History 147

Lecture2EarlyNationalPeriodPoliticsGovernmentExpansionandConflict1.pdf

Home >History homework help >History 147

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

Lecture 2, The Early National Period: Politics, Government, Expansion and Conflict

Contents I. Growing a Stronger Federal Government ............................................................................... 2

II. International Problems ............................................................................................................. 8

III. The War of 1812 ................................................................................................................ 10

IV. Madison and the Economy ................................................................................................. 15

V. Westward Migration .............................................................................................................. 18

VI. Cultural Developments ...................................................................................................... 20

Important Terms and People (in order of appearance): Industrial Revolution; Francis Cabot Lowell; Eli Whitney; Cotton Gin; Steamboat; Napoleon Bonaparte; Lewis and Clark; James Monroe; Louisiana Purchase; Merchant Marine; Continental System; Embargo Act of 1807; James Madison; Non-Intercourse Act; Northwest Territory; Assimilate; Tecumseh; Spanish Florida; USS Constitution; William Henry Harrison; Andrew Jackson; Fort Henry; “the Star Spangled Banner”; Treaty of Ghent; Second Bank of the United States; The Lowell Mills; National Road; Cotton Economy; Public Schools; Second Great Awakening; the “era of good feelings” Instructions for reading this lecture: This lecture is broken into the chronologic or thematic sections shown above in the Table of Contents. I have done this to make it easier to follow the information being presented. Please also note the list of Important Terms and People that show up directly below the Table of Contents; this list provides a guide for terms and people you should be familiar with once you have completed reading the lecture. There may be instances in which you desire more information regarding an important term or person; I have hyperlinked useful websites throughout this lecture to important terms or people that you can follow up on and read if you would like more information (these hyperlinks show up in bright blue and when you click on them, they should direct you to the appropriate website). Additionally, there are images throughout with captions, to help you better visualize the information you are reading, as well as film clips that you can watch via YouTube (these hyperlinks to YouTube show up in maroon and when you click on them, they should direct you to the clip on YouTube).

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

Last time we talked about the drafting of the American Constitution, as well as some of

the controversies that came out of both the drafting of this new Constitution and the

implementation of this new Constitution. We also covered the first presidencies in the new,

independent America. In this lecture, we’re going to continue talking about the Early National

period, the name given to that period during which Americans attempted to stand on their own

two feet, create a viable government and define what it meant to be an American. We’ll not only

continue examining Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, particularly the growth of the federal

government and the nation that occurred during his tenure, we’ll also look at the international

problems that culminated in the War of 1812. After the War of 1812 ended, the United States

found itself continuing its path of expansion and growing strength and we’ll spend the second

half of lecture looking at the economy, westward expansion and cultural change in the post-War

of 1812 world.

I. Growing a Stronger Federal Government We left off last time with a discussion of Thomas Jefferson—you’ll remember that as a

Republican, Jefferson was most interested in two things: first, a small federal government that

did not take strong action in the public realm; and second, a country free of dirty industrial

towns—instead, Thomas Jefferson envisioned an agrarian, self-sufficient nation.

Well, unfortunately for Thomas Jefferson, his hopes of maintaining that agrarian nation

with little industrialization were shattered during the Early National Period. This was largely

because while Americans were fighting the American Revolution, another revolution was

occurring in England: the industrial revolution. This industrial revolution replaced hand-

operated tools with power-driven machines, allowing manufacturing to take place at a much

quicker rate. This changed society and the economy dramatically in England, and during the

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

early nineteenth century these changes began to affect America, as well. At first, America

imported technological advances from Europe. For example, Francis Cabot Lowell, who would

later open the first successful American textile factory, actually went over to England from 1810-

1812 and while he was there he secretly made drawings of British spinning mills (he was a spy!)

to bring back home.

But quickly the US began coming up with technological advances of their own. In 1793,

Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, which allowed seeds to be quickly removed from cotton,

Figure 1: The Cotton Gin1

saving laborers a good deal of time and hard work, and making cotton a much more popular and

profitable crop in the south. And that sneaky Francis Cabot Lowell perfected the technology he

had stolen from England and opened his first textile mill in 1814.

