Lecture 12: The War of 1812 and the Market and Transportation Revolution

The War of 1812 and the Market and Transportation Revolution

Key Learnings

• The War of 1812 grew out of the domestic politics of the early republic.
• Jeffersonian idealism lost out to industrialization and urbanization as a result of the War of 1812.
• Technology in the first half of the nineteenth century annihilated space and time.

Politics of the Early Republic

• In 1800, Thomas Jefferson was elected president after a contentious tied election.
• Jefferson tried to unify the nation after a contentious election with an appeal to republicanism in his inaugural address.
• Jefferson's vision of the future stressed a kind of limited frugal US government, and an agrarian republican body politic, and an agrarian economy.
• The Federalists on the other hand had envisioned a strong U. S. Government to promote economic development.
• Jefferson also sought a separation of church and state.
• Voting was largely limited to men with property, but many non voters nonetheless expressed themselves.
• Newspapers were a key forum for political conversations.
• Jefferson's presidency was characterized by two factors:
  • Democratic ideas of limited government rose to preeminence in American cultural life.
  • National expansion westward.

Jefferson Administration

• Between 1800 and 1809, democratic ideas of limited government rose to preeminence in American cultural life.
  • Jefferson repealed the internal taxes.
  • He cut military budgets.
  • He reduced the national debt.
  • He reduced the waiting time for immigrants to become citizens from fourteen years to five years.
• The judiciary under the leadership of Chief Justice Marshall remained a bastion of federalist ideas of strong central government.
  • Established the idea of judicial review in the Supreme court's eighteen oh three decision in a case called Marlboro v. Madison.

National Expansion Westward

• Many Americans moved to the Ohio Mississippi Valley during this period of time.
• One key aspect of this was the cotton gin, the development of the cotton gin in 1793.
  • The cotton gin essentially allowed for the widespread expansion of cotton production.
  • Along with the expansion of cotton into these Western territories came the expansion of the slave economy that characterized the South.
  • Northwestern Farmers began to specialize in large scale grain production to feed those plantations in the South.
• Both the Northwest and the Southwest depended upon the Mississippi River.
• In 1800, Spain ceded Louisiana to France who shuts the Americans out of New Orleans.
• Jefferson proposed to buy New Orleans from the French.
• Napoleon would sell the whole territory to The United States for $15,000,000$
  • Jefferson was originally willing to pay $10,000,000$ for New Orleans.
• This purchase was enormous and would be hugely consequential to the future of The United States.
  • It doubled the size of The United States.
• This vast new territory required that the government gain information and knowledge about this region of the continent that they had just bought, so they created the core of discovery.
  • Quarter discovery with Lewis and Clark, and they were to journey to the Pacific Coast.
  • They were supposed to learn about the West and assert US interests in the Far West.
• But if the Louisiana Purchase and the expansion of The US contributed to nationalism, the Republic's economy nevertheless faced a few problems in the 1800s.

Republic's Economy

• The early Republic's economy continued to rely heavily on fishing and the carrying trades.
  • Foreign trade and shipping were still key to The US economy.
• This aspect of the economy was threatened in the 1800s by several factors:
  • The Barbary Wars between 1801 and 1805.
    • Fought the Pasha of Tripoli over the freedom of the seas in that region.
  • The renewal of the French British war in 1803.
    • The search and seizure of merchant ships in particular.
    • The British began to impress American sailors.
    • The British justified this claiming that these sailors had dual national identities.
• To avoid war, the US attempted to try to kind of use economic measures.
• This provides them the backdrop for the election of eighteen oh eight in which becomes, James Madison becomes president of The United States.

The War of 1812

• After the election of eighteen oh eight, the embargoes collapsed altogether.
• Madison was also facing intense demands from within his own party, the so called Warhawks within his own party.
• In 1812, the Americans invade Canada sparking the war of eighteen twelve.
• The war drags on for three years.
• The British Navy establishes blockades first of the South, the Southern ports in 1813, and then subsequently the Northern ports in 1814.
• The American land invasion was actually a total failure.
• Perhaps the military hallmark of the War of eighteen twelve is the British campaign on Baltimore and Washington DC.
  • The bombardment of Baltimore, that's where the Americans get some of their famous songs, The Stars Mangled Banner, The Flag was Still There.
  • British landed their troops on the land and they marched up to Washington DC where they burned the White House and the Capitol.
• The United States also managed to defeat the British again, as they headed down St. Lawrence River.
• Fortunately for The United States, the war ended in the winter of eighteen fourteen.

Consequences of the war of 1812

• Americans claimed that by merely surviving the war of eighteen twelve, which they had started, that this validated the success of the Republican experiment.

