Summary of Heather Cox Richardson's To Make Men Free

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 The story of the Republican Party starts in the late eighteenth century with Abraham Lincoln, who left his family to travel to the American West and settle there. He built a successful community, but was killed by Indians in 1786.
#2 The West was a land of opportunity for everyone, but this was not the case for the Lincolns. Their father had done well in Kentucky, but his sons would not share his fortune. The land in what is now Kentucky had not been carefully surveyed, which meant that no one had a clear deed to their property.
#3 Lincoln moved his family to Indiana in 1816, but he never managed to get his feet under him there. In 1830, he gave up on Indiana and moved to Illinois to start again.
#4 In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act threatened to overturn the Missouri Compromise and open the fertile western plains to slavery. Men across the North recoiled from this attempt to inject slavery into land that had been free for more than thirty years.

Sujets

• Histoire
• General officer
• General
• United States
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 18 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822544499
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on Heather Cox Richardson's To Make Men Free
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The story of the Republican Party starts in the late eighteenth century with Abraham Lincoln, who left his family to travel to the American West and settle there. He built a successful community, but was killed by Indians in 1786.

#2

The West was a land of opportunity for everyone, but this was not the case for the Lincolns. Their father had done well in Kentucky, but his sons would not share his fortune. The land in what is now Kentucky had not been carefully surveyed, which meant that no one had a clear deed to their property.

#3

Lincoln moved his family to Indiana in 1816, but he never managed to get his feet under him there. In 1830, he gave up on Indiana and moved to Illinois to start again.

#4

In 1854, the Kansas-Nebraska Act threatened to overturn the Missouri Compromise and open the fertile western plains to slavery. Men across the North recoiled from this attempt to inject slavery into land that had been free for more than thirty years.

#5

The Kansas-Nebraska Act, which allowed for the expansion of slavery into new states, was a huge blow to the North. It convinced many northerners that their society was being threatened by a southern Slave Power, and the Republican Party was formed to protect economic opportunity.

#6

The Republican Party was formed in response to the Kansas-Nebraska Act, and was dedicated to the expansion of slavery into the West. It attracted many prominent men who had been part of the Whig Party, and they began to speak out against the extension of slavery.

#7

The events of 1854 showed how the Slave Power was trying to take over the nation. The first scene of the drama was set in the new Kansas Territory, which had been carved out of the West by the Kansas-Nebraska Act. It seemed that proslavery men had taken over the territory through violence and fraud, and had set up a draconian proslavery government.

#8

The attack on Sumner demonstrated the truth of his words. The Slave Power threatened the rights of white northerners to be represented in their government. Its adherents were willing to go to any extreme to push their agenda.

#9

The Dred Scott decision, which ruled that Congress had no power to stop slavery from spreading into any western Territory, alarmed northerners. It seemed like a setup, as the Court had delayed the decision until after the election to keep it from alarming voters.

#10

Lincoln was nominated for Douglas’s Senate seat in 1858, and he spoke about the House Divided speech, which painted a picture of America being taken over by slave owners. Lincoln warned that if Americans started to make exceptions to the principle of equality, there was no obvious place to stop.

#11

The American system, as described by Hammond, was designed for the rich to rule the poor. He believed that the North used white workers as a mudsill, and could thus destroy society.

#12

Lincoln’s reply to Hammond’s argument was that society was not divided between the dim drudges and the rich and powerful. Instead, it was divided between those who were willing to work and those who weren’t.

#13

Lincoln’s view was that workers and employers constantly competed for primacy, and that if a few people came to dominate money or resources, rising laborers would be forced to work for them forever or pay exorbitant prices for the land they needed to become independent.

#14

Lincoln’s approach to governing was different from that of antebellum Democrats. He believed that the government should be nonpartisan, acting in the interests of all citizens, rather than catering to the voters of whichever party was in power.

#15

Lincoln was the most important figure in defining the Republican Party in 1860. He was a national figure, but it was not a given that he would be the party’s presidential candidate. Many men vied for the nomination, and a gambler in 1859 would have put his money on radical New York senator William Henry Seward.

#16

Lincoln’s speech in New York City was well received, and his supporters arranged for the Republican convention to be held in Chicago. The platform stated that Republicans defended the principles of the Declaration of Independence, and that the normal condition of Americans was freedom.

#17

The Republican Party was finally united in 1860, and they elected Abraham Lincoln president. They were the defenders of American liberty, the guarantors of economic fairness and equality.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

When Lincoln was elected, southern congressmen began to resign. Within months, the nation was embroiled in a cataclysmic civil war. Republicans began constructing a new, active role for government that would make it easier for hardworking men to rise.

#2

The process of rebuilding the nation’s financial system began as soon as Confederate forces fired on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor in 1861. Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to suppress the rebellion, then called Congress into emergency session in July 1861 to find the money to put them in the field.

#3

The banking crisis of 1861 showed just how important the banking industry was to the country. Eastern financiers tried to demonstrate just how important the banking industry was to the country by stopping specie payments.

#4

The Legal Tender Act was signed by Lincoln in 1862, which made the United States a single currency. The tax bill that was passed in 1862 was the foundation for Republicans’ wartime taxation. It distributed taxes to consumers indirectly through 3 percent taxes on manufactured goods.

#5

The new tax and tariff laws were comprehensive, but they wouldn’t start producing significant revenue for months. To pump money into the Treasury right away, Chase had to sell more bonds, but this turned out to be problematic. The public and Congress were infuriated by the bankers’ demands, so Chase had no choice but to turn to the man on the street.

#6

During the Civil War, the government changed its entire system of finance and revenue. It divorced the Treasury from eastern bankers, and placed it instead on the farmers, miners, fishermen, and small businesspeople they believed were the backbone of the American economy.

#7

The 1862 Homestead Act granted citizens or immigrants who announced their intention of becoming citizens one hundred and sixty acres of western land if they had lived on it for five years. This law put the power of the government behind the Republicans’ vision of America.

#8

The Republicans created the Department of Agriculture to spread knowledge about modern farming practices, and they created public universities.

#9

The Union Pacific Railroad Act was another far-reaching piece of legislation designed to develop the country. It was different than other Republican laws, though; with it, Republicans embraced a new, expansive vision of the government’s relationship to the economy.

#10

The Republican Party reconceived the federal government in 1862 to better reflect their ideology, turning away from the wealthy and tying the government closer to poorer men and women working their way up to economic prosperity. Democrats opposed much of what Republicans were trying to do, but for the most part they muted their opposition because Republican policies were so popular.

#11

The Republicans’ attack on the Slave Power worked, and they lost seats in the 1862 elections. Lincoln offered to give way entirely, and he suggested three new constitutional amendments to safeguard slavery for the rest of the nineteenth century.