Terms
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Nationalists
Sectionalists Currency Second Bank of the U.S. tariffs Tariff of 1816 Internal Improvements |
McCulloch v Maryland
Gibbons v Ogden James Monroe Panic of 1819 Missouri Compromise James Tallmadge Jr. Henry Clay |
The Monroe Doctrine
Andrew Jackson Democrats National Republicans Election of 1828 Internal Improvements Chief Justice John Marshall |
Emergence of Nationalism & Sectionalism
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After the War of 1812 a new set of problems and tensions emerged. Some Americans identified themselves simply as Americans, or nationalists who promoted or supported the ideas of the country as a whole (they did not favor one state or section over the other). Nationalists believed that no single section could everything it wanted when it came to new laws or protections from Congress in Washington D.C. (D. C. stands for District of Columbia). Sectionalists, were NOT so much focused on the country as a whole, but more focused on the promotion of their own section of the U.S. Sectionalists from the North were focused on shipping, manufacturing, and commerce (trade). Sectionalists from the South were focused on agriculture and slaves. Sectionalists from the West were focused on cheap land prices and transportation improvements.
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New Nationalism
Right after the end of the War of 1812, many Americans felt a wave of nationalism, or pride for one's nation as the best. Even people that were considered sectionalists for a brief time supported the idea of nationalism over sectionalism, but that was a short lived feeling.
The Bank of the United States - The charter for the 1st Bank of the U.S. ran out in 1811, the war had caused many states to be in a bad economic place. Without a national bank to issue paper money (sometimes called banknotes), states began printing their own money and flooded the economy with different types of state currency. Currency is what is used in a society to pay for things. It was hard to do any business on a national level because each state had their type of paper money, and in many cases states would not accept each others banknotes.
Because of this problem, President James Madison urged Congress to create the Second Bank of the United States (also known as B.U.S.) The B.U.S. was to support a national currency that would promote economic growth of the country. Henry Clay from Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina chartered a new bill that would create B.U.S. for twenty years. It would be headquartered in Philadelphia and each state would have its own branch of the national bank. The B.U.S. handled all of the federal government's funds without charge and could lend the government money.
Because of this problem, President James Madison urged Congress to create the Second Bank of the United States (also known as B.U.S.) The B.U.S. was to support a national currency that would promote economic growth of the country. Henry Clay from Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina chartered a new bill that would create B.U.S. for twenty years. It would be headquartered in Philadelphia and each state would have its own branch of the national bank. The B.U.S. handled all of the federal government's funds without charge and could lend the government money.
John C. Calhoun introduced the bill to create the new bank (which passed in 1816), he said that Congress had the right to create the bank according to the Constitution because it was Congress' duty to regulate currency.
Nationalist Economics (business and trade) - After the War of 1812, America needed to create a more centralized plan for building the economy, and not be so dependent on British trade which competed with American manufacturers. British merchants had flooded American market places with cheaply made British goods, goods made so cheap that American manufacturers who were not as established as British merchants, could not make the same goods as cheap as Britain had. Many believed that the advantage the British had was unfair and called for a tariff on all British goods imported to the U.S. Tariffs are taxes that are paid by a foreign country to another country in which they import, or bring in, products. By imposing a tariff on British goods, this would make them more expensive to buy than American made goods, thus making the demand for American production higher. This became the Tariff of 1816.
There were many, especially in the South that were not in favor of such a tariff. Most Southerners believed that such a tariff only benefited manufacturers and not consumers, and since most manufacturing at that time was in the North, they believed the tariff was created to help Northern interests while ignoring Southern interests. This was only the first of many issues that would divide the North and South.
Another issue of Nationalist Economics involved the idea that the federal government (the national government), should pay for internal improvements, or infrastructure, the building of roads, bridges, canals, and harbors. Most of the rivers in the U.S. run north to south, so many in the country wanted a road system that would run east and west to connect the East Coast with the West. The Western section of the U.S. supported internal improvements because it would connect them with the well established markets of the East Coast. The South also supported this because it would help them have a large way to get their cotton to other markets. This further strained sectional divide between the North, South, and West.
