Notes from 11/10/08

Chapter 11, ctd.
Politics and the Reform Movement, 1820s-1840s

Whig political views:

• Wanted to make a morally progressive republic; the government would help the people become better individuals
• Supported the national bank, and its ability to provide credit and loans
• Believed there was a connection between moral progress and the market economy; supported state-sponsored internal improvements
• Supported a government-run reform movement, which included ending prostitution, promoting temperance, improving public education, insane asylums, and penetentaries (prisons).
• Both Whigs and Democrats agreed that the gov't should build a system of tax-supported schools -- Horace Mann of MA was most famous reformer of public education
• Favored state-level centralization of schools
• Wanted to place "deviants" (criminals) in rehabilitating institutions; Auburn System proposed putting prisoners to work to reform their spirit and work ethic.
• Proposed the prohibition of alcohol at the height of the Temperance movement

Democrat political views:

• Viewed the gov't and the market economy with suspicion
• Corporate charters, banks, and bonds for internal improvements only benefited the upper class
• Wanted a limited gov't without special interest interference
• Favored local centralization of schools (below the state level)
• Believed rehabilitation of criminals and other "wrongdoers" was too costly; favored simple imprisonment.
• Did not support government intervention in the Reform Movement, including the Temperance Movement; however, they did not support drunkenness, either...

Southerners:

• (both Whigs and Democrats) felt any moral intervention by the government would threaten their traditional way of life.
• supported schools that were local based, had a limited academic curriculum with an evangelical emphasis, and a short school year.
• resisted government reform because of their Bible-based beliefs that all humans are imperfect

- "nativism" refers to anti-immigrant politics that emerged in the 1840s as the first Irish and Germans began emigrating to America.

- Dorothea Dix pushed for reform of the treatment of the insane. Visited asylums across the nation; wanted safe, nurturing environments for those who were mentally ill. By 1860, 28 of the 33 states had state-run asylums.

-The Temperance Movement officially began in 1826 with the founding of the American Temperance Society in Boston by northern reformist evangelicals.

-Temperance was supported by influential preachers, such as Lyman Beecher and Charles Finney, who believed that total abstinence is the only way one could achieve a full religious conversion. As a result, alcohol consumption decreased by 50% in the 1830s.