The American SystemAdvanced History Chapter 12

Nationalism

Patriotic Americans took pride in factories

Self-imposed embargoes; war

British competitors make it difficult for American factories to succeed

Tariff of 1816

Protection tariff

20-25% on the value of dutiable imports Still not high enough to provide safeguard

Henry Clay’s Plan

Wanted to develop a profitable home market

“American System” 3 main parts 1. strong banking industry

easy and abundant credit

2. protective tariff tariff revenue fund 3rd part

3. network of roads and canals ability to trade all over US This would tie the country

together politically and economically

Need for New Modes of Transportation

Invasion of Canada partly failed due to roads (or no roads at all)

1817, Congress voted for $1.5 million for states for internal improvements

Madison voted ^ unconstitutional (states on their own)

Success: Erie Canal completed by New York in 1825

Direct federal support was strongly opposed because such outlets would drain the population and create competing states beyond the mountains

Erie Canal

Era of Good Feelings

James Monroe

Nominated in 1816, lost miserably (183 electoral votes to 34 electoral votes

Founding Fathers age and nationalism

Possibly the least distinguished of the first 8 presidents

Monroe was experienced and level-headed

Great at interpreting popular interests

Pushed northward into New England and then westward into Detroit to inspect military defenses

Era of Good Feelings

Not necessarily true

Tranquility and Prosperity did occur during Monroe’s presidency

BUT… Issues of tariff, the bank, internal improvements,

and the sale of public lands were all contested during the time

Sectionalism

Prosperity for individual states (industry/transportation revolution)

Issue of slavery beginning to rise

Panic of 1819 Good feelings quickly dissolved in 1819

Economic panic

Deflation, depression, bankruptcies, bank failures, unemployment, soup kitchens, and overcrowded penthouses (debtors’ prison)

1st national financial panic since Washington Contributing factors

Over-speculation in frontier lands Bank of US involved in outdoor gambling

Wildcat banks Foreclosed mortgages on farms

Panic of 1819 created backwashes in political and social world

Poor severely strapped Inhumanity of imprisoning debtors Mothers torn from infants

Growing Pains in the West

Expansion west continued

Addition of 9 states

Alternated between free and slave states (VE, KY, TN, OH, LA, IN, IL MS, AL)

Such an expansion because…

1. partly a continuation of westward expansion

“the Ohio fever” Cheap land

Additional Developments

Cumberland Road

Began in 1811

Ran from western Maryland to Ohio Valley

Other additional innovations

Steamboat, canals, highways

Land Act of 1820

Authorized a buyer to purchase 80 untouched acres at $1.25 an acre in cash

Demand of cheap land, demand of cheap transportation, and demand of cheap money

Wildcat banks

Slavery and Sectional Balance

Issue in the West pertaining to slave states

MO wanted to be a slave state

Tallmadge Amendment No more slaves to be brought into the state

Gradual emancipation of children born to slave parents already there Southerners angered by amendment and

eventually beat it

Growing differences between the North and South

Missouri Compromise

1820, bundle of 3 compromises

Congress allowed MO to become a slave state

ME (originally part of MA) became its own free state Balance was kept equal (12 free, 12 slave 15 years)

Future bondage was prohibited in remainder of LA Territory (boundary was Southern MO)

“dirty bargain”

North and South both win

South won MO

North won concession that Congress could forbid slavery in remaining states

Missouri Compromise

Sharing Oregon and Acquiring Florida

Treaty of 1818

Monroe administration negotiated treaty with Britain

Pact permitted Americans to share Newfoundland fisheries with Canadian cousins

Also fixed vagueness of northern limits of Louisiana 49th parallel Lake of the Woods (MN) to Rocky

Mountains

Treaty provided a 10 year joint occupation of the untamed Oregon Country (no surrender of rights on either side)

US-British Boundary Settlement, 1818

Spanish Florida

Bulk of FL under Spanish rule

Revolutions break out in South America

Argentina (1816)

Venezuela (1817)

Chile (1818) Andrew Jackson extreme force

Spain ceded Florida 1819

Menace of Monarchy

Europeans monarchs looking for allies

Austria, Prussia, and France

Tried to restore autocratic Spanish king to ancestral domains

Endangering democracy of America

Great Britain leading the pact

Crushed newly won liberties in Spanish America

Britain asks America jointly back off Latin America republics

Monroe Doctrine

British feared American seizure of Spanish land

Threaten British possessions in Caribbean

Monroe Doctrine

1823, 2 basic features 1. Non-colonization

2. Non-intervention

Monroe’s Doctrine Appraised

Protection on land

Protection from monarchy

“Self-Defense Doctrine”

Never made law

Personalized statement of the policy of President Monroe

Deepened isolationism