The Supreme Court & Nationalism - One of the major court cases that came out of this period was centered around the power of the national government over the states. Maryland wanted to tax the Second Bank of the U.S., since it had a branch in Maryland. When the Bank refused to pay the tax, the B.U.S., represented by James McCulloch a bank clerk, sued Maryland and it went to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice John Marshall in his decision in McCulloch v. Maryland, said that a state could not tax the national or federal government because according to the Constitution federal law was supreme. In another case, the Supreme Court also showed that federal authority was greater than state authority (which made nationalists happy). When Robert Livingston and Robert Fuller were given licenses by New York to operate the only steamboats in waterways located in New York, they believed only they could operate on the waters with steam power. Thomas Gibbons, however, was given a federal license to operate his steamboat wherever he liked. New York sued Gibbons, but Chief Justice John Marshall, in Gibbons v. Ogden, said that no state could deny the supremacy of a federal license, another win for nationalists.
President James Monroe
In 1816, President James Monroe was elected to office. Monroe was a slaveholding Virginian just like Madison, Jefferson, and Washington. He served as Madison's Secretary of State and had held a number of federal positions before that, so he was experienced with government. Monroe's presidency started during a very peaceful and largely happy time, but soon erupted into turmoil and political fighting by the different sections of the country based on two major events that occurred during his presidency.
Not long after taking office, America was hit with its first major economic depression. The Panic of 1819 was an economic slowdown that was basically the result of too many people trying to get rich quickly. Since the tariffs created a larger demand for American products, especially farm products, farmers and planters began to produce more crops than ever before. To fuel the post War of 1812 economy, local and state banks made it too easy for people and businesses to get loans, even the B.U.S. issued loans that were not very sound. At the same time, the government was selling large tracts of western lands in which reckless real estate investors bought huge tracts of land with the idea of selling them for quick profit to others. Finally, a string of good weather in Europe allowed more crops to produced there which reduced their need of American crops, this caused American crop prices to drop quickly. The Panic of 1819 began when Britain quit buying expensive American cotton to buy cheaper cotton elsewhere in the world. Britain was the South's largest cotton buyer.
As cotton prices continued to fall, the flow of commerce also dropped off, banks began to fail and unemployment went up. Southerners became angry at the banks and jealous that the Northern manufacturing centers had not been impacted as badly with the depression as they had. It was also discovered that some of the B.U.S. bank branches in states like Maryland, had been stealing money from the government. Southerners and Westerners blamed the B.U.S. for the panic.
The Missouri Compromise
As the economic depression became worse, another problem was created in America between the sections of the North and the South. The question of how slavery would be handled or decided in the western territories, especially when territories sought statehood, arrived on the doorstep of Congress with Missouri asking for statehood in 1819. By 1819, Missouri's population had reached the population requirement for statehood of 60,000 people. Missouri was the first state west of the Mississippi River to seek statehood. Some, like Representative James Tallmadge Jr., of New York, believed that slavery should not be taken into the new states west of the Mississippi, which angered Southerners. For the first time ever, Southerners threatened that any outlawing of slavery west of the Mississippi might be grounds for the South to the leave the union.
Southerners were most concerned that any state admitted to the union as a free state west of the Mississippi, would upset the balance of power in Congress with anti-slavery states having more power over those states where slavery existed. At the same time that Missouri requested statehood, so did the territory north of Massachusetts that wished to have its own state. The new state there would be called Maine. A compromise, called the Missouri Compromise, was created by Henry Clay of Kentucky which said that Missouri would be admitted as a slave state and Maine would be admitted as a free state. It also said that land west of Missouri would be divided by the 30-36 degree parallel (the Southern border of Missouri), with any new state created south of that line could be slave and any north of that line free. The debate over the Missouri Compromise revealed a widening divide between North and South: The North dominated by shipping, commerce, manufacturing, and small farms - The South becoming more and more dependent on cotton and slavery.