Transportation in America also changed in the first years of the Early National Period,

most notably with the development of the steamboat, which was the first harnessing of steam

power. This would lead in later years, to the use of steam for the powering of locomotives and

factory machines, but in the early years of the 1800s, the steamboat allowed for goods to be

shipped from river port to river port quickly, changing the face of trade and distribution of goods.

1 From http://etc.usf.edu/clipart/12700/12718/cottongin_12718_md.gif

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

Toll roads were also laid, allowing carriages to travel longer distances than had been

possible before, adding to the ease with which goods and people could now be transported.

Though America remained largely agrarian in this period, the forces of industrialization and

modernization were at work and they would have dramatic effects on America’s future. So

while agrarianism remained alive during Thomas Jefferson’s presidency, it was slowly replaced

by industry throughout the years of the Early National Period.

It wasn’t just the industrialization of the nation that shattered Jefferson’s dreams,

however. Indeed, just as Thomas Jefferson’s dream of a small, agrarian nation eventually

crumbled, so too did his dreams for a small federal government. Largely, it was the actions of

French military and political leader, Napoleon Bonaparte, that began to unravel Jefferson’s

dreams of a federal government that did not act outside of its limited Constitutional powers.

Napoleon was a man with a plan—he wanted France to regain its place as a superpower in the

world, and he believed that the most logical step in doing this would be to restore French power

in the New World. After the French and Indian War in the 1760s, France had ceded a great deal

of their territory in America to the British (territory that would become the US after the

Revolutionary War) and another set of territory to Spain. Napoleon was interested in getting

those Spanish-held lands that were once the territory of France back in his hands, those lands

west of the Mississippi. Spain signed a treaty with France in the early 1800s (Spain signed the

treaty in exchange for a promise by Napoleon that he would not attack Spain and that Napoleon

would provide land to the Spanish monarch’s son-in-law), giving France back the territory of

Louisiana, including almost all of the lush Mississippi Valley and the popular shipping port of

New Orleans.

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

This treaty with Spain was a secret, though; Napoleon obviously didn’t want Jefferson to

know of his plan to create a French empire in America, but Jefferson soon heard rumors about

France’s treaty with Spain and this did not make him happy. In fact, Jefferson was

simultaneously interested in this land and even sent explorers Lewis and Clark out to explore

Figure 2: A Map from the Lewis & Clark Expedition2

the territory. But when Napoleon got his hands on the land, Jefferson became upset that France

was trying to set up shop in the United States.

2 From http://lewis-clark.org/content/content-article.asp?ArticleID=2833

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

To make matters worse, soon after Napoleon’s secret treaty with Spain, American ships

were forbidden from transferring goods at the New Orleans port. The Port of New Orleans was

one of the most commercially significant ports (if not the most commercially significant port) in

America, so when American ships were forbidden from trading there, Jefferson went from

unhappy to livid. Many traders and American citizens who had heard about this outrageous blow

to American commerce called for Jefferson to do something to reopen the New Orleans port to

American merchants.

Jefferson really didn’t want to go to war with France, but he didn’t want to lose political

support by doing nothing. What Jefferson did was pretty smart, then. He sent James Monroe to

Paris to try and get France to sell New Orleans to the American government (Monroe was

authorized to spend up to ten million dollars on New Orleans and part of Florida). While

Monroe was en route to France, however, the situation changed dramatically. The French colony

of Saint Dominique (present-day Haiti) was in the throes of a massive slave uprising; Napoleon

saw his dreams of a new French Empire in the Americas crumbling and offered instead to sell

Figure 3: The Louisiana Purchase3

3 From http://rhapsodyinbooks.files.wordpress.com/2008/12/la-purchase-map.jpg

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

America all of the Louisiana territory. With a price tag of just fifteen million dollars, Jefferson

and his negotiators jumped on the chance to gain so much territory for the U.S. and agreed to the

Louisiana Purchase.

Jefferson had mixed emotions about the purchase. On the one hand, he was worried that

he had overstepped his constitutional authority by agreeing to purchase this territory. On the

other hand, and he got a lot of support for this, he was really pleased at how good a deal America

had gotten on the land and he was excited that he was able to avoid war with France and come

out on top. To appease his fears that he was overstepping his constitutional authority, his

advisers convinced him that since the president had treaty-making powers, purchasing Louisiana

under a treaty with France was okay. In late 1803, Louisiana officially became an American

territory and the territory was divided up into a number of regions that would eventually become

states.

