Not All People!

The last lesson's essential question regarded the seventh president of the United States, Andrew Jackson. It posed the question: was he worthy of his title, "The People's President"? The Spoils System, Bank War and Indian Removal were the three topics we learned about in hopes to answer that question. My group was in charge of using Google Slides to teach the class about the first topic: The Spoils System. The Spoils System allowed Andrew Jackson to give government jobs to the people that supported him during the election. This led us to believe that President Jackson was not a president for all the people, only the ones he liked. Looking at Indian Removal, a darker side of Jackson is evident. Native Americans are people, and Jackson dismissed their opinion on his plan to relocate them, which led to ten thousand deaths on the Trail of Tears. The Natives were not even allowed to preform their burying rituals. Again, this looks like a man who is not for all the people. The last event, the Bank War, is an example of Andrew Jackson trying to benefit the poor. During the Bank War, President Jackson vetoed the Second National Bank's power in order to give the poor people a better chance at becoming better off. Although this was done with good intentions, it led to an economic crash the year after Jackson left office. In two out of three cases, Andrew Jackson is not for the people, which leads to the conclusion that his time in office does not grant him the right to the title "The People's President".

Kids In Charge

During the first week of December, History Class was run by the students. There was warning and there were plans for us to follow, but it still felt exciting. I really felt the pressure to meet the deadlines we had set out for ourselves because at the end of class, it was our job to report back to our teacher on what we had done via Google Docs. Our main project during was ironically on early Democracy in America. (I say ironically because the situation we experienced was a bit like an unstable democracy.) Our essential questions were: how should we define democracy and how democratic was the United States in the early 1800s.

Using the internet, we found out the dictionary definition of democracy and then put it in our own words. I said a democracy was a government where all the people in the country participate. In the activator we examined The County Election, a painting done in 1852 by George Caleb Bingham. In the depiction of early voting in Midwest America, there are several examples of questionable goings-on. Firstly, people are casting their ballots while drunk, and then before they can vote they are asked by a judge to swear they have not voted anywhere else. The voters could be lying, and perhaps they have voted in multiple other towns, the system is not yet set up so that it is honest. There is not even a way to tell if the votes are being counted correctly. The painting shows a place that is not a democracy, but instead a poor imitation of one. We looked at four other sources besides the painting to see other perspectives of the early democracy. One was a chart comparing the number of people who met the voting requirement and the number of states in the country over 65 years. The third source was another chart, this time displaying how the states were voting, either by people or legislature. Next was my favorite: two quotes, one from Benjamin Franklin and the other from Norton Townshend which called American Democracy illogical and not actually a democracy. The last source was on the Dorr War, which was a revolt in 1834 led by Thomas Dorr who called for a new constitution and an end to voting restrictions. To prove our knowledge of Early Democracy in America, we poured all our knowledge into a poster, the one seen below.

Pictography 

Bingham, George Caleb. The County Election, 1852. Oil on Canvas. Courtesy of Saint Louis Art Museum and the Early 19th Centry Realism collection on www.kingsacademy.com 

Whatever Needs to Be Done

In History class last week we attempted to understand what makes a nation and to what extent historically people have gone to defend their nation. Then we asked ourselves haw far people should be willing to go for their nation. First, we defined the word nation. The definition my group came up with was using what we had learned previously about nationalism. We said that a nation was a group of people that are bonded by shared language, culture, history, decent, and customs. People in a nation live in a certain area with natural boundaries. The next activity was analyzing a timeline. On the timeline were four events, The Congress of Vienna, Monroe Presidency, Russia shutting off Oregon to trading, and the Latin American Revolutions. The timeline, once fully understood, was a good representation of a nation, the United States, being asked what it is willing to do to defend itself. After the timeline we had more to analyze, three quotes from the Monroe doctrine which were the official rebuttals in response to the advances from other nations. For the last part of the lesson we looked to Italy and Germany to see what they were willing to do in their own defense.

