First Party System [1789–1824] II Flashcards
(36 cards)
Review - Timeline: Growing Pains - The New Republic, 1790–1820
1791 - Congress passes ‘Bill of Rights’. 1794 - Western Pennsylvanians protest in ‘Whiskey Rebellion’; Jay’s Treaty ensures commerce between U.S. and Britain. 1798 - Congress passes ‘Alien and Sedition Acts’. 1803 - Thomas Jefferson brokers Louisiana Purchase. 1807 - Embargo attempts to end British practice of capturing American soldiers. 1812-1814 - War of 1812. 1814 - ‘Treaty of Ghent’ ends War of 1812.
Review - Timeline: A Nation on the Move - Westward Expansion, 1800-1860
1803 - Thomas Jefferson brokers ‘Louisiana Purchase’. 1805 - Lewis and Clark’s expedition reaches the Pacific Ocean. 1819 - U.S. acquires Florida under the Adams-Onis Treaty. 1820 - Missouri Compromise divides Louisiana Purchase into “slave”and “free” states. 1845 - United States annexes Texas. 1846 - U.S. declares war on Mexico; Great Britain cedes Oregon territory to U.S. 1848 - Mexican Cession adds vast new territory to U.S. 1848 - California Gold Rush begins. 1850 - Henry Clay brokers ‘Compromise of 1850’.
*The United States Goes Back to War*
The United States was drawn into its “Second War of Independence” against Great Britain when the British, engaged in the Napoleonic Wars against France, took liberties with the fledgling nation by impressing (capturing) its sailors on the high seas and arming its Indian enemies. The War of 1812 ended with the boundaries of the United Stated remaining as they were before the war. The Indians in the Western Confederacy suffered a significant defeat, losing both their leader Tecumseh and their fight for contested land in the Northwest. The War of 1812 proved to be of great importance because it generated a surge of national pride, with expressions of American identity such as the poem by Francis Scott Key. The United States was unequivocally separate from Britain and could now turn as never before to expansion in the West.
James Madison (DR)
James Madison (1751-1836) was a founding father of the United States and the fourth American president, serving in office from 1809 to 1817. An advocate for a strong federal government, the Virginia-born Madison composed the first drafts of the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights and earned the nickname “Father of the Constitution”. In 1792, Madison and Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) founded the Democratic-Republican Party, which has been called America’s first opposition political party. When Jefferson became the third U.S. president, Madison served as his secretary of state. In this role, he oversaw the Louisiana Purchase from the French in 1803. During his presidency, Madison led the U.S. into the controversial War of 1812 (1812-15) against Great Britain. After two terms in the White House, Madison retired to his Virginia plantation, Montpelier, with his wife Dolley (1768-1849).
Understand the troubles in America when James Madison became president.
When James Madison took office the economy was struggling, he essentially had a war on two fronts with Native Americans and Britain, and the political system was in shambles, with the Federalists threatening secession.
Battle of Tippecanoe
After frustration with continuously being pushed westwards by the U.S., many Native Americans united around a Shawnee leader Tecumseh and his brother ‘The Prophet’ to resist. They organized a social network to revive native religion, resist all white ways, and oppose the U.S. government. They sought to create a northwest state for themselves. After learning that the British were supplying money and weapons to Tecumseh, recently founded Indiana Governor and General William Henry Harrison attacked and destroyed Prophetstown, the headquarters to the Native resistance, at the Battle of Tippecanoe (1811). However, the resistance and attacks on settlements continued on as part of the broader War of 1812 until Tecumseh himself was killed.
William Henry Harrison (W)
William Henry Harrison (1773-1841), America’s ninth president, served just one month in office before dying of pneumonia. His tenure, from March 4, 1841, to April 4, 1841, is the shortest of any U.S. president. Harrison, who was born into a prominent Virginia family, joined the Army as a young man and fought American Indians on the U.S. frontier. He then became the first congressional delegate from the Northwest Territory, a region encompassing much of the present-day Midwest. In the early 1800s, Harrison served as governor of the Indiana Territory and worked to open American Indian lands to white settlers. He became a war hero after fighting Indian forces at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Harrison went on to serve as a U.S. congressman and senator from Ohio. He was elected to the White House in 1840, but passed away a month after his inauguration, the first U.S. president to die in office.
The War of 1812 - Global Perspective
The War of 1812 was a conflict fought between the United States, the United Kingdom, and their respective allies from June 1812 to February 1815. Historians in Britain often see it as a minor theater of the Napoleonic Wars; in the United States and Canada, it is seen as a war in its own right.
