Chapter 10 Presentation Notes

Here is the presentation I will be giving in class on 10/1/14. I thought it might be helpful for me to post it here. Please stay tuned to the comments for edits from me, and please feel free to comment below as well!


EV Chapter 10 Student Presentation

Chapter Title: Democratic Politics, Religious Revival, and Reform

Dates Covered: 1824-1840

The Rise of Democratic Politics (1824-1832):

·        Voters no longer required to own property, written ballots replaced voting aloud

·        “Direct” elections: individuals voted for electors, instead of the legislature doing it (Electoral College)

·        1824: John Quincy Adams wins election, but doesn’t have required majority, so he is technically elected by the House of Representatives

·        1828: Andrew Jackson elected to his first term as President

The Bank Controversy and the Second Party System (1833-1840):

·        1832: Jackson wins second term, opposes National Bank (“victory for the common man”)

·        1834: Whig party is organized against “King Andrew I”

·        1836: Martin Van Buren (Jackson’s VP) is elected President, inherits a bad economy (Panic of 1837)

·        1840: Harrison (a Whig!) defeats Van Buren in presidential elections. 80% of white males are eligible to vote.

The Rise of Popular Religion:

·        The Second Great Awakening: Revivals and Camp Meetings (now is the time to repent!)

·        Charles Grandison Finney: important revivalist, laid the seeds of the Evangelical movement. “I have been born again” (one young convert). Revivals centered around emotional conversions.

·        Methodists become major Protestant denomination

·        Unitarians: opposed revivals, attracted a richer, more educated base

·        Mormon and Shaker sects founded: both separated themselves from society

The Age of Reform:

·        Targets of various reformers: Liquor (temperance), Public Schools (Horace Mann), Abolition (William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass), Women’s rights (Angelina and Sarah Grimke, abolition activists, also the founders of the Feminist movement)

·        Religion/Revival fever played right into the reform-mania