Chapter 8:THE ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS:

Objectives: • We will the study the effects of postwar

expansion and continued economic growth in shaping the nation during the "era of good feelings"

• We will study the rise of sectional controversy arising from slavery, and the early attempts by Henry Clay and others to prevent strife through the Missouri Compromise

• We will study the many prominent decisions of the Marshall Court during the "era of good feelings," and their role in promoting American nationalism, federal supremacy and Native American tribal sovereignty

Psa_133:1 A Song of degrees of

David. Behold, how good and how

pleasant it is for brethren to dwell

together in unity!

The End of the First Party System:

o Ever since 1800 Virginia had a special hold on the presidency.

o Jefferson served two terms and then chose his secretary of state James Madison of Virginia to succeed him for two more terms.

o Madison nominated his secretary of state James Monroe, also of Virginia.

The End of the First Party System:

o Monroe was sixty-one when he

became president.

o In the course of his long career,

he had served as a soldier in

the Revolution, as a diplomat ,

and most recently in the

Cabinet.

The End of the First Party System:

o Monroe entered office with favorable circumstances.

o With the decline of the Federalist party he faced no political opposition.

o With the conclusion of the War of 1812 he faced no important international threats.

o It was almost a dream come true to be at a time with no political disputes and prosperity.

The End of the First Party System:

o Monroe chose New Englander and former Federalist John Quincy Adams as his Secretary of State.

o John C. Calhoun as his Secretary of War.

o Monroe took pains to include northerners, southerners, easterners, westerners, and Republicans.

The End of the First Party System:

o Sometime after the inauguration Monroe did what no president since Washington had done make a good will tour and was received with gladness.

o On the surface Monroe’s presidency appeared to be a era of good feelings.

o In 1820 Monroe was reelected without opposition.

o For all practical purposes, the Federalist Party had now ceased to exist.

John Quincy Adams and Florida:

o John Quincy Adams was a

diplomat and was one of the

great ones in American history.

o He was a committed nationalist

and he considered the promotion

of American expansion of vital

importance.

John Quincy Adams and Florida:

o His first challenge as Secretary of State was Florida.

o The U.S. already annexed West Florida but the claim remained in dispute.

o Most Americans believed the nation should gain possession of the entire peninsula.

o In 1817 Adams began negotiations with Spanish minister Luis de Onis, in hopes of resolving the dispute and gaining the entire territory for the U.S.

John Quincy Adams and Florida:

o Andrew Jackson was now in command of the American troops along the Florida frontier had orders from Secretary of State Calhoun to do all he can to stop Seminole Indians from raiding the border.

o Jackson used this as an excuse to invade Florida seize Spanish Forts in St. Marks and Pensacola, and order the hanging of two British subjects on the charge of supplying and inciting the Indians.

o This was known as the Seminole War.

John Quincy Adams and Florida:

o Adams urged that the government assume responsibility of Jackson’s actions.

o Adams told the Spanish on behalf of the Spanish that it had the right under international law to defend itself against threats from across its borders.

o Since Spain was unwilling or unable to curb those threats, America had simply done what was necessary.

o Jackson’s raid demonstrated to the Spanish that the U.S. could easily take Florida by force.

John Quincy Adams and Florida:

o Adams implied the nation might consider doing so.

o Onis’ realized therefore that he had little choice but to come to terms with the Americans.

o Under the provisions of the Adams-Onis’ Treaty of 1819, Spain ceded all of Florida to the U.S. and gave up as well its claim to territory north of the 42nd parallel in the Pacific Northwest.

o In return, American government gave up its claims to Texas.

The Panic of 1819:

o The nation fell into economic crisis in 1819.

o It followed a period of high foreign demand for American farm goods and thus exceptionally high prices for American farmers (This result was because European agriculture was disrupted because of the Napoleonic Wars).

o The rising prices for farm goods had stimulated a land boom in the western United States.

o Fueled by speculative investments, land prices soared.

The Panic of 1819:

o The availability of easy credit to settlers and speculators from the government (under the land acts of 1800 and 1804), from state banks and even for a time from the re-chartered bank of the United States fueled the land boom.

o Beginning in 1819 new management at the national bank began tightening credit, calling in loans, foreclosing mortgages which led to a series of failures of state banks.

o The result was a financial panic where many Americans particularly those in the West blamed on the national bank.

o Six years of depression followed.

The Missouri Compromise:

o When Missouri applied for admission to the Union as a state in 1819, slavery was already well established there.

o Even so, Representative James Tallmadge Jr. of New York proposed an amendment to the Missouri Statehood bill that would prohibit the further introduction of slaves into Missouri and provide for gradual emancipation of those already there.

o This sparked controversy for the next two years.

The Missouri Compromise:

o Since the beginning of the Republic, partly by chance and partly by design, new states had come into the Union more or less in pairs, one from the North, another from the South.

o In 1819, eleven free states and eleven slave states were in the Union.

o The admission of Missouri as a “free” state would upset the balance and increase political power of the North over the South.

o Hence the controversy in was over slavery and freedom in Missouri.

The Missouri Compromise:

o Maine also sought admission as a new and free state (Previously the northern part of Massachusetts).

o If northern members blocked Missouri from entering the Union as a slave state, southerners would block the admission of Maine.

o But Maine ultimately offered a way out when the Senate agreed to combine Maine and Missouri proposals in a single bill.

o Maine would be admitted as a free state, Missouri as a slave state.

The Missouri Compromise:

o Senator Jesse B. Thomas of Illinois proposed an amendment prohibiting slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory north of the Southern boundary of Missouri (The 36 30’ parallel) Congress adopted the Thomas Amendment.

o This was known as the Missouri Compromise and both North and South hailed it as a happy resolution that avoided danger to the Union.