As I said, some would argue that Jefferson’s purchase of the Louisiana territory was

actually the behavior of a large government—that he had overstepped his constitutional rights as

President—and Jefferson probably would have agreed. He worried continuously that he had

done too much and so, once the territory became a part of America, he didn’t put any sort of

governmental structure in place in this region. Despite this lack of governmental control on the

Louisiana Territory, there was great curiosity about what this untamed region held. As I said

earlier, Jefferson had sent famed explorers Meriweather Lewis and William Clark to explore the

newly acquired lands in early 1803; their expedition was tasked with crossing the continent all

the way to the Pacific Ocean and, along the way, write down geographical facts about the region

and try to set up potential trade situations with the native populations they came across. In three

years, Lewis and Clark traversed the continent and were able to bring back elaborate information

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

about the geography and culture of the regions they traveled through. Jefferson’s explorers and

the journal entries they wrote, made the west sound exciting, vast, lush and full of opportunity,

and these factors would be very important in future westward expansion in the coming years.

But as a result of having a large area of land with relatively little federal control, as a result of

having what was still a fairly small, decentralized government, the nineteenth century opened up

with the United States finding it necessary to establish their legitimacy as a “stable and united

nation,” both at home and abroad.4

II. International Problems As Thomas Jefferson strove to demonstrate how stable the US was in the eyes of the

international powers, he found that once again (and much to his chagrin), he was required to

expand the role of the federal government. In particular, Napoleon continued to be a pain in

Thomas Jefferson’s backside, even after the Louisiana Purchase situation. During Jefferson’s

tenure as president, the United States had created a strong and powerful merchant marine force

that handled very profitable trade between the US, the West Indies and Europe. But during the

European Napoleonic Wars of the early 19th century, Napoleon threw a wrench in this trade

system. In 1805, when England almost totally destroyed Napoleon’s navy, Napoleon decided to

get back at the British economically by implementing the Continental System. The Continental

System essentially forbid anyone who wanted to trade with France to trade with England, too (I

guess he thought France was more popular!). How do you think Britain responded? Right,

they said that anyone who wanted to trade with Britain could not also trade with France. The US

4 Alan Brinkley, The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People (McGraw Hill: New York, 1996), 192.

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

was obviously bummed about this—we wanted to trade with both countries, but instead were

forced to either take sides or cut off trade completely.

President Jefferson, remember, a guy who didn’t believe the President should act outside

of his executive powers, decided to take the action that would least likely lead to war—past

incidents between the US and the British navy over controlling trade on the seas had nearly led

to war between the US and England and Napoleon had already previously demonstrated that he

couldn’t be trusted. So Jefferson opted for total neutrality and put into place a Congressional act,

known as the Embargo Act of 1807. The embargo forbid American ships to go and trade with

any foreign port in the world. But can you think of any problems with a set-up like this?

While this embargo allowed the United States to avoid war, it also essentially destroyed

America’s international trade, launching a serious depression through much of the country which

hit merchants and shipowners in the northeast the hardest. These men, many of them Federalists,

were convinced that Jefferson had acted out of his powers, had acted unconstitutionally, and, the

next year (1808), during the presidential election, a large Federalist faction was elected to

Congress.

Though the new president elected in 1808 was a Republican (a man named James

Madison who we’ll talk about in just a few minutes), the new Federalist Congress worked

Figure 4: President James Madison5

5 From http://www.archives.gov/nhprc/annotation/march-2002/images/james-madison.jpg

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

quickly to reverse Jefferson’s Embargo Act. They did so by passing the Non-Intercourse Act in

1810, which only restricted American trade with Britain and France. A year later, trade with

France was reopened when France promised to stop violating US commercial rights on the seas.

There were still problems with the British, however, most notably over Britain’s odious

policy of forcibly boarding US navy ships that were patrolling the seas to protect commerce and

forcibly taking away those suspected of deserting the hellish British navy in favor of the kinder

US navy. The US continued to prohibit trade with England as a result of England’s awful

policies and tensions between the two countries grew continually worse.

