In fact, the United States did go far afield. In 1867, it bought Alaska from Russia and in 1898, annexed the Hawaiian Islands.

Expanding Democracy

In 1800, the United States had the most liberal suffrage in the world, but still only white men who owned property could vote. States slowly chipped away at requirements. By the 1830s, most white men had the right to vote. Democracy was still far from complete, however.

By mid-century, reformers were campaigning for many changes. Some demanded a ban on the sale of alcoholic beverages. Others called for better treatment of the mentally ill or pushed for free elementary schools. But two campaigns stood out above all others because they highlighted the limits of American democracy—the abolition movement and the women's rights movement.

The Abolition Movement

In the early 1800s, a few Americans began to call for an immediate and complete end to slavery. One of these abolitionists was William Lloyd Garrison, who pressed the antislavery cause through his newspaper, the Liberator. Another was Frederick Douglass. He had been born into slavery and escaped, and he spoke eloquently in the North about the evils of the system.

By the 1850s, the battle over slavery had intensified. As each new state entered the union, proslavery and antislavery forces met in violent confrontations to decide whether slavery would be legal in the new state. Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin helped convince many northerners that slavery was a great social evil.

Women Seek Equality

Women worked hard in the antislavery movement. Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton traveled to London for the World Antislavery Convention—only to find they were forbidden to speak because they were women. Gradually, American women began to protest the laws and customs that limited their lives. In 1848, Mott and Stanton organized the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, to address the problems faced by women.

The convention passed a resolution, based on the Declaration of Independence. It began, “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men and women are created equal.”

Analyze Maps

Over the course of two centuries, the United States expanded its territory from east of the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean and beyond. How did the United States acquire territory on the Pacific coast?

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