What Hath God Wrought

Daniel Howe, “What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848”, The Oxford History of the U.S. (vol II of III), 2007, 855 Pages

Author Daniel Walker Howe is Rhodes Professor of American History Emeritus, Oxford University and Professor of History Emeritus, University of California, Los Angeles. He is the author of The Political Culture of the American Whigs and Making the American Self: Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln . He lives in Los Angeles.

The Oxford History of the United States is a well respected multi-volume history of the U.S. In this volume of the series, Pulitzer prize-winning historian Daniel Walker Howe examines the period from the battle of New Orleans to the end of the Mexican-American War, an era when the United States expanded to the Pacific and won control over the richest part of the North American continent. Howe's narrative portrays revolutionary improvements in transportation and communications that accelerated the extension of the American empire. Railroads, canals, newspapers, and the telegraph dramatically lowered travel times and spurred the spread of information. These innovations prompted the emergence of mass political parties and stimulated America's economic development from a rural country to a diversified economy in which commerce and industry took their place alongside agriculture. In his story, the author examines the rise of Andrew Jackson and his Democratic party, but contends that John Quincy Adams and other Whigs--advocates of public education and economic integration, defenders of the rights of Indians, women, and African-Americans--were the true prophets of America's future. He reveals the power of religion to shape many aspects of American life during this period, including slavery and antislavery, women's rights and other reform movements, politics, education, and literature.

My Notes:

On May 24, 1844, Morse sent the words "What hath God wrought” from Baltimore to the Capitol Building, 40 miles away in D.C. along the first telegraph wire. (Numbers 23:23).

Pg. xiv: Howe brings to bear an impressive narrative describing the crafting of the Monroe Doctrine; the origins of feminism and abolitionism; the Missouri Compromise and the Mexican War; the emergence of the Whig, Free Soil, and Republican Parties; the Lone Star revolution in Texas and the gold rush in California; the sectional differentiation of the American economy; the accelerating pace of both mechanical and cultural innovations; and the emergence of a characteristic American literature in the works of writers like Emerson, Thoreau, James Fennimore Cooper, Margret Fuller, Fredrick Douglass, and Walt Whitman.

Although the period this book covers is traditionally called “Jacksonian America,” this author feels that term very inappropriate. Jackson was one of the most bigoted leaders we ever had; his ruthless treatment of the Indians and his avid support for slavery as well as the exclusion of all non-whites and all women from any meaninguful participation in leadership, makes the term Jacksonian Democracy particularly ironic.

Pg. 18: The battle of New Orleans was really won by the contribution that the artillery made to the battle. The reluctance to credit the artillery with the victory partly reflected a reluctance to credit the professional servicemen, ethnic-minority city-dwellers, and pirates who manned the guns rather than the all-American frontiersmen. Jackson’s admirers liked to believe theirs was a country where untutored vigor could prevail; to point out that technical expertise mattered seemed undemocratic.

Pg. 31: During what is called “the little ice age” of 1550 to 1850, the growing season shortened by a month, diminishing the size of harvests.

Pg. 37: In the era of 1815 one-third of white children and over half of black children died before reaching adulthood.

Pg. 56: Had short-staple cotton not emerged in the years after 1815 as an extremely profitable employment for slave labor, finding a peaceful, acceptable resolution to ending slavery might not have been so difficult. One southern white family in three owned at least one slave; one in eight owned at least twenty. Many whites who did not own slaves expected to acquire them later in life, and in the meantime might rent their services.

Pg. 278: The presidential campaign of 1828 was probably the dirtiest in American history. While the hostile stories circulated about John Quincy Adams were largely false, those about Jackson were largely true. An exception was the charge appearing in an Adams paper that Jackson’s mother had been a prostitute.

Pg. 389: Jackson is the only president to be censured by the Congress. His removal of a cabinet member from office for refusing to follow his order to remove the U.S. funds from the National Bank caused this censure. The officer had determined that the deposits were not unsafe in the bank and safety was the only reason the law permitted for removal.

Pg. 404: In 1832, South Carolina’s Nullification Convention passed an ordinance declaring that the tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were both unconstitutional and that “it shall not be lawful to enforce payment of duties imposed by the said acts within the limits of the state.” The reaction to this by Jackson, represents his finest hour. Jackson reinforced the garrisons of Fort Moultrie and Castle Pinckney in Charleston harbor and dispatched two armed revenue cutters to the scene. He then warned a South Carolina congressman that “if one drop of blood be shed there in defiance of the laws of the U.S., I will hang the first man of them I can get my hands on to the first tree I can find.” A threat like this coming from Jackson had to be believed. He had hung people before, in Florida.

Pg. 430: The refusal of the Post Office to deliver abolitionist mail to the South may well represent the largest peacetime violation of civil liberty in U.S. history. Jackson had no problems with this refusal to deliver the mail.

Pg. 432: Rioting, rather than crime by individuals, primarily precipitated the creation of police forces as we know them. There were no professional U.D. city police forces before 1844.

Pg. 447: Note: the Protestant belief that the Bible could be, and should be, read and interpreted by everyone had a very positive effect on literacy in the U.S. The American Bible Society distributed 21 million copies of the Good Book during the fifty years after its founding in 1816 (in a country whose entire population in 1860 was 31 million). By the 1840s the U.S. possessed the largest literate public of any nation in world history.

Pg. 690: Recently some historians have carefully examined the likely consequences of a Clay presidential victory in 1844 and concluded that it would probably have avoided the Civil War of the 1860s.

Pg. 809: Counting Texas, Oregon, California, and New Mexico, James K. Polk extended the domain of the U.S. more than any other president, even Thomas Jefferson or Andrew Johnson (who acquired Alaska). His war against Mexico did more to define the nation’s continental scope than any conflict since the Seven Years War eliminated French power between the Appalachians and the Mississippi.

Pg. 849: The most important forces that had made American democracy meaningful during the years since 1815 were three. First, the growth of the market economy, facilitated by dramatic improvements in transportation, broadening the consumer and vocational choices available to most people. Second, the awakened vigor of democratically organized Protestant churches and other voluntary associations. Third, the emergence of mass political parties offering rival programs for the electorate to choose.
The struggle to win greater legal rights for women appeared when it did as an outgrowth of improvements in the economic, social, and cultural status of women in the U.S.