When Thomas Jefferson left the presidency in 1809, he was replaced by his secretary of

state, James Madison. Madison had been a founding father, an author of the Federalist Papers,

and one of the authors of the Bill of Rights, so this guy definitely had his pulse on what

Americans were thinking. And it’s a good thing because America had to deal with an

increasingly poor relationship with Great Britain, with problems that had started while Madison

was still Thomas Jefferson’s secretary of state, and that would eventually culminate in the War

of 1812.

III. The War of 1812 The War of 1812 came as a result of the bad relations with Britain on the seas, coupled with a

series of events occurring in America that would spell eventual war between the US and Britain.

Indeed, as the 19th century opened up, the first of these events actually started between the US

government and Natives living in the Northwest Territory. Let me briefly set the stage for what

would become the War of 1812. At the start of Jefferson’s presidency, many white settlers

wanted access to fertile land in the Northwest territory, particularly Indiana and Illinois. But,

unfortunately for these would-be settlers, someone already lived there—Native Americans! Well

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

President Jefferson told the Natives of the Northwest Territory that they could either assimilate

and begin using the land the way white farmers did or give up their claims to the land and move

to lands west of the Mississippi River. Some Natives moved, others became assimilated farmers,

but still others were outraged by this demand that they assimilate or move.

These natives wanted to rebel, but were powerless against the US military that would surely

be sent to squash their rebellion. Or at least it seemed that way until an unlikely ally stepped

in—British subjects living in Canada. Back during the Revolutionary War, there had been many

colonists who stayed loyal to the crown—well, after the Revolutionary War, many Loyalists (as

they were called during the Revolution) left America and migrated to Canada, where they joined

other British subjects who had long lived in Canada.

Though war had been narrowly avoided with the British over who would have control of

trade on the seas back during the first ten years of the century, Canadian Brits worried that war

could happen at any time, and they decided to work to build up a defense to protect themselves

in case America and Britain went to war (rightly fearing that Canada might become a desired

territory for land-hungry Americans). Their first matter of business was to renew their

friendships with Indian tribes and they soon began providing their new

Indian allies with much-needed supplies. This influx of new supplies

and weapons allowed the Indians to start an uprising and they did so

around 1810, under the leadership of a remarkable native named

Tecumseh.6 With Tecumseh at the helm, Indians began banding

together, realizing that unity was the only thing that could save their

6 From http://media-2.web.britannica.com/eb-media/60/61860-004-B321DAFB.jpg

Figure 5: Tecumseh

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

culture and their land.

Fighting was intense between Indians and western settlers, and the U.S. army was

constantly ready to fight. But the native armies were able to use a guerilla style warfare to attack

white settlements and frighten or kill settlers. The US government and military quickly became

convinced that the only way to really cure the “Indian problem” was to drive the British and their

military supplies out of Canada and, thus, completely out of North America.

And land-hungry settlers also saw the eviction of the British from Canada as a good

thing—they saw this as a way to further increase American land; they planned to annex the

province as soon as they kicked the Brits out. Finally, still others began looking to another new

territory for possible acquisition, Spanish Florida (which had not been part of the Louisiana

Purchase). Not only was Spanish Florida a nice chunk of land, including present-day Florida,

Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, as well as some important rivers, Americans also found the

region to be problematic. Runaway slaves escaped there and Indians launched raids on the North

from there. This desire to bring Florida into the United States provided yet another reason to go

to war with the British—Spain was Britain’s ally at this time, so war with Britain could justify

taking Spanish land.

Congressional elections in 1810 saw a number of pro-war candidates rising to power and

by 1812, President James Madison had agreed with the pro-war Congressmen and declared war

on Britain in June, explaining that England’s policies on the seas were hindering US trade and

that the British needed to be put in their place. Once war was declared, the US army launched an

attack on British Canada. Despite the fact that American forces outnumbered Canadian forces,

the US army suffered astounding losses in Canada.