The War of 1812 - American Perspective
Two future presidents were heroes of the War of 1812: Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison. The White House was burned down. America’s national anthem, the ‘Star-Spangled Banner’, was written during one of its battles. And, it’s why the Native Americans ended up west of the Mississippi River. It was a ‘Second War of Independence’ when Britain finally had to acknowledged that the United States was its own sovereign state.
The War of 1812 - Reasons for U.S. Declaration of War
The U.S. declaring war on Britain in June 1812 was from a combination of many reasons. The Embargo Act of 1807 had failed to prevent Britain and France from interfering with American commercial interests. Britain continued forcing American sailors into impressment. Britain also had been helping Indians fight the U.S. on the western frontier. In the end, ‘War Hawks’ in Congress convinced President Madison to declare war. Federalists in the Northeast strongly opposed the war, but they didn’t have enough clout to keep the President from being reelected that year.
The War of 1812 - General Outline
The War of 1812 lasted for two-and-a-half years. Commodore Perry defeated the British navy in the Battle of Lake Erie, and together with Harrison’s defeat of Tecumseh and Jackson’s southern victory against the Creeks, the war on the western frontier was subdued. The eastern front heated up after Britain defeated France and devoted its attention to invading the East Coast. Despite initial success, including burning Washington, D.C., they couldn’t capture Baltimore. The bombardment of Ft. McHenry inspired America’s national anthem. About the same time that diplomats were Finishing peace negotiations, Jackson was fighting the Battle of New Orleans. News of the ‘Treaty of Ghent’ and Jackson’s victory reached Washington right when New England Federalists were about to announce their secession. The Federalist Party crumbled, the British were sent packing, and America entered an ‘Era of Good Feelings’.
Andrew Jackson (D)
Born in poverty, Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) had become a wealthy Tennessee lawyer and rising young politician by 1812, when war broke out between the United States and Britain. His leadership in that conflict earned Jackson national fame as a military hero, and he would become America’s most influential–and polarizing–political figure during the 1820s and 1830s. After narrowly losing to John Quincy Adams in the contentious 1824 presidential election, Jackson returned four years later to win redemption, soundly defeating Adams and becoming the nation’s seventh president (1829-1837). As America’s political party system developed, Jackson became the leader of the new Democratic Party. A supporter of states’ rights and slavery’s extension into the new western territories, he opposed the Whig Party and Congress on polarizing issues such as the Bank of the United States. For some, his legacy is tarnished by his role in the forced relocation of Native American tribes living east of the Mississippi.
The War of 1812 - Battle of Lake Erie et. al. and Oliver Perry
Three battles in 1813-1814 helped the U.S. get control of the western frontier. First, William Henry Harrison secured Detroit and finally defeated Tecumseh in the same fight. Then Commodore Oliver Perry captured an entire British naval squadron in the Battle of Lake Erie. Farther south, General (and another future president) Andrew Jackson defeated the Creek nation in 1814, subduing the Indian resistance.
The War of 1812 - Francis Scott Key
In August 1814, British troops invaded Washington, D.C., and burned the White House, Capitol Building, and Library of Congress. Their next target was Baltimore. After one of Key’s friends, Dr. William Beanes, was taken prisoner by the British, Key went to Baltimore, located the ship where Beanes was being held and negotiated his release. However, Key and Beanes weren’t allowed to leave until after the British bombardment of Fort McHenry. Key watched the bombing campaign unfold from aboard a ship located about eight miles away. After a day, the British were unable to destroy the fort and gave up. Key was relieved to see the American flag still flying over Fort McHenry and later wrote a poem in tribute to what he had witnessed. The poems was later set to music with the first verse becoming America’s national anthem in 1916.
The War of 1812 - Treaty of Ghent
The U.S. and Britain reached an agreement on Christmas Eve 1814, and the ‘Treaty of Ghent’ essentially returned everything to the way it had been before the war started. Britain abandoned their Indian allies once again, but did pay the U.S. government for a number of slaves who had escaped to Canada.
The War of 1812 - Battle of New Orleans
News traveled slowly from Europe to America back then, so neither the British or Americans were aware of the ‘Treaty of Ghent’, and the British threw everything they had at New Orleans, intending to seize control of the Mississippi River. Andrew Jackson mounted a seemingly miraculous defense with a force made up of state militia, pirates, free blacks, and a few regular army soldiers. He killed the British general in charge and won the Battle of New Orleans.
