US History Chapter 12 Notes

  • The Second War for Independence and the Upsurge of Nationalism (1812-1824)
  • War of 1812 was highly disunified and one of the worst-fought wars.
  • There wasn’t really national anger (like in 1807 after Chesapeake incident), so people didn’t really unite and they didn’t care that much.
  • Militarily it wasn’t great, and the negotiated peace wasn’t really either, but there was still some nationalism that developed as a result.
  • This promoted manufacturing, road building, and strong federal government.
  • On to Canada over Land and Lakes
  • At beginning of war, regular army was poorly trained, lacked discipline, and was scattered.
  • More poorly trained militia attempted vaguely to back them up.
  • Generals were somewhat senile (leftovers from Revolutionary War days).
  • Deciding to attack Canada was a bad plan.
  • If they had just captured Montreal, the rest of Canada would have fallen.
  • Instead, they made the three-pronged invasion of 1812, leaving from Detroit, Niagara, and Lake Champlain- and they were beaten back very quickly.
  • British and Canadians were much stronger.
  • Early, they captured American fort of Michilimackinac, on the upper Great Lakes. They also got area to south and west, which was inhabited by Indians.
  • British general Isaac Brock led this.
  • American navy did much better than the army.
  • American navy boats were better handled than British ones and had better gunners.
  • The gunners were really angry, unlike the British ones.
  • American frigates (Like the Constitution (Old Ironsides)) were better built with larger crews and heavier artillery (also, one in six sailors was a free black).
  • Oliver Hazard Perry built a fleet of green-timbered ships on Lake Erie and captured a British fleet there. Americans were happy.
  • British had to withdraw from Detroit and Fort Malden when overtaken by General Harrison’s army. They were beaten at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813.
  • But Americans were still not invading Canada well in late 1814.
  • Napoleon was destroyed in mid-1814, so the British were no longer distracted and they started pouring forces into the area.
  • In 1814, 10,000 British troops prepared to attack New York on the lake-river route. Since there weren’t roads, they had to bring supplies over Lake Champlain.
  • Thomas Macdonough led a weaker fleet and they fought in Plattsburgh on September 11, 1814. He won against all odds.
  • This basically saved New York, New England, and the Union as a whole.
  • It also greatly affected the negotiations of the Anglo-American peace treaty, which were happening at the same time.
  • Washington Burned and New Orleans Defended
  • 4000 British troops landed in Chesapeake Bay in August 1814.
  • They marched to Washington, scattering 6000 militia in Bladensburg, and then set the Capitol and White House on fire.
  • They also attacked Fort McHenry in Baltimore, but Americans wouldn’t surrender.
  • (This is where Francis Scott Key wrote the national anthem.)
  • 1814- British attacked New Orleans.
  • Andrew Jackson had just destroyed Indians in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, and he led 7000 assorted troops (including pirates, Frenchmen, and black volunteers) against the British.
  • British were stupid and did frontal assault in January 1815, and the entrenched Americans completely destroyed them within minutes.
  • Jackson became a hero, despite the war having ended two weeks before.
  • The battle restored American honor
  • Of course, the British retaliated.
  • They made a naval blockade along the coast and landed a bunch of raiding parties that destroyed the American economy and fishing industry.
  • There weren’t any more customs revenues that could be collected, and the American treasury went bankrupt.
  • The Treaty of Ghent
  • Tsar Alexander I in Russia worried British would be too distracted by Americans to help the Russians fight against Napoleon. So he proposed mediation in 1812.
  • Eventually, five American peacemakers came to Ghent (Belgium) in 1814.
  • John Quincy Adams (son of JA) led the group.
  • Negotiations:
  • The British were confident and demanded a neutral Indian buffer state in the Great Lakes region. They also wanted control of the Great Lakes and most of Maine.
  • The Americans said no.
  • Then British started losing in New York and Baltimore, and they had to redraw the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna, and they had to deal with France still.
  • So they decided to not demand all that stuff anymore.
  • The Treaty:
  • It was actually just an armistice signed Christmas Eve in 1814.
  • It just stopped the fighting and restored conquered territory without actually addressing any of the problems that had started the war.
  • Americans were still proud, even though they didn’t get Canada.
  • Federalist Grievances and the Hartford Convention
  • New England was a major problem.
  • During the war, it prospered since it had illegal trade with Canada and didn’t get a British blockade until 1814.
  • But the Federalists were still anti-war, and they got louder and louder.
  • Some extremists proposed secession or a separate peace with Britain.
  • “Blue Light” Federalists would flash lanterns on the shore so British making blockades would see American ships attempting to escape.
  • Most major incidence of dissent was the Hartford Convention
  • Late 1814- Capture of New Orleans seemed imminent.
  • MA called for a convention in Hartford, with full representation for MA, CT, and RI and partial for NH and VT.
  • 26 men met in secrecy for three weeks to address grievances.
  • It was less radical than people thought.
