; labor’s role was significant but only secondary.

A small group in the Southern Alliance called a convention, which met at Cincinnati on May 19,
1891, with fourteen hundred delegates present including labor representatives. Few
Southerners came, for sentiment that the South was against a third party because of
successes with the Democratic party. The convention formed the People’s party, but called a
conference at St. Louis to secure the cooperation of farmer, labor, and other liberal groups.
The conference in St. Louis adopted a platform, the nominating convention set for Omaha in
July.

The platform that was adopted called for the free coinage of silver and the issuance of large
amounts of paper currency as inflationary measures that it hoped would ease the financial
burdens of the nation’s debt-ridden farmers. Its other demands included abolishing the
national banking system, nationalizing the railroads, instituting a graduated income tax,
electing senators by popular vote, and people participating in the government by means of a
referendum. Two thirds of the platform was a bitter indictment of the American economic
system and a condemnation of the two parties. Supplementary resolutions, not regarded as
part of the platform, declared for the Australian ballot, further restriction of undesirable
immigration and contract labor, rigid enforcement of the eight-hour law, abolition of the
Pinkerton detective system, adoption of initiative, referendum, and recall, limitation of the
Presidency to one term, and an end to subsidies.

In 1892, the party nominated James Baird Weaver for the presidency, over a choice of Colonel
Polk, Walter Gresham, and Senator James Kyle. The spirit of the convention carried into the
West, but not so much in the South, as Southern Alliance men refused to leave the Democratic
party. With the Democrats taking a lot of their issues, Weaver lost but received more than a
million votes and 22 electoral ones, and several Populist candidates made it to Congress. In
the West, a coalition with the Democrats on electoral tickets resulted in a victory of five and a
number of state and Congressional successes.

However, the next election gave the Populists a hard choice, as the Democrats under William
Jennings Bryan stole much of their thunder. They managed to win control of the Democratic
convention in St. Louis and secured Bryan’s nomination, who they supported and endorsed for
the presidency, becoming "Popocrats." After Bryan was defeated, the People’s party split over
the issue of continued alliance with the Democrats. In 1900 the Democrats renominated Bryan
and the anti-Democrats nominated Wharton Barker. They reunited in 1904, but then its
influence was declining and ceased to exist by 1908.

Progressive Party
Timeframe:
1

The Progressive Party was the name used to designate several political organizations in the
United States, associating with the presidential campaigns of Theodore Roosevelt, Robert La
Follette, and Henry Wallace.

The Progressive Party, first known colloquially as the Bull Moose party, was founded after a
bitter fight for the Republican presidential nomination between William H. Taft, Robert La
Follette and Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt, a dynamic leader of the Progressive Movement,
soon grew impatient with Taft’s relatively cautious approaches to reform. Taft’s dismissal of
Gifford Pinchot as chief forester angered Roosevelt, who was an ardent conservationist. At the
Republican convention in June 1912, most La Follette supporters switched to Roosevelt, but
the nomination went to Taft because Taft controlled the party machinery.

Roosevelt, incensed at Taft’s conservative bent, formed the Progressive party, saying he was
as fit as a bull moose. His platform called for tariff reform, stricter regulation of industrial
combinations, women’s suffrage, prohibition of child labor, and other reforms. Many liberal
Republicans went to the new party which nominated Roosevelt for president and Hiram W.
Johnson for vice president. Although the Progressives greatly outpolled Republicans in the
election the net result was a victory for the Democratic candidate, Woodrow Wilson.
Progressive candidates for state and local offices did poorly, and the party dissapeared in 1916
when Roosevelt returned to the Republican Party.

In 1924, a liberal coalition, frustrated by conservative domination of both parties, formed the
League of Progressive Political Action, popularly called the Progressive party. Robert La
Follette, nominally a Republican, decided to run for president on his own. Fearing that a formal
party organization would be infiltrated by Communists, he ran as an independent, but later
accepted the nomination of the Progressive party. Senator Burton K. Wheeler was nominated
for vice-president. The party advocated government ownership of public utilities and labor
reforms such as collective bargaining. It also supported farm-relief measures, lower taxes for
persons with moderate incomes, and other such laws. His candidacy was thus supported by
the Socialist Party.

LaFollette received 17% of the popular vote but only carried Wisconsin. In 1934, LaFollette’s
sons organized a Progressive Party in Wisconsin, after being defeated for nomination as a
Republican. Under the Progressive ticket, the LaFollettes scored many victories, but
disappeared in 1946.

A third Progressive party was formed in 1948 by dissident Democrats, most of whom had been
prominent in developing the New Deal program. With former vice-president Henry Wallace and
Tugwell among their leaders, Wallace was nominated for the party’s presidential nominee.
Charging that both major parties advocated policies that would lead to economic crisis and a
war with the Soviet Union, they favored high-level international conferences. They advocated
rights for all minority and political groups, curbs on the power of monopolies, and anti-inflation
measures such as price and rent controls, and the repeal of the Taft-Hartley Law.

He expected support from blacks, intellectuals and other groups that admired his militant
liberalism. However, the support of the Communist Party damaged the Progressives, as the
Democrats and Republicans attacked them as Communist-dominated. The progressives
maintained their right to accept support from any group backing their program. Wallace only
received 2.4% of the vote. In 1950 the party was further weakened when it denounced U.S.
entry into the Korean War, and Wallace left the party. They disappeared after the 1952
election.

Reform Party
Timeframe:
1
The previous election year, in 1992, Ross Perot ran on an independent ticket, where he
discovered overwhelming pockets of potential support from those disenchanted by the two
established political parties. On September 25, 1995 Ross Perot announced on Larry King Live
that he was determined to help form a new political party, in order to give those who
supported him in 1992 a voice in future elections. Polls showed that nearly two out of every
three voters wanted a new political party, including half of all Republicans and Democrats.

Soon thousands of concerned Americans began petitioning their state governments.

Depending on state laws, the goal was to either form a new political party in each state or to
place candidates on the November 5th ballot. The response from the public was unexpectedly
in favor of starting the Reform Party. For example, in California, which had the earliest
deadline in the nation, the requirement to put the Reform Party on the ballot was to get
89,007 voters to switch their party affiliation and join the Reform Party. It was not believed
that the Reform Party could accomplish this goal, as it had never been done before. In only
twenty days, more than 124,000 California voters joined the Reform Party. In North Carolina,
more than 166,000 voters signed petitions. This was 100,000 signatures more than the
51,904 signatures the state required. In Texas, where 61,540 signatures were required, more
than 161,000 voters signed on. In Florida, more than 110,000 voters signed Reform Party
petitions even though only 65,596 signatures were required.

However, in trying to get ballot status in many states, the Reform Party had found need to
challenge state laws to ensure the process is open and fair to all Reform Party candidates. For
example, in Arkansas the Reform Party won an historic legal battle, becoming the first new
party to be recognized by the state in more than twenty years. After the Arkansas Supreme
Court denied the Reform Party ballot access for the election of officials at all levels of
government, U.S. Federal District Court Judge George Howard ruled from the bench that
Arkansas’ conflicting state laws were unconstitutional. Judge Howard granted the Arkansas
Reform Party full ballot access and ordered the state to pay all costs for blocking the voters’
right of freedom of association.

Following the 1992 elections, candidates from both established political parties looked for
ways to attract the "Perot voters"—now the "Reform Party voters." In the coming elections,
there was much speculation about whom would make a try for the Reform Party presidential
ticket in 1996. Richard Lamm, a former governor of Colorado, and party of a group of
independents dubbed by the media as the "secret seven" who intended to try to make runs for
independent candidacies, was first to declare his intent of running with his running mate, Ed
Zschau. Richard Lamm had first shown interest in the party when he made a keynote speech
at the party’s California convention earlier.

Ross Perot soon after entered the race as well, while Richard Lamm appealed to Reform Party
voters to "pass the torch." Ross Perot easily won in a landslide, but Richard Lamm continued
to press claims of unfair treatment in the primary process. Ross Perot chose Pat Choate, a
prominent economist and protectionist, as his running mate. This time around, many more
liberal voters stayed away from the Reform Party, calling its anti-NAFTA stance "right-wing."
In all, Ross Perot lost support, as voters figured that he would not win the election. During this
time, Pat Buchanan, a prominent Republican candidate, called Ross Perot and the Reform
Party a "mortal threat the Republican Party."

During the election and in the aftermath, leaders of the Reform Party fought against an
internal splinter group, called the "Shaumberg Group," after the city where they had a
convention, who tried to wrest control of the party away by petitioning the FEC. However, the
FEC decided that the Shaumberg group was only a small minority in the Reform Party, and
refused. The Shaumberg group did succeed in alienating more voters from the Reform Party,
who did not know what to make of the internal brawls in the party.

Reform Party grassroots efforts continued to mount in the fifty states in which the party
established itself. However, attempts to reach voters by the media were quickly blocked by
others. When Ross Perot, in 1997, attempted to buy air time for an infocommercial regarding
campaign finance reform, the networks rejected him. During the previous campaign, Ross
Perot was also shut out from the presidential debates, unlike the election before that when he
did not have a party ticket.

