American Reformers Chapter 1 Summary

The book American Reformers, 1815-1860 by Ronald G. Waters was originally published in 1978 by Hill and Wang publishing company. This book describes the reformation that took place in America, its affects, and what was necessary to get the word out about its ideas. The reformation was an important step in the development of the idea that the negative aspect of a nation’s society could be done away with through an individual’s endeavors. The first chapter of the book deals with how economics, transportation revolution, and politics played a part in the antebellum reformation. It explained how reformers felt about America’s immoral leaders and the laws that they thought would make Americans “behave.” I disagree with certain tactics of the reformists

Reformists belonged to many different parties which generated partisan conflict. This, I think, heavily influenced the antebellum reform. I think this because, even though there were separate political parties, there were reformists among all of them. I very much agree with the reformists’ issues with the degenerates being able to be vote after being persuaded by crooked politicians. I think that politics took a turn in a negative direction when politicians made promises that couldn’t be fulfilled just to win an election. Reformists wished for people in office to be morally responsible. I believe it is important that reformists didn’t entirely shy away from politics. Instead, they learned how to use persuasion to make more change in the right direction. The reformists conformed to the way of gaining followers because it seemed like the only way to work. They made alcohol and slavery a major issue in politics and were able to stop postal workers from working on

The reformists did believe that going on a moral crusade was the best form of action to make change. I believe that the reformists once again crossed the line when they started to use violence to get their message across. They attacked a convent after Thomas R. Dew wrote a book that defended slavery and the resettling of blacks outside of the United States. This is troubling to me because it seems that the reformists are trying to shut the mouths of all of those who have a differing of opinion by the use of violence. The reformists had the thought pattern that “old values were being lost and whatever was at fault had to be eliminated or controlled if America was to fulfill its destiny” (Waters Pg.10). Once again this is going against what the Founding Fathers would have wanted. I think that only some of the issues that caused loss of old values were merely just progression and only a problem in the eye of the