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Historical Background

Population Density (1790 & 1830) (continued)

RISE OF DEMOCRACY—BROADENING CONCEPTS OF PROGRESS AND MANKIND

The 19th-century democratic faith in the United States grew out of a cluster of diverse ideas and impulses, some imported and others derived from the national experience. Its elements included a belief in progress, fundamental law and natural rights, and the worth and dignity of the individual. A widespread belief in a national mission to settle the continent and make it the best place in the world to live was a source of the dynamism that translated the ideals and impulses into action. The democratic faith was many-sided and expressed in many forms. The movement toward a more democratic political structure, symbolized by the election of Jackson, was one such expression. Another was the urge for a more humane and enlightened society, manifest in educational and cultural strivings and in the growth of reform movements.

The most prominent feature of the political democracy was the movement in the States to extend the right to vote to all white males 21 years of age and older. The movement to reduce property qualifications for voting had been underway since the War for Independence. The movement to eliminate them completely had begun before the War of 1812. New Jersey and Maryland had removed them entirely in 1807 and 1810, respectively. After the War of 1812 new States—Indiana, Illinois, and Alabama—entered the Union with universal white male suffrage already in their constitutions. Pressure in the same direction was mounting in the older States. Between 1818 and 1821 Connecticut, Massachusetts, and New York discarded property qualifications. Religious voting qualifications still prevailed in a few States, but they were tending toward a more liberal policy. Many States were also making efforts to reapportion representation to keep pace with shifting population balance. By 1828 all of the 24 United States except Delaware and South Carolina had withdrawn the right to choose presidential electors from the State legislature and placed it in the hands of the voters, and the common man could believe that he had helped elect Jackson. Thus did the democratic faith affect politics. In other areas of American life, it was influential, too.

Norfolk, from Gosport, Virginia. From an aquatint by J. Hill. Courtesy, Library of Congress.

Parallel to the rise of political democracy was the movement for social improvement and reform. To a growing number of Americans, it seemed that many 18th-century social institutions must be modified to keep pace with 19th-century ideals, for many did not share directly in the democratization of the political structure. By the time of Jackson's election in 1828, individuals and associations were hard at work to broaden the opportunities of the disadvantaged and handicapped. Pennsylvania and New York had established model prisons. Many States had revised harsh laws requiring imprisonment for failure to pay small debts.

The founding of four "asylums" between 1817 and 1830 signaled society's recognition that the "insane" were not criminals to be thrown in jail or chained in attics. Individual reformers dedicated their lives to aiding the physically handicapped. An example was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, who in 1817 became headmaster of the country's first free public school for deaf mutes, the American Asylum at Hartford, Conn. The movement for free public education was well underway. A number of model public school systems—the most famous being New York City's Public School Society—attracted attention, but the public school would not become anything like "universal" until after the Civil War.

Many movements were in the early stages of development. Among them were antislavery, women's rights, temperance, trade unions, and Utopian experiments. Some of the proposed multitude of reforms soon faded into oblivion. Others did not, but had to struggle against centuries of prejudice and habit to achieve their ends. But whatever the cause, whatever the outcome, the social ferment that brought later changes began bubbling in the nationalistic fervor that followed the War of 1812.

The pursuit of a national culture was another expression of nationalist feeling. Until the 1830's U.S. literary ambitions far exceeded accomplishments, though a few poets and novelists achieved memorable success. Washington Irving's tales of life and legend in New York State were notable. So, too, were the works of William Cullen Bryant, author of the poem "Thanatopsis" (1817). And James Fenimore Cooper's frontier novels of the 1820's, The Pioneers, The Last of the Mohicans and The Prairie, had considerable influence. To his generation, and many after, Cooper's tales offered an escape from routine to the adventure and romance of the West—to the world of the noble savage and the self-reliant frontiersman. In Irving, Bryant, and Cooper, the United States found the promise of a mature national literature.

Francis Scott Key's original draft of "The Star-Spangled Banner," first known as "Defense of Fort McHenry." In 1931 Congress officially designated it as our national anthem. Courtesy, Maryland Historical Society.

Excellent architects were at work in the United States between 1783 and 1828. Charles Bulfinch designed splendid public and private buildings in New England and elsewhere. Benjamin Henry Latrobe left his architectural stamp on Baltimore, Philadelphia, and Washington. Thomas Jefferson made major contributions and helped to inspire the Greek Revival. But it is difficult to describe the works of these architects as uniquely American. Ancient Greek and Roman buildings were their models. In borrowing from the Greeks and Romans, the architects of the early 19th century were consciously trying to express democratic and republican ideals. The domes and columns of the great public buildings were to serve as visual reminders of the purposes of the Nation. But a uniquely "American" architecture would emerge only later.

Artists in other fields sought to express the ideals and nationality of the United States. Painters produced battle scenes and portraits. Some—such as Gilbert Stuart, the Peales, John Trumbull, and Samuel F. B. Morse—achieved competence and fame but little originality. In music and the theater, little was created that was enduring. Most Americans looked to Europe for cultural models. For many generations to come, U.S. artists, struggling for originality, would also have to strive for recognition. The heavy emphasis on material success and a dispersed agricultural population nurtured a climate essentially indifferent to the needs and problems of artists. Much work had to be done to build the country. Leisure and contemplation would have to wait. First, Americans must settle the West.