They would be a reason for those in rural areas to gather. General farm work took up much of the time, and an election was a reason to take a break from farm work and catch up with the community.
The fact that elections occurred on a regular schedule for the most part helped as well. How important were political candidates, issues, and party loyalties?
They became important as more people were able to vote. As the parties worked to build their constituency they expected those of their party to be loyal to the party line. How engaged are the voters? They are engaged, including drinking several have had more than enough to drink , accepting a broadside or sample ballot, and discussing the issues of the election. Who are the men in the top hats? What are they doing? How does Bingham portray them?
How do they relate to ordinary voters? The men in the top hats are probably working for a party trying to garner support.
They are portrayed as polite strangers who are trying to engage and encourage voters through discussion and distributing pamphlets or sample ballots. His attitude was that the election was a community gathering for a purpose. There is a suggestion of certified business conveyed by the man at the top of the stairs, so the viewer does not forget that the election is official.
But in general the tone is that of a friendly community gathering that welcomes all potential voters. Did he see them as serious exercises of democracy, as farce, or as something in between?
He saw them as something in between. There is indeed a serious exercise of democracy as speech appears to be free, but there are also focused attempts at persuasion coercion? What was his attitude toward the electorate? Did he see voters as serious well informed men or as manipulated dupes? He saw voters as well informed, listening to party members and discussing issues with their fellow voters.
What does the painting say about elections in a democracy in which common people can cast ballots? Those election results cannot be forecast, as the electorate may change political support even up to the last minute. The activity of the crowd suggests that the electorate was actively engaged and that voter turnout would be large.
It also suggests that elections were important events in the growing democracy. What might the open curtain symbolize? It might symbolize that this could have been a private table where the two men could have discussed issued in private. That the curtain is open could symbolize that the issues or discussion expanded beyond the normal limits of conversation. It also could imply that the man on the left is wanting to leave. What sort of people are the men in the painting?
What do their clothes tell us? Why has Woodville dressed the young man entirely in one color? What is the significance of their difference in age? The younger man is wearing his top hat indoors, giving the impression of a young, perhaps inexperienced man on the go.
By dressing him in one color the viewer focuses more on his apparent harangue than his clothing. The older man on the left appears to be dressed more appropriately, with color, and he conveys experience and possible affluence. What is the man on the right doing? How much does he care about politics? How does Woodville signal his passion?
What is the source of his arguments? The man on the right is conveying his passionate argument, and he cares very much about politics. His body language leaning forward conveys his passion. Do you think he agrees or disagrees? Does he care?
His facial expression asks the viewer to save him from this speech. In American politics, a spoils system or patronage system is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its voters as a reward for working toward victory.
In such a system, jobs are also awarded as incentives so individuals will continue working for the party. This type of practice is in contrast to a merit-based system, in which political offices are awarded to individuals with the highest merit, regardless of political activity.
Marcy in reference to the victory of Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party in the election of In other nations, spoils systems are common, particularly in areas traditionally governed by tribal organizations or kinship groups.
Before March 4, , moderation had prevailed in the transfer of political power from one presidency to another. Supporters of newly elected President Andrew Jackson had been lavished with promises of positions in return for political support, and these promises were honored by an astonishing number of removals after Jackson assumed power. A total of officials were removed from government positions—nearly 10 percent of all such posts.
The Jackson administration attempted to explain this unprecedented purge as reform, or constructive turnover; however, in the months following the changes, it became obvious that the sole criterion for the extensive turnover was political loyalty to Andrew Jackson.
The most targeted organization within the federal government was the Postal Service. At that time, the Postal Service was the largest department in the federal government and had even more personnel than the war department.
The new emphasis on loyalty as opposed to competence would have a long-term negative effect on the efficiency of the federal government. President after president continued to use the spoils system to encourage citizens to vote in a particular way.
By the late s, however, reformers began demanding a civil-service system. After the assassination of James A. Garfield by a rejected office-seeker in , the calls for civil service reform intensified. The end of the spoils system at the federal level eventually came with the passage of the Pendleton Act in , which created a bipartisan Civil Service Commission to evaluate job candidates on a nonpartisan merit basis. While few jobs were covered under the law initially, the law was gradually expanded by each successive president.
The separation between political activity and the civil service was made even stronger with the Hatch Act of , which prohibited federal employees from engaging in many political activities.
In state and local governments, the spoils system survived much longer. Illinois modernized its bureaucracy in under Frank Lowden, but Chicago held on to patronage in city government until the city agreed to end the practice in the Shakman Decrees of and The Tariff of highlighted economic conflicts of interest between the Northern and Southern states that eventually led to the Nullification Crisis of This ordinance declared, by the power of the state, that the federal Tariffs of and were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of South Carolina.
The South and parts of New England opposed the tariff and expected that the election of Andrew Jackson as president would result in the tariff being significantly reduced. The nation had suffered an economic downturn throughout the s, and South Carolina in particular had been affected.
