Week 15: Freedom and the Civil War

The main points of Lincoln's addresses are that freedom is for all men, women and children of all race and religion and that the government is "of the people, by the people, for the people" (Freedom 300). They are related to freedom because without equality, no one will ever be "free". By having the government governed by the people, everyone has an equal opportunity to have their voices heard.

The Civil War addresses the issues of freedom because the south was fighting for their right to continue to have slavery. where the north was fighting to abolish freedom. The civil war is a direct result of freedom. without it both the north and south would continue to be separate in their views and the south would still have slavery. Both sides, the north and south see freedom differently, which was the reason for the civil war. Each side saw the other as the "destroyer of liberty".

Week 13: Manifest Destiny

The Manifest Destiny is used to encourage American settlement of European colonial and Indian lands in the Great Plains and the West, and a justification for American Empire. O'Sulliven sees a connection between manifest destiny and the idea of American Freedom by expanding the United States would bring the American Democracy the the less fortunate people of the country. "They will have the right to independence - to self-government to the possession of the homes conquered from the wildness of their own labors and dangers. suffering and sacrifices a better and a truer right than the artificial title of sovereignty in Mexico" (Freedom 267).

The ideology came to dominate American thinking because this was the opportunity to expand the country bringing more Independence to states not originally part of the United States. However this caused conflicts between the United States because expanding would mean more slavery. The south supported the manifest destiny because being in the south, Texas would become a slave state. The northern states opposed the manifest destiny because they were against slavery and this would bring setback to the ratification of slavery. The Manifest Destiny divided the United states between the North and South which ultimately turned into war.

Week: 12 Women's Movement and Reform

Women's issues became transplanted into reform issues during this time period because slavery was coming to its end, and women saw this as an opportunity to get their voices heard. "Long before they could vote, women circulated petitions, attended meetings, marched in parades, and delivered public lectures. They became active in the temperance movement, the building of asylums, and other reform activities" (Liberty 448). Women were similar as to slaves in the sense they did not have all the freedoms that white men had, but they also had freedoms that slaves did not have. They were for the most part socially accepted but still oppressed by men.

"Catharine Beecher reprimanded the sisters (Grimkes) for stepping outside "the domestic and social sphere," urging them to accept the fact that "heaven" had designated men "the superior" and women "the subordinate" (Liberty 450). Beecher felt that a woman's place was with her husband, and that they should obey the husband no matter what. Women aren't exactly property in her words, but should be respectful to their husbands.

Angelia Grimke's response to Beecher was, "Instead of women being a help meet to man, in the highest, noblest sense of the term, as a companion, a co- worker, an equal; she has been a mere appendage of his being, and instrument of his convenience and pleasure, the pretty toy, with which he willed away his leisure moments, or the pet animal whom he humored into playfulness and submission. Women, instead of being regarded as the equal of man, has uniformly been looked down upon as his inferior, a mere gift to fill up the measure of his happiness" (Freedom 259). Women should be able to exercise the same rights as men, that for no reason should they be looked down upon. Grimke felt that their was no difference between man and woman which clashed with Beecher's view that women should respect their roles and obey their husbands and keep the few rights they had.

Week 11: Slave Society

Paternalism is "The Master" "has a right to obedience and labor of the slave, but the slave has also his mutual rights in the master; the right of protection, the right of counsel and guidance, the right if subsistence, the right of care and attention in sickness and old age" (Liberty 399). This was just a way for the slave owners to feel better about themselves by allowing themselves to believe that even their slaves had rights, which contradicts the very word "slave" because a slave has no rights at all, and is the property of their owner. Fitzhugh uses this concept to argue for the necessity of slavery by saying that, ""Universal liberty" was the exception, an experiment carried on "for a little while" in "a corner of Europe" and the northern United States. Taking the world and its history as a whole, slavery, "without regard to race and color," was "the general,... normal, natural" basis of "civilized society" (Liberty 403). He's saying that to have a civilized society, slavery is a must. Without slavery, life could not possibly be civilized. He was a very in consistent man, sometimes he'd say that all free laborers are better off being slaves, and on other occasions he says that slavery was only suitable for "blacks-perpetual "children" for whom liberty would be "a curse" (Liberty 403).