1820 America was a nation. After the Revolutionary War, this country of America met the criteria of our definition of a nation, it shares a main language, has natural boundaries, and the people have similar enough histories. The threats aimed at the U. S. were the events of the timeline above. First it was the Congress of Vienna, ending in 1815. Britain agreed with everything the Congress came up with except the Principle of Intervention. Because of this, Britain proposed that America and Britain create an alliance to protect any colonies in the Americas that might want to revolt against the Holy Alliance’s power of repression. In the Monroe Doctrine, the president gently declines Great Britain’s proposition. This is an example of what America is not willing to do; it will not participate in a just-in-case alliance. The second Event, occurring in 1821 and ending two years later is Russia shutting off the Oregon trade. Russia’s goal was to take complete control over trade between Asia and the Americas. This would partially shut down The United States’ economy. Monroe would not stand for that. “…a full power and instructions have been transmitted to the minister of the United States at St. Petersburg to arrange by amicable negotiation the respective rights and interest of the two nations on the northwest coast of  this continent.” America is not willing to stand by and let their trade routes with Asia disappear, so someone went and had a friendly discussion with Russian officials to find a compromise. The third and last interference with America were the Latin American Revolutions going from 1804 until 1839. It was feared this was the opportunity where the Holy Alliance might stretch its Principle of Intervention across the water. So, out of fear of the disturbance to American peace and safety, Monroe said that the hemispheres should stick to themselves. Regarding the European colonies in the Americas, Monroe planned to do what he already had been, nothing. However, with those countries that like the U. S. had declared their independence, America would work to keep them independent even if it meant getting involved in war.

Over in the German Confederation, Otto Von Bismarck was up to no good. Okay, there was some good in his antics, but they were completely unrestricted and probably broke several laws. First off, Germany must be considered a nation because of its extensive boundaries (Baltic Sea, the Alps and the Russian Empire) and its shared language, German. Bismarck’s main goals were to unify German states and decrease Austrian influence (Austrian was the other big power in Germany at the time). Bismarck was strategic when harming Austria, “We had to avoid wounding Austria too severely; we had to avoid leaving behind in her any unnecessary bitterness of feeling or desire for revenge; we ought rather to reserve the possibility of becoming friends again with our adversary of the moment, and in any case to regard the Austrian state as a piece on the European chessboard.” In order to officially establish a German nation, Bismarck was willing to go to start and fight in a war against France. The Franco-Prussian war brought together Prussian and the other German states (minus Austria) which, when the war ended with Prussian victory, made Prussia the leader of Germany. 

https://twitter.com/BuzzFeedNews/status/520567782380167168/photo/1

I am probably bias because I am American, but I stand by President Monroe's decisions and believe he made the right choices. I am able to rationalize with his reasoning. I can see how he would have thought he was making the right decisions to decline a British alliance, protect trading routes, and help newly independent countries in the Americas. With Bismarck in Prussia, although I applaud his cunning mind, I think starting a war to become the ruling state of Germany is not worth the risk. I think that when it comes to protecting a nation, people should be on the defensive and not the offensive. There should be no starting of wars, only defense when a war is upon your country. Just-in-case alliances are also a negative, they are asking for trouble. Bringing up Ferguson Missouri again, like in the last post, because of what is happening, people there have been burning American flags. In response to this burning, some people are more outraged by a desecrated flag than what is going on. I would not be and are not one of those people. As a form of protest, this action is not against any laws, just certain moral ones. I am not willing to get overworked about flag desecration when people are dead who should not be.

Works Cited

Message of President James Monroe at the commencement of the first session of the 18th Congress (The Monroe Doctrine), 12/02/1823; Presidential Messages of the 18th Congress, ca. 12/02/1823-ca. 03/03/1825; Record Group 46; Records of the United States Senate, 1789-1990; National Archives.)

 James Harvey Robinson, ed., Readings in European History, 2 Vols., (Boston: Ginn and Co., 1904-1905), II:571-
575; Otto von Bismarck, The Man and Statesman, (New York, 1899), II:48-51
Scanned by: J. S. Arkenberg, Dept. of History, Cal. State Fullerton. Prof. Arkenberg has modernized the text.