What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815-1848 (Oxford History of the United States)

“Our country! In her intercourse with foreign nations may she always be in the right, but our country, right or wrong.” -Commodore Decatur, 1815 after defeat of the Barbary Corsairs“Beware how you give a fatal sanction in our republic to military insubordination. Greece had her Alexander, Rome her Caesar, England her Cromwell, France her Bonaparte and if we would escape the rock they split we must avoid their errors.” - Henry Clay, 1819 in a Congressional debate after Andrew Jackson attacked Spanish forts in Florida against Executive orders“This question, like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell of the Union. It is hushed for the moment but this is a reprieve only, not a final sentence…my only consolation is that I will live not to weep over it.“ - Thomas Jefferson, 1820 in support of the compromise extending slavery to Missouri to save the Union“Do they think that I am such a damned fool as to think myself fit for President of the United States? No sir, I know what I am fit for. I can command a body of men in a rough way, but I am not fit to be President.” - Andrew Jackson, 1821“The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as the subjects for future colonization by any European powers.” James Monroe 1823************Daniel Walker Howe begins this Pulitzer Prize winning history on New Years Day in 1815 with Andrew Jackson leading US troops to victory over the British, unaware that the war was over and a treaty signed. His theme is that a communications and transportation revolution occurred leading up to the Mexican-American war, most significantly in the telegraph, railroad and steamboat. By 1848 the US had reached the Pacific after the conquest of Texas, New Mexico and California. Along the way Native American populations declined drastically, mostly from imported European and African diseases, but also from the assimilation or removal policies of Jackson and Jefferson before him. The conditions made land abundantly available.Americans - Thomas Jefferson 1801-09The Americans who farmed were plantation owners in the south but individual farming families in the expanding west. The lure of land motivated many who came to escape lives as tenant farmers in Europe, and new customs and thinking evolved. The typical landowner produced crops for personal use as well as for trade, and egalitarian ideas of Locke and Jefferson circulated. Large families were the norm, with the work divided between offspring. Free of social classes, their main adversary was nature: drought, pestilence and disease. For this the predominantly Protestant people turned to faith in God. In the second decade of the 1800’s religious revivals swept the country espousing a stern morality and focus on study of the Bible.British - James Madison 1809-17With the War of 1812 underway the typical tensions between Republican slave owners in the south and Federalist business owners in the north continued. When the British routed the American militia and burned down Washington government buildings Federalists met in Connecticut to debate whether to secede from the Union and make a separate peace. Jackson became celebrated for defeating the British at New Orleans. News of the peace reached the government after news of his triumph and it was assumed he had won the war. Ships at sea were still at war six months after it ended in places as far flung as Java. It was agreed to cease fighting but resolved none of the issues: sea trade, sailor impressment and the boundaries with Canada.Native Americans - James Madison 1809-17With peace came prosperity. Napoleon defeated, trade with Europe resumed. Native Americans could no longer play off the US against the French and British. Tecumseh’s Indian Confederacy was routed in Ontario and Alabama putting an end to the native military power. Howe sees both wars as a program to establish US supremacy, not only over natives but a diverse multicultural society in the southwest. In 1815 the US sent a fleet to the Mediterranean and finished off the Barbary corsair pirates preying on American ships. President James Madison, “the Father of the Constitution”, argued to develop American industry by linking the country together with roads and canals, and setting tariffs on imported goods. Infrastructure was badly needed.Expansions - James Monroe 1817-25Madison ultimately vetoed the development bill and he was succeeded by James Monroe in 1817. The war with Britain concluded, the US turned its attention to the land east of New Orleans, then a Spanish colony known as East Florida. It was a haven for escaped slaves and Native Americans driven off their lands by settlers. In 1818 it was invaded by Jackson and the US Army during the First Seminole war. Under the pretense of an Indian reprisal, Jackson marched along the Gulf Coast and burned villages, captured Spanish forts and occupied the panhandle. Spain’s presence was so weak that it ceded all of Florida in 1821. As Secretary of State, John Quincy Adams negotiated the treaty and became the 6th President in 1825.Foreign Policies - James Monroe 1817-25In 1822 the US recognized independence of Mexico, formerly New Spain, and