Fitzhugh compares slaves to women by saying that women, along with slaves and children are weak, helpless and dependent. That man feels powerful having so many people depend on him, having the responsibility to be the leader and owner of his "property".

Fitzhugh hated "free market". he states that, "Wealth is more equally distributed than at the North, where a few millionaires own most of the property of the country. Highly intellectual and moral attainments, refinement of head and heart, give standing to a man in the south, however poor he may be. Money is, with few exceptions, the only thing that ennobles at the North. WE have poor among us, but none who are over-worked and under-fed. We do not crowd cities because lands are abundant and their owners kind, merciful and hospitable. The poor are as hospitable as the rich, the negro as the white man. Nobody dreams of turning a friend, a relative or a stranger from his door. the very negro who dreams it no crave to steal, would corn to sell his hospitality" (Freedom 224). He's stating that just because the rich have all the land and money, just because the south is poor and have slaves they aren't just as hospitable to those in need. Nothing is crowded in the south, everyone is kind.

Week 10: Societal Changes and Beliefs During the Market Revolution

The Changes in the United States because of the Market Revolution were somewhat minor. "It's catalyst was a series of innovations in transportation and communication. American technology had hardly changed during the colonial era. No Important alterations were made in sailing ships, no major canals were built, and manufacturing continued to be done by hand, with skills passed on from artisan to journeyman and apprentice" (Liberty 313). "The Market Revolution represented an acceleration of developments already under way in the colonial era. Southern planters were marketing the products of slave labor in the international market as early as the seventeenth century" (Liberty 314). "Many Americans devoted their energies to solving the technological problems that inhabited commerce within the country. Thomas Paine spent the 1780's and 1790's no only promoting democracy in America and Europe but also developing a design for an iron bridge, so that rivers could be crossed in all seasons of the year without impeding river traffic" (Liberty 315). The Market Revolution opened new opportunities for economic freedom for many Americans, but some feared that the traditional economic independence would be compromised.

Transcendentalism is the Philosophy of a small group of mid-nineteenth-century New England writers and thinkers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Margaret Fuller; they stressed personal and intellectual self reliance. Individualism is the language in the 1820s to describe the increasing emphasis on the pursuit of personal advancement and private fulfillment free of outside interference. "Americans increasingly understood the realm of the self-which came to be called "privacy" as on ewith which reither other individuals nor government had a right to interfere" (Liberty 338). The people were now awair that they had the right to have their own priavacy, they no longer and the fear that they could not have their own thoughts and beleifs.

Each, Emerson and Walden expressed their beleif that Transcendentalism and Individualism is the key to happiness and true freedom. Emerson states, “ I learned that know man in God’s wide earth is either willing or able to help any other man. Help must come from the bosom alone” (Freedom179). Thoreau felt that modern society stifled individual judgments by making men “tools of their tools” trappeed by their jobs due to obsession with acquiring wealth.

Week 7: Abigale Adams and the American Revolution

The Revolutionary War provided a prime opportunity for disenfranchised individuals to address their own social standings and freedoms because it gave the people the courage to stand up for their own rights and independence. "At a time when many Americans-slaves, servants, women, Indians, apprentices, property less men-were denied full freedom, the struggle against Britain inspired challenges to all sorts of inequalities" (Freedom 111). People now realized that their voice had some meaning, they no longer feared the consequences of not agreeing with what was being done.

Abigail Adam's main argument and point in her letters to her husband was that, "she urged Congress, when it drew up a new "code of Laws," to "remember the ladies." All men, she warned, "would be tyrants if they could" (Liberty 111). She wanted women to have equal rights as men had. she knew that if she didn't speak about it, no one would and that men would continue to view women as not being equal to them. She states that if women do not become equal to men, then the women would rebel against them making her argument have more meaning by having that threat behind it. She just wanted women to be treated fairly, and have the same rights as men had. She sees that it be imperative that women are considered in the making of the new constitution because it will no longer be tolerated that women be treated any less then men.