The War of 1812 - Federalists and the Hartford Convention
The Hartford Convention was a series of meetings from December 15, 1814 to January 5, 1815, in Hartford, Connecticut, United States, in which the New England Federalist Party met to discuss their grievances concerning the ongoing War of 1812 and the political problems arising from the federal government’s increasing power. The convention discussed removing the three-fifths compromise, which gave slave states disproportionate power in Congress, and requiring a two-thirds majority in Congress for the admission of new states, declarations of war, and creating laws restricting trade. The Federalists also discussed their grievances with the Louisiana Purchase and the Embargo of 1807. Secession was mentioned in 1814–1815, but was never a core goal. However, weeks after the convention’s end, news of Major General Andrew Jackson’s overwhelming victory in New Orleans swept over the Northeast, discrediting and disgracing the Federalists, resulting in their elimination as a major national political force.
Era of Good Feelings
In 1815, by outward appearances, there was consensus in politics, improvement in the economy, and peace abroad, which began the ‘Era of Good Feelings’. The Federalists, who had intended to secede New England in protest over the War of 1812, were thoroughly discredited from national politics, thus effectively making the U.S. a one party state in practice, led by Democratic-Republicans. After discontinuing the National Bank, President Madison and Democratic-Republicans reinstituted the national banking system, the Second Bank of the United States, which helped stabilize the economy. The ‘American System’ also improved the economy by enacting protective tariffs for three years and developing domestic infrastructure. Americans felt they were victorious in the War of 1812 and subdued Barbary Pirates in the ‘Second Barbary War’ in 1815. The above factors created a kind of unassertive nationalism and began a century of isolationism. The Era of Good Feelings ended with the Missouri Compromise in 1819-1820.
Second Barbary War
During the War of 1812, Barbary pirates once again started capturing cargo and crew, holding them for ransom or selling them into slavery, because America needed to divert resources to defeat the British. After the War of 1812 finished, the U.S. Navy engaged the pirates in battle, known as the Second Barbary War, for two weeks. The Americans thoroughly defeated them and forced them to sign a treaty in 1815 permanently ending America’s pirate problem in the Mediterranean.
Second National Bank
The Democratic-Republicans had always opposed Hamilton’s National Bank, and Madison let its charter expire. But the War of 1812 proved its value, and Madison authorized the Second National Bank. The Second Bank of the United States, located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was the second federally authorized Hamiltonian national bank in the United States during its 20-year charter from February 1816 to January 1836.
American System
The American System was an economic plan that played an important role in American policy during the first half of the 19th century. Rooted in the “American School” ideas of Alexander Hamilton, the plan “consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other ‘internal improvements’ to develop profitable markets for agriculture”. Congressman Henry Clay was the plan’s foremost proponent and the first to refer to it as the “American System”.
Explain what happened at the British fortress occupied by runaway slaves in Spanish-Florida.
Negro Fort was a fort built by the British in 1814, during the War of 1812, on the Apalachicola River, in a remote part of Spanish Florida. The fort was called Negro Fort only after the British left in 1815. When withdrawing in 1815, the local British commander, Edward Nicolls, deliberately left the fully armed fort in the hands of the blacks and later Native Americans that had been forced off their lands. The U.S. government was concerned that the so-called ‘Negro Fort’ would encourage more slaves to escape south and was a security threat. The fort was destroyed in 1816 at the command of General Andrew Jackson.
James Monroe (DR)
James Monroe (1758-1831), the fifth U.S. president (1817-1825), oversaw major westward expansion of the U.S. and strengthened American foreign policy in 1823 with the Monroe Doctrine, a warning to European countries against further colonization and intervention in the Western Hemisphere. Monroe, a Virginia native, fought with the Continental Army in the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) then embarked on a long political career. A protégé of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Monroe was a delegate to the Continental Congress and served as a U.S. senator, governor of Virginia, and minister to France and Great Britain. In 1803, he helped negotiate the Louisiana Purchase, which doubled the size of the U.S. As president, he acquired Florida, and also dealt with the contentious issue of slavery in new states joining the Union with the 1820 Missouri Compromise.
Explain the reasons for the fall of the Federalist Party.
The Federalist Party had ruined its reputation and was essentially unnecessary as the Democratic-Republicans adopted some of their major policy positions. For example, Jefferson and Madison had taken actions that contradicted the Democratic-Republicans commitment to a small federal government in favor of Federalist positions that extended the power of the presidency and the federal government, such as the Louisiana Purchase and reinstating the Second National Bank.