The same year, many prominent members of the established political parties, fed up with the
corruption and irresponsibility already imbued in the political system, stated potential support
for the Reform Party. Representative James Traficant, a Democrat, stated on Washington
Journal on the C-SPAN network that Ross Perot was right all along, and that since the two
parties were alike, a third political party was needed. Traficant later released a press release
that he would be the keynote speaker at the Reform Party of California convention. Others,
such as former congressman David Boren, who had refused the offer of being Ross Perot’s
running mate during the election to preserve his position at the university at which he worked,
showed interest in the Reform Party.

Republican Party
Timeframe:
1

The Republican Party had been created, seizing the opening given to them by the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which invalidated the Missouri Compromise by splitting the Missouri
territory into free-soil and slave states. Many northern Whigs, who had no power or national
party began to cooperate with the "Anti-Nebraska" Democrats to form the Free-Soil Party.
They began to organize a new party in 1854, building on the name Republican, reviving the
old term employed by the Jeffersionians. They emphasized absolute opposition to the
expansion of slavery into any new territory. In the coming elections, they cooperated with the
northern Know-Nothings, most of whom were former Whigs, as the anti-Catholic nativism
would add to an appealing platform of the new party.

Together, the Republicans and Know-Nothings won a majority of seats in the House of
Representatives in 1854, and became a threat to the ideas put out by the Democrats. In
1856, they nominated John C. Freemont for the Presidency, with the slogan "Free soil, free
labor, free speech, free men, Frémont." He won about a third of the popular vote, and the
Republican party began to grow, although alienating potential supporters by his failure to
oppose immigration.

As tensions mounted over the slavery issue, more anti-slavery Republicans began to run for
office and be elected, even with the risks involved with taking this stance. Republican Sen.
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts experienced this danger firsthand. In May 1856, he
delivered a passionate anti-slavery speech in which he made critical remarks about several
pro-slavery senators, including Andrew F. Butler of South Carolina. Sumner infuriated Rep.
Preston S. Brooks, the son of one of Butler's cousins, who felt his family honor had been
insulted. Two days later, Brooks walked into the Senate and beat Sumner unconscious with a
cane. This incident electrified the nation and helped to galvanize Northern opinion against the
South; Southern opinion hailed Brooks as a hero. But Sumner stood by his principles, and
after a three-year, painful convalescence, he returned to the Senate to continue his struggle
against slavery.

In 1860, their candidate, Lincoln, was elected to the presidency; the southern states reacting
by seceding from the Union, and the country was plunged into a civil war. The Civil War and
the Reconstruction period following the war gave the Republican Party a solid core of strength
and permanence. Because of connections of the Democrats to the south, fully exploited and
created by the Republican Party’s propaganda, Republicans controlled most elective offices in
the northern states during the war, and for a generation afterward the used this patriotic
fervor to denounce Democrats as traitors. This was an effective campaign tactic; in "waving
the bloody shirt" against the South and the Democrats, Republicans were united being the
crusade of the Civil War.

Although this was true, the Republican party was also troubled by internal dissension. In the
1860s, moderate and radical Republicans debated bitterly over war aims, and the aims of the
Reconstruction period. The moderates agreed with the radicals on the abolition of slavery, but
rejected the attempt to reshape the South’s social and economic structure and imposing racial
equality. President Lincoln was able to play one faction against another, and after his death
the party continued until the radicals’ failure to oust President Johnson from office. Then, the
party began to nominate increasingly moderate candidates.

Republicans tried to appeal to the South by appealing to Whig groups there to join with newly
enfranchised blacks; arguing that they had a common belief in the need for a strong
government action in society. Their efforts were ineffective due to massive racist campaigns
by the southern Democrats, intimidating all voters in the South. The Republican support for
black rights waned when those in the party percieved that this issue was costing the party the
needed votes, but this did not help gain support in the South.

Meanwhile, Republicans continued being elected to the White House. In 1868, Civil War hero
Ulysses S. Grant won the presidency easily and was re-elected in 1872. Although he seemed a
bit bewildered by the transition from the military life of a general to being president, under
Grant the Republican commitment to sound money policies continued, and the Department of
Justice and the Weather Bureau were established.

But, embracing a tradition established by George Washington, which had gone on record
opposing a third term for any president, and being plagued by scandals in his administration,
President Grant did not run for re-election in 1876. Factionalism continued to divide the party.
Prohibitionists and those who wished to exclude foreigners, demanded heavy emphasis on
their concerns and were not enthusiastic about the party’s other commitments. At the same
time, another group, the Liberal Republicans, disgusted by corruption in the Grant
administration, fought against the party’s unwillingness to do anything about it. The party
bosses, needing money to run the campaigns, resisted the reformers.

Instead, in one of the most bitterly disputed elections in American history, Republican
Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency by the margin of one electoral vote. After the
election, cooperation between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House of
Representatives was nearly impossible. Nevertheless, Hayes managed to keep his campaign
promises. He cautiously withdrew federal troops from the South to allow them to shake off the
psychological yoke of being a conquered land, took measures to reverse the myriad
inequalities suffered by women in that period and adopted the merit system within the civil
service.

The Republicans won five of seven elections between 1868 and 1892, but had popular
majorities in only three of them. The Republicans’ ability to draw on rural, small-town, and
western voters was counterbalanced by the Democrats’ solid core in the South and among
urban immigrants. The defection of the mugwumps, a reform faction that refused to back
James G. Blaine, the presidential candidate in 1884, helped the Democrats win the presidency
for the first time in thirty years. At the 1880 convention, an intense political battle split
Republicans into three hostile camps, which included administration supporters, Conkling's
"Stalwarts" and the "Half-breeds" which stood between them.

The party’s platform, despite resistance from some Republican leaders, increasingly
emphasized the promotion of industrial values, and Republican policy aided the emerging,
highly sophisticated economy. At the same time, Republicans were often openly hostile to the
new waves of eastern European and Irish immigrants that were transforming the nation’s
cities. Republican state platforms advocated government intervention to prohibit or limit liquor
consumption and to shape school curricula in order to promote certain Protestant and
American values posed by the immigrants who were tied to the Democratic party.

During the 1890s, both major parties were hurt by the rise of agrarian protest, but infighting
proved most divisive among the Democrats, their collapse at the polls following in 1896.
Increased voter strength made the Republicans a majority party in the country for a
generation. However, party factionalism continued, and beginning in the 1890s, a group of
Republicans known as the progressives sought to balance the party’s commitment to the
industrial elite with the use of federal power to correct some of the worst excesses of the
monopolies and rusts that dominated the Republican Party.

Theodore Roosevelt, who had promoted progressive measures when in office, later became
the presidential candidate of the Progressive Party. Roosevelt selected Taft as his successor,
who, once elected, angered both liberals and conservatives within his party.

The entry into World War I raised some new issues that once again led to divide the
Republican Party. Though most Republicans in Congress supported the ongoing war measures,
they eventually split over plans for signing the charter of the League of Nations, incorporated
into the Treaty of Versailles. Many Republicans were also upset because President Wilson
excluded Republicans from negotiating the treaty and said that only Democrats in the
Congress would allow victory in war. As progressivism and war waned, Republicans were able
to reunite and thus once again become a majority party. The 1920 platform pledged the party
to serve as the guardian of prosperity by such measures as raising tariffs, restricting
immigration, and aiding farmers. The presidential nomination went to Warren G. Harding, and
he swept every region outside the South. The Harding administration was swept by corruption,
and his successor was Calvin Coolidge, pledged to Puritanical ideals.

The Great Depression, which began during the administration of Herbert Hoover, led to
destroy America’s belief in the dream of unlimited prosperity, and thus lost its faith in the
Republican Party, who had led them into the depression. The disastrous economic collapse and
extraordinary high employment following the crash made a mockery of Republican claims. The
Hoover administration had a slow and limited response to the problems, making it ineffective
and seemed to be indifferent to the people.

At the loss of the Republicans next election, one faction of the Republican party was behind
Hoover, who issued blanket indictments of the New Deal, supported by Eastern businessmen,
Recognizing the New Deal’s popularity, Republicans in Congress sought new leaders and
principles, nominating Landon for President. The new Republican platform endorsed New Deal
objectives but condemned some of its methods, including deficit spending. At the next
election, they nominated Wendell Willkie, an internationalist who was even closer to the values
expressed by the New Deal; in fact, the C.I.O supported him and Lewis said that if Willkie did
not win, he would resign as head.

In response to their losses, the Republicans sought a way to build their national following, first
turning to condemning deficit spending techniques and New Deal policy. Republicans,
isolationist, now began to take a stricter anti-Communist line in their rhetoric. Party leaders
argued that they represented a family oriented America, and this played a part in the
popularity of Republican senator Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against Communist subversion in
the 1850s. In 1950, Senator McCarthy charged that the State department was infested with
Communists, and this gave the Republicans their best issue since the Depression. However,
when he attacked the Army, this issue died down and be became disgraced.

A split still remained between conservative and moderate republicans; the former led by Taft
continued to oppose the New Deal, while the others did not play on the issue. The moderates
looked towards General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had helped win the passing war, to carry
their standard in the 1952 elections. Eisenhower won twice with smashing victories; his
popularity intensified when he attended a conference in Geneva. Disliking political
management, Eisenhower did little to build the party, and continued Democratic policies.