According to John Adams, the struggle for independence "loosen the bands of government everywhere" because "that children and apprentices were disobedient, that schools and colleges were grown turbulent, that Indians slighted their guardians and Negros grew insolent to their masters" (Freedom 113). He's saying that because of this "looseness" people are becoming evermore defiant to the laws that have been made, making it look as though women are using this as a way to gain more freedoms for themselves. and that the oppressed saw it easier to gain freedoms then that they once thought.

Week 6: Virginia Resolution on the Stamp Act

Earlier conflict between the British and other European countries and their respective colonies led to the crisis of the Sugar and Stamp Act, "Pressed for funds because of the enormous expense it had incurred in fighting the Seven Years' War, Parliament for the first time attempted to raise money from direct taxes in the colonies rather than through the regulation of trade" (Freedom 90). The British needed money and decided that this would be a good, fast way to get it. The colonists on the other hand felt that they were being unjustly taxed because they were not able to vote for or against these taxation's. The British just enacted them without the colonists approval.
The British colonial rules were developed a in order to revoke many of the freedoms that the colonists had become accustomed to. Many colony governors were replaced in order to suppress the colonists. The Sugar Act, "also established a new machinery to end widespread smuggling by colonial merchants, and to counteract the tendency of colonial juries to acquit merchants charged with violating trade regulations, it strengthened the admiralty courts, where accused smugglers could be judged without benefit of a jury trial" (Liberty 180). The colonists were outraged, "more and more colonists insisted that Britain had no right to tax them at all, since Americans were unrepresented in the House of Commons. "No taxation without representation" became their rallying cry" (Liberty 182).
The Virginia House of Burgresses adopted the first four resolutions but rejected the final three because the felt they were, "too radical" (Freedom 90). The colonists were not looking for Independence at this time, or war.

Week 5: The Great Awakening

The reasons that allowed the Great Awakening to develop at the this time in colonial America are. "Many ministers were concerned that westward expansion, commercial development, the growth of Enlightenment rationalism, and lack of individual engagement in church services were undermining religious devotion... the revivals were less a coordinated movement than a series of local events united by a commitment to a "religion of the heart," a more emotional and personal Christianity than that offered by existing churches" (Liberty 156). Many Churches adopted intensely emotional styles of preaching. They were critical because many people heard the sermons and immediately confessed their sins, begging for forgiveness, to be saved. If it weren't for this new way to preach, many people would have lost "their way". The Great Awakening also caused Americans to call into questions aspects of established authority. It also brought many black slaves into the Christian fold. As a result, some Plantation owners emancipated their slaves.
Jonathon Arnold's main criticism of Whitefield according to Mangus Falconer was, "That the Rev. Mr. Whitefield exclaims against all the bishops and clergymen of the Church of England, 2nd, That he passes unwarrantable sentences upon men as if he was the Supreme Judge" (Voices 86).
The revivals created change in the colonies, they were now thinking for themselves, able to question the autohority, and that even the most sinful people have a chance of salvation. Even today, these "intense emotional" style preaching is going on today.

Week 4 Discussion

The Indians felt that they were being unfairly treated and cheated out of their lands. Rightfully so, many tribes formed alliances and fought the English. “The bloodiest and most bitter conflict occurred in southern New England, where in 1675 an Indian alliance launched attacks on farms and settlements that were encroaching on Indian lands. It was the most dramatic and violent warfare in the region in the entire seventeenth century. By 1676, Indian forces had attacked nearly half of New England’s ninety towns. Twelve in Massachusetts were destroyed. As refugees fled eastward, the line of settlement was pushed back almost to the Atlantic coast” (Liberty 92). All the Indians wanted were to be left alone. They were simple people that lived off the land. The English came over and took land that wasn’t theirs to take, the Indians were willing to compromise, but when they kept getting their land taken they decided that enough was enough and that ultimately led to battles. Even though they were victorious, their victory didn’t last. “In mid-1676 the tide of battle turned and a ferocious counterattack broke the Indians’ power once and for all… Both sides (English and Indians) committed atrocities in this merciless conflict, but in its aftermath the image of Indians as bloodthirsty savages became firmly entrenched in the New England mind” (Liberty 93).

