Introduction
Clearly the thinking of the Jeffersonians was grounded in European philosophy and the classical past. While the construction of the United States was revolutionary, James Madison and the other framers did not construct the Constitution entirely from their own ideas and imagination but had built upon a foundation pre-existing phenomena. But in the first few decades of the nineteenth century American culture would take on a much more unique structure and cease to be a reflection of European experience and development an identity of its own. Evidence of this change can be seen in the proliferation of American art forms in particular philosophy, writing, painting, and education.
Much of the philosophy, which had been embraced by Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, was the product of what is often called the Age of Reason. This thinking placed logic, or empirical thinking, on the highest possible plain while simultaneously relegating the intuitive or subjective experience to fairly unimportant strata. While this type of thinking has maintained an obvious importance in American culture up to the present time, in the nineteenth century throughout the western world intellectuals began to challenge the supremacy of logic with the Romantic Movement. Intellectuals on both sides of the Atlantic embraced a new reevaluation of the personal, subjective experience. Universal truth, or the object of logical thought, was considered less important than the lessons of individual intuition. In the United States the primary voices of this movement was Ralph Waldo Emerson and his friend and sometimes tenant Henry David Thoreau.
This view of life was called Transcendentalism because its object was to mystically exceed the limits of reason and acquire experiences or knowledge beyond what could be explained by intellectual capabilities. In the American context this movement also placed the individual at the center of the cultural universe, a place where the individual remains in American culture to the present day. This provided an intellectual defense of values, which remain very American, such as a belief in the benefits of minimum governmental power, the importance of personal experience, and the maximization of the freedoms of the individual. These are the qualities which explain the continuing popularity of Thoreau's Walden. If Transcendentalism reflected an Americanization of the greater Romantic Movement a similar phenomenon was taking place in literature.
Throughout the colonial period and the early federal republic the models for literature had been primarily the work of English writers. Even in the early nineteenth century most American writers tended to imitate the topics and style of English writers. But during the mid-nineteenth century American novels began to utilize American themes and mainly departed the English or European model. While Washington Irving may have been the first to develop American themes and culture in his work the most prolific of the writers working in this renaissance was James Fenimore Cooper. He wrote novels in series, which celebrated the American experience and context and he was followed by many others who continued to put American literature into a new and unique category.
American painting differentiated from its European connection even faster than American writing for some very simple reasons. Paintings could not be reproduced as easily as books and in an age before photography when the purpose of many paintings was to illustrate an individual, paintings needed to be produced locally and were often as individual as the persons and scene which they depicted. This also allowed many "primitive" or untrained artists to flourish since the country was large and travel to a major center to obtain the services of academically trained artists was very impractical. And in many cases these self-trained painters would develop their own unique styles.
The Jacksonian Age also left its mark on these cultural developments. The Jacksonians had placed the common man on a pedestal and held that practical knowledge, common sense or even simple intuition was paramount as the best means of success in America. This idea can also be seen as a placement of the purely practical ahead of abstract concepts. And while this value would retard the pursuit of science for a time it also supported an explosion of practical application of new technologies such as canal building, steam power and eventually the building of continent spanning railroads. This value allowed Americans to believe that almost anything could be improvised or improved, a quality echoed during the age of reform and later demonstrated by the myriad of societies dedicated to improving society, the popularity of how-to books, the spread of popular support for new public libraries, and eventually a new interest in overhauling education at the college level.
While most of these social changes seem to suggest the origins of a great nation, others events and issues held more ominous portent. American expansion and the growing sectional conflict continued to challenge the republic even as it struggled to continually redefine itself.