Yet another split between conservatives and liberals weakened the Republican party during the
course of the next decade. Nelson A. Rockefeller, governor of New York, emerged as a
spokesman for the party liberals. Senator Barry Goldwater, on the other hand, was a
representative of the conservatives. The conservatives thereafter controlled the party
machinery and increasingly impressed their stamp on the party’s principles and actions,
working hard to recruit influence in the South and among urban, ethnic groups.

When new leaders failed to bridge the gulf between conservatives and liberals in the GOP,
Richard Nixon helped lead a unified party to a narrow victory in the 1968 race against Hubert
Humphrey and George Wallace. Nixon was the first President since 1848 to take office with
both houses of Congress controlled by the opposition; he later won re-election. His
administration, which started out as a strong reaction against radicalism, became identified
after 1972 with the Watergate scandal, which eventually led Nixon to his resignation under the
threat of impeachment, leaving Gerald Ford in power.

A temporary Democratic resurgence followed with the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, but
the conservative tide returned when the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan won an
overwhelming victory in the next elections. The Republicans regained control of the Senate but
did not achieve to gain a majority in the House. In the midterm elections of 1986, Republicans
lost control of the Senate and more ground in the House as well; this pattern repeated in
1986. As president, Reagan wasa backed by a coalition of Republicans and conservative
Democrats in Congress, and embarked on a program which sought to increase the nation’s
military strength and curtail many of the social welfare programs in the previous
administration.

Although Vice president Bush won the presidential election for the Republicans, the party lost
ground in both houses of Congress. President Bush laid a solid groundwork for U.S. policy in
such critical areas as nuclear disarmament, free trade, the Middle East peace process and the
future of NATO. Relying on his illustrious military experience, he brought together an
unprecedented coalition to maintain the forces of law in the Persian Gulf region. In the wake of
Operation Desert Storm, President Bush's popularity soared to record levels. As a result of his
leadership after the war, a delegation from Israel sat face to face with Palestinians for the first
time in thousands of years.

The gradual erosion in Republican party strength in Congress was matched by a loss at the
head of the ticket, and for the first time in 12 years, Democrats controlled both branches of
government. The Republicans retained the same number of seats in the Senate and gained
nine seats in the House. However, the 1994 election brought a dramatic reversal as the
Republican Party gained control over both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954.
The Republicans stormed in, in what was termed as the "Republican Revolution," as
Representative Newt Gingrich laid forth their new "Contract with America", a list of
conservative proposals which helped shape the agenda.

However, 1996 marked defeat again as Senator Bob Dole embarked on a failed Presidential
campaign. The Democrats painted the Republican party as maligned, trying to destroy social
security and other entitlement programs, often referring to the enemy as "Dole-Gingrich."
After the election, Republicans in the party began to split, disappointed at a turn in Gingrich’s
leadership to one which held more appeasement to Democratic proposals.

Republican Party
Timeframe:
1

The Republican Party had been created, seizing the opening given to them by the passage of
the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which invalidated the Missouri Compromise by splitting the Missouri
territory into free-soil and slave states. Many northern Whigs, who had no power or national
party began to cooperate with the "Anti-Nebraska" Democrats to form the Free-Soil Party.
They began to organize a new party in 1854, building on the name Republican, reviving the
old term employed by the Jeffersionians. They emphasized absolute opposition to the
expansion of slavery into any new territory. In the coming elections, they cooperated with the
northern Know-Nothings, most of whom were former Whigs, as the anti-Catholic nativism
would add to an appealing platform of the new party.

Together, the Republicans and Know-Nothings won a majority of seats in the House of
Representatives in 1854, and became a threat to the ideas put out by the Democrats. In
1856, they nominated John C. Freemont for the Presidency, with the slogan "Free soil, free
labor, free speech, free men, Frémont." He won about a third of the popular vote, and the
Republican party began to grow, although alienating potential supporters by his failure to
oppose immigration.
As tensions mounted over the slavery issue, more anti-slavery Republicans began to run for
office and be elected, even with the risks involved with taking this stance. Republican Sen.
Charles Sumner of Massachusetts experienced this danger firsthand. In May 1856, he
delivered a passionate anti-slavery speech in which he made critical remarks about several
pro-slavery senators, including Andrew F. Butler of South Carolina. Sumner infuriated Rep.
Preston S. Brooks, the son of one of Butler's cousins, who felt his family honor had been
insulted. Two days later, Brooks walked into the Senate and beat Sumner unconscious with a
cane. This incident electrified the nation and helped to galvanize Northern opinion against the
South; Southern opinion hailed Brooks as a hero. But Sumner stood by his principles, and
after a three-year, painful convalescence, he returned to the Senate to continue his struggle
against slavery.

In 1860, their candidate, Lincoln, was elected to the presidency; the southern states reacting
by seceding from the Union, and the country was plunged into a civil war. The Civil War and
the Reconstruction period following the war gave the Republican Party a solid core of strength
and permanence. Because of connections of the Democrats to the south, fully exploited and
created by the Republican Party’s propaganda, Republicans controlled most elective offices in
the northern states during the war, and for a generation afterward the used this patriotic
fervor to denounce Democrats as traitors. This was an effective campaign tactic; in "waving
the bloody shirt" against the South and the Democrats, Republicans were united being the
crusade of the Civil War.

Although this was true, the Republican party was also troubled by internal dissension. In the
1860s, moderate and radical Republicans debated bitterly over war aims, and the aims of the
Reconstruction period. The moderates agreed with the radicals on the abolition of slavery, but
rejected the attempt to reshape the South’s social and economic structure and imposing racial
equality. President Lincoln was able to play one faction against another, and after his death
the party continued until the radicals’ failure to oust President Johnson from office. Then, the
party began to nominate increasingly moderate candidates.

Republicans tried to appeal to the South by appealing to Whig groups there to join with newly
enfranchised blacks; arguing that they had a common belief in the need for a strong
government action in society. Their efforts were ineffective due to massive racist campaigns
by the southern Democrats, intimidating all voters in the South. The Republican support for
black rights waned when those in the party percieved that this issue was costing the party the
needed votes, but this did not help gain support in the South.

Meanwhile, Republicans continued being elected to the White House. In 1868, Civil War hero
Ulysses S. Grant won the presidency easily and was re-elected in 1872. Although he seemed a
bit bewildered by the transition from the military life of a general to being president, under
Grant the Republican commitment to sound money policies continued, and the Department of
Justice and the Weather Bureau were established.

But, embracing a tradition established by George Washington, which had gone on record
opposing a third term for any president, and being plagued by scandals in his administration,
President Grant did not run for re-election in 1876. Factionalism continued to divide the party.
Prohibitionists and those who wished to exclude foreigners, demanded heavy emphasis on
their concerns and were not enthusiastic about the party’s other commitments. At the same
time, another group, the Liberal Republicans, disgusted by corruption in the Grant
administration, fought against the party’s unwillingness to do anything about it. The party
bosses, needing money to run the campaigns, resisted the reformers.

Instead, in one of the most bitterly disputed elections in American history, Republican
Rutherford B. Hayes won the presidency by the margin of one electoral vote. After the
election, cooperation between the White House and the Democratic-controlled House of
Representatives was nearly impossible. Nevertheless, Hayes managed to keep his campaign
promises. He cautiously withdrew federal troops from the South to allow them to shake off the
psychological yoke of being a conquered land, took measures to reverse the myriad
inequalities suffered by women in that period and adopted the merit system within the civil
service.

The Republicans won five of seven elections between 1868 and 1892, but had popular
majorities in only three of them. The Republicans’ ability to draw on rural, small-town, and
western voters was counterbalanced by the Democrats’ solid core in the South and among
urban immigrants. The defection of the mugwumps, a reform faction that refused to back
James G. Blaine, the presidential candidate in 1884, helped the Democrats win the presidency
for the first time in thirty years. At the 1880 convention, an intense political battle split
Republicans into three hostile camps, which included administration supporters, Conkling's
"Stalwarts" and the "Half-breeds" which stood between them.

The party’s platform, despite resistance from some Republican leaders, increasingly
emphasized the promotion of industrial values, and Republican policy aided the emerging,
highly sophisticated economy. At the same time, Republicans were often openly hostile to the
new waves of eastern European and Irish immigrants that were transforming the nation’s
cities. Republican state platforms advocated government intervention to prohibit or limit liquor
consumption and to shape school curricula in order to promote certain Protestant and
American values posed by the immigrants who were tied to the Democratic party.

During the 1890s, both major parties were hurt by the rise of agrarian protest, but infighting
proved most divisive among the Democrats, their collapse at the polls following in 1896.
Increased voter strength made the Republicans a majority party in the country for a
generation. However, party factionalism continued, and beginning in the 1890s, a group of
Republicans known as the progressives sought to balance the party’s commitment to the
industrial elite with the use of federal power to correct some of the worst excesses of the
monopolies and rusts that dominated the Republican Party.

Theodore Roosevelt, who had promoted progressive measures when in office, later became
the presidential candidate of the Progressive Party. Roosevelt selected Taft as his successor,
who, once elected, angered both liberals and conservatives within his party.

