Introduction for Part 4

PART 4 Overlapping Revolutions, 1800–1860

Contents

CHAPTER 9

Transforming the Economy, 1800–1860

CHAPTER 10

A Democratic Revolution, 1800–1844

CHAPTER 11

Religion and Reform, 1800–1860

CHAPTER 12

The South Expands: Slavery and Society, 1800–1860

“The procession was nearly a mile long … [and] the democrats marched in good order to the glare of torches,” a French visitor remarked in amazement during the U.S. presidential election of 1832. “These scenes belong to history … the wondrous epic of the coming of democracy.” As Part 4 shows, Americans were making history in many ways between 1800 and 1860. Indeed, these decades constitute a distinct period precisely because the pace of historical change accelerated, especially between 1820 and 1860, as overlapping revolutions transformed American life. One revolution was political: the creation of a genuinely democratic polity. A second was economic: in 1800, the United States was predominantly an agricultural nation; by 1860, the northern states boasted one of the world’s foremost industrial economies. Third, these years witnessed far-reaching cultural changes. Beginning about 1800, the Second Great Awakening swept across the nation, sparking great movements of social reform and intellectual ferment that revolutionized the culture of the North and Midwest. Finally, sectionalism increased in intensity, as the South extended its slave-labor system and the North developed a free-labor society. The overall result by 1860 was striking and alarming: now more politically democratic, economically prosperous, and deeply religious, the United States stood divided into antagonistic sections. Here, in brief, are the key aspects of those transformations.