President James Monroe’s administration, from 1817 to 1825 The Era of Good Feeling President James Monroe’s administration, from 1817 to 1825

“Era of Good Feeling” … characterized by domestic tranquility, a lack of partisan bitterness, and a strong sense of nationalism.

In the election of 1820, Monroe ran unopposed In the election of 1820, Monroe ran unopposed. He received all but one electoral vote.

The American System

The economic plan known as “the American System,” proposed by Henry Clay of Kentucky John C. Calhoun of South Carolina John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts

Clay Calhoun Adams

It designed to unify the country and make it less dependent on Europe and more economically self-sufficient.

Its main features were (1) the Tariff of 1816, (2) the Second National Bank, (3) internal improvements.

The Tariff of 1816 approved by Congress to protect American industries, placed a tax of 20 to 25 percent on foreign goods.

This was the first protective tariff in the United States designed to protect industry rather than raise revenue.

The Second National Bank was established in 1816 to stabilize the currency and provide easy credit to help the economy run smoothly.

Internal improvements included a system of roads and canals that would knit the nation together, built with money raised from the new protective tariff and revenues from the sale of land.

The American system was designed so that the tariffs would benefit the East

Internal improvements would help farmers in the West and South ship their goods

the Bank would help the economies of all sections.

Nationalism in Foreign Policy

The Monroe Doctrine of 1823 was conceived by John Quincy Adams and articulated by President James Monroe.

It stated that the Western Hemisphere was off limits to European powers.

It arose from fear in the United States that Spain and France would send armies to re-establish their control over the colonies that had established their independence during the 1820’s.

The Doctrine’s key provisions were that Europeans could keep their colonies in the Western Hemisphere but not establish new ones, while the United States would keep out of European affairs.

Britain supported this policy because it wanted to protect its colonies in the West Indies.

The Monroe Doctrine became the foundation of U. S The Monroe Doctrine became the foundation of U. S. policy toward Europe and Latin America, and it signaled that the United States considered itself a major power.

Judicial Nationalism

Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall issued a series of decisions that reflected the young country’s rising spirit of nationalism.

Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819): The Court ruled that state courts could not alter or invalidate a private contract.

McCulloch v. Maryland (1819): The Court ruled that the government possessed the power to create a national bank, and that the state did not have the power to tax federal institutions

Federal law trumped state laws.

Gibbons v. Ogden (1821): The Court ruled that the federal government had the authority to regulate interstate commerce.

These decisions reinforced the Federalist belief in the power of the national government over state governments.

They had far-reaching consequences for U. S They had far-reaching consequences for U. S. History, long after the Federalist Party’s decline.

Rise of Sectionalism

As settlers moved westward, the question of whether new territories would be free or slave became a fiercely contested issue.

Before 1812, the concern about balancing slave-states and free states was not profound.

This is how the states lined up in 1812: Slave States Year Free States Delaware 1787 New Jersey (Slave until 1804) Georgia 1788 Pennsylvania Maryland Connecticut South Carolina Massachusetts Virginia New Hampshire North Carolina 1789 New York (Slave until 1799) Kentucky 1792 Rhode Island 1790 Tennessee 1796 Vermont 1791 Louisiana 1812 Ohio 1803

After 1812, and until 1850, maintaining the balance of free and slave state votes in the Senate was considered of paramount importance if the Union were to be preserved, and states were typically admitted in pairs:

By 1819, there were eleven free states and eleven slave states.

Missouri’s application for statehood in 1819 threatened to upset this fragile balance of power, tilting it toward the Southern slave states.

Debate raged for months.

In 1820, Henry Clay proposed the Missouri Compromise.

*Missouri would be admitted as a slave state

*Maine would be admitted as a free state

*Slavery was prohibited north of the 36/30 parallel line

The Compromise temporarily resolved the controversy but damaged the spirit of unity in the country.

Thomas Jefferson referred to the crisis as “the fireball in the night

In the Election 1824, intraparty politics in the Democratic-Republican Party revealed sectional differences.

The four major candidates were William Henry Crawford, secretary of the treasury;

Henry Clay, speaker of the House;

Secretary of State John Quincy Adams;

Andrew Jackson, the national war hero.

All of them ran as Democratic-Republicans.

Jackson won the popular vote but not a majority of the electoral votes, and it fell to the House of Representatives to select the new president.

After much debate, Henry Clay threw his support to Adams, who then appointed him as Secretary of State.

Outraged, Jackson and his supporters attacked this as a “corrupt bargain,” and the cloud of the corruption it created would limit Adam’s effectiveness as president.

Jackson formed a new political party simply known as Democrats, thus ending the brief “Era of Good Feeling.”

Jackson’s opponents, led by Henry Clay, formed another party known as the Whigs.