But on the seas, ships like the USS Constitution—Old Ironsides—fared a bit better

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

Figure 6: Old Ironsides7

against British naval forces sent from England to fight the war. And in the Great Lakes region,

important victories were also secured: General William Henry Harrison defeated British,

Canadian and Indian forces, even killing the great Native leader, Tecumseh. And on the

Southern front, in Spanish Florida and New Orleans, the U.S. was doing great. A Tennessee

militaman, Andrew Jackson, who you’ll hear about in a lot more detail over the next couple of

lectures, worked to destroy the Creek Indians in Florida and gain control of the Florida territory.

But the British weren’t about to give up just because American forces had subdued Indian

forces—instead they sent over more troops and prepared to force the US to surrender. On

August 24, 1814, the British made perhaps their boldest move when they captured the capital, at

Washington, and burnt the White House down.

7 From http://gonewengland.about.com/library/graphics/oldironsides.jpg

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

Figure 7: The British Burn the White House Down8

The United States would prove to be lucky against the British again, however, and when

the White House-burning British headed from Washington to Baltimore, American forces were

able to block their approaching ships in the bay, forcing the British to try to bombard Fort

Henry from a distance. This event in Baltimore inspired lawyer Francis Scott Key, who was

watching the bombardment of Fort Henry, to compose a poem titled “The Star-Spangled

Banner,” in honor of a battered American flag he could still see flying on the fort. When the

British retreated from Baltimore, Key’s poem was set to an English drinking song and became

the national anthem of the United States. The withdrawal of British troops from Baltimore

started the unraveling of the British army. Soon thereafter, American forces pushed back another

British invasion, this time in northern New York, and Andrew Jackson and his vigilante friends

in the South were victorious in battle against the British in New Orleans.

And in 1814, the War of 1812 officially came to a close, with the United States securing

a victory and a peace treaty with the British. This peace agreement—the Treaty of Ghent—was 8 From http://www.findingdulcinea.com/docroot/dulcinea/fd_images/news/on-this-day/July-August-08/On-this-Day--British-Troops-Burn-White-House-and-Capital/news/0/image.jpg

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

signed in late 1814 in Ghent, Belgium. The final treaty basically just ended the hostilities

between the British and Americans with many original demands being abandoned. For example,

the Americans gave up on their demands that the British cede all of Canada to the U.S. The

British gave up on their demands that the U.S. create an Indian buffer state in the Northwest.

After the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, relations between America and Great Britain improved

dramatically. Trade opened back up and the British released troops who were guarding the

Canadian-American border.

But for the Natives, the war’s conclusion was devastating. Though the Treaty of Ghent

specified that the U.S. would restore any lands seized by white Americans during the fighting,

this provision was never enforced. Likewise, the Indian buffer zone that had been an original

British demand wasn’t created. And with the British allies gone from the border, and with the

death of Tecumseh during the war, Natives no longer banded together or had much capacity to

fight.

IV. Madison and the Economy America was in for some major changes at the end of the War of 1812. Though President

Madison had been elected on a platform of small government and little industrialization—like

his predecessor Thomas Jefferson—by the war’s end, he began changing his tune. First off, the

war had convinced Madison that the federal government needed to have more control over the

economy and so, in 1815, Madison changed his opinion on what had been a long-standing debate

over the Bank of the United States. The bank’s first charter had expired in 1811 and hadn’t been

renewed yet, but in 1815, interest in the bank was revived. The war had pointed out to many,

including former bank opponent, President Madison, that a national bank was necessary for a

smoothly functioning government, particularly a government mired in a war. The biggest

©Copyright Devon Hansen Atchison

problem was that when the Bank’s charter had expired in 1811, new state banks popped up and

began printing and issuing large quantities of paper money, even though most of the banks didn’t

have the gold or silver supply to back that paper money. And these state banks weren’t issuing a

standard form of paper money—they were just printing whatever struck their fancy, so all of the

sudden there were a bunch of different kinds of paper money floating around, making currency

really confusing.

Well, Madison and Congress set out to correct this problem by chartering a new, second

Bank of the United States in 1816. This new Bank of the United States was essentially the

same as the first one, but this bank was bigger and more powerful. It had more money in its

coffers and could force those state notes out of business with it’s guaranteed form of paper

money (the Bank of the United States couldn’t tell the states not to print money—that decision

was in state’s hands. But it could put forth a more powerful, guaranteed note that merchants

respected, putting state notes out of circulation—which is exactly what happened).