Gran Columbia (Columbia, Panama, Ecuador and Venezuela). Spain fought hard to retain its colonies but lost during the revolutions. In 1823 Monroe articulated what would become the Monroe Doctrine, that the US opposed ‘foreign’ interference in the Western Hemisphere, mostly written by Adams. Russia got into the game, claiming land from Alaska to Oregon, but was deterred by Monroe and Adams. Teddy Roosevelt later claimed American leadership in Latin America, backed the secession of Panama from Columbia, and began 36 years of banana wars. Eisenhower used the CIA to overthrow Guatemala, Kennedy tried in Cuba and Reagan in Nicaragua.Developments - John Quincy Adams 1825-29The Erie Canal connected the Great Lakes region to New York City in 1825, making it the fastest growing center of US business, able to rival New Orleans with its waterways to the Midwest. Cotton production and slavery migrated from the east coast to Mississippi and Alabama. Importation of slaves was illegal after 1810 but was replaced by US born African-Americans. Between 1820-1840 cotton grew from 40-60% of US exports, rising to nearly 70% of the world supply in 1850. Most cotton was sold to Britain, but by 1815 textile factories were built in Maine and Massachusetts. The Panic of 1819, from a collapse in cotton prices, was the first US depression. The Missouri Controversy over extending slavery threatened a civil war the same year.Divisions - John Quincy Adams 1825-29The Missouri Compromise set the 36th parallel as boundary to future slave states and was a precursor to the north-south conflict that would nearly end the union forty years later. Even Jefferson, against slavery in theory but a slave owner himself, sided with those who wanted to extend it. Missouri while north of the division was allowed slavery as part of the compromise. Religion was yet another point of contention. Although the Bill of Rights separated church and state in 1791 it was on a federal level. Established religion lived on until as late as 1833 in the northeastern states. As religion was disestablished it led to a revival and reform movements which argued for temperance, women suffrage and slavery abolition by traveling preachers.Indian Wars - Andrew Jackson 1829-37Adams out of office in 1829, Jackson, the ‘hero’ of the War of 1812 and Florida conquest, became 7th president. He owed his victory to the three-fifths clause, which gave slave states added electoral votes and representatives in that proportion of the enslaved population. Both a slave owner and trader, Jackson had earlier been a frontiersman and Indian fighter, in addition to a general and politician. He ratified the 1830 Indian Removal Act banishing the natives of the southeast to territories west of the Mississippi. Having run on an anti-corruption campaign he packed federal offices with cronies, purging any who didn’t support him. An authoritarian who brooked no disloyalty, he is reminiscent of a recent president who claimed to admire him.Depression - Martin Van Buren 1837-41, John Tyler 1841-45Secretary of State Martin Van Buren cast doubts in Jackson’s mind about the Vice President’s loyalty to succeed him, and later won Jackson’s endorsement to become 8th President. The Panic of 1837 from land speculation and a cotton price crash led to a bank run and depression until the mid 1840’s ruining his re-election chances. The crisis was exacerbated by Jackson’s refusal to extend the central bank’s charter. Van Buren was succeeded by John Tyler after W. H. Harrison died 31 days into his term from a flu caught at his inauguration. Another Virginia slaver, Tyler still refused to reinstate the national bank. He annexed Texas in 1845 and later sided with the secession, serving in the Confederacy.Mexican War - James K. Polk 1845-49With President Polk in office, Jacksonian Democracy once again became the political philosophy of the day. Texas was now in the Union and Manifest Destiny was back in play. Polk successfully negotiated the border between British Canada and American Oregon Territory, making the US officially reach from sea to shining sea. Polk turned his attention to Mexico where he sent army expeditions to the Rio Grande and Santa Fe, and sent the Navy to the Gulf of Mexico and Los Angeles. Repatriating Santa Anna from exile in Cuba to overthrow the Mexican government, he was promptly double crossed. Frustrated he sent the US army towards Mexico City, negotiating the purchase of California and New Mexico at the point of a gun.While this book helped fill in my personal gaps of American history and layed a foundation for future reading it wasn’t a joy to read. In some ways the issues are familiar and in other ways surprising. They still resonate in the US today: south against north, state rights against federal government. The legacy of Republicans and Federalists is not yet resolved. Half of Americans argue the primacy of state laws, the other that a national government should arbitrate disputes. After 235 years the oldest living democratic constitution still bears the contradictions and dissensions of an earlier age. Thomas Jefferson asserted the Constitution should be rewritten every twenty years or each generation, an idea that was abhorrent to its author James Madison.

