Question

The first decades of the nineteenth century were a dynamic period for the young republic. What kind of changes were occurring in American life?

Answer 1

The first decades of the nineteenth century saw the consolidation of the young nation after emerging victorious from the War of 1812 and its expansion  across the continent to the Pacific Coast. During this process of expansion, the U.S. government became involved in a series of wars against the native tribes for the possession of the lands claimed by the American European-descent settlers. A common practice of the government was the relocation of the tribes, defeated by the force of arms, to reservations located far away from the native tribes' homeland, as a way to handicap them in case of revolt.

Culturally, the popularity of British-like literature such as the tales of authors such as Longfellow gave way to an original U.S. literary genre: the modern detective story, created by Edgar Alan Poe. From this point, a trend for a more realistic and less stylized type of literature would lead to U.S. literary classics such as "Uncle Tom Cabin," "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," etc.

Economically, the Industrial Revolution took a firm hold in the Northern states, whereas the Southern states remained mostly agrarian and relying on slave labor as their main source of manpower. Beyond the simple difference between industrialized and agrarian, a great moral and political divide between citizens in the North and South over the humanity and legality of slavery gradually grew and led to a heated series of arguments for and against the abolition of slavery in Congress. Pro-slavery congressmen were usually outnumbered in Congress, which prompted them to a number of political maneuvers to defend the interests of the plantation owners in the South from the 1800s to the 1860s. This prolonged debate would gradually increase the political tensions between North and South and ultimately led to the Civil War.