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In Wilentz chapters 8-11 what really stood out to me, and after reading Ela’s post what seemed to stand out to her as well, was that politics in the early 1800’s was still a developing system. Officials at both the executive levels in the states and federal government were the first wave of politicians under the constitution still, and each group was testing the limits of their power and seeing how much they could control the new nation’s future. Debates seemed to be more centered on who has the power to enact certain legislation rather than the legislation itself. A clear illustration of this is John Adams fight with Georgia as president, and in general all the slave states resistance to anything Adams wanted to accomplish.
Another interesting struggle in politics was the result of the 2nd Great Awakening. This marked a time of high tensions between different denominations of Christianity, and most of this tension had to do with slavery. It brought about what the book called “moralistic politics” that would begin to change what was a rather corrupt early government. John Adams seemed very corrupt, which I hadn’t known until the Wilentz reading, like when he promised the Secretary of State job to one of his largest opponents as well as other things Rebecca has already posted in great detail. And it was explained that one of Jackson’s biggest changes when taking office was exposing this corruption and moving toward a moral presidency, although his presidency may have been inherently racist.
This racism led to the creation of slave policies like the ACS. The policy did want to free the slaves for moral reasons, but still did not see them as equals. Liberia was then created as a new country in the African homeland where the African-Americans could be free, and also that the United States would be free of African-Americans. It was a huge oversight to think that these Africans could thrive in Africa, or even wanted to return, because the slave trade had been abolished, and these Africans were now Americans. This was the most interesting part of the reading for myself, because it seems like such a radical plan an very hard to execute, but the government was still willing to go to these great lengths to not interact with Africans. It is stunning that assimilation and equality were not options at this point for most.