The entry into World War I raised some new issues that once again led to divide the
Republican Party. Though most Republicans in Congress supported the ongoing war measures,
they eventually split over plans for signing the charter of the League of Nations, incorporated
into the Treaty of Versailles. Many Republicans were also upset because President Wilson
excluded Republicans from negotiating the treaty and said that only Democrats in the
Congress would allow victory in war. As progressivism and war waned, Republicans were able
to reunite and thus once again become a majority party. The 1920 platform pledged the party
to serve as the guardian of prosperity by such measures as raising tariffs, restricting
immigration, and aiding farmers. The presidential nomination went to Warren G. Harding, and
he swept every region outside the South. The Harding administration was swept by corruption,
and his successor was Calvin Coolidge, pledged to Puritanical ideals.

The Great Depression, which began during the administration of Herbert Hoover, led to
destroy America’s belief in the dream of unlimited prosperity, and thus lost its faith in the
Republican Party, who had led them into the depression. The disastrous economic collapse and
extraordinary high employment following the crash made a mockery of Republican claims. The
Hoover administration had a slow and limited response to the problems, making it ineffective
and seemed to be indifferent to the people.

At the loss of the Republicans next election, one faction of the Republican party was behind
Hoover, who issued blanket indictments of the New Deal, supported by Eastern businessmen,
Recognizing the New Deal’s popularity, Republicans in Congress sought new leaders and
principles, nominating Landon for President. The new Republican platform endorsed New Deal
objectives but condemned some of its methods, including deficit spending. At the next
election, they nominated Wendell Willkie, an internationalist who was even closer to the values
expressed by the New Deal; in fact, the C.I.O supported him and Lewis said that if Willkie did
not win, he would resign as head.

In response to their losses, the Republicans sought a way to build their national following, first
turning to condemning deficit spending techniques and New Deal policy. Republicans,
isolationist, now began to take a stricter anti-Communist line in their rhetoric. Party leaders
argued that they represented a family oriented America, and this played a part in the
popularity of Republican senator Joseph McCarthy’s crusade against Communist subversion in
the 1850s. In 1950, Senator McCarthy charged that the State department was infested with
Communists, and this gave the Republicans their best issue since the Depression. However,
when he attacked the Army, this issue died down and be became disgraced.

A split still remained between conservative and moderate republicans; the former led by Taft
continued to oppose the New Deal, while the others did not play on the issue. The moderates
looked towards General Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had helped win the passing war, to carry
their standard in the 1952 elections. Eisenhower won twice with smashing victories; his
popularity intensified when he attended a conference in Geneva. Disliking political
management, Eisenhower did little to build the party, and continued Democratic policies.

Yet another split between conservatives and liberals weakened the Republican party during the
course of the next decade. Nelson A. Rockefeller, governor of New York, emerged as a
spokesman for the party liberals. Senator Barry Goldwater, on the other hand, was a
representative of the conservatives. The conservatives thereafter controlled the party
machinery and increasingly impressed their stamp on the party’s principles and actions,
working hard to recruit influence in the South and among urban, ethnic groups.

When new leaders failed to bridge the gulf between conservatives and liberals in the GOP,
Richard Nixon helped lead a unified party to a narrow victory in the 1968 race against Hubert
Humphrey and George Wallace. Nixon was the first President since 1848 to take office with
both houses of Congress controlled by the opposition; he later won re-election. His
administration, which started out as a strong reaction against radicalism, became identified
after 1972 with the Watergate scandal, which eventually led Nixon to his resignation under the
threat of impeachment, leaving Gerald Ford in power.
A temporary Democratic resurgence followed with the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, but
the conservative tide returned when the Republican candidate Ronald Reagan won an
overwhelming victory in the next elections. The Republicans regained control of the Senate but
did not achieve to gain a majority in the House. In the midterm elections of 1986, Republicans
lost control of the Senate and more ground in the House as well; this pattern repeated in
1986. As president, Reagan wasa backed by a coalition of Republicans and conservative
Democrats in Congress, and embarked on a program which sought to increase the nation’s
military strength and curtail many of the social welfare programs in the previous
administration.

Although Vice president Bush won the presidential election for the Republicans, the party lost
ground in both houses of Congress. President Bush laid a solid groundwork for U.S. policy in
such critical areas as nuclear disarmament, free trade, the Middle East peace process and the
future of NATO. Relying on his illustrious military experience, he brought together an
unprecedented coalition to maintain the forces of law in the Persian Gulf region. In the wake of
Operation Desert Storm, President Bush's popularity soared to record levels. As a result of his
leadership after the war, a delegation from Israel sat face to face with Palestinians for the first
time in thousands of years.

The gradual erosion in Republican party strength in Congress was matched by a loss at the
head of the ticket, and for the first time in 12 years, Democrats controlled both branches of
government. The Republicans retained the same number of seats in the Senate and gained
nine seats in the House. However, the 1994 election brought a dramatic reversal as the
Republican Party gained control over both houses of Congress for the first time since 1954.
The Republicans stormed in, in what was termed as the "Republican Revolution," as
Representative Newt Gingrich laid forth their new "Contract with America", a list of
conservative proposals which helped shape the agenda.

However, 1996 marked defeat again as Senator Bob Dole embarked on a failed Presidential
campaign. The Democrats painted the Republican party as maligned, trying to destroy social
security and other entitlement programs, often referring to the enemy as "Dole-Gingrich."
After the election, Republicans in the party began to split, disappointed at a turn in Gingrich’s
leadership to one which held more appeasement to Democratic proposals.

Whig Party
Timeframe:
1

The Whig Party formed in the opposition of President Andrew Jackson and constituencies in
the Democratic Party, united only by this opposition. The anti-Jackson groups drew upon the
political history of two revolutions, the American and 17th century English, for their name. In
both cases, the opposition had called themselves Whigs; this time they united against "King
Andrew."

The National Republican party was the precursor to the Whigs, and Jackson’s inauguration in
1829 began the period of opposition and prepared the ground for a coalition of political forces
which formed the Whig Party. Henry Clay of Kentucky, and Daniel Webster of Massachusetts
because the party’s leading figures. The different leaders of the party clashed in their views;
Webster was more of a nationalist than Clay. However, both men encouraged a program of
tariff protection, federally sponsored communication projects and other internal
improvements, continuation of the national bank, and a conservative public land sales policy.
This was fully described in Clay’s "American System." The program had strong appeal to
merchants and manufacturers practicing interstate commerce. Clay made the President’s veto
of a bank recharter a key issue, but Jackson handily won reelection.

John C. Calhoun broke his alliance with Jackson and joined the Whigs when he realized that he
would not be the next Democratic president. Calhoun’s supporters, widened with the
nullification crisis, were lead to the Whig party. Another source of recruits was the Anti-
Masonic party, strong in New York and Pennsylvania, leading many influencing politicians as
William Seward and Thaddeus Stevens into the party.

In 1840, The Whig ticket consisted of William H. Harrison for president and John Tyler for vice-
president. They ran a "Log Cabin" campaign which was the first to use major political
propaganda and electioneering. The Whigs won, but Harrison died one month in office, and
with him the future of the Whig cohesion. John Tyler, who had been a Jacksonian Democrat,
acceded to the presidency, and embittered the Whigs by vetoing the bills which they had
meant to restore the rechartering of the Bank of the United States. Most of Tyler’s cabinet
resigned in protest, and his membership in the party was withdrawn.

In 1844, the Whig Party nominated Clay for president. Clay refused to take a definite stand on
the Texas annexation issue, provoking northern abolitionists, who opposed its admission as a
slave state, to support the Liberty party candidate. The Whig split ensured a victory for the
Democrat Polk. Once the Mexican War had been declared, controversy over admitting or
excluding slavery from territory gained in the war further splintered the party. Antislavery
Whigs, known as Conscience Whigs opposed the Cotton Whigs in the pro-slavery states.

Despite this dissension, the Whigs won the presidency in 1848 under Zachary Taylor. With
disunion threatening, Clay and Webster tried to compromise the main points of sectional
friciton. President Taylor blocked their moves, and his death on July 9 made Millard Fillmore
the president. Webster, now Fillmore’s secretary of state, wanted to capture the presidency in
1852 on the Union movement. However, both major paries accepted the Compromise of 1850
and the Whigs reverted to nominate Winfield Scott. Later that year, Clay and Webster died.
The Whig Party never recovered from the death of their two great figures.

Its call for moderation and Union became more ineffective as the Civil war neared. Southern
Whigs thought the Democrats more receptive to their interests, concerned with slaveholding
rights. Northern Whigs had already moved to the Free Soil Party, which had been formed
earlier. The rise of the Republican and the American parties furthered the Whig downfall, as
they defected to those parties. The former Whig president, Fillmore, accepted the American
nomination, and the Whigs endorsed him.
 Themes
Chapter 01 - New World Beginnings
The over-arching theme of chapter 1 is the Old World meeting and clashing with the New World.

I. In the New World, before Columbus, there were many different Native American tribes. These
people were very diverse. In what’s today the U.S., there were an estimated 400 tribes, often speaking
different languages. It’s inaccurate to think of “Indians” as a homogeneous group.