Era of Good Feelings

• The 1810s and the early 1820s are oftentimes called by historians as the era of good feelings.
  • It was a period of political, of relative political stability.
  • It was basically a one party political system at this point.
  • extensive development of The United States.

Development of The United States

• In the eighteen teens we have new states:
  • Louisiana is admitted to The United States in 1812
  • Indiana is admitted in 1816
  • Mississippi in 1817
  • Illinois in 1818
  • Alabama in 1819
  • Maine is created in 1820
  • Missouri is admitted in 1821.
• By the 1860s, the United States was five times larger than it had been in 1790.
• The country also experienced intensive economic development between, from the eighteen teens until the 1860s.
  • This largely came in the form of productivity growth.
  • The country was also becoming more efficient due to several key factors.
  • Technological improvements were probably the primary developments, the primary factor.
    • Railroads.
    • Steam ships.
    • Industrialized factory production.
  • These were fueled by cheap labor from the influx of immigrants, as well as the availability of capital to invest in these things.
• Improved transportation networks really helped to grow the efficiency of the economy.
  • Roads and canals and railroads all allowed for a more efficient economy which meant that it was a more productive economy.

Farm Efficiency

• Investment that small farmers made in basically mechanizing their farms.
• Northern farmers during this period of time took their excess capital and invested it in new thrashing machines, technologies to make the harvest more efficiency efficient, to be able to do the same amount of work with themselves and a few horses that before would have taken 10 or 15 men to do that work.
• In 1790, a farmer consumed two thirds of what he grew and raised and exported only one third.
• By 1860, '70 years later, those numbers had reversed.
  • American farms consumed only one third of what they produced and raised, and they exported fully two thirds of their products.
• Increasing farm efficiency then fueled the growth in cities and industries.

Population Growth

• From 1820 to 1860, the country grew from about $10,000,000$ people to over $30,000,000$ people.
• Immigrants accounted for some of this growth, but only about $5,000,000$.
• The other $15,000,000$ people actually came from natural increase.
• Throughout this period of time, the annual birth rate in The United States was about 3%.
• By the 1860s, half of Americans lived in the newly settled parts of the nation stretching from the Appalachian Mountain to the Pacific Ocean.
• During the first half of the nineteenth century, urbanization increased dramatically.

Market Revolution

• The market revolution is a transformation in the economy, and it was something that was happening largely in the North.
• The key ingredients for a market revolution were all in place in the eighteen teens.
  • A fluid labor force.
  • A market oriented relation of production between the workers and the owners.
  • A cash thriving and credit based network.
  • A greater dispersal of wealth.
  • Interest in entrepreneur activities.
  • Urban dwellers who embrace the term of capitalist.
  • Now economic modernization and development.

Cash Crops such as Cotton

• The agrarian focus of the economy and the less urban focus meant that there was less industrialized, but it was still deeply implicated in the market revolution.
• Even if their economy didn't evolve into industry like it did in the North, it did become more oriented towards markets.
  • Consumer goods increased.
  • Cotton increased.
  • Slavery increased.

Transportation and Communication Revolution

• This also transformed The United States during this period of time. These came in the form of steamboats, railroads, canals, and telegraphs.
• At the start of the nineteenth century, transportation networks remained largely undeveloped.
• Most roads were rutted paths and difficult to travel on, especially in inclement weather that would often turn them into mud.
• In 1800, it took fifty days to move goods from Ohio to New York.
• By beginning in 1811, mostly in the Mississippi, we had more and more, we see more and more steamboats.
  • You could travel upstream more quickly and more easily.
  • You could use a bigger boat to carry more cargo.
  • Steamboats were perfect for the network of rivers in North America interior because they were able to help this part of the nation increase its economic potential.
• The development of canals.
  • The Erie Canal, was built from 1817 to 1832 and officially opened in 1825.
  • It brought ocean shipping directly into the Great Lakes region.
  • The canal helped to drive down the cost of shipping, and this greatly benefited grain farmers in the Ohio Valley.
• The railroads
  • In 1830, the United States had about 13 miles of railroads and by 1860, they had 31,000 miles.
• The telegraph, which is another network that connected the nation together.
  • It was the first technology to move information faster than human bodies could move.
  • building telegraph networks allowed things to move much faster.

Conclusion

• The transportation revolution supported the market revolution while building a domestic market.
• Farm produce from the West went to Northeastern cities.
• Southern goods like cotton went to Northeastern factories and New England manufactured goods went to the West and the South.
• It all helped to draw the country together, but increasing regional divisions made various parts of the country, especially the North and the South, distrust each other. The booming success of the market and the transportation revolution created a sense of boundless opportunity in the early republic. But as we will discuss in the next lecture, the American dream of boundless opportunity was anything but simple, clear, egalitarian, or open to everyone.