And of Course, I Have to Mention the Elephant in the Room

Recently, we've been studying the politics of the early nineteenth century, particularly those which revolved around slavery, which was pretty much the biggest focus of politics at the time.  New states were being admitted into the Union, and there was much negotiation around how to keep the balance between slave states and free states, none of which succeeded at keeping the peace for long.  We looked at the Dred Scott Decision, the Compromise of 1850, Bleeding Kansas, and other events to see some of the events which showed that slavery was at the forefront of the national conscience in the early 1800s.  We made a timeline of these events:

In the early 1800s, the country was focussed on keeping the peace between slave holders and abolitionists.  In the Compromise of 1850, the territory recently acquired from Mexico was divided and several new laws were put in place to appease both groups.  The slave trade was abolished in the capital, which was a win for abolitionists, but the Fugitive Slave Act, while meant to pacify Southerners who would have been angry that the compromise upset the balance of slave and free states, became extremely controversial.  The Kansas-Nebraska Act left the territories of Kansas and Nebraska open for voters to decide whether or not to legalise slavery when applying for statehood.  This caused the event known as Bleeding Kansas.  There were several battles in the territory of Kansas over slavery.  In the Dred Scott Decision, a freed slave named Dred Scott sued his former master, 'And upon a full and careful consideration of the subject, the court is of opinion, that.... Dred Scott was not a citizen of Missouri within the meaning of the Constitution of the United States, and not entitled as such to sue in its courts.'  This also caused great controversy.  Many of the biggest events of the early eighteenth century revolved around slavery.


Sources:
http://www.edline.net/files/_BYIYQ_/a95c65dcd7b8c02c3745a49013852ec4/Elephant_in_the_Room_Lesson.pdf
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2951.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2933t.html

Advancement?

By the early nineteenth century, Eli Whitney had invented the cotton gin, though he probably had no idea of the impact his invention would have upon the future of the United States.  His goal was to make the growing of cotton more profitable, and he succeeded – the cotton gin transformed cotton from a small crop to by far the most important crop in the South.  With the increased production of cotton came an increased demand for labour, and southern plantation owners turned to slavery.  Before the invention of the cotton gin, ideas from the French revolution of equality and liberty had spread to the US.  Many slaveholders released their slaves, and there was talk of emancipation.  However, needing more workers to produce more cotton after the invention of the cotton gin, plantation owners bought more slaves to satisfy the demand.  The price of slaves skyrocketed along with the population of slaves in the United States.  By 1860, the price of a field hand had tripled from $500 to $1500.  By then, cotton had taken over the economy of the south.  They were exporting so much product and making so much money – over half of the nation’s exportation profit – that the government didn’t dare upset the system.  They needed the money from the cotton, and all of the farms that grew cotton relied on slave labour.  Click here to see how slavery grew with the production of cotton.

When a system of slavery is based on race, human dignity is pretty much nullified.  People who are slaves often feel stripped of their dignity when they are forcibly taken from their homes and made to work without pay.  Slaveholders and traffickers certainly treat slaves as though they have no dignity, as though they are less than human.  When a system of slavery is based on race, the people who perpetuate the system tend to look down on anyone of that race.  Even after slavery was abolished in the United States, white people still tended to view black people as inferior, especially in the south.  In my opinion, people who own and traffick slaves don't have much in the way of human dignity because they are willing to strip others of their dignity and treat people like they're less than human. 

A system of slavery such as this ignores the basic fact that we are all human.  We all have the same emotions, thoughts, we all crave love and freedom and happiness.  Any system of slavery ignores the fact that people don't enjoy having their dignity taken from them or other people claiming that they own them.  You can't truly own another human being.  That's what makes slavery so horribly wrong in the first place - people are not possessions.

