10 - The American Way: Synthesis of "The American Way"

•Monroe Doctrine: America asserts independence from Old World control, declaring its own sphere and destiny. How did America’s growing confidence redefine what “freedom” meant on the world stage?

•Missouri Compromise: The nation balances the political power of state's rights and slavery's impact on economics with moral ideals tested by expansion. Why did the passive and politically manipulative approach to the destruction of slavery not prove to be the optimal direction, and yet a permissible approach at the time?

•Economic/Technological/Industrial Advancement: Innovation becomes a new form of independence through invention and production shaping identity. Is progress always part of “the American Way,” or can it also burden us in new ways?

•Madison’s Veto of Internal Improvements: Fear of federal overreach collides with the dream of national unity. Does “the American Way” mean local control or national vision?

•Andrew Jackson’s Pre-Presidential Life: The self-made man rises through ambition, resilience, and vengeance, thus defining a new democratic hero. What does Jackson’s story reveal about who America admired and wanted to become?

•John Quincy Adams’s Presidency: The moral statesman in an age of popular will; virtue struggles against politics. Is “the American Way” about doing what is right, or what the people demand?

•Second Great Awakening (Finney): Revivalism democratizes salvation as faith becomes a choice and a movement. How did revivalism make religion part of America’s restless drive for change and reform?

•Rise of Mormonism: A new faith was born on American soil, seeking order, revelation, and belonging amid freedom. Why do Americans so often reinvent religion when searching for meaning?

•Utopianism: Ideal communities test whether heaven can be built on earth. Why does “the American Way” dream of perfection yet always fall short of it?

•The Old South’s economy thrived on geography, climate, and a unique economic system, creating an agrarian world where large scale, focused production and reputation defined success. How did the South’s devotion to tradition and status shape its idea of what the “good life” in America should be?

•Slavery formed a rigid social and economic order that promised stability for the few while denying full liberty to the many, shaping Southern identity around power and dependence. How did a system built on inequal interdependence come to seem so necessary or even natural within “the American Way”?