Daniel Walker Howe states that his goal as a historian is to examine both "the many private decisions made by innumerable common people in the search for a better future, and the conscious decisions of the leaders in the course of making public policy." With that approach, Howe delivers one of the best entries in the Oxford History of the United States. Covering the years from 1815 to 1848, or the end of the War of 1812 to the tumultuous year of political, social and cultural revolutions in Europe and at home, "What Hath God Wrought" presents an urgent story filled with the usual historical suspects and surprising appearances by numerous unknowns, little-knowns and forgotten players. Unlike many of the other entries in the series, which tend toward the overly dignified, Howe has a lively authorial voice. He doesn't hesitate to pick a fight with the historical mainstream, shows a biting wit and wicked sense of humor, occasionally goes on indulgent but greatly amusing tangents, and frequently draws telling parallels to modern-day events.Right from the introduction, Howe sets the tone by refusing to buy into the standard notion that 1815 to 1848 marked the rise and age of "Jacksonian Democracy." He also rejects the idea of President Andrew Jackson as some kind of champion of the common people. Indeed, Howe's overall characterization of Jackson is of a man concerned only with his own authority and someone who did not hesitate to stretch the limits of executive power to maintain that authority. When detailing one of many instances where Jackson simply dismissed dissenting civil servants and replaced them with his own cronies, Howe draws a telling comparison by jumping out of the narrative and about 100 years ahead in time, stating, "No parallel episode would occur again until 1973, when President Nixon fired two attorneys general in order to find one who would obey his order."Rather than concentrating on Jackson's role in shaping the first half of the 1800s, Howe posits that the main influences on the era were the dramatic advances in communications technology and transportation, which would directly or indirectly affect women's rights, the religious revival of the 1800s, and the sudden burst of creativity in American letters. (Some of the most absorbing chapters in the otherwise chronolocially organized book are centered around these themes.) And if Jackson isn't the star of "What Hath God Wrought," that role certainly belongs to John Quincy Adams. Even after his one-term presidency ends, Adams keeps making appearances in the narrative in the least expected of places as a champion of the women's movement, abolition, federal government, and national improvement. Howe argues, convincingly, that Adams more than anyone else defined the issues that will shape America for decades to follow.Howe views the Democratic presidents of the period -- and he counts among them the Whig-in-name-only John Tyler -- in a far less favorable light. He all but dismisses the tenth President of the United States. "It would be easy to demonize Tyler as a sinister frustrater of the popular will, wrecker of the Whig Party's only clear mandate, and the president who prostituted the Constitution," Howe writes with obvious scorn. "But the historian's duty is to understand, not simply condemn."And then in the very next sentence, in one of his most biting one-liners, Howe grants that, "in his own mind, John Tyler exemplified high principles."Howe himself never compromises his vision or interpretation of historical events. He doesn't pander to political correctness and isn't afraid to be blunt, especially when talking about Manifest Destiny and the unfortunate roles played by American Indians and Mexicans in the expansion of U.S. territory. "Imperialism is a more accurate and fruitful category for understanding the relations between the United States and the Native Americans than the metaphor of paternalism," Howe claims. Later, when summarizing some of the atrocities committed against non-whites who stood in the way of the race to the Pacific, he adds, "Today Americans deplore the expropriation and expulsion of racial minorities, a practice now called 'ethnic cleansing.'"To be sure, "What Hath God Wrought" has a few -- but only a very few -- flaws. Howe sometimes sticks in one detail too many. At one point, when writing about the young women working in the 1830s in the Lowell mills in Massachusetts, Howe somehow manages to give a shout-out to his mother, who lived in Yorkshire, England, in the 1930s. (This has to be the literary equivalent to the baseball player waving at the TV camera and mouthing, "Hey, mom!")Howe also indulges at times in playing the "what if" game, which, to be sure, makes for fun reading -- but doesn't belong in what will presumably become a canonical work in our body of history books. Among other things, Howe wonders what would have happened if Henry Clay had won the 1844 election. Later, Howe, assuming the role of English teacher and board of education member, tries to revive Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's reputation: "[O]ne suspects his poetry could still serve its original purpose of inspiring the young, if once again it were taught in schools." (Howe dons the hat of literary critic again when he asserts that "The Book of Mormon should rank among the great achievements of American literature.")Lastly, Howe has a habit of interpreting events from a very modern perspective. Of course, there's nothing wrong with that and, it could be argued, that should be one of the historian's principal objectives. But at times it does seem as if Howe has an agenda he'd like to advance regardless of whether or not it advances the work's narrative proper. When describing President Polk's actions against Mexico, Howe makes it absolutely clear that Polk manufactured this war of aggression against a largely innocent Mexico and seems intent on drawing a comparison with recent events. He chooses to concentrate on the Battle of Molino del Rey, which was fought mostly because the U.S. believed the Mexicans had stored large amounts of weapons there. Howe devotes an unusual number of words to setting up the scene -- just for the sake of a great punchline. After suffering heavy casualties, the U.S. entered the town, but "Molino contained no weapons of mass destruction." Howe's very choice of words -- dripping with sarcasm and winking at the reader -- may or may not inappropriately link the Mexican-American War with President Bush's war on terror over a hundred years later.Howe is an accomplished historian and writer, and the reader can only assume he made a decision to frame the section on the Mexican-American War in very modern terms. And Howe did so probably to make the reader think about history as a living, breathing thing that still walks among us, shapes our lives, and affects our future. And that, finally, is what the best history books do.