Sources:

http://mappinghistory.uoregon.edu/english/US/US18-03.html

http://www.edline.net/files/_AeGg2_/1d5157b4b5d488223745a49013852ec4/Slavery_in_The_Founders_Constitution.pdf

http://www.edline.net/files/_AeGiT_/4eed1cce371caa3c3745a49013852ec4/Unit_4_Activity_4_Cotton_Gin_Reading.pdf

Cook Your Own Dinner

In the nineteenth century, a movement was begun at the Seneca Falls Convention: that for women's rights.  Women were not allowed to vote, and were essentially slaves once married, all of their property becoming their husband's. The fact that women's role was to cook and clean and raise children, not to work or speak publicly or vote was quite ingrained into most people's minds.  Responses to the Seneca Falls convention were mixed.  Some condemned the idea of women's reform, citing reasons from the Bible why they didn't think women should be given rights.  Some even went as far as to openly ridicule the reformers and their ideas.  Some people, however, agreed that it is ridiculous that half of the human population should be oppressed in this manner and spoke out in support of the reform movement.  In a rather sarcastic article in the National Reformer, an anti-reform piece published in the Mechanic's Advocate was ridiculed, and the author asked:

'We would ask but for one valid reason why woman should be deprived of her equal rights as an intelligent being.  We have never seen one reason attempted.  Even the editor of the Advocate attempts none.  He says: 'Now it requires no argument to prove that this is all wrong.'  This is disposing of the matter very easily.  No argument can be given, and therefore he says none is required.'

Another article published in the Oneida Whig claims:

'This bolt is the most shocking and unnatural incident ever recorded in the history of womanity.  If our ladies will insist on voting and legislating, where, gentlemen, will be our dinners and our elbows?  Where our domestic firesides and the holes in our stockings?'

For all their claims of superiority, men sure were incompetent.

Despite the best efforts of reformers in the 1800s, men and women are still treated very differently today.  Men are expected to go to work, grill, and watch football, while women are (still) expected to cook and clean and raise the children and go out shopping with their friends.  Plenty of men are very sexist.  Some guys make comments about women belonging in the kitchen and then complain about being single (one wonders why they are).  There still aren't any women in very high governmental positions in the US.  My chemistry teacher is a doctor - and almost everyone who doesn't know her and sees her title assumes she's male.  Even when women perform the same jobs as men, they are often treated worse and paid less though their work is equal to or even better than their male counterparts'.  Unfortunately, sexism is very much a part of today's society, and in many more ways than I have listed here.  Maybe we need another reform movement.

Dorothea Dix' Prison Reforms

'The family though enjoying the means of decent livelihood, when unburthened by extra expenses, have not the means of sending him to a distant Hospital. The rich may partake the benefits such institutions afford: the poor must suffer, agonize, and bear heavily out, by slow‐ killing tortures, their unblessed life! Are there no pitying hearts, and open hands that can be moved by these miseries?...'

 Dix, Dorothea. "Dorothea Dix Pleads for a State Mental Hospital." University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. November 1, 1848. Accessed January 26, 2015. http://www.edline.net/files/_AFCQx_/b85cbe6b6962af6c3745a49013852ec4/DixDocumentPDF.pdf.


 In this document, Dorothea Dix protests the deplorable treatment of people with mental illnesses in the nineteenth century.  She was trying to get state hospitals so that poor family members of the mentally insane could get treatment for their loved ones without having to pay an arm and a leg for it.  The document recounts some stories of the horrible conditions in which many people with mental illnesses were forced to live, and contains many testimonials from doctors who have experience working with the mentally insane, making it quite reliable.  At the time when this was written, many people who developed mental illnesses whose families were too poor to send them to hospital were jailed or otherwise confined.  Dix brings to light some of the truly awful conditions these people were forced into (chained to beds, confined in dark, dirty rooms, unbathed).  Some of the descriptions really illuminated the plight of the mentally insane in the nineteenth century.  Dorothea Dix' protests are well-planned, citing ways to change the ways that people with mental illnesses were treated in the 1800s.  However, this document fails to propose a way to pay for Dix' proposed state hospitals.  Dorothea Dix attempted to get better treatment for people with mental illnesses because she felt that the ways in which they were being treated were horrible.  She uses stories and descriptions of the conditions that many insane people were in, as well as testimony from doctors and people who have been around those with mental illnesses.  She fought to convince others that state hospitals should provide care for people with mental illnesses regarding the financial circumstances of their family, and throughout the document, one can see that she truly believed that the ways in which the mentally insane were treated should be changed and that state hospitals were the way to go.

