Getting the Message Out! National Political Campaign Materials, 1840-1860
After property qualifications for voting were eliminated in the 1830s, the American electorate expanded from 1.5 million to 2.4 million. As abolition, the extension of slavery, the Mexican War, and the Dred Scott decision dominated the national debate, songs, parades, and barbecues became increasingly important campaign tools to reach out to new voters. This type of political material culture is highlighted through this website, presenting 1,200 documents, more than 650 images, 100 songs, and interactive country-wide Presidential election maps for all six Presidential elections between 1840 and 1860. Detailed contextual information is available on a wide range of subjects, such as political campaigns, political parties, and major national events. Five short videos by well-known scholars address political culture, the second party system, politics as popular entertainment, and women's roles in antebellum politics. The detailed lesson plan in the "Teacher's Podium" challenges students to assess changing campaign strategies through song lyrics.
Roosevelt spoke these words on March 4, 1933, in his First Inaugural Address— which also included his famous phrase "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." In this speech, FDR first assured the American people that he had faith that the Constitution and current understandings of constitutionally-acceptable presidential power were sufficient to overcome the crisis posed by the Great Depression. He then went on to note that, if necessary for the good of the country, he would ask Congress for executive power equivalent to that granted in wartime.
In his book Democracy in America, French thinker, writer, and politician Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859), considers the strengths and weakness of the American federal system of government as it was in the early 1830s, when he visited the young country on a 9-month tour. This passage comes from chapter 8 of the book's first volume: "On the Federal Constitution." Subheading "The Federal Constitution, Part V," "Why the Federal System is Not Adapted to All Peoples" looks at the uniqueness of the Constitution and of the expectations it sets out for the people putting it into practice. 
Fiery abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison (1805-1879) included this condemnation of the Constitution in the December 29, 1832, issue of his abolitionist newspaper The Liberator. The article in which it appeared, titled "On the Constitution and the Union," denounced the Constitution for allowing slavery to exist in the U.S., calling it a document "dripping" "with human blood." 
Woodrow Wilson included these words in his 1913 book The New Freedom: A Call for the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People, which laid out many of the views on which he had campaigned for the presidency. Writing in 1885, in his earlier book Congressional Government, Wilson saw many problems in the United States' established form of government, arguing that the Founders' system of checks and balances obscured responsibility more than it ensured balance. Wilson saw the Constitution as a product of a certain time and place, with questionable relevance to the present day. 