II. Columbus came to America looking for a trade route to the East Indies (Spice Islands). Other
explorers quickly realized this was an entirely New World and came to lay claim to the new lands for
their host countries. Spain and Portugal had the head start on France and then England.

III. The coming together of the two world had world changing effects. The biological exchange cannot
be underestimated. Food was swapped back and forth and truly revolutionized what people ate. On
the bad side, European diseases wiped out an estimated 90% of Native Americans.

Chapter 02 - The Planting of English America

The over-arching theme of chapter 2 is that the English colonies quickly gained a foothold and grew along the Atlantic
coast of America.

I. Jamestown, VA was founded with the initial goal of making money via gold. They found no gold,
but did find a cash crop in tobacco.

II. Other southern colonies sprouted up due to (a) the desire for more tobacco land as with North
Carolina, (b) the desire for religious freedom as with Maryland, (c) the natural extension of a natural
port in South Carolina, or (d) as a “second chance” colony as with Georgia.

Chapter 03 - Settling the Northern Colonies

The over-arching theme of chapter 3 is that the northern colonies were started out of religious fervor and they largely
grew out of religious fervor.

I. Plymouth, MA was founded with the initial goal of allowing Pilgrims, and later Puritans, to
worship independent of the Church of England. Their society, ironically, was very intolerant itself
and any dissenters were pushed out of the colony.

II. Other New England colonies sprouted up, due to (a) religious dissent from Plymouth and
Massachusetts as with Rhode Island, (b) the constant search for more farmland as in Connecticut, and
(c) just due to natural growth as in Maine.

III. The Middle Colonies emerged as the literal crossroads of the north and south. They held the
stereotypical qualities of both regions: agricultural and industrial. And they were unique in that (a)
New York was born of Dutch heritage rather than English, and (b) Pennsylvania thrived more than
any other colony due to its freedoms and tolerance.

Chapter 04 - American Life in the Seventeenth Century

The over-arching theme of chapter 4 is that the American colonies quickly became unique as compared to any other
land. And, that each region quickly assumed its own personality.

I. The Southern colonies were dominated by agriculture, namely (a) tobacco in the Chesapeake and
(b) rice and indigo further down the coast.

II. Bacon’s Rebellion is very representative of the struggles of poor white indentured servants.
Nathaniel Bacon and his followers took to arms to essentially get more land out west from the
Indians. This theme of poor whites taking to arms for land, and in opposition to eastern authorities,
will be repeated several times (Shay’s Rebellion, Paxton Boys, Whisky Rebellion).

III. Taken altogether, the southern colonies were inhabited by a group of people who were generally
young, independent-minded, industrious, backwoodsy, down home, restless and industrious.

IV. A truly unique African-American culture quickly emerged. Brought as slaves, black Americans
blended aspects of African culture with American. Religion shows this blend clearly, as African
religious ceremonies mixed with Christianity. Food and music also showed African-American
uniqueness.

V. New Englanders developed a Bible Commonwealth—a stern but clear society where the rules of
society were dictated by the laws of the Bible. This good-vs-evil society is best illustrated by the
Salem witch trials.

VI. Taken altogether, the northern colonies were inhabited by a group of people who grew to be self-
reliant, stern, pious, proud, family oriented, sharp in thought and sharp of tongue, crusty, and very
industrious.

Chapter 05 - Colonial Society on the Eve of Revolution

The over-arching theme of chapter 5 is that the American colonies quickly became unique from any other country.
Although the people came from established nations, they blended into “Americans.”

I. The Americans were very diverse for that time period. New England was largely from English
background, New York was Dutch, Pennsylvania was German, the Appalachian frontier was Scots-
Irish, the southern coast African-American and English, and there were spots of French, Swiss, and
Scots-Highlanders.

II. Although they came from different origins, the ethnicities were knowingly or what mingling and
melting together into something called “Americans.”

III. Most people were farmers, an estimated 90%. The northern colonies held what little industry
America had at the time: shipbuilding, iron works, rum running, trade, whaling, fishing. The south
dealt with crops, slaves, and naval stores.

IV. There were two main Protestant denominations: the Congregational Church up north, and the
Anglican Church down south. Both were “established” meaning tax money went to the church.
Poised for growth were the “backwoods” faiths of the Baptists and Methodists that grew by leaps
thanks to the Great Awakening.

Chapter 06 - Duel for North America

The over-arching theme of chapter 6 is that England defeated France to gain control over North America.

I. Two dominant cultures emerged in the 1700s in North America: (a) England controlled the Atlantic
seaboard from Georgia to Maine, and (b) France controlled the area of Quebec and along the Great
Lakes and down the Mississippi River.

II. New England consisted of towns made up by farmers. They cleared the land and pushed the Indians
out. New France was made up of fur trading outposts. They were scattered and lived with and often
worked with the Indians in the forests and streams.

III. Like cats and dogs, England and France cannot live together that close. While separated, they were
fine, but the two cultures began to rub against one another in the Ohio Valley. This started the French
and Indian War.

IV. The French and Indian War saw the English defeat France. France was totally kicked out of North
America.

Chapter 07 - The Road to Revolution

The over-arching theme of chapter 7 is how England repeatedly forced its laws and regulations down the
unappreciative Americans’ throats; and eventually led to bloodshed.

I. Following the French and Indian War, the British crown needed money and figured the Americans
could help pay for the war.
 II. Also, the economic policy of mercantilism dictated that England try to keep its hard money within
the British Empire. So, laws were passed to restrict American trade.

III. The taxes and regulations that followed were not received well by the Americans, notably the
Stamp Act.

IV. Conditions deteriorated and radical patriots brought matters to a head in events such as the Tea
Party and Boston Massacre. Even though most Americans would be considered moderates at the time,
the radical patriots were the ones making things happen.

V. The culmination of the patriots’ activities came at Lexington and Concord, when the American
Revolution began.

Chapter 08 - American Secedes from the Empire

The over-arching theme of chapter 8 is that America drew out the American Revolution, and in doing so, won.

I. Nearly every advantage on paper went to Britain during the revolution. They had better troops,
training, a much better navy, experienced generals, more money, better weapons and equipment.

II. The Americans had on their side heart and geography. America was very big and and ocean
removed from England.

III. Perhaps due to necessity rather than plan, American employed a drawn-out strategy where the war
drug on for six years. America won by constantly withdrawing to the nation’s interior and moving on
to fight another day.

IV. Meanwhile, as the war waged, the Declaration of Independence was written, signed, and approved.

The Treaty of Paris 1763 legitimized the new nation.

Chapter 09 - The Confederation and the Constitution

The over-arching theme of chapter 9 is that the new nation started out of fear of a strong government. And then, out of
necessity, strengthened the government.

I. The Articles of Confederation, the first government set up after the American Revolution, was
structured out of fear of a too-strong government. Therefore, the Articles were very weak on purpose.

II. Two things showed the Articles as being too weak to the point of being sterile: (a) it could not
regulate commerce and the money situation was growing dim fast and (b) Shays’ Rebellion
frightened many to the possibility that mobs might just take over and the government might be too
weak to stop them. Due to these reasons, the Constitutional Convention was held.

III. The Constitution was written as something of a balancing act between strengthening the
government, yet making sure it doesn’t get too strong to take over. The resulting government was
indeed stronger, but also a system of checks and balances were put into place to ensure no one branch
becomes like the king had been.
 IV. After some negotiating, mostly with the promise of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution was ratified.

Chapter 10 - Launching the New Ship of State

The over-arching theme of chapter 10 is that President Washington, and especially Secretary of State

I. Alexander Hamilton, get the U.S. on a solid foothold. With the Bill of Rights quickly ratified, the
top problem the new nation faced was financial in nature.

II. Secretary of State Alexander Hamilton developed a plan that included (a) starting a national tariff,
(b) starting a tax on whiskey, (c) setting up a national bank, and (d) paying off the national debt.

III. Politics quickly fell into two camps: (a) those who followed Thomas Jefferson became the
“Democratic-Republicans” and (b) those who followed Alexander Hamilton became the
“Federalists.”

IV. Turmoil broke out Europe with the French Revolution, mostly between England and France. The
U.S. nearly got sucked into European issues, but both Washington and John Adams kept the America
out of war. This was best for the U.S.

Chapter 11 - Triumphs and Travails of the Jeffersonian

Republic
The over-arching theme of chapter 11 is that although Jefferson floundered a bit with foreign affairs, the fantastic
Louisiana Purchase seemed to make up for everything.

I. Jefferson’s election was considered a “revolution” because he represented the common people for
the first time.

II. Troubles in North Africa and between England and France emerged. Jefferson’s actions were
sluggish.

III. Trying to again avoid war with England or France, Jefferson bumbled around with an embargo. His
theory was that the only way to avoid war was to stop interaction between U.S. ships and Europe. The
overall effect was to kill U.S. trade and enrage the merchants and businessmen up North.

IV. The Louisiana Purchase came as a complete surprise and quickly doubled the size of the U.S.

V. James Madison picked up where Jefferson left off with the embargo in trying to avoid war. But,
young western Congressmen wanted war to possibly gain new land, to squelch Indian troubles, and
defend the “free seas.” They declared the War of 1812 with England.

