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.