The government was also called in to deal with another postwar economic issue, in the

form of protecting industry. The government was called in because during the war, industry and

manufacturing had boomed. Imports from Britain were blocked and this allowed domestic

industries to flourish and grow. Because of this, textile manufacturers began cropping up

everywhere, meeting the demand for cloth. The reason American cloth was in such high demand

in this period was that America could finally do it cheaply—because of our sneaky spy from

earlier, Francis Cabot Lowell, who was able to open his successful spinning and weaving mill

(the Lowell Mills) during the war. Others quickly followed suit.

Figure 8: The Lowell Mills9

But when the War of 1812 drew to a close, as British traders began swarming the region

again, many manufacturers who had opened up shop when times were good, when demand was

high, many of these manufacturers got worried and begged for the US government to protect

their fragile, new companies. And the government didn’t disappoint these folks—in 1816,

Congress passed a tariff law that limited competition from abroad on cotton cloth and other

items—again, pretty “big government” stuff coming from Madison.

Protective tariffs weren’t the only things manufacturers were clamoring for. They also

pressured the government to pour some money into the nation’s transportation system, because a

transportation system would give manufacturers better access to raw materials and far away

markets. Accordingly, the federal government began the construction of a national road that

9 From http://www.kirkwood.k12.mo.us/parent_student/khs/plattes/topics5and6/topics5and615.jpg

went from Virginia to Pennsylvania. Construction lasted from 1816 to 1818 and connected a

river port to a manufacturing haven. The road helped spur more trade and even provided

manufacturers with a cheaper way to ship their goods across the mountains.

V. Westward Migration One of the reasons there was so much interest in building up transportation and making

internal improvements in the country was that so many people had begun migrating west in the

years following the War of 1812. By 1820, nearly 25% of the white population lived west of the

Appalachian mountain range; just one decade prior, that number was lower than 15%.10 So why

had people begun migrating west so much in the period after the War of 1812? Well, the first

reason was that the population had exploded—between the years of 1800 and 1820, the

population of the United States nearly doubled, increasing from 5.3 million to 9.6 million. Many

people moved into the cities, where numbers of people could be crammed into small spaces. But

most Americans were still farmers in this period, and for them the city wasn’t an option. But, the

lands in the East were basically full and in the South, the plantation system had pretty much

taken over all of the land. So, people began looking to the west as a new beacon of hope and

land.

At the same time, and this is the second reason why people began migrating west after

the War of 1812, the west was beginning to look like a pretty good place to live. In other words,

it didn’t look so scary, so unknown, so full of angry and powerful natives. You see, the War of

1812 had demonstrated to many potential white settlers that the Indian problem wasn’t that big

of a problem. If government policy was any indicator, these settlers saw, they had nothing to

10 Brinkley, 209.

worry about because any time a white settler wanted some land, the government would quickly

break any treaties they might have signed over that land and push the Indians off, push the

Indians farther west. Settlers accordingly came in vast numbers to what is now the Midwest

region of the United States. The journey was often very difficult and setting up a homestead and

surviving in the west was no walk in the park.

On the flipside, however, the west provided settlers with a sense of community. Some

settlers migrated in bands, and once they found their land, they would set up stores, churches and

other institutions that fostered community and kinship. Likewise, since there wasn’t much in the

way of labor assistance—these people wouldn’t really have been able to afford slaves or

servants—people in the community tried to help each other out when they could. Neighbors

would help other neighbors build barns, harvest crops, clear land or, for women, make quilts.

What this eventually led to was the creation of a farm economy where families of modest size

who all lived in close proximity would grow grain and raise livestock to sell across the country,

sort of a co-op system.

While these white settlers were establishing their farm economy in the northwest territory

(in what is now the Midwest) some people were migrating to the Southwest regions where, rather

than establishing a farm economy, a cotton economy was developed that was modeled after the

cotton economy of the South (which you’ll read about in much more detail in a coming lecture).