The Monroe Doctrine
The most important diplomatic (diplomacy is our interaction with foreign nations) policy done by James Monroe was a policy that was designed to keep European powers from interfering in the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine, as it became known as, said that no American country or territory would be colonized by a European power. It further said that any attempt of a European power to establish a NEW foothold in the western hemisphere would be seen as a threat (where European powers already had connections in the Western Hemisphere was fine, just no new ones). Lastly it said that the U.S. would stay out of European internal affairs (things that happen within Europe).
Rise of Andrew Jackson
The War of 1812 created a political world in the U.S. with only one party. Madison, a Republican, supported the war. Those opposed were from the Federalist party and their opposition to the war killed what support they had and the party died out. James Monroe ran as a Republican unopposed by a candidate from a political party, and while his first term was known as the "Era of Good Feeling," his second term was troubled with an economic depression and sectional conflict, the Republican Party was beginning to lose support. Soon, however, a new party would emerge, the Democrats, led by Andrew Jackson.
Andrew Jackson had a rough childhood. His father died three weeks before he was born from a farm accident. His mother worked as a housekeeper and farmed their small plot of land to support her three sons. When the American Revolution began, the oldest Jackson brother died of heat exhaustion during a battle, the middle Jackson boy died on his way home after release from a British prison. Jackson himself, was captured by British soldiers in 1781. When told to shine the boots of a British officer, he refused and the British officer cut him on the face and hand with his sword. After the American Revolution, Jackson became a saddle maker for a short time, then a teacher, before finally teaching himself law, later becoming a lawyer. In 1788 he moved to Nashville, Tennessee and became a frontier lawyer. As a lawyer he got into many arguments and even duels. He and Charles Dickinson were in a duel in 1806 from what Jackson said was over money Dickinson owed and the fact that he had insulted Jackson's wife (Jackson married his wife Rachel before she was legally divorced from her first husband). The two men paced off, turned, and Jackson allowed Dickinson to have the first shot which he placed in Jackson's chest. Without falling, Jackson took aim and killed Dickinson. Jackson carried the bullet in his chest most of his life.
Jackson entered politics much to the dismay of many who were surprised because Jackson was not very good at writing and spelling having very little formal education. When John Adams commented on Jackson's lack of spelling, Jackson replied that he, "never trusted a man who could think of only one way to spell a word."
Jackson ran for President in 1824 but was unable to secure the win, even though he had won the popular vote. John Quincy Adams was chosen by the House of Representatives as President since no one candidate held a majority of electoral college votes. Adams was a hardworking president but not a very effective one. Adams was the political opposite of Jackson, Adams was looked upon as a "gentleman" with education, and refined proper qualities, almost like royalty. Jackson, on the other hand, had campaigned on the idea of being the "champion of the common man." Adams became a champion of larger government and some accused him of being a tyrant. His policies split the Republican Party. Those that supported bigger government supported Adams and were called National Republicans, those that supported Andrew Jackson and his states rights ideas, became known as Democrats.
Jackson ran for President in 1824 but was unable to secure the win, even though he had won the popular vote. John Quincy Adams was chosen by the House of Representatives as President since no one candidate held a majority of electoral college votes. Adams was a hardworking president but not a very effective one. Adams was the political opposite of Jackson, Adams was looked upon as a "gentleman" with education, and refined proper qualities, almost like royalty. Jackson, on the other hand, had campaigned on the idea of being the "champion of the common man." Adams became a champion of larger government and some accused him of being a tyrant. His policies split the Republican Party. Those that supported bigger government supported Adams and were called National Republicans, those that supported Andrew Jackson and his states rights ideas, became known as Democrats.
Election of 1828 - Presidential election between Adams and Jackson. Jackson campaigned as a man that was just like the common man, while Adams could not make a good connection with people outside of his own rich social circle. Jackson won support because he wanted to expand voting rights to all males, not just those that owned land. He promoted the interests of what he called the "working man." Jackson was elected in 1828 by the largest margin ever in a presidential election up to that time, and with the highest amount of participation ever. Jackson said that he would restore government to "the people," and take power from the Eastern rich "elite." He wanted to be known as the "people's president."