Paved with Good Intentions

Andrew Jackson has long been known as the 'people's president.'  He was dedicated to helping the common man instead of the rich, but the fact remains that many of his choices made while in office and during his campaign were not good ones.
During Jackson's campaign, he offered government positions to people in exchange for their support.  He fired over nine hundred officials to make room for the new ones, claiming that he was rooting out corruption in the government.  It soon became evident, however, that this was not his true goal.  Jackson appointed Samuel Swartwout, a man with criminal tendencies, to a very important financial position against all logic, and he became a laughingstock when Swartwout made off with $1,222,705.09 (the biggest theft the country had ever seen).  Jackson's appointment of government officials based on political support instead of competency negatively affected the country for years to come.
Jackson also supported Indian removal, which ended up causing the Trail of Tears.  He violated all of the treaties previously made between the United States and Indian nations.  In his message to Congress December 7, 1829, Jackson claimed that he thought it would be a calamity if Native American nations were to be overtaken by white people, and 'suggested' that they should move voluntarily to a territory set aside west of the Mississippi.  For all of his claims that it would be cruel to force the Indians to move from their land, he essentially forced them to move when he declared that any of the Native Americans who remained within the boundaries of the states would be subject to the United States' laws and taxes. 
Andrew Jackson believed that the Second Bank of America was an unconstitutional institution, and that it solely served the rich.  He thought that too much power lay in the hands of the rich men who controlled the bank, and that they could potentially influence the political process because they held so much money (because he didn't influence the political process through bribery, definitely).  Jackson tore down the bank, resulting in massive inflation.  He intended to make life easier for the 'common man,' but Jackson ended up making the worst financial decisions of any president - and that's saying something. 
While Andrew Jackson claimed to be all about helping the common man, his actions prioritised a very select portion of the US' population.  While his act of dissolving the Second Bank was well-intentioned, it ended up making life much more difficult for the group of people that he intended to help.  He hated Native Americans, and while he claimed to be protecting them, to the Indians, he became the equivalent of Hitler.  His use of the spoils system showed that Jackson was more concerned about gaining power than making good decisions for the country.  Many of his decisions can be summarised this way, putting his own image before the actual good of the people and the country.

Sources
Bank War:
Andrew Jackson, Bank Veto Message to Congress, July 10, 1832, http://www.edline.net/files/_6YGyF_/ab0fb7a998a0f4f83745a49013852ec4/BankWar1.jpg
yhshistory, Jackson Bank Wars, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0pc7eH41vY&feature=youtu.be
Indian Removal:
The History Channel, Andrew Jackson - Trail of Tears, http://www.schooltube.com/video/10ab73bc9f1d4dc89014/AndrewJackson-TrailofTears/
Spoils System:
Robert V Remini, The Life of Andrew Jackson, 1988, http://www.edline.net/files/_6YG4b_/0cdf3b8baade74333745a49013852ec4/SpoilsSystem2.jpg

The Song Remains the Same

Democracy.  Seems so simple, but when you think about it, what does democracy really mean?  Is the United States' system truly democratic today?  Has it ever been? According to Merriam Webster's online dictionary, here is the definition of democracy:

-a form of government in which people choose leaders by voting
-an organisation or situation in which everyone is treated equally and has equal rights

According to the first definition, the United States is a democracy.  But according to the second, it has never been.  In the 1800s, when the US was a new country, even the voting process was sometimes questionable.

Votes were recorded orally with no secrecy, candidates were allowed to try and influence people's votes just before the election, and votes were sometimes bought with money or alcohol.  Many elections were won under rather suspicious circumstances.  Very few people could vote at that time.  Only white men were allowed to vote, and many states had restrictions that voters had to own property or pay taxes.  When a man named Thomas Dorr tried to get a new constitution in Rhode Island, which still operated under a royal charter in the 1830s, he provoked an incident known as the Dorr War.  This was the only violent instance in the United States' transition to universal white manhood suffrage (which still isn't anywhere near universal, but it was a step).  Most people didn't have human rights in the US in the 1800s, whereas the ideal democracy grants rights and suffrage to all.  By this right, the United States in the 1800s was not very democratic.  Slavery still existed, and women were oppressed, and anyone who was not white and male was very much at a disadvantage.  While the United States is not truly a place of equality and universal rights even today, we have come a long way from the 1800s.