Chapter 11 Questions

1. From what sources had Thomas Jefferson drawn most of his ideas?
2. What did the Boston Anthology Club and the Friendly Club of New York wish to promote?
3. Which of the following was the first American to utilize the national heritage in novels?
4. Which city was the literary capitol of the United States in the early nineteenth century?
5. How did American painting develop in the early nineteenth century?
6. Which American artist was well known for his portraits of Washington?
7. How did American painters learn their craft?
8. What was the romantic movement?
9. Who was Ralph Waldo Emerson?
10. What was the transcendentalist movement?
11. What were the main themes presented in 19th century Romanticism?
12. What did most early American novelists imitate?
13. Who wrote The Sketch Book?
14. What did John Copley and Charles Peale both promote?
15. Who were William Jennys and Johnathan Fisher?
16. What address did Emerson give to encourage Americans to seek their own heritage?
17. Who were Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau?
18. What point did Henry David Thoreau try to prove by moving to Walden Pond in 1845?
19. Which essay did Henry David Thoreau write in response to his jail sentence?
20. Which author of the Romantic period had a driving fascination with death?
21. Which Romantic writer had Puritan background and was fascinated by the Puritans?
22. Which of the following has a theme of adultery?
23. What book is Herman Melville probably best known for?
24. Which piece by this author has a preface that says Americans had "probably the fullest poetical nature?"
25. When was the Atlantic Monthly first published?
26. Which author began a ten-volume History of the United States?
27. Which author served as a Secretary of the Navy and was a Whig?
28. Who was a highly acclaimed Southern novelist and poet?
29. Who designed the Smithsonian Institution?
30. Artists whose painting told stories usually bases on ordinary life painted in what style?
31. Who were the Luminists?
32. What institute was formed to encourage native artwork in 1839?
33. What piece of artwork by Hiram Powers featured a nude female?
34. What unusual method did the American Art-Union use to assist its members in acquiring artworks?
35. What was the common school movement?
36. What political party did Henry Barnard and Horace Mann, advocates of the common school movement belong to?
37. Who was editor of the American Journal of Education?
38. Who drafted the Massachusetts state law in 1837 that created a state board of education?
39. How literate was the United States in the 1850s?
40. What was the first penny newspaper?
41. Which newspapers first perfected the new, cheap journalism?
42. In the 1850s, who read "domestic" novels?
43. What was the The Lamplighter?
44. What was the Cooper Institute?
45. In 1848, what did Massachusetts make public money available to support?
46. What were mutual improvement societies?
47. Before1842, the year that Brown University President Francis Wayland called for reform, what were college curricula usually based on?
48. Were women ever admitted to college before 1839?
49. What was the first women's college?
50. The members of which "learned profession" were considered qualified to be arbiters in regards literature and art?
51. What was the nation's leading literary magazine founded in 1815?
52. What was the leading book publisher in the U.S. by 1825?
53. What city in the west became the focus of literary works and music in the early 19th century?
54. What did Alex de Toqueville believe that early nineteenth century Americans had lost much interest in?
55. What institution opened in 1846 and to helped promote American science?
56. What did Joseph Henry's experiments helped Samuel Morse develop?
57. After an accident in what endeavor did Alexis St. Martin assist Dr. William Beaumont?
58. Which author exploited comic aspects of the Jacksonian era?
59. What is the following poem mainly referring to?

They may talk o' Freedom's airy
Till they're pupple in the face,-
It's a grand gret cemetary
For the barthright of our race;
They jest want this Californy
So's to lug new slave-states in
To abuse ye, an' to scorn ye,
An' to plunder ye like sin.

