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The Era of Good Feelings
Americans came out of the War of 1812 with a new sense of national pride. Though the war was in many ways a stalemate, the astonishing American victory at the Battle of New Orleans made the nation feel as though it had won a second war for independence.
The election of James Monroe to the presidency in
The American System
Politicians rallied behind Speaker of the House Henry Clay and his American System to improve the national infrastructure. Clay wanted to make internal improvements to national transportation to link the agricultural West with the industrial North. Dozens of new canals and roads were built at the government’s expense, such as the Erie Canal and the Cumberland Road. Clay also pushed the Tariff of
Landmark Decisions and Doctrines
The Supreme Court, under Chief Justice John Marshall, made several landmark decisions during this period, including McCulloch v. Maryland, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, Cohens v. Virginia, Gibbons v. Ogden, and Fletcher v. Peck. An ardent Federalist, Marshall issued decisions that strengthened the Court and the federal government relative to the states.
Meanwhile, President Monroe and Secretary of State John Quincy Adams issued the Monroe Doctrine in
The Missouri Compromise
The Era of Good Feelings was short-lived. First, the Panic of
Under Henry Clay’s Missouri Compromise, northerners and southerners agreed to admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. The compromise also stipulated that slavery could not expand north of the
The Corrupt Bargain
By the election of
Jacksonian Democracy
Jackson bounced back and was elected president in
The Nullification Crisis
Jackson’s two terms were full of political crises, the first of which was the Nullification Crisis over the Tariff of
Vice President John C. Calhoun secretly wrote a pamphlet called the “South Carolina Exposition and Protest” that urged southern state legislatures to nullify what he called the “Tariff of Abominations.” The South Carolina legislature followed his advice in
Indian Removal Act
A renowned “Indian fighter” during his military years, Jackson continued to persecute Native Americans during his presidency. In
Jackson’s Bank War
Jackson also caused a stir with his Bank War against the Bank of the United States. Because the Bank was a private institution funded by a small group of wealthy speculators, Jackson believed it was undemocratic. He vetoed the bill to renew the Bank’s charter and then effectively killed the Bank by refusing to put any more federal money in it, depositing the money in smaller banks instead. This action sent the national economy into a depression after the Panic of
Van Buren and Depression
Jackson’s Democratic successor, Martin Van Buren, had an even rockier time. Although Jackson had tried to nip the depression in the bud with the Specie Circular law, it only made matters worse. Without a strong central bank to provide stability, hundreds of smaller “wildcat banks” went out of business.
Blamed for a depression that was not his fault, Van Buren lost the election of
John Tyler and the Whigs
Whig leaders Henry Clay and Daniel Webster initially rejoiced when Harrison was elected, for he shared their support of higher tariffs, internal improvements, and a revived Bank of the United States. To their surprise, though, Tyler ruined all their plans. Tyler, a former Democrat, had become a Whig because he personally disliked Jackson, not because he believed in the Whig platform. Tyler did pass the slightly higher Tariff of
Nonetheless, Tyler had a productive term. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty of
Texas
Texas caused controversy from the day it declared independence from Mexico in
The Abolitionist Movement
This debate over slavery was the most divisive issue of the era. While southerners spoke loudly in support of slavery, the abolitionist movement grew from a small faction in the
Social Reform and Religious Revivalism
At the same time, some progressive northerners—many of them women—started social reform movements against prostitution, alcohol, and mistreatment of prisoners and the mentally disabled. Others tried to expand women’s rights and improve education. Many of these movements were successful in convincing state legislatures to enact new legislation.
Linked to these reform movements was a new wave of religious revivalism that spread across America at the time. Many new religious denominations flourished, including the Methodists, Baptists, Shakers, Mormons, and Millerites, among others. In general, women were especially involved in these new denominations.
The Market Revolution
At the same time that these social transformations were taking place, the U.S. economy was evolving into a market economy. New inventions and infrastructure made it much easier to transport goods around the country.
Eli Whitney’s cotton gin and system of interchangeable parts revitalized the South, West, and North. Cotton production became a more efficient and lucrative business, so southern planters brought in more slaves to work their fields. Cyrus McCormick’s mechanical mower-reaper revolutionized wheat production in the West, enabling farmers to send surplus crops to northern industrial cities.
Immigration
Immigration and wage labor, meanwhile, completely transformed the North. The potato famine in Ireland and failed democratic revolutions in Germany sent several million Irish and German immigrants to the North in the
Manifest Destiny and the Mexican War
Within the United States, people were itching to move further west. Land-hungry westerners and southerners in particular wanted more land on which to farm and plant cotton. Inspired by revivalism, many Americans began to believe that it was their “manifest destiny” from God to push westward across the continent. Politicians were encouraged to acquire more and more land.
Westward expansion was particularly important to James K. Polk, who was elected president in
