Chapter 8
Chapter 8 - Alonso
Nationalism and Economic Development, 1816 - 1848 Lecture Notes
Overview
A. After the War of 1812, the United States emerged as a nation of great potential wealth and power. New lands were opened to settlement, a transportation “revolution” took place, and a mood of confidence prevailed.
I. Expansion and Migration
A. After 1815, the American people shifted their attention from Europe and began to look westward. They saw a rich, unsettled continent, still held in part by the English, Spanish and Native Americans. B. Extending the Boundaries – John Quincy Adams, Secretary of State from 1816 to 1824, deserves the most credit for expanding the nation’s boundaries during this period. Taking advantage of Spain’s decline, Adams negotiated two treaties: (1) the Adams-Onis Treaty and (2) the Transcontinental Treaty. Under the terms of these treaties, the United States secured all of Florida and reached as far as the Pacific. In terms of actual settlement, however, the “West” was still east of the Mississippi River.
1. Adams-Onis Treaty – 1819 – also known as the Florida Purchase Treaty
a. U.S. pays $5 million to Spain
b. U.S. acquires Florida
c. Spain gives up claims to the Oregon country
d. U.S. gives up claims to Texas
2. Transcontinental Treaty – 1818 – Between U.S. and Great Britain
a. Protection of fishing rights off Newfoundland
b. U.S. and Britain agree to joint occupation of Oregon for 10 years
c. Boundary between Lake of the Woods and Rocky Mts. set at 49th parallel
C. Settlement to the Mississippi
1. In order to make the land beyond the Appalachians available to white settlers, the US government initiated a policy of moving the Native Americans to the west side of the Mississippi River. When they resisted, they were forcibly removed. Even so, some southern states felt that the federal government did not push the removal of the Indians vigorously
enough, and these states claimed their own jurisdiction over the Native Americans, whom they treated harshly.
2. The land from which the Indians were evicted was sold by the government to large land speculators, who in turn sold the land in smaller parcels to actual settlers. By the 1830s, more than one-third of the nation’s population lived west of the Appalachians. Because so many settlers began their farming by being in debt, many immediately went into commercial farming and therefore needed access to markets. This “Trans-Appalachian West” was transformed into an area of mainly small family farms tied to market towns and regional centers.
D. The People and Culture of the Frontier
1. The West was settled by immigrants who carried their cultures with them and who came to escape (1) overpopulation back east, (2) rising land prices back east, and (3) worn-out soil back east. Since farming a new frontier meant starting with fewer tools and less available labor, cooperation and a strong sense of community became necessary for survival.
2. The frontier farmer often saw his or her land increase its value in a few years. Many took the opportunity to sell out and move on, thus adding a touch of rootlessness to the frontier character.
3. Between 1800 and 1825, the U.S. population doubled. By 1850, it doubled again. The obvious reason was a high birthrate during the period and after 1830, a large increase in the number of immigrants.
II. Transportation and the Market Economy
A. Two important and interrelated developments marked this era: rapid improvements in transportation and the increasing use of money and credit in the economy.
B. Roads and Steamboats
1. In an effort to “conquer space,” the national government built the National Road, from Cumberland, Maryland, to Wheeling, then in Virginia (now in West Virginia). In addition, a whole web of turnpikes (toll roads) came into existence, built by private entrepreneurs. Usually, however, the roads did not return a profit, and though beneficial to the public, they lost their attraction for businesspeople.
2. Nature blessed the US with a network of rivers that constituted a natural transportation system that greatly encouraged America’s economic development. Flatboats carried cargo from the upper Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys to New Orleans, and all along the lower stretches of the great river, cotton planters built their wharfs.
3. Flatboats traveled in only one direction, with the flow of the river, but after 1811, steamboats churned the waters of the West and drove transportation costs down. The steamboat (Robert
Fulton is usually credited with the development. (the Clermont)), actually less important than the flatboat, stirred a sense of romance in the American people. Congress even abandoned its usual hands-off policy toward private enterprise to regulate safety standards on the great paddlewheelers.
C. The Canal Boom
1. No river and no road linked East and West before the state of New York, led by Governor De Witt Clinton, built the Erie Canal between Albany and Buffalo. Even before its completion in 1825, the canal was an enormous success. Easterners and Westerners paid less for one another’s goods as a result, and New York City grew rapidly as a commercial center. D. Emergence of a Market Economy
1. The revolution in transportation had a decisive effect on agriculture. Lower transportation costs meant greater income for the farmer. The sale of a farmer’s produce to distant markets meant participation in a complex system of credit.
2. The greatest profits went to those who could switch from mixed farming and concentrate on a single crop, or staple. Agriculture, in general, became specialized by region. The Ohio Valley became a major wheat-producing region, but the most spectacularly successful staple was cotton. Several factors were responsible, such as the invention of the cotton gin (Eli Whitney – 1793/1794), increased demand and the extensive use of slave labor. (Whitney is also credited a little later with the concept of interchangeable parts that will revolutionize mass production around the world. Also of note is Samuel Slater – he creates one of the first factories in the United States – circa 1791.)