Chapter 12 Questions

1. William Henry Harrison belonged to which party?
2. Before running for Vice-President, John Tyler belonged to which party?
3. What did Henry Clay try to re-establish after John Tyler became President?
4. Who vetoed the Clays new bank bill?
5. Which of the following Whigs did not resign from John Tylers Cabinet?
6. What was the purpose of the Preemption Act of 1841?
7. In what year was a new Tariff Act passed and the Distribution Act repealed?
8. Who was Lord Ashburton?
9. What did the Webster-Ashburton Treaty settle?
10. What issue postponed the annexation of The Republic of Texas?
11. What was the Transcontinental Treaty of 1819?
12. Following the ratification of the Transcontinental Treaty in 1821, who began to settle in Texas ?
13. How many white Americans were in Texas by 1830?
14. Was there slavery in Texas when Americans first settled?
15. What did Mexico do in 1829?
16. When did Mexico ban American immigration into Texas?
17. What was the Battle of the Alamo?
18. Who was Antonio López de Santa Anna?
19. Who was the victor at the San Jacinto River?
20. Which President first recognized Texas as an independent republic?
21. What action did Tyler take that made many in the North oppose the annexation of Texas?
22. John Tyler appointed which of the following secretary of state?
23. Who wrote, nothing must interfere with, "the fulfillment of our manifest destiny …?"
24. Who was Richard Dana?
25. How many Indian converts lived on the Spanish missions in California?
26. Who established a fur-trading outpost on the Columbian River around 1811?
27. Who sailed up the Columbia back in 1792?
28. Which slogan, attitude or spirit best sums up the early 1840's concept of Manifest Destiny?
29. Which rivers were the "guides" of the Oregon Trail?
30. What was the average cost of the overland trip to Oregon in the 1840s for a family of four?
31. What did Andrew Jackson tried to buy in 1835?
32. Which of the following did John C. Calhoun call the New York of the Pacific?
33. Who was nominated by the Whig party to run for preside in 1844?
34. Which Democratic candidate was known as "Young Hickory?
35. To what was "Young Hickory" was opposed?
36. Who invented the "magnetic telegraph?"
37. Which party's platform demanded the "reannexation" Texas and "reoccupation" of Oregon?
38. When did Texas finally become a state?
39. What did James K. Polk persuaded Congress to do in 1842?
40. What did James K. Polk notify the British of in May 1846?
41. What did the United States and Britain settled in 1846?
42. Which of the following was probably not a factor in the Mexican-American War?
43. Mexico considered which river as the border with Texas?
44. Who was ordered to advance to the Rio Grande River in July 1845?
45. Who was sent to negotiate the purchase of land from Mexico in November 1845?
46. What incident justified James K. Polk to treat the situation with Mexico as a, "fait accompli: War exists?"
47. At the beginning of the war with Mexico, was American victory was never doubted?
48. Did anyone oppose "Mr. Polk's war?"
49. Who was "Old Rough and Ready?"
50. What made James K. Polk uneasy about Generals Taylor and Scott?
51. What did some Northerners call the Mexican War?
52. When and where was the Bear Flag Republic of California established?
53. What proved to be the most difficult campaign of the Mexican War?
54. Which of the following actions was not part of James K. Polk's design for prosecuting the war with Mexico?
55. Who was sent as a peace commissioner with Winfield Scott's army?
56. What was the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
57. What was Polk's response to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo?
58. Who found gold at a sawmill in the Sacramento Valley in 1848?
59. What was the main intention of the Wilmot Proviso of 1846?
60. Who immediately proposed a counter proposal to the Wilmot Proviso?
61. Who proposed the idea of "popular sovereignty?"
62. What was "Popular Sovereignty?"
63. What was the Free Soil Party?
64. Who were the "Barnburners?"
65. Between the California Gold Rush and 1860, how many people come to California?
66. When was California admitted as a state?
67. Did the California Gold Rush affect the Native Americans?
68. Who proposed the Compromise of 1850?
69. What was the Compromise of 1850?


Conclusion
When the map of the United States in the year 1850 is examined a very familiar outline is revealed. While this map does not contain all the modern states and other place names of the current map the continental mainland of the country had ceased its decades old expansion. But if the major phase of growth had ended; the tensions, which this era had generated and heightened, continued to fester through the 1850s. During the first forty years of the nineteenth century the country had been held together by the Democratic-Republicans, a new regional leaders, and the Jacksonians, but in the 1850s these leaders were gone. Sectional issues, which had been successfully held in check in favor of maintaining the nation, threatened the Union. But trying times needed great leaders and the 1850s would prove too much of a trial for the politicians of the period. Gone were leaders such as President Jackson, who despite maintaining respect for the states' rights position, had not hesitated to put the survival of the Union ahead of all other considerations. It seems that much of the fabric of the nation, which had helped maintain the balance, was being sacrificed with little thought to the future. The North West Ordinance, which had provided a stable method for the organization of new territory and admission of new states, would be abandoned. The Missouri Compromise, which had provided a framework for maintaining a workable balance between slave and non-slave states, would be replaced by an experimental, politically expedient, but untried system. The questions of the time would revolve around whether the nation could find the leadership to keep the nation together, if the sections which had once been seen as mutually dependent could again find common strength in their varying economies and values. Once the American continent had been conquered the American nation was faced with the dilemma of conquering itself.