Chapter 8: Varieties of American Nationalism

• The Era of Good Feelings

  • lasted from Monroe's election in 1816 until the Panic of 1819
  • describes Monroe's 2 terms in office, marked by a spirit of nationalism, optimism, goodwill
• James Monroe
• Tariff of 1816


  the first protective tariff in U.S. History, Congress raised tariffs to protect U.S. manufacturers from European competitors (opposed by New England with a small merchant population)
• To support the growth of the nation's economy...

  (1) subsidize internal improvements (roads, canals)

  (2) protect U.S. industries
• Henry Clay's American System (method for economic growth)

  (1) protective tariffs (2) national bank (2) internal improvements
• Changes in the Democratic Republican Party

  • Some members continued with traditional beliefs (ex. John Randolph)
  • most members adopted ideas that had once been Federalist, such as support for a large army & national bank
  • some members reversed their views from one decade to the next (ex. Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun)
• Panic of 1819

  • The Second Bank of U.S. tightened credit to try to control inflation which led to unemployment, bankruptcies, imprisonment for debt
  • more severe in the west
  • nationalist beliefs --> shaken
• John Marshall

  • decision favored the central government and the rights of property against the advocates of state's rights
• Fletcher vs. Peck 


  • involving land fraud in Georgia
  • a state could not pass legislation invalidating a contract
  • first time the Supreme Court declared a state law to be unconstitutional
• Martin v. Hunter's Lease


  • the Supreme Court established that it had jurisdiction over state courts in cases involving constitutional rights
• Dartmouth College v Woodward


  • involved a law of NH that changed Dartmouth College from a privately chartered college into a public institution
  • decided the state law was unconstitutional
• McChulloch v Maryland


  • Maryland attempted to tax the Second Bank of the U.S. located in Maryland
  • declared a state could not tax a federal institution
• Cohens v. Virginia


  • brothers convicted in Virginia for illegally selling lottery tickets
  • declared the Supreme Court could review a state court's decision involving any of the powers of the federal government
• Gibbons v. Ogden


  • could the state of NY grant a monopoly to a steamboat company if that action conflicted with a charter authorization by Congress?
  • declared the NY monopoly was unconstitutional and established the federal government's control of interstate commerce
• objectives of importance to western states


  (1) "cheap money" (easy credit) from state banks rather than from the Bank of the United States

  (2) low prices for land sold by the federal government

  (3) improved transportation
• Tallmadge Amendment

  • called for (1) prohibiting the further introduction of slaves into Missouri

  (2) requiring the children of Missouri slaves to be emancipated at the age of 25

  • abolished by senate
• Missouri Compromise

  • making Missouri a state would disrupt the balance of slave states and non-slave states
  • solution: Clay's Proposal
  • admit Missouri as a slave-holding state
  • admit Maine as a free state
  • prohibit slavery int he rest of the Louisiana Territory north of latitude 36 30'
• Nationalism v Sectionalism 


  Americans were torn between loyalty to the Union v. loyalty to one's own region
• Stephen Decatur- led a fleet against the Barbary pirates
• Rush- Bagot Agreement


  • (negotiated between British and American)
  • limited naval armament on the Great Lakes
  • in time the treaty was extended to place limits on border fortifications as well
  • the border between the U.S. and Canada was to become the longest unfortified border in the world
• Treaty of 1818


  • shared fishing rights off the coast of Newfoundland; joint occupation of the Oregon Territory for ten years; the setting of the northern limits of the Louisiana Territory at the 49th parallel (establishing the western U.S. Canada boundary line)
  • continued improved relations between the U.S. and Britain
• Andrew Jackson

  • took military action in Florida because of chaotic Spanish conditions
• Jackson's Military Campaign

  • led a force of militia into Florida, destroyed Seminole villages, hanged two Seminole chiefs
  • drove out the Spanish governor, hanged two British traders
• Florida Purchase Treaty (aka Adams-Onis Treaty)


  • Spain turned over all of its possessions in Florida and its own claims in the Oregon Territory to the United States
  • In exchange, the U.S. agreed to assume $5 million in claims against Spain and give up any U.S. territorial claims to the Spanish province of Texas
• The Monroe Doctrine


  • asserted as a principle in which the rights and interests of the U.S. are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization
• Population Growth


  • provided the laborers and the consumers required for the industrial revolution
  • a result of a high birth rate and was supplemented after 1830 by immigrants arriving from Europe
  • non-white population grew but as a % of total population, declined almost 20%
• Roads (Transportation)

  • Pennsylvania's Lancaster Turnpike connected Philadelphia with the rich farmlands around Lancaster
  • National, or Cumberland Road: a paved highway to the west extending more than a thousand miles from Maryland to Illinois
• Canals (Transportation)

  • Erie Canal: linked the economies of western farms and eastern cities
  • improved transportation with canals meant lower food prices in the east, more immigrants settling in the west, and stronger economic ties between the two sections
• Steamboats (Transportation)


  • the successful voyage up the Hudson River of the Clermont, a steamboat developed by Robert Fulton
  • commercially operated steamboat lines made round trip shipping faster and cheaper
• Eli Whitney - interchangeable parts
• Corporations for Raising Capital: NY passed a law that made it easier for a business to incorporate and raise capital, other states followed. Facilitated the raising of large sums of capital necessary for building factories, canals, railroads
• Factory System


  • Samuel Slater: emigrated from Britain and used that knowledge to helped establish the first U.S. factory
  • New England: the country's leading manufacturing center b/c of abundant waterpower
• Labor


  • at first, factory life could not compete with the lure of cheap land in the West
  • textile mills recruited young farm women and housed them in company dormitories (Lowell System)
  • child labor
  • toward the middle of the century, northern manufacturers employed immigrants in large numbers
• Unions 


  • long hours, low pay, and poor working conditions led to widespread discontent among factory workers
  • a prime goal of the early unions was to reduce the workday to ten hours, obstacles:
  • (1) immigrant replacement workers, (2) state laws outlawing unions, (3) frequent economic depressions with high unemployment
• Cotton and the South

  • Eli Whitney's cotton gin made cotton more profitable = southern planters invested their capital in the purchase of slaves and new land
• Women during the Market Revolution


  • women seeking employment in a city were usually limited to two choices: domestic services or teaching (factory jobs, as in the Lowell System were not common)
  • women were gaining relatively more control (less arranged marriages, some women elected to have fewer children)
  • legal restrictions on women remained (ex. still could not vote)
• Economic and Social Mobility (Effect of the Market Revolution)


  • real wages improved for most but income gap increased
  • social mobility did occur, nothing extreme
  • more economic opportunities in U.S. than in Europe
• Slavery (Effect of the Market Revolution)


  • most hoped slavery would disappear
  • but the rapid growth of cotton industry = expansion of slavery into new states