Antebellum America: Democracy, Expansion, and Reform (1800-1848)

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President James K. Polk used Manifest Destiny to justify the annexation of Texas (1845), the Oregon settlement with Britain, and the Mexican-American War (1846-1848), which added California and the Southwest.

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Jackson vetoed the recharter of the Second Bank of the United States in 1832, calling it a tool of eastern elites, and supported the Indian Removal Act despite Supreme Court opposition.

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Camp meetings and revival circuits inspired reformers like Frederick Douglass (abolition), Dorothea Dix (mental health reform), and participants in the Seneca Falls Convention (1848) for women's rights.

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The Erie Canal (1825) connected the Great Lakes to New York City, reducing shipping costs by 90% and turning New York into the nation's commercial capital.

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The Cherokee Nation sued in Worcester v. Georgia (1832), and the Supreme Court ruled in their favor, but Jackson reportedly said 'John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it' and proceeded with removal.

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William Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator beginning in 1831, while Frederick Douglass's autobiography (1845) and speaking tours powerfully humanized the enslaved experience for northern audiences.

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The compromise maintained the Senate balance between slave and free states but was called 'a fire bell in the night' by Thomas Jefferson, who recognized it merely postponed the slavery crisis.

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The North favored protective tariffs to shield its factories, while the South opposed them because tariffs raised the cost of imported goods and invited retaliatory tariffs on cotton exports.