Chapter 12 - The Second War for Independence and the

Upsurge of Nationalism
The over-arching theme of chapter 12 is how the young U.S. proved itself to the rest of the world. The U.S. did this by
“sticking up” for herself against Britain in the War of 1812. This caused American patriotism to surge.
 I. The U.S. vs. England fighting had a few themes: (a) U.S. lost in Canada, (b) U.S. surprisingly won
at sea, (c) the two split in the Chesapeake, and (d) the U.S. won the big battle at New Orleans.

II. The war was not universally supported. Mostly, the North opposed the war since it was bad for
trade. The South and West generally favored the war.

III. After the war, the U.S. could focus on herself, as with the “American System” to build up the
economy.

IV. In terms of expansion, a few things happened: (a) the Missouri Compromise drew an East-West
line to separate slave and free states, (b) Oregon and Florida became American lands, and (c) the
Monroe Doctrine warned Europe to “stay away!”

Chapter 13 - The Rise of a Mass Democracy

The over-arching theme of chapter 13 is that through Andrew Jackson, political power fell to the people more than any
other time in history.

I. Andrew Jackson felt he’d been robbed the presidency in 1824. This motivated the regular folks to
political action. He vowed to win for the people’s sake, and did so.

II. A conflict started to brew between the north and the south. The issue was the tariff (import tax) and
whether the south had the right to “nullify” or wipe it out. The trouble was worked out, but it
foreshadowed bigger trouble to come, over slavery.

III. Jackson distrusted banks—he thought they were tools for the rich to milk money off the poor. He
killed the National Bank and threw the whole banking system into chaos.

IV. By the time William Henry Harrison ran for president in 1840, popular, mass politics had grown
into the circus-like monster that it’s known as today.

Chapter 14 - Forging the National Economy

The over-arching theme of chapter 14 is that American began to “grow up” economically in the early 1800s.

I. A wave of immigration came over starting in the 1840s, headed up by hungry Irish and Germans
seeking a better life. Both of these groups were looked upon with suspicion, but they were hard
workers and did well for themselves.

II. The factory system was in its infancy, led by Eli Whitney’s “interchangeable parts” Cyrus
McCormick’s mechanical reaping machine paved the way for modern agriculture.

III. Changes were foreshadowed including women beginning to work outside the home.

IV. The nation became “smaller” and tied together more closely thanks to (a) railroads being built, (b)
canals such as the Erie, (c) steamships, and (d) the Pony Express.

Chapter 15 - The Ferment of Reform and Culture

The over-arching theme of chapter 15 is that Americans began to recognize problems and began attempts to clean them
up. The major areas were religion, temperance (no alcohol), women's rights, and equality.

I. The "Second Great Awakening" began in the 1830s. It's purpose was to wake people from
lackluster religion and, like the First Great Awakening, was led by passionate and emotional
preachers.

II. The Mormons emerged from these beginnings and wandered westward to the Great Salt Lake.

III. Free public schools began in large measure.

IV. There was push to ban alcohol called "temperance." This was led by the ladies; they felt the way to
save the family was to ban alcohol.

V. The first women's rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, NY. They asserted that all men, and
women were created equal.

VI. Many "utopia experiments" began. The overall mission was to perfect society and create true
equality. Most simply failed and none of them succeeded in the ways envisioned.

Chapter 16 - The South and the Slavery Controversy

The over-arching theme of chapter 16 is that antebellum (pre-Civil War) society in the South was built on slave labor.

I. Cotton ran the South before the Civil War— it was "King Cotton." The entire southern economy
was based on cotton.

II. The South had developed a pyramid-like social structure. From top-to-bottom: planter aristocrats,
small farmers, the white majority (who owned no slaves), free blacks, slaves.

III. Life as a slave could be wildly varied—some slave owners were kind toward their slaves, some
were immensely cruel. In all situations, slaves were not free to do as they pleased.

IV. Abolition (move to abolish slavery) began with the Quakers. Frederick Douglass became the main
spokesman against slavery. And William Lloyd Garrison printed "The Liberator", a radical abolition
newspaper.

V. Southerners countered that northern workers were treated even worse than slaves. Slave owners,
they said, had a vested interest in their slaves. Northern factory workers exploited then fired their
workers.

Chapter 17 - Manifest Destiny and Its Legacy

The over-arching theme of chapter 17 is that the United States chose to pursue a national policy of expansion called
“Manifest Destiny.” The U.S. chose to expand it’s borders, and then did it.

I. A boundary dispute with England over Maine was settled peacably.

In the long run, the U.S. likely got the better end of the deal.
 II. Texas finally joined the U.S. Since the Texas revolution, it’d been
hanging in the balance. American lawmakers finally decided it was too good
of a prize to let slip by, so it was annexed in 1845

III. Oregon was next on the list of lands to seal up. It was shared land,
mainly between the U.S. and England. After some negotiating over the
border, the 49th parallel was agreed upon. Again, the U.S. likely got the
better.

IV. The election of 1844 saw James K. Polk run on a Manifest Destiny
platform. Americans liked the idea, voted him in, and he went after
California.

V. When the Mexican-American war was over, the prize of California

that Polk had wanted, was obtained. So was all of the modern American
Southwest.

Chapter 18 - Renewing the Sectional Struggle

The over-arching theme of chapter 18 is that the nation again fell into sectional dispute over slavery and states’ rights.

I. The main question facing the nation was, “Will new lands won from Mexico have slaves
or be free?”

II. The answer to the question was hammered out in the Compromise of 1850. It said
California was to be free, popular sovereignty (the people decide) for the rest of the lands.

III. A tougher fugitive slave law was a major concession to the South, but it wasn’t enforced.
This angered the Southerners.

IV. The North—South rift was widened with the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It repealed the
Missouri Compromise which had kept the peace for a generation. In it’s place, popular
sovereignty opened the Great Plains to potential slavery. Whereas the slave-land issue had
been settled, now it was a big question mark.

Chapter 19 - Drifting Toward Disunion

The over-arching theme of chapter 19 is that compromise had prevailed earlier over the slavery issue, but this time, it
failed.

I. Uncle Tom’s Cabin drove a wedge between the

Northerner and Southerner. The South cried foul saying
it gave a view of slavery that was too harsh and
 unrealistic, but it cemented each section’s feelings on the
issue.
II. Kansas became the battleground over slavery. Since
slavery there was to be decided by popular vote, each
side passionately fought for their position. Bloodshed
resulted.
III. The Supreme Court’s Dred Scott decision was huge.
It said that Congress or a legislature cannot outlaw
slavery in the territories. Effectively then, all new lands
were possible slave lands.
IV. A financial panic in 1857 added to the chaos and
uncertainty.
V. Abe Lincoln arrived on the scene. Although he lost to
Stephen Douglas for Illinois Senate, he made a name for
himself there.
VI. In 1860, Abe Lincoln won a very sectional race for
president over 3 other candidates. The South had
promised to leave the union if Abe won. He won, and
the South indeed seceded.

Chapter 20 - Girding for War: The North and the South

The over-arching theme of chapter 20 is that both sides prepared for war. The North relied on numbers to their
advantage, the South hoped for England to intervene on their side, and the border states were in the balance.

I. After Ft. Sumter started the war, keeping the border

states were Abe’s top concern. These were slave states
that hadn’t left the nation. Throughout the war, Abe
would make concessions to “keep them happy.” The
border states never left.
II. All along the South felt that England would help
them. The idea was that King Cotton’s dominance would
force the English into helping the Southerners. This
never happened, largely because Uncle Tom’s Cabin had
convinced the English people of slavery’s horrors.
 III. The North had the advantage in almost every
category: population, industry, money, navy.
Both sides turned to a draft, the nation’s first. The draft was very unpopular and many riots broke out.

Chapter 21 - The Furnace of the Civil War

The over-arching theme of chapter 21 is that the North wore down and then forced the South to surrender.

I. The North thought they could win in a quick war.

After they lost at Bull Run, the quick-victory approach
seemed to have been a mistake. A northern loss on “the
Peninsula” at Richmond reinforced that this would be a
long war.
II. The South started the war winning. Turning point
battles, which the North won, took place at (a) Antietam
just before Lincoln’s “Emancipation Proclamation”, (b)
Gettysburg which effectively broke the South’s back,
and (c) Vicksburg which helped the North control the
Mississippi River.
III. Lincoln won a hard-fought reelection in 1864. He did
so by starting the “Union Party” made of Republicans
and pro-war Democrats and on the simplicity of the
slogan, “You don’t change horses midstream.”
IV. General Sherman marched across Georgia and the
South and reaped destruction. And the South began to
lose battle after battle. These events drove the South to
surrender at Appomattox Courthouse.

Chapter 22 - The Ordeal of Reconstruction

The over-arching theme of chapter 22 is that the South was placed under strict watch for years after the Civil War.
Southern blacks saw some brief improvements, until the U.S. pulled back up North and left Southern blacks “hanging
out to dry.”