E. Commerce and Banking
1. Commercial farming and regional specialization demanded a new system of marketing. Farmers were less likely to sell their harvest directly to the consumer. Instead, they sold their crops to local merchants, who in turn sold it to regional merchants, who then sold it to national or international traders. While farm products flowed in one direction, credit flowed in the other. Farmers were paid for crops before they were planted. The farmer, of course, paid interest on these loans, and the efficiency of the whole operation lowered total costs and increased profits for everyone.
2. The greater use of credit stimulated the banking system. After 1812, the number of state banks grew rapidly and as they competed to make loans, they made money easier and cheaper to obtain. Congress, fearful of a boom-bust economic cycle, created a second Bank of the United States in 1816 to check the irresponsible behavior of the state banks. Instead, the Bank of the United States added to the problem by making loans too easy. In 1819, the nation suffered the inevitable collapse of its money supply.
F. Early Industrialism
1. Manufacturing increased after the War of 1812, but most manufacturing was still done at home; what changed was the way the process was financed. Merchants owned the raw materials, which they “put out” to farm families. Only in the textile industry did a fully developed factory system emerge. The most spectacular example was the complex operated by the Boston Manufacturing Company at Lowell, Massachusetts.
2. The increasing success of industry in New England prompted business people in that area to shift their investments from shipping to manufacturing, and the politicians there began to pay more attention to ways in which government could aid industry. Even so, America was not yet an industrial nation; it was the growth of a market economy of national scope that was the major economic development of the period.
III. The Politics of Nation-Building After the War of 1812
A. Because the US had a one-party system following the War of 1812, contending interest groups no longer took their differences into the political arena. Except for the Supreme Court, the national government became almost irrelevant to the domestic economy.
B. The Democratic-Republicans in Power
1. Once the Federalists were out of the way, the Democratic-Republicans did not need to follow a strict party line, and they even began to adopt many Federalist measures. In 1815 and 1816, Republicans enacted high tariffs and established a national bank. Some Democratic Republicans, such as Henry Clay, wanted the national government to adopt measures that would have made the nation economically self-sufficient (the American System), but Presidents Madison and Monroe had constitutional misgivings about federal aid going to internal improvements.
a) American System
i) create a second Bank of the United States
ii) enact protective tariffs
iii) spend federal money on internal improvements
2. Additionally, grants for such internal improvements provoked sectional conflict.
C. Monroe as President
1. James Monroe was elected President in 1816 and reelected in 1820. He was determined at all costs to preserve national harmony. When a major financial panic swept the country in 1819, Monroe did nothing to control it or to mitigate its effects because he felt the president should stand above such matters. At the time, most Americans agreed. What is remarkable, however, is that Monroe provided no leadership in the controversy over Missouri.
D. The Missouri Compromise
1. The Missouri controversy arose when the Missouri territorial assembly applied for statehood in 1817. Missouri would be a slave state, and many Northerners already resented what they believed to be the South’s over-representation in the House of Representatives. James Tallmadge of New York persuaded the House of Representatives to reject Missouri’s application unless it abolished slavery. The South considered Missouri’s admission crucial. At this time, there were eleven slave states and eleven free states.
2. Congress debated the issue in December 1819 and worked out a compromise. Missouri was allowed to become a slave state, but Maine was also allowed statehood as a free state. More important, Congress banned slavery from any part of the Louisiana Purchase (except for Missouri) north of latitude 36 degrees 30 minutes North. Even more important, the Missouri controversy demonstrated a fundamental rift between North and South.
E. Postwar Nationalism and the Supreme Court
1. Between 1801 and 1835, John Marshall served as chief justice of the Supreme Court and used his position to encourage the growth of the nation. Because he believed that the Constitution existed to protect the industrious, whose exertions to enrich themselves would benefit the entire nation, he sought to protect individual property rights against government interference, especially from the state legislatures. In a series of decisions, Marshall limited the powers of the states, usually by holding them to a strict observance of contracts.
F. Nationalism in Foreign Policy: The Monroe Doctrine
1. When Spain’s colonies in Latin America rose in rebellion, the US responded favorably toward the new nations. In Europe, however, the ruling classes feared that rebellion might prove contagious, and France was encouraged to squelch Spain’s rebellious colonies and, perhaps, to keep them for France. Neither Great Britain nor the US would tolerate French involvement in Latin American affairs, and England asked the US to cooperate in preventing it.
2. John Quincy Adams (President Monroe’s Secretary of State) persuaded President Monroe that the US alone should guarantee the independence of Mexico and the states in South and Central America. In 1823, Monroe issued the Monroe Doctrine, warning European nations to stay out of the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine had no real effect when it was first proclaimed, but indicated America’s growing self-confidence. In promising not to interfere in European internal affairs, America detached itself from worldwide struggles against tyranny and betrayed part of its revolutionary heritage.
3. The shift of American focus from Europe to national affairs was one of the important themes of the period following the War of 1812.
G. Adams and the End of the Era of Good Feelings
1. President Monroe supported John Quincy Adams to succeed him. It seemed a good choice. Adams was an intelligent person with a keen interest in scientific progress. His first loyalty was to the nation rather than any section. He was, however, a “gentleman” in an age of rising democracy and a nationalist in an age of growing sectionalism. He nearly lost the election of 1824, and his term in office was bound to be a failure. The “era of good feelings” could not last in a society of so many contending interests.