Forming an American Identity

War Hawks

A War Hawk was any of the expansionists primarily composed of young Southerners and Westerners elected to the U.S. Congress in 1810, whose territorial ambitions in the Northwest and Florida inspired them to agitate for war with Great Britain. The War Hawks, who included such future political leaders as Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, fiercely and aggressively resented American economic injuries and national humiliation during the Napoleonic Wars. They were further indignant over British encouragement of Indian hostilities toward settlers in the Northwest and hoped to use war with England to wrest Florida from Spain, Britain’s ally. The nationalistic fervour and anti-British sentiment whipped up by the War Hawks was a contributing cause to the War of 1812.

John Quincy Adams

John Quincy Adams was the son of John Adams, the second president of the United States, and Abigail Adams, an early feminist who famously reminded her husband to “remember the ladies” while he was in office. Quincy Adams served as Secretary of State from 1817 to 1825 under President James Monroe and is widely considered one of the best Secretaries of State in US history. As Secretary of State, Adams helped negotiate the Treaty of Ghent, which ended the War of 1812. He also worked with the British to establish the border between British Canada and the United States, negotiated the annexation of Florida from Spain, and composed the Monroe Doctrine. John Quincy Adams won the 1824 presidential election in a four-way race against Henry Clay, William Crawford, and Andrew Jackson. The election was so close that it was ultimately decided by the House of Representatives. As president, Adams supported a program to modernize the US economy. Known as the American System, it included funding for infrastructure development to facilitate trade, a tariff to protect the domestic manufacturing industry, support for a national bank and currency, and a sharp reduction in the national debt, from $16 to $5 million. John Quincy Adams’s popularity declined as a result of his lenient approach toward Native Americans, whom he supported against the demands of westward settlers. Adams’s successor, Andrew Jackson, would go on to implement a policy of Indian removal, which involved relocating eastern tribes to lands west of the Mississippi River. In 1828, Adams signed off on a protective tariff that became known as the Tariff of Abominations to its southern opponents, who argued that it benefited northern manufacturing interests at their expense. This led to a further decline in Adams’s popularity and opened the way for Andrew Jackson to portray Adams as an eastern establishment elite who didn't care about the interests of the frontier settler or the common man. After losing the 1828 presidential election to Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives, where he served for 17 years as the representative from Massachusetts. In the House, Adams became one of the most vocal opponents of slavery. He consistently advocated abolitionist views and policies while condemning slavery as an immoral institution and attacking the interests of Southern slaveholders. During the Mexican-American War of 1848, Adams was one of the leading opponents of annexing Texas, predicting that it would lead to civil war.

The Great Awakening

The Great Awakening was a religious revival that impacted the English colonies in America during the 1730s and 1740s. The movement came at a time when the idea of secular rationalism was being emphasized, and passion for religion had grown stale. Christian leaders often traveled from town to town, preaching about the gospel, emphasizing salvation from sins and promoting enthusiasm for Christianity. The result was a renewed dedication toward religion. Many historians believe the Great Awakening had a lasting impact on various Christian denominations and American culture at large.

The Second Great Awakening

The Second Great Awakening, Protestant religious revival in the United States from about 1795 to 1835. During this revival, meetings were held in small towns and large cities throughout the country, and the unique frontier institution known as the camp meeting began. Many churches experienced a great increase in membership, particularly among Methodist and Baptist churches. The Second Great Awakening made soul-winning the primary function of ministry and stimulated several moral and philanthropic reforms, including temperance and the emancipation of women. Generally considered less emotional than the Great Awakening of the early 18th century, the second wave of evangelical revivalism led to the founding of numerous colleges and seminaries and to the organization of mission societies across the country.

The American System

The War of 1812 exposed some glaring weaknesses in the organization of the United States: without a national bank (the First Bank of the United States’s charter lapsed in 1811) or reliable means of internal transportation, it was difficult to raise money for the war effort or move men and supplies to the battlefield. In 1815, President James Madison, along with fellow Republican politicians Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, called for a program of internal improvements to jumpstart the American economy known as the American System. The program had three parts: first, the creation of a new national bank; second, federal financing to improve and construct roads and canals; and third, a protective tariff to shield American industries. This protective tariff would raise the price of imported goods to entice American consumers to purchase the cheaper, American-made version of those goods. Congress enacted two of the three provisions of the American System, passing the Tariff of 1816 and creating the Second Bank of the United States, also in 1816.

Tariff of 1816

The Tariff of 1816 was the first high tariff approved by Congress in order to move the country towards protectionism. Protectionism is an economic strategy in which foreign goods are taxed at high rates in order to encourage citizens to purchase locally made goods. For countries like Great Britain who could produce cloth more efficiently than American textile factories in the North, they could sell their cloth in the United States for a cheaper price than the American-made cloth. The Tariff of 1816 placed a high import tax on foreign cloth in order to make British cloth more expensive,which helped the struggling U.S. clothing manufacturers. While this was used to help American industry, it was only intended to last a few years.

The Monroe Doctrine

In the early 1800’s, European Nations had interest in Latin America. Some of these countries were Spain, Portugal and England. They began looking at Mexico and South America to gain more land around the world. President James Monroe passed the Monroe Doctrine (1823) that stated that any European powers that colonize in the Americas would be looked upon as causing an act of WAR.

McCulloch v. Maryland

An 1819 case that challenged the doctrine of federalism. It involved the state of Maryland attempting to collect a tax from the Second Bank of the United States. Marshall invoked the “necessary and proper” clause of the Constitution to rule that the federal government had an implied power to establish the bank. He also declared that the state had no right to tax a federal institution; he argued that “the power to tax was the power to destroy” and would signal the end of federalism. Most importantly, the ruling established that federal laws were the supreme law of the land, superseding state laws.