The term Era of Good Feelings refers to the period of American history when there seemed to be political harmony during the Monroe administration. 1
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In 1816, James Monroe became president, inaugurating a period of one-party Republican rule, an Era of Good Feelings, in which almost no Federalists won federal or state offices. In 1820, Monroe was re-elected almost unanimously. With no party opposition, however, politics was organized around competing sectional interests. Slavery was a sectional issue that threatened to disrupt national unity. 3
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US and UK wills share Oregon, and the boundary b/w canada and US will be 49 th parallel. Soon after, US settlers began to dominate the sharing. On October 20, 1818, a convention was held by the United States and Britain which established part of the present-day border between the United States and Canada. The agreement stipulated that 49 degrees north latitude (or the 49th parallel) would mark the boundary, from Lake of the Woods (in present-day northern Minnesota, southwestern Ontario, and southeastern Manitoba) west to the Rocky Mountains (in present-day Montana and Alberta). The two countries further agreed that for 10 years they would jointly occupy the Pacific Northwest territories the area that begins at 42 degrees north latitude (the southern boundary of present-day Oregon) and extends north to 54 degrees 40 minutes north latitude (in present-day British Columbia). However, even before the agreement was made, and even before the United States and Britain had fought the War of 1812 (1812 1814), American expansionists had begun to demand the seizure of Canada from Great Britain. Thus, after the eastern boundary had been established by the Convention of 1818, expansionists began to suggest that the Pacific Northwest territories ought to be part of a strategic claim made by the United States. 6
The Adams-Onís Treaty between the United States and Spain was negotiated by Secretary of State John Quincy Adams and the Spanish Minister to the United States, Don Luis de Onís, and signed in February 1819. The principal elements in the treaty were the acquisition of Florida by the United States and the establishment of a boundary line between Spanish territory and the United States. After the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Pres. Thomas Jefferson argued that Florida was included in Louisiana, and much of the United States assumed Florida would eventually become part of the United States. In 1810 and 1812 the United States annexed sections of West Florida. When John Quincy Adams became secretary of state in 1817, he sought additional territory. In 1817 and 1818 Adams and President James Monroe resumed efforts to acquire Florida and a western boundary for the Louisiana Purchase. In addition to the Manifest Destiny we have mentioned in class, Monroe feared Florida because it was a haven for runaway for slaves (i.e. they sought refuge with the natives). A turning point came in December 1817, when President Monroe ordered forces under Andrew Jackson to the Florida border to suppress the activities of the Seminole Indians who were violently quarreling with white settlements, and providing a safe haven for runaway slaves. When the Spanish and French governments subsequently protested Jackson s expedition into Florida (where he seized 2 Spanish forts, burned Seminole villages, and executed two UK citizens), Adams responded with a threat of his own. If Spain could not control its territory, the United States would; either relinquish Florida immediately, Adams declared, or Spain would not have the possession of Florida to give us. Faced with Adams ultimatum, Spain came to terms. On February 22, 1819, Spain ceded all of Florida to the US and relinquished all claims to the territories north of the 42 nd Parallel, including the Oregon Country. The US acknowledged Spanish ownership of Texas and agreed to assume all claims made by American merchants against Spain for damages suffered during the Napoleonic Wars, to an amount not exceeding $ 5 million. In the treaty, Spain gave East and West Florida to the United States, and the United States agreed to assume claims by citizens of the United States against Spain. In Article III, the treaty stated that: "The 7
boundary line between the two countries... shall begin on the Gulph [sic] of Mexico, at the mouth of the river Sabine, in the sea, continuing north, along the western bank of that river, to the 32d degree of latitude; thence, by a line due north, to the degree of latitude where it strikes the Rio Roxo of Natchitoches, or Red River; then following the course of Rio Roxo westward, to the degree of longitude 100 west..., then, crossing the said Red River, and running thence, by a line due north, to the river Arkansas; thence following the course of the southern bank of the Arkansas, to its source, in latitude 42 north; and thence, by that parallel of latitude, to the South Sea." In addition, the treaty stated that "all islands in the Sabine,... Red and Arkansas Rivers... [were] to belong to the United States...." By the terms of this boundary, the United States agreed that Texas was on the Spanish side of the line, and Spain agreed to give up its claim to the Northwest Territory north of forty-two degrees. The treaty was approved by the U.S. Senate on February 24, 1819. However, Spanish authorities delayed their approval until 1821. The Senate approved the treaty a second time, and President Monroe ratified and exchanged it with Spanish authorities in February, 1821. 7