I. After the war, the question was, “What to do with the

southern states?” The more moderate Republicans, like
Lincoln and his successor Andrew Johnson, lost out to
 the Radical Republicans who desired to punish the
South.
II. The South was divided up into military districts. The
southern states were not allowed to reenter the U.S. until
the North’s stipulations were met.
III. For Southern blacks, these years were good
politically. Since whites wanted nothing to do with the
U.S., blacks voted and were often elected to state
legislatures and Congress.
IV. Economically, freed blacks fared worse. They were
no longer slaves, but with little other options, they
largely became sharecroppers. The end result was little
different and little better than slavery.
V. In 1877, a presidential election was essentially a tie.
A compromise was worked out, and the South got the
U.S. Army to pull out. This left the southern blacks on
their own—southern whites reasserted their power.

Chapter 23 - Political Paralysis in the Gilded Age

The over-arching theme of chapter 23 is that the Republicans and Democrats fell into an era of do-little politics. Each
was concerned only with getting their party reelected.

I. President Ulysses S. Grant’s administration was

riddled with corruption. Grant himself was clean, but
many others were not and Grant was unwilling to fire
them.
II. The political parties fell into the trap of serving
themselves more than the people. Their top priority was
to get their party reelected. As a result, little actually got
done in the government.
III. Tensions rose over race and ethnicity. When the U.S.
Army pulled out of the South as part of the Compromise
of 1877, Reconstruction was over and southern blacks
were left to fend for themselves. Also, anti-Chinese
 sentiment ran high and the Chinese were actually banned
from immigration.
IV. The government did reach the billion dollar level for
the first time. This was largely due to military pension
plans. The plans were very popular and revealed the goal
of the legislators—pass something that will get me
reelected.
V. Populism started. This was a farmer and worker
movement that sought to clean up the government, bring
it back to the people, and help the working man out.

Chapter 24 - Industry Comes of Age

The over-arching theme of chapter 24 is that America’s economy turns from agricultural and handiwork to industrial
and machine work.

I. Before the Civil War, railroads had become

important. After the war, railroads boomed and were
critical to the nation. Railroads, along with steel, were to
be the skeleton on which the nation’s economy would be
built.
II. A class of millionaires emerged for the first time
ever. Tycoons like Carnegie and Rockefeller made
fortunes. This type of wealth was championed by
“Social Darwinism” where the strong win in business.
III. Unfortunately, many of the mega-industries, like
railroads, grew at the expense of the “little man’s”
interest. As businesses, they were out to make money,
and they did. But the working man cried foul.
IV. To right these wrongs, the beginnings of anti-trusts
began (to bust the monopolies) and organized labor got a
jumpstart (although they were still rather ineffective).

Chapter 25 - America Moves to the City

The over-arching theme of chapter 25 is that in the late 1800s, the Industrial Revolution forced the American city to
gain dominance over rural America.
 I. Cities grew because factories grew. The Industrial
Revolution kicked into gear in America in the late 1800s
and factories needed workers, so people flocked to the
cities.
II. Problems arose as cities boomed. The problems
included: exploitation of immigrant laborers,
poor/unhealthy work conditions, over-crowdedness and
sanitation problems, corrupton, and “nativism” (anti-
immigrant feelings).
III. Booker T. Washington & W.E.B. DuBois were the
top black leaders. They disagreed on how to help blacks
—Washington encouraged blacks to obtain a practical
skill at a trade school, DuBois encouraged blacks to
study anything they wished, even academic subjects.
IV. The roles of women began to change, if only slightly.
More women worked, though most were still at home.
The “new woman” was idealized by the althletic,
outgoing “Gibson Girl.”

Chapter 26 - The Great West and the Agricultural Revolution

The over-arching theme of chapter 26 is the West was opened up for settlement. This meant the Native Americans were
forced out for farmers, miners, and ranchers.

I. Native Americans out West faced two options: agree

to settle on a reservation or fight the U.S. Army as
“hostiles.” Some chose reservations, others to fight, but
all were cleared out.
II. Miners looking for silver and/or gold fled to
Colorado and Nevada seeking quick fortune. A few
found it, the vast majority didn’t.
III. Cattle became king in Texas as cowboys drove herds
north to the Kansas railroads and reaped quick money.
IV. Farmers struggled out west due to several problems:
weather, insects, high mortgage rates, high railroad
shipping rates, and low prices for their crops.
 V. The farmers’ struggles led to the People’s (or
Populist) Party. This party sought “cheap money” (or
silver money) in order to create inflation and thus make
it easier to pay off debts.

Chapter 27 - Empire and Expansion

The over-arching theme of chapter 27 is that America took over new lands, mostly in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

I. The Spanish-American War saw the U.S. gain

Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guantanomo Bay in Cuba, the
Philippines, and other smaller islands.
II. The Philippines proved to be hard to handle since the
Filipino people didn’t want the U.S. there. They waged a
guerilla war and resented American control until it was
turned back over to the Philippines after WWII.
III. The U.S. managed to get an “Open Door Policy” with
China. This opened the Asian giant to international
trade.
IV. Teddy Roosevelt became a vigorous president who
obtained and built the Panama Canal. His “Big Stick
Policy” toward Latin America increased America’s
influence, but also increased animosity toward the U.S.

Chapter 28 - Progressivism and the Republican Roosevelt

The over-arching theme of chapter 28 is that reformers called “Progressives” sought to clean up America on behalf of
the people. Teddy Roosevelt became the best-known and most active Progressive.

I. The Progressives grew out of the Populist (or

People’s) Party and sought to correct injustices.
II. Progressives and “muckraker” writers attacked city
corruption, corporate greed, poor living and working
conditions, alcohol, and women’s right to vote. Each of
these ills saw laws and/or Amendments passed to
attempt to better the condition.
 III. Teddy Roosevelt made a name for himself as a “trust-
buster”. That is, he broke up a few high-profile
companies that he said were monopolies (or trusts).
Busting trusts and thus creating competition was to
benefit the average person.
IV. He also obtained huge tracts of land, usually out
West, for parks and conservation.
V. Roosevelt picked Taft to follow him, but Taft began
to stray from Roosevelt’s ways and the two split.

Chapter 29 - Wilsonian Progressivism at Home and Abroad

The over-arching theme of chapter 29 is that Woodrow Wilson was an idealist (he had high principles and would not
bend them for practical purposes).

I. Wilson won the presidency mainly because Teddy

Roosevelt ran as a third-party candidate and split the
Republican vote with Taft.
II. Wilson was an idealist and progressive who sought to
clean up problems. He attacked the tariff as too high,
banks as corrupt by the rich, and trusts as milking the
people.
III. Wilson hated war and wanted American foreign
policy to be fair and just to all. Conditions in Latin
America, however, forced this peaceful president to take
military action. Notably, he ordered the US Army to
chase Pancho Villa in Mexico.
IV. In Europe, war had begun. In the Atlantic ocean,
German subs began to sink sinks carrying Americans,
notably the Lusitania. Wilson tried to keep America out
of the war, and did, for the time being.

Chapter 30 - The War to End War

The over-arching theme of chapter 30 is that America reluctantly joined WWI, she then threw herself into the war
effort with full force.
 I. President Wilson outlined the war’s objectives with
his Fourteen Points. They set the goals of free seas, self-
determination after the war, and establishing a body to
prevent future wars.
II. A military draft was instituted, the first since the
Civil War.
III. Women went to work more than they’d ever done
and black soldiers were drafted into the military into
segregated units.
IV. The Americans focussed their military effort in
protecting Paris from the Germans.
V. At the Treaty of Versailles, Wilson agreed to allow
England and France to punish Germany for the war. In
return, they agreed to start Wilson’s “League of
Nations.”
VI. However, the US Senate rejected the Treaty/League.
They didn’t wish to turn over America’s decision-
making to a foreign body like the League of Nations.

Chapter 31 - American Life in the "Roaring Twenties"

The over-arching theme of chapter 31 is that America clipped along through the 20s at a fast pace and ran through
many cultural changes.

I. A “red scare” struck America in the 20s. Fear of

communism resonated through society and was fueled
by mail bombings and illustrated by the Sacco and
Vanzetti executions.
II. Anti-immigration ran high as well. Laws were passed
to limit immigration, and specifically, to limit “New
Immigrants” from Italy and Poland.
III. The “Scopes Monkey Trial” illustrated the new
controversy of evolution vs. creation.
 IV. Businesses had a good run in the 20s and consumers
bought products wildly, often on credit or with an
installment plan.
V. Three Republican presidents were pro-business. The
economy and consumers got to running too fast, and
coupled with over-buying in the stock market, initiated
the Stock Crash and Great Depression.

Chapter 32 - The Politics of Boom and Bust

The over-arching theme of chapter 32 is that 20s politics were a time of corruption and business running wild, kind of a
throwback to late 1800s.

I. President Harding had several scandals underneath

him, notably the Teapot Dome Scandal over oil.
II. America entered into policies of “isolationism”
whereby the US just wanted to look after herself and
leave Europe alone.
III. Coolidge was very pro-business, following a “hands-
off” approach by government.
IV. Hoover held the same ideas with his “rugged
individualism” phrase. When the Stock Crash hit and
Great Depression started, Hoover was very reluctant and
slow to take government action.

Chapter 33 - The Great Depression and the New Deal

The over-arching theme of chapter 33 is that FDR led the federal government into his massive New Deal programs.
The goal was to re-invigorate the U.S. economy and jolt it right up out of the Great Depression.