Marshall and the Court:

o John Marshall served as chief justice of the United States from 1801 to 1835 and dominated the court more fully than anyone else before or since.

o More than anyone but the framers themselves, he molded the development of the Constitution:

o strengthening the judicial branches,

o increasing the power of the federal government at the expense of the states,

o and advancing the interests of the propertied and commercial classes.

Marshall and the Court:

o Committed to promoting commerce, the Marshall Court staunchly defended the inviolability of contracts, in cases such as Fletcher v. Peck, Dartmouth College v. Woodard.

o The Dartmouth Case is where the Supreme Court overturned the act of legislature and the decisions of the New Hampshire courts, the justices also implicitly claimed for themselves the right to override the decisions of the state courts.

o But advocates of states rights, especially in the South, continued to challenge Marshall and the Supreme Court.

Marshall and the Court:

o Cohens v. Virginia, Marshall explicitly affirmed the constitutionality of federal review of state court decisions.

o The State had given up part of their sovereignty in ratifying the Constitution, he explained and their courts must submit to Federal Jurisdiction; otherwise the federal government would be powerless “at the feet of every state in the union.”

Marshall and the Court:

o In McCulloch v. Maryland, Marshall confirmed the “implied powers,” of Congress of upholding the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States.

o The bank had become so unpopular in the South and the West that several of the states tried to drive branches out of business by outright prohibition or by confiscatory taxes.

o This case presented two Constitutional questions:

o Could congress charter a bank?

o And if so, could individual states ban it or tax it?

o Marshall adopted Daniel Webster’s words that it was “necessary and proper” clause of the Constitution for congress to establish a bank.

Marshall and the Court:

o In the case of Gibbons v. Ogden, the

court strengthened Congress’s power

to regulate interstate commerce.

o Marshall claimed that the power of

Congress to regulate interstate

commerce which included navigating

water ways was complete in itself and

states could not interfere.

Marshall and the Court:

o The decisions of the Marshall Court established the primacy of the Federal Courts over the states in regulating economy and opened the way for an increased federal role in promoting economic growth.

o They protected corporations and other private economic institutions from local government interference.

o They were in short, highly nationalistic decisions designed to promote the growth of a strong, unified, and economically developed U.S.

The Court and the Tribes:

o Johnson v. McIntosh: Marshall ruled that the tribes had a basic right to their tribal lands.

o Marshall said, that this basic right preceded all other American law.

o Individual American citizens could not buy or take land from the tribes; only the federal government the supreme authority can do that.

The Court and the Tribes:

o Worcester v. Georgia: Court invalidated Georgia laws that attempted to regulate access by U.S. citizens to Cherokee country.

o Only the federal government could do that, Marshall claimed taking important step in consolidating federal authority over the states (and over the tribes).

o In doing so, he further defined the nature of the Indian nations.

The Court and the Tribes:

o The tribes were sovereign entities in much the same way Georgia was a sovereign entity-“distinct political communities, having territorial boundaries within which their authority is exclusive.

o In defending the power of the federal government, he was also affirming, and expanding the rights of tribes to remain free from the authority of state governments.

The Court and the Tribes:

o Marshalls’ decisions therefore did what the Constitution itself had not done.

o They defined a place for Indian tribes within the American political system.

o The tribes had basic property rights.

o They were sovereign entities not subject to the authority of the state governments.

o But the Federal government like a guardian had ultimate authority over tribal affairs, even if that authority was, according to the court, limited by the governments obligation to protect Indian welfare.

o These provisions were seldom enough to defend Indians form steady westward march of white civilization, but they formed the basis of what few legal protections they had.

The Latin American Revolution and the Monroe Doctrine:

o Americans looking southward after the War of 1812 saw the Spanish Empire crumbling.

o A whole continent was in revolt and new nations were in the making.

o Already the U.S. had developed a profitable trade with Latin America and was rivaling Great Britain as the principal trading nation there.

o Many Americans believed the success of the anti-Spanish revolutions would further strengthen America’s position in the region.

The Latin American Revolution and the Monroe Doctrine:

o In 1815 the U.S. proclaimed neutrality

in the wars between Spain and the

rebellious colonies, implying a partial

recognition of the rebels’ status of

nations.

o The U.S. also sold ships and supplies to

the revolutionaries, a clear indication

that it was not genuinely neutral but

partial to help the insurgents.

The Latin American Revolution and the Monroe Doctrine:

o In 1822, President Monroe established diplomatic relations with five new Latin American nations making the U.S. the first country to recognize them.

o In 1823, Monroe announced a policy that thirty years later would be known as the Monroe Doctrine even though it was primarily the work of John Quincy Adams.

o The doctrine declared, the American continents was not to be subject to future colonization by European powers.

o The U.S. would consider any foreign challenge to sovereignty of existing American nations an unfriendly act.

o And it added that the U.S. would not interfere with internal concerns of Europe.

The Latin American Revolution and the Monroe Doctrine:

o The doctrine came directly from America’s relations with Europe in the 1820s.

o Many Americans feared that Spain’s European allies (notably France) would assist Spain in an effort to retake its lost empire.

o Another fear was that Great Britain wanted Cuba.

o Adams wanted the Spanish to keep Cuba until it fell to the Americans.

The Latin American Revolution and the Monroe Doctrine:

o The doctrine expressed the

growing spirit of nationalism of the

U.S. and established the idea of

the U.S. as the dominant power in

the Western Hemisphere.