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The War of 1812 showed how far the United States was from being an integrated nation. The Bank of the United States had expired, transportation was poor, and manufacturing had been required to counter the British embargo. Even though they wanted the United States to remain Jefferson s agrarian republic, Republicans led by Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun believed manufacturers needed protection if the United States was to become independent from Britain. In 1815, President James Madison proposed a plan for government-promoted economic development that became known as the American System. This system would rest on a new national bank, a tariff on imports to protect and foster manufacturing, and federal financing of road and canal construction, called internal improvements. Although the tariff and national bank became law in 1816, Madison, afraid that the national government, if given powers not expressed in the constitution, would interfere with individual liberty and slavery in southern states, vetoed an internal improvements bill. The Second Bank of the United States (BUS), a private, profit-making corporation that served as the government s financial agent, soon became resented by many Americans. The BUS was also tasked with regulating the volume of paper money printed by private banks to prevent fluctuations and inflation (at this point the federal government did not print money). 13
Rather than regulating the currency and loans issued by local banks, the Bank of the United States contributed to widespread speculation, mostly in land, after the War of 1812. When European demand for American farm goods decreased in 1819, this speculative bubble burst. Dropping land prices ruined farmers and businessmen who could no longer pay their loans, banks failed, and unemployment spread in eastern cities. The short-lived Panic of 1819 disrupted the political harmony established after the war s end. Some states controversially provided relief to debtors, much to the chagrin of creditors. Most important, the panic reinforced many American s longstanding distrust of banks, and it undermined the reputation of the BUS, which was blamed for the panic. When states retaliated against the BUS by taxing its local branches, the Supreme Court under John Marshall ruled in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) that the BUS was a legitimate exercise of congressional authority under the Constitution. This directly contradicted the strict constructionist view that Congress could use only those powers expressly in the Constitution. 14
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In 1819, when Missouri applied for statehood, a New York Republican proposed that Congress force the new state constitution to ban the further importation of slaves and free slave children upon reaching age twenty-five. The Republican Party split along sectional lines on the Missouri question. Most northern Republicans supported the restrictions, while southern Republicans opposed them. In 1820, a compromise was reached which allowed Missouri to adopt a constitution without the anti-slavery restrictions, and allowed Maine, which prohibited slavery, to become a free state, in order to maintain sectional balance between free and slave states in the Congress. And slavery would be prohibited in all remaining territory of the Louisiana Purchase north of latitude 36 309. In other words, under the Missouri Compromise of 1820 the remaining Louisiana Purchase territory was divided into slave and free zones. The Missouri Compromise showed that sectional divisions over slavery s westward expansion seriously endangered the federal union. The domination of the presidency by Virginians since the founding, except for the term of John Adams of Massachusetts, reinforced northerners sense that southern slaveowners dominated national politics (this was largely due to the 3/5 Compromise), and they knew that more slave states would mean more political power for the South in Congress (in other words, they did not oppose the expansion of slavery for moral reasons, or concern for the welfare of the slaves). Both Thomas Jefferson and John Quincy Adams suggested that the Missouri controversy of 1820 1821 revealed a sectional divide 16
that potentially threatened the Union. The issue eventually sparked the Civil War. OH.and Missouri barred free blacks from the state (to avoid competition with white farmers and workers remember, the Market Revolution was kicking in, and a slowly increasing number of people were working for wages), so a second Missouri Compromise was necessary. 16
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Between 1810 and 1822, Spain s Latin American colonies rebelled and established independent nations, including Mexico, Venezuela, Ecuador, and Peru. By 1825, Spain s empire in the Western Hemisphere contained only Cuba and Puerto Rico. Americans sympathized with these republican revolutions, and the United States was the first to recognize these new governments. John Quincy Adams, Monroe s secretary of state, feared that Spain might try to regain its former colonies, and in 1823 he drafted a speech for the president which became known as the Monroe Doctrine. This doctrine stated that the United States would oppose any future efforts by European powers to colonize the Americas, abstain from involvement in Europe s wars, and prevent European nations from interfering in the new Latin American nations. This doctrine assumed that the Old and New World were separate political and diplomatic systems, and claimed for the United States the role of the dominant power in the Western Hemisphere. Adams also meant to secure the commerce of the region for U.S., as opposed to British, interests. 18
In the 1824 presidential election, only candidate Andrew Jackson, known for his military victories, had nationwide support. The other candidates John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, William Crawford of Georgia, and Henry Clay of Kentucky found support mostly in their regions. Though Jackson received the largest tally of the popular vote and carried all regions except for New England, none of the candidates received a majority of electoral college votes. Running last and eliminated, Henry Clay used his influence to lead the House of Representatives into electing John Quincy Adams as president, whom Clay believed would promote the American System. Clay was soon appointed secretary of state. This appointment led to charges that a corrupt bargain between Clay and Adams had secured the presidency for Adams, and laid the basis for the emergence of a Democratic Party behind Andrew Jackson s candidacy in the 1828 election. The alliance around Adams and Clay came to form the opposition Whig Party in the 1830s. 19
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