Great, comprehensive look at American society and politics in the Antebellum era. The importance of religion was especially striking. Even atheists and agnostics should recognise the valuable role it played in history, because Howe shows that American Protestantism inspired more progressive movements than anything else in the country. JQ Adams, Charles Finney, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and others all shine as American luminaries.The Jacksonian Democrats can more easily be painted as villains due to their hardline anti-Native and pro-slavery policies, which Howe documents extensively. But even they enshrined principles that are now taken seen as cornerstones of American culture- acceptance of immigrants, support for democracy abroad, supporting the rugged individual over an elite. Despite being less in favour of internal improvements and infrastructure than the Federalists + Whigs, the Democrats also supported the concept of modernisation.

History is over the United States frequently tend to rush through the period between the War of 1812 and the Civil War. This is perhaps not surprising, but as this excellent book shows, the period 1815 to 1848 it’s fascinating in itself. In addition, it provides a vital background to the conflagration that eventually erupted in 1861.

I really wish I could give this a higher rating but in all good conscience I cannot, and here's why...This volume of the Oxford History of the United States sits between two of the greatest books of American history ever published - Gordon S Wood's' Empire of Liberty' and James McPherson's 'Battlecry of Freedom' - the former one of the most masterful surveys of the early republic and the second the greatest single volume on the civil war. Howe's book should be a beautifully constructed bridge between them, instead it is an idiosyncratic, meandering trail which goes way off course and only comes back to the point after exhausting the reader with detour and unnecessary anecdote.I have two main issues with the book: the first is the author's bizarre attachment to one of the most inconsequential presidents in US history - John Quincey Adams - and his persistent attempts to shoehorn in Quncey's views or words, or even those of his descendants, when they are not merely unneeded but distracting from the central narrative. The second issue is the author's style. He follows the frustrating trend among some modern historians of attempting to impose modern value judgements and commentary rather than drawing a contemporary picture of a vanished world. In doing this he distorts the motives and impugns the policy of successive presidents and secretaries of state with whom he disagrees. He also intersperses the central narrative with diversions on cultural and social themes that he uses to pass judgement on individual characters and at times whole people.All this is a great shame because Howe is clearly a good historian, he just falls short of greatness by making the book too much about him and what he thinks about this period in American history rather than letting it and its inhabitants speak for themselves. When I'm reading a history book I don't want to know what the historian thinks,* I want to be able to immerse myself in another world, to understand their conflicts and disagreements as they themselves understood them, not have them interpreted for me by the author through the prism of his own prejudices and views. It's all a bit sophomoric.* - Edward Gibbon could get away with this; very few others!

Another excellent book in the Oxford History of the United States series. I really can't fault it.Sometimes reading epically large history books can become a rather onerous task but this book is beautifully written and does a such good job of moving around the various spheres of society (politics, the military, religion, women's rights, science etc) that it never becomes boring.The author has also done a good job of giving the book a proper ending which can be tricky when writing about a period of time rather than a particular subject.Highly recommended.

Doing a history degree, I made fantastic use of this book. It was informative yet captivating - I would recommend to those with an interest in American history.