Many South Carolina politicians blamed the change in fortunes on the national tariff policy that developed after the War of to promote American manufacturing over its British competition. The major goal of the Tariff of was to protect industries in the northern United States, which were being driven out of business by low-priced imported goods, by putting a tax on such imports.
The South, however, was harmed directly by having to pay higher prices on goods the region did not produce, and indirectly because reducing the exportation of British goods to the United States made it difficult for the British to pay for the cotton they imported from the South. By , South Carolina state politics increasingly organized around the tariff issue. In Washington, an open split on the issue occurred between Jackson and his vice president John C.
Calhoun, the most effective proponent of the constitutional theory of state nullification. On July 14, , after Calhoun had resigned his office in order to run for the Senate where he could more effectively defend nullification, Jackson signed into law the Tariff of This compromise tariff received the support of most Northerners and half of the Southerners in Congress.
However, the reductions were too little for South Carolina, and in November of , a state convention declared that the tariffs of both and were unconstitutional and unenforceable in South Carolina as of February 1, Military preparations to resist anticipated federal enforcement were initiated by the state. In late February, both a Force Bill authorizing the president to use military forces against South Carolina and a newly negotiated tariff satisfactory to South Carolina were passed by Congress.
In response, the South Carolina convention reconvened and repealed its Nullification Ordinance on March 11, The crisis was over, and both sides could find reasons to claim victory. Historians consider the crisis to be one of the first direct causes of the Civil War. By the s, the issues of the expansion of slavery into the western territories and the threat of power of slave states became central issues in the nation.
The Indian Removal Act of set the stage for the forced relocation of American Indians from the east to the west. Describe the transformation of government policy toward American Indian tribes under President Andrew Jackson. Indian removal was a nineteenth-century policy of the U. The Indian Removal Act was signed into law by President Jackson in , and it had a profound and devastating impact on the lives of Americans.
For white land-hungry Southerners, the policy allowed for a prosperous westward expansion. For American Indians, the Removal Act brought death and destruction. While the United States eventually tripled in size, thousands of American Indians lost their homes, their families, and often their lives in what many historians consider a sweeping genocide. Since the presidency of Thomas Jefferson, The U. This idea was proposed in by Jefferson, but was not used in actual treaties until , when the Cherokee agreed to cede two large tracts of land in the east for one of equal size in present-day Arkansas.
Many other treaties of this nature quickly followed. Under Andrew Jackson, elected president in , government policy toward American Indians moved from coercive to outright hostile. Congress opened a fierce debate on an Indian Removal Bill. In the end, the bill passed, but the vote was close. The Senate passed the measure 28—19 and the House — Jackson signed the legislation into law on June 30, In , the majority of the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, Seminole, and Cherokee were living east of the Mississippi as they had for thousands of years.
While it did not authorize the forced removal of the American Indian tribes, it authorized the president to negotiate land-exchange treaties with tribes located in lands of the United States. The first removal treaty signed after the Removal Act was the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek on September 27, , in which Choctaws in Mississippi ceded land east of the river in exchange for payment and land in the west.
Two years prior, the state legislature of Georgia enacted a series of laws that stripped the Cherokee of their rights under the state law with the hope of forcing tribe members off of their fertile and gold-sprinkled land. By the s, many of the five major tribes in that area had assimilated into the dominant culture; some even owned slaves.
In , members of these tribes decided to use the U. Supreme Court to combat Jacksonian policies in the case of Cherokee Nation v. Supreme Court. Wirt argued that Georgia violated the U. Constitution as well as United States-Cherokee treaties. In , the U. Supreme Court decision Worcester v. Georgia ruled that Georgia could not impose its laws upon Cherokee tribal lands. However, the state and President Jackson refused to accept or enforce the decision.
Jackson used the Georgia crisis to pressure Cherokee leaders to sign a removal treaty. Ridge was not a recognized leader of the Cherokee Nation, and this document was rejected by most Cherokees as illegitimate. More than 15, Cherokees signed a petition in protest of the proposed removal; however, the Supreme Court and the U. Due to the infighting between political factions, many Cherokees thought their appeals were still being considered until troops arrived.
Trail of Tears : This map illustrates the route of the Trail of Tears. In , the Seminole tribe refused to leave their lands in Florida, leading to the Second Seminole War.
Osceola led the Seminole in their fight against removal. Based in the Everglades of Florida, Osceola and his band used surprise attacks to defeat the U. Army in many battles. In , Osceola was seized by deceit upon the orders of U. General T. Jesup when Osceola came under a flag of truce to negotiate peace. Osceola later died in prison.
Some Seminole traveled deeper into the Everglades, while others moved west. New Word List Word List. Save This Word! We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. All rights reserved. The Shadowy U.
Ancestors Gertrude Atherton.
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