Race and Latin American Revolutions

During this unit, we looked at some of the revolutions in Latin America that resulted from Napoleon's conquest of Europe.  In particular, we looked at the roles race played in these revolutions and why they are evidence that it is necessary to recognise everyone's value regardless of race.  The issue of race and people's refusal to look past it has been an issue for a long time, and continues to be a problem today.  We studied the revolutions in Brazil, Mexico, and Gran Colombia and the ways that they were affected by race by splitting into groups.  Each group studied a different revolution (my group focussed on the revolution in Gran Colombia) and created a timeline of the major events in their chosen revolution.  Then all of the groups compared their timelines and found two similarities and two differences between all of the revolutions.

This is our timeline of the revolution of Gran Colombia, detailing the events and actions of revolutionary Simon Bolivar.  Here are some similarities and differences between all of the Latin American revolutions.

Similarities:

• All of the revolutions began with discontent in the lower classes.
• All of these revolutions gained independence from European rule, but none of them ended up with racial equality.

Differences:

• The Brazilian revolution was mostly peaceful, while the other two were violent.
• In the Mexican revolution, the Royalists were the ones who gained independence.

 In Gran Colombia, the Spanish colonists of present-day Venezuela, Colombia, and Ecuador wanted independence from Spain.  Simon Bolivar, leader of the revolution, gathered an army of lower classmen who were discontent because they were treated as less than colonists born in Spain.  In Mexico, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla led an army primarily made up of Indians and Mestizos to gain independence and racial equality.  In the end, however, Mexicans with any Indian blood still had fewer rights than those of Spanish descent.  At the beginning of the revolution, Joaquim Jose da Silva Xavier, the only lower class member of the conspiracy which started the revolution, was blamed for the whole thing.  He was hanged and became a martyr for the revolution.  The new emperor of Brazil became unpopular when he filled his cabinet with Portuguese-born members.

Today, racism is less prominent than in the 18- and 1900s.  However, it is still very much a problem in society.  Just a few months ago, in Ferguson, Missouri, Michael Brown (an 18-year-old black man) was shot by a police officer multiple times after stealing a few cigars from a local store.  There are many accounts of what happened, and it is unclear whether Brown had his hands raised in surrender or was moving towards or away from the officer.  It is clear, however, that the policeman fired twelve rounds, about 6 of which were hits - and Michael Brown was unarmed.  Defenders of the police officer stated that Brown was 6 feet 5 inches, weighed almost 300 pounds, and was moving toward the officer threateningly.  They have neglected the fact that the shooter, an Officer Darren Wilson, is 6'4", weighs over 200 pounds, is ten years older than Brown was at the time of his death, and (being a police officer) is trained in combat.  Moving towards someone threateningly is absolutely no reason to be shot six times.  What's more, Officer Wilson was not indicted.  These events sparked nationwide protest, and in Ferguson, the police responded with military force.  The whole affair sounds as though we have gone back in time to the Civil Rights Movement.  This is one of many things that show that racism is not a problem that we have overcome.  Race (and differences in general) is something that humanity is still trying to come to terms with.  However, as a Unitarian Universalist, I believe that each person has inherent worth and dignity, and that is a belief that I stand by firmly.  It is extremely important to stand up for minorities, because everyone deserves human rights.  By recognising everyone's value regardless of the colour of their skin, we can start on the path to freedom and free will for all.

Summary of the Brazilian Revolution:
http://www.edline.net/files/_6SCE3_/1f9c3cf44b98eaea3745a49013852ec4/Brazil_Summary.pdf
Summary of the Mexican Revolution:
http://www.edline.net/files/_6SCF5_/b4c681dc17802a623745a49013852ec4/Mexico_Summary.pdf
Summary of the Gran Colombian Revolution:
http://www.edline.net/files/_6SCFi_/1d4b498f9f8c12db3745a49013852ec4/Gran_Colombia_Summary.pdf