History

  1. What were the important political parties since the election of Andrew Jackson as president to the era of Reconstruction, when the country was left with only two major parties, racially and regionally divided? Include significant third parties. What did the parties stand for? Who voted for them and why? 2. The new democratic age of the 1820s, ’30s, and ’40s not only witnessed the advent of universal white male suffrage but also a strong impulse for social reform, which was often supported by those denied access to the ballot. What drove the impulse behind the reform in general and with particular movements like abolitionism, feminism, temperance, and institution building? 3. Keeping in mind how the expansion of U.S. territory westward threatened the delicate balance of power in Congress between free and slave states and Lincoln’s stance on slavery, describe how key events (such as land acquisitions, agreements about how new territories should enter the Union as states, etc.) led the country into the Civil War