The English associated land with liberty, freedom, but also as a status of wealth. “By 1700, nearly 2 million acres of land were owned by only five New York families who intermarried regularly, exerted considerable political influence, and formed one of colonial America’s most tightly knit landed elites” (Liberty 96). Not all English colonists wanted to capitalize land for their own profit. William Penn, a member of a leading English Quaker family and the founder of Pennsylvania “considered his colony a “holy experiment,” but of a different kind- “a free colony for all mankind that should go hither.” He hoped that Pennsylvania could be governed according to Quaker principles, among them the equality of all persons (including women, blacks, and Indians) before God and the primacy of the individual conscience” (Liberty 98). Quakers had views extremely different from most colonizers. They wanted equality for everyone, which ultimately because our society today.

In Virginia tobacco plantations shifted from white indentured servants to African slaves causing poverty among whites and had reached levels reminiscent of England. “In addition, the right to vote, previously enjoyed by all adult men, was confined to landowners in 1670” (Liberty 105). Rebellion against William Berkley soon arouses. White land hungry farmers demanded that he allow the extermination or removal of the colonies Indian population in order to open up more land for whites. He refused and the colonists rebelled against him creating armies which included some African Americans. “The specter of a civil war among whites greatly frightened Virginia’s ruling elite, who took dramatic steps to consolidate their power and improve their image. They restored property qualifications for voting, which Bacon had rescinded…planters developed a new political style in which they cultivated the support of poorer neighbors” (Liberty 105). Berkley tried to make Virginia more like England, unlike the rest of the colonies of New England, where they were given much more freedom.

Week 3: Richard Hakluyt

There was little to no support from the Queen to venture to the New World. The first two attempts by Sir Humphrey Gilbert and Sir Walter Raleigh, failed. The main reason the English wanted to colonize the new world was to continue to raid Spanish ships. “Three years later, Raleigh dispatched a fleet of five ships with some 100 colonists to set up a base on Roanoke Island, off the North Carolina coast, partly to facilitate continuing raids on Spanish shipping. But the colonists, mostly young men under military leadership abandoned the venture in 1586 and returned to England” (Liberty 54). After failing many times, Raleigh realized that “to establish a successful colony, it seemed clear, would require more planning and economic resourced than any individual could provide” (Liberty 55).

The English did much the same as the Spanish did. “National glory, profit, and religious mission merged in early English thinking about the New World” (Liberty 55). However, since Catholic Spain became England’s mortal enemy the English soon changed their views on the New World. “Just as Spain justified its empire in part by claiming to convert Indians to Catholicism, England expressed its imperial ambitions in terms of an obligation to liberate the New World from the tyranny of the Pope.” “English translations of Bartolome de Las Casas’s writings appeared during Elizabeth’s reign. One, using a common Protestant term for the Catholic Church, bore the title, “Popery Truly Displayed” (Liberty 55).

Richard Hakluyt gives many reasons for colonization in the New World, twenty-three to be exact. “Among them was the idea that English settlements would strike a blow against Spain’s empire and therefore form part of a divine mission to rescue the New World and its inhabitants from the influences of Catholicism and tyranny. “Tied and Slaves” under Spanish rule, he wrote, the Indians of the New World were “crying out to us…to come and help” They would welcome English settlers and “revolt clean from the Spaniard,” crying “with one voice, Liberta, Liberta, and desirous of liberty and freedom” (Liberty 56).

His argument is a good one to convince the Queen to colonize the New World because he uses the Spanish, their mortal enemy as a reason to go. He says that they are going to liberate the Indians, but in reality when they got there, they did mostly the same things as the Spanish rule had done. Hakluyt used words to get what he wanted, that was the support of the Queen, to supply men for the colonization. He thinks that the Indians will welcome the English as bearers of liberty because they were treated horribly by the Spanish; he thinks that anything other then the Spanish rule would be welcomed as being liberating. He claims that the English will treat the Indians with "humanity, courtesy, and freedom" (Freedom 27-28).