What this meant was not only that cotton production had spread to a new region, but also that the

institution of slavery would be migrating. While the first settlers, those poor whites who did the

hard work of clearing the forest and getting the soil primed, came without slaves, the wealthy

plantation owners who followed after them and bought this cleared, primed land, did. These

large planters would make a big show of their caravan to their new, southwestern land, carrying

extravagant and abundant goods and household items, with their families in carriages. They

often quickly set up elaborate houses to show off their class status. And with all of this western

growth in both the Midwest and Southwest regions, four new states were admitted into the Union

in the years immediately following the War of 1812: Indiana in 1816, Mississippi in 1817,

Illinois in 1818, and Alabama in 1819.11

VI. Cultural Developments As more and more Americans began fanning out over the countryside, cultural

developments began to take shape, as well. First off, American education grew during the Early

National Period. More public schools began to open up across the nation, allowing a greater

number of Americans to learn how to read and write than ever before. Additionally, it was

during the Early National Period that a new concept emerged, the concept of Republican

Motherhood. Republican Motherhood effectively said that women needed to know how to read

and write, and needed instruction in American politics, so that they could teach their sons about

civics. As a result, female academies sprung up and public schools expanded their reach to serve

more women.

Perhaps even more notable than this was the cultural development that occurred in the

arena of religion. In the 1730s and 1740s, a

religious revival that was termed the Great

Awakening, took shape. The First Great

Awakening encouraged people to be more

pious, to focus on their relationship with God

11 Brinkley, 211.

Figure 9: A Second Great Awakening Revival

more. However, in the years leading up to and following the Revolution, attitudes toward

religion began to change once again. The Constitution had separated church and state, which had

the effect of weakening religious institutions. Likewise, the ideals of the Revolution and the

Constitution suggested that individual liberty was more important than religious tradition. The

focus on education and enlightenment of the post-Revolutionary period also instilled in

Americans a respect for rational, scientific thought, which directly contradicted religious theory

and religious importance. As a result, Americans of the late eighteenth century had stopped

going to church. Only about ten percent of white Americans were church members by the 1790s.

It certainly appeared that the lessons of the First Great Awakening had been lost.

But starting in 1801, America’s religious sensibilities were reawakened by a revivalist

wave of religious activity, known as the Second Great Awakening. So where, exactly, did this

Second Great Awakening come from? What did it tell people and why did they get so caught up

in it? Well, the Second Great Awakening started out when conservative religious leaders,

desperate to revitalize their churches and bring people back into their congregations, began

denouncing dissenters and preaching nationwide. Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists sent

preachers to travel the nation, to win recruits for their religions, and all three religions were

extremely successful in doing so. These traveling preachers created a revivalist spirit by

mobilizing large numbers of people with their strong and dramatic preaching style and the huge

meetings they set up to spread their gospel. The basic thrust of the Second Great Awakening

was this: “Individuals must readmit God and Christ into their daily lives, must embrace a fervent,

active piety, and must reject the skeptical rationalism that threatened traditional beliefs.”12 One

12 Brinkley, 176.

could express “fervent, active piety,” by attending loud, exciting meetings, and getting loud and

excited themselves! This was thought to be the only thing to really keep people accountable

about their religiosity, to really keep people engaged in their religiosity. The Second Great

Awakening appealed to minorities (who were reminded that though this world may not be

perfect for them, they—“the meek”—among them slaves, natives and others, would “inherit the

earth”) and to women most frequently and the nation became once again participatory in

religiosity.

All of these positive things that were going on in the US after the War of 1812—the

expanding economy, the growing west, the establishment of new states, the reemergence of

religiosity, the growth of education—led to a growing spirit of nationalism in the country, a spirit

of positive thoughts about the government and about the country. In 1816, a new president,

James Monroe, was elected and the era was dubbed the “era of good feelings,” because things

in America just seemed to be going the right away. Monroe included both Northerners and

Southerners in his cabinet, both Federalists and Republicans, trying to increase the goodwill,

increase the bipartisanship. The economy, with new textile mills, new production centers and

more cotton, was booming. Additionally, months after Monroe took office, militiaman Andrew

Jackson was able to force Spain to cede their claim to the Florida territory to the US—a huge

moment of national pride for America.

But almost immediately after this magnificent diplomatic accomplishment, things started

to go south in the country. The Era of Good Feelings, it appeared, were over when the Panic of

1819 struck. But things had been going so well, right? What happened to cause the Panic of

1819? To that story and to the story of Jacksonian America, we’ll turn next time.