I. FDR quickly got many New Deal programs passed.

The general philosophy was: the government will start
massive projects and spend huge quantities of money,
and this will “jump-start” the economy.
II. These programs hit on all walks of life. Emphasis
was placed on creating jobs, housing, construction
projects, and restoring confidence in banks.
 III. Though FDR was popular, there were critics to the
New Deal—some saying it did too much, others that it
did too little.
IV. FDR pretty much had his way with Congress, until he
asked for more Supreme Court judges and was finally
told, “No.”
V. All told, though the New Deal may have helped the
economy a bit, it did not boost the U.S. from the
Depression.

Chapter 34 - Franklin D. Roosevelt and the Shadow of War

The over-arching theme of chapter 34 is that dictatorships overseas forced FDR to stray from American issues and look
outside of the U.S. FDR wanted peace, but events slowly drew the U.S. closer and then into WWII.

I. When it became evident that both Japan and

Germany were marching toward militarism, FDR (and
Europe) made it clear they wanted peace. This
effectively gave the dictators a “go-ahead” sign.
II. Events showed war as inevitable. Japan attacked
China. Spain became a dictatorship, and Italy and
Germany did as well.
III. After watching Hitler go on the move, he finally
broke a pledge to not attack Poland. England and France
went to war. The U.S. still wanted to stay out.
IV. As the situation overseas deteriorated, the U.S. began
to support England and France more openly with words
and supplies. Finally, when Pearl Harbor was attacked,
the U.S. entered WWII.

Chapter 35 - America in World War II

The over-arching theme of chapter 35 is the U.S. fought a two-front war: in Europe and in the Pacific. To win, America
mobilized its massive resources of people and materials, then steadily fought to overwhelm the enemy.

I. The first goal of the U.S. in the war was to mobilize.

This meant signing up thousands of troops, and
 switching the American economy over to war. For
example, it was time to stop making sedans, and start
building bombers.
II. The war affected all Americans. Men (of all races)
went to war and women took the jobs the men had left.
III. In the Pacific, the U.S. “island hopped” over four
years from Hawaii all the way to Okinawa and were
“knocking on Japan’s door.” Finally, the atomic bomb
drove Japan to surrender.
IV. In Europe, the U.S. and her allies worked from North
Africa up through Italy and toward the “soft underbelly”
of Germany. Then, the massive D-Day invasion drove
the Nazis back to Germany where Hitler committed
suicide and his generals surrendered.

Chapter 36 - The Cold War Begins

The over-arching theme of chapter 36 is that post-war America found a new prosperity economically and a new enemy
in communist Russia. Opposition to communism would dominate foreign policy for over 40 years.

I. The production boom of WWII jolted America out of

the Great Depression. With other nations torn up by war,
America enjoyed an economic dominance for three
decades following WWII.
II. The policy of “containment”, or not letting
communism spread, was the basis of the “Truman
doctrine.” This policy was drove foreign policy until
communism fell in 1989.
III. With the Marshall Plan, the U.S. gave billions to
rebuild western Europe. The Marshall Plan, NATO
(alliance between U.S. and Western Europe), the
U.S.S.R. and U.S. chose opposite sides of the fence.
IV. When North Korea invaded South Korea, the policy
of containment was challenged. The U.S. entered the
Korean War to uphold the Truman Doctrine.
Chapter 37 - The Eisenhower Era
The over-arching theme of chapter 37 is how 1950s America entered a period of conformity where middle-class
America largely shared the same ideals and to do differently was a major no-no.

I. American enjoyed its new prosperity and bought up

loads of consumer items to go along with new homes.
The “baby boom” also began.
II. “McCarthyism” played off of, and added to,
America’s fears of communism.
III. Black—white segregation in the South became rigid.
But, the foundation of the civil rights movement was laid
with events such as the Brown v. Board of Education
case and Montgomery bus boycott.
IV. The Cold War dominated culture. Incidents between
the U.S. and U.S.S.R., such as America’s U-2 spy plane
being shot down, added to the tension. Plus, a new “arms
race” of nuclear weapons, and a “space race” to develop
satellites and rockets began.

Chapter 38 - The Stormy Sixties

The over-arching theme of chapter 38 is that the 1960s were a decade of upheaval. Abroad, the Vietnam War drug
throughout the decade; at home, cultural changes were staggering.

I. John Kennedy bumbled over foreign policy with his

failed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba; then redeemed
himself by standing up to the U.S.S.R. in the Cuban
Missile Crisis.
II. JFK also sent U.S. “advisors” to South Vietnam. The
goal was to prevent communist North Vietnam from
taking over non-communist South Vietnam.
III. The Civil Rights Movement gained steam and
reached full boil with Martin Luther King’s “I Have a
Dream Speech.” The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights
Act were large steps forward toward ending
discrimination.
 IV. Lyndon Baines Johnson fought two “wars”: (a) at
home, he started the “Great Society” in attempt to make
America the place everyone had dreamt it would be, (b)
he significantly escalated the U.S. presence in Vietnam
after the Tonkin Gulf Incident.
V. Culturally, young people rebelled against the
conformity of the 50s. In the 60s, the norm for many
became to not follow the norm. This was seen mostly in
the hippies, in music, in drug use, and in the idea of
“questioning authority.”

Chapter 39 - The Stalemated Seventies

The over-arching theme of chapter 39 was that America’s post-war economic prosperity began to take a sharp slide
downward.

I. The economy began to slow. This was mostly due to

increased oil prices and resulting inflation. Generally
speaking, during the seventies, gas prices tripled and
inflation reached double digits by 1980.
II. Nixon was brought down by the Watergate Scandal.
The scandal involved a break-in and mic bugging at the
Democratic headquarters. Nixon got into trouble for
“obstructing justice” and telling people to keep quiet
about it.
III. Jimmy Carter was elected as a Washington outsider.
He struggled as president with (a) the economy which
took a nose-dive and (b) foreign affairs as he was unable
to deal with U.S. hostages taken in Iran.
IV. Though times were certainly not bad, mixed with the
Watergate scandal, it was a decade without tremendous
progress.

Chapter 40 - The Resurgence of Conservatism

The over-arching theme of chapter 40 is that Ronald Reagan returned America to more traditional policies and values.
 I. Conservatism emerged through Reagan who
supported tax cuts, “supply-side” economics that helped
businesses, and a strengthening of the military. The
national debt increased dramatically, largely due to
increased military spending.
II. Reagan took a strong stance against communism,
calling the U.S.S.R. the “evil empire.”
III. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the
Soviet Union, tensions began to soften. Gorbachev’s
actions within the U.S.S.R. would eventually lead to
communism’s fall in 1989.
IV. In 1991, Iraq invaded Kuwait. This started an
international effort to oust Iraq, led by George H. W.
Bush and the U.S.

Chapter 41 - America Confronts the Post-Cold War Era

The over-arching themes of chapter 41 is that Bill Clinton and the federal government largely bumbled through eight
years of presidency yet enjoyed a robust economy. And George W. Bush took the “War on Terror” overseas to
Afghanistan and Iraq.

I. Entering the White House in 1992, Clinton came with

a desire to make several liberal reforms such as gays in
the military and universal government-sponsored health
care. Most of these were over-estimated and did not pan
out.
II. Two years later, the Republicans, led by Newt
Gingrinch, won large numbers in Congress. Then they
also over-estimated the call for change.
III. Problems abroad were also a thorn in Clinton’s side,
including chaos in Somalia where the U.S. entered and
then left, trade policies with China, ethnic fighting in the
Balkans where the U.S. and NATO tried to clean up the
mess.
IV. The 2000 election between George W. Bush and Al
Gore was the closest in history, and likely the most
 controversial. Gore got more popular votes, but after
counts and recounts in Florida, Bush got more electoral
votes and won.
V. On September 11, 2001, radical Muslim terrorists
attacked the U.S. by hijacking airplanes. This motivated
President Bush to attack Afghanistan in hopes of (a)
ousting the Taliban rulers and (b) uprooting the
terrorists.
VI. Believing Saddam Hussein had “WMDs” (weapons
of mass destruction) Bush and Congress elected to attack
Iraq. Hussein was captured and the U.S. set up a new
Iraqi government. Chaos in the streets remained,
however, and the rest of the story is still being written.

Chapter 42 - The American People Face a New Century

The over-arching theme of chapter 42 is that America faces new challenges in the future.

I. The high-tech sector has revolutionized the modern

nation. Personal computers are the norm and the internet
came in a boom (and a bust). A handful of tech firms
and founders became instant billionaires.
II. The rich-poor gap widened as the wealthy got
wealthier during the ReaganBushClinton years. The rich
did get richer, and they paid an increasing percentage of
the total taxes.
III. Women broke into many places formerly reserved for
men. This was true for both jobs, but also for colleges
such as Ivy League schools and military schools.
IV. Family make-up began to change dramatically as
divorce increased sharply. Births to unmarried women
also increased dramatically.
V. Demographic changes are seen in (a) baby boomers
aging, (b) a large rise in Latino immigration, and (c) a
rise of “multiculturalism”.