Era of “Good Feeling”

James Madison approached the end of his second term ready to hand the mantle of the presidency over to his secretary of state, James Monroe. The fourth Virginian President, Monroe won the election of 1816 easily. He was not as bright or as academic as his predecessors had been but Jefferson claimed that his soul, if turned inside out, would be spotless. Tall and always crowned with a powdered whig, Monroe was the last of the Revolutionary generation to serve in the White House and the last president to accept the position in the old-style knee pants. Monroe found the country in a state of well-being. America was at peace and the economy flourished. Making a “good will tour” across the country, the attitude reflected the general optimistic expectations Americans felt.

Nationalism and Sectionalism

When did the United States become a nation?  There is no easy answer to that question because a nation can be a nation in fact but still not “feel” like a nation. A sense of nationhood grew gradually across the United States, always subject to cross-currents of localism, sectionalism, and class interest. For that matter, it still is. But after the War of 1812, there was no doubt in anyone’s minds that the nation of America existed.
Economic policies represented one sense of nationality after the war. President Monroe wanted to strengthen the government because the War of 1812 had revealed several weaknesses. To do so, Monroe adopted an aggressive domestic policy including:

Essentially the Republicans began to see value in some of the old Federalist ideas.

Enlarging the Nation

Some of the optimism that Americans felt came through the expansion of the United States. After the War of 1812, new territories, particularly in the deep South, opened to settlement. Three new states formed in the years after the war:

• Louisiana became a state in 1812
• Mississippi became a state in 1817
• Alabama became a state in 1819

These new states enlarged the slave and cotton-producing region of the United States greatly, further complicating the issue of slavery at the national level.

Ending Hostilities with Britain

Seeking better relations with Britain after the war, two agreements resulted in the end of general hostilities between the two countries. The Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817 demilitarized the Great Lakes region and both countries cut back on the numbers of war ships sailed on the Lakes. The Convention of 1818 resulted in Britain’s honoring Americas fishing rights in the Atlantic and recognized the boundary between the Louisiana Territory and Oregon at the 49th parallel. Both countries jointly occupied the territory called Oregon.

Boundaries Enlarge

The next year proved decisive for the United States. In 1819 the government acquired Florida, extending its boundary to the Pacific Ocean.  Prior to this, nothing but trouble seemed to stir in Spanish-owned Florida. The area had been a center of British intrigue for years. Natives warring with the U.S. hid there, as did runaway slaves and criminals. Spain was a declining power and could exercise little control over the region, especially over the natives who raided across the border into America.

Jackson Takes Florida

The Secretary of War ordered General Andrew Jackson to campaign against the Seminole Indians on the condition that he would not attack a Spanish outpost. Jackson was frustrated with his orders and told President Monroe that he could he could take Florida in just sixty days and thus end all the problems. Jackson claimed that he got authority from the president to take the area, though Monroe denied it. It took a little longer than sixty days, but Jackson had the whole affair wrapped up within four months. With Jackson controlling the Florida panhandle, Spain had little choice but to cede the area to the United States. Florida became a territory under the Transcontinental Treaty of 1821 and achieved statehood in 1845.

Panic of 1819

Jackson cemented his name in glory but not all went so well in the United States in 1819. The country was caught in a financial panic, known as the Panic of 1819, which led to a six-year depression. After the War of 1812, Americans stretched themselves in a false sense of prosperity, carried along by a speculative bubble and worsened by an over-extension of credit. Farmers proved the most hard-hit. Many lost their land because they were unable to pay back their loans. The panic eventually subsided, and the government tightened the reigns on credit and specie reserves.

Missouri Compromise

A second and more significant struggle occurred over the admittance of Missouri to statehood. The main problem with admitting Missouri was slavery. In 1819 there were an equal number of slave and free states (non-slave states). The border between them was defined by the southern and western boundaries of Pennsylvania and the Ohio River. Slavery still existed in some northern states but it was basically dying. Beyond the Mississippi, no one had yet to attempt to draw a dividing line and slavery already existed in most of the territory from the days of Spanish and French possession. If Missouri came into the union as a state, would it be free or slave? There were roughly 10,000 slaves residing in the state already, and Congress began to weigh in, voting determined by where they lived. Whichever way Missouri entered, slave or free, it would throw off the delicate balance of power between the sections in Congress.

What appeared to be a test of wills was avoided when Maine, clearly a free state, applied for statehood. The Senate linked the two requests and admitted Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state, thus maintaining the balance of power. An Illinois senator extended the Missouri Compromise of 1820 by adding an amendment to exclude slavery from the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36º30’N, Missouri’s southern border. The compromise avoided greater controversy, but only for a little while. Many legislators assumed that states would enter the Union in pairs, one free and one slave. That turned out to not be the case.

While the Missouri Compromise ended this crisis, it made politicians aware that slavery and tariffs were serious political problems.  Knowing that slavery, in particular, was a sensitive issue, Congress instituted a gag rule, prohibiting it as a topic of discussion.  The inability to discuss slavery openly in a national forum became problematic over time as regional differences became more pronounced, hinging on the difference of the section’s use of slavery.