  • The final report demanded federal financial assistance to compensate for lost trade. They also wanted constitutional amendments that required 2/3 vote in Congress before an embargo was made or war declared.
  • They were afraid that the South and West were drowning out their voice.
  • They wanted to get rid of the 3/5 clause, make presidents get only one term, and stop election of two successive presidents from the same state (Virginia dynasty).
  • Envoys carried the demands to burned capital in Washington, and they arrived just as the news from New Orleans and from Ghent arrived.
  • So it was poor timing, and everyone just laughed at them.
  • This was the end for the Federalists. James Monroe (VA) won easily in 1816.
  • The worst nullification prior to Civil War was in New England.
  • The Second War for American Independence
  • The War of 1812 was small, especially compared to the conflict in Europe.
  • But, it was still important to the US, because it showed that they would resist what they thought wrong.
  • Other nations now respected the US and treated its envoys better.
  • Diplomatically, it was like the Second War for American Independence.
  • It showed the Americans that sectionalism was bad and that unity was necessary.
  • Federalists were the most serious casualty in the war.
  • War heroes Jackson and Harrison would later become presidents.
  • Indians had to relinquish a bunch of land north of Ohio River to the Americans.
  • The British blockade led to American independence of manufacturing.
  • Canada was affected too.
  • They felt betrayed by the Treaty of Ghent, since they didn’t even get an Indian buffer state or the Great Lakes.
  • Canadians thought Americans would come back. There was an arms race on GL.
  • 1817- Rush-Bagot agreement between British and US limited naval armament on GL. Much later, the border became completely unfortified.
  • Europe went back to conservatism of before after the Battle of Waterloo.
  • Americans ignored this and went on their merry, liberal way.
  • Nascent Nationalism
  • Nationalism emerged after the war.
  • American literature developed with Washington Irving and James Fenimore Cooper.
  • School textbooks started being made by Americans.
  • North American Review started getting published.
  • Painters started painting the US.
  • Congress made a revived Bank of the United States in 1816.
  • They built a better capital on the ashes of the old one.
  • Army was expanded to 10,000 men.
  • 1815- Navy got prestige when it beat some North African pirates.
  • Stephen Decatur was especially a naval hero.
  • “The American System”
  • Manufacturing had greatly risen in the US.
  • 1815- British competitors tried to recover lost ground by dumping contents of warehouses on the US.
  • So the US made the very first protective Tariff of 1816.
  • It was 20 to 25%- not high enough, but a good idea.
  • People wanted more protection.
  • Henry Clay wanted to make a good home market, so he proposed the American System.
  • Strong banking system would provide a lot of credit.
  • A protective tariff to help eastern manufacturing.
  • A network of roads and canals would be made, especially in Ohio Valley.
  • South and West would send food to North and East in exchanged for manufactured goods. This would promote unity.
  • People liked Clay’s idea because transportation really sucked, which was bad in the war.
  • 1817- Congress voted to distribute $1.5 million to the states for internal improvements.
  • But Madison said that that was unconstitutional.
  • So the states had to fund the projects themselves, like the Erie Canal (NY, 1825).
  • Jeffersonians thought federal funding of intrastate improvements was way too much to ask for. New England didn’t like it because they thought it would drain the population west.
  • The So-Called Era of Good Feelings
  • Monroe won election of 1816, utterly crushing last Federalist candidate.
  • Monroe wasn’t a genius or even very smart, but he was levelheaded- which was the most important thing at the time. He did help to ease the transition between the age of the Founding Fathers and the new age of nationalism.
  • 1817- Monroe took a goodwill tour to inspect military defenses.
  • Even in New England, the people liked him.
  • Boston newspaper declared that an “Era of Good Feelings” had come.
  • Early on, it was indeed an era of good feelings. However, there were big issues about the tariff, the bank, internal improvements, and the sale of public lands.
  • There was also bad sectionalism, and…conflict over slavery.
  • The Panic of 1819 and the Curse of Hard Times
  • 1819- Economic panic struck and good feelings went away. There was deflation, depression, bankruptcies, bank failures, unemployment, soup kitchens, and ‘debtors’ prisons’.
  • It was the first national financial panic since the Constitution began.
  • It was mostly spurred by overspeculation in frontier lands.
  • Bank of the United States was involved in this gambling.
  • Financial paralysis damaged nationalism.
  • Bank of the United States forced speculative western banks to foreclose many mortgages on farms. This was legal, but it infuriated the western debtors.
  • The poorer classes were in serious trouble, leading to the development of Jacksonian democratic ideas.
  • Imprisoning debtors was seen as inhumane.
  • Growing Pains of the West
  • Nine frontier states had been added since the beginning.
  • In order to keep a balance between the North and South, the states were alternately admitted as free or slave.
  • Moving west was caused by the “Ohio fever”, which affected European immigrants. They wanted cheap land.
  • Also, older tobacco states had been burned out.
  • Glib speculators would take down payments that made it easier to buy land.
  • Economic distress provided motive for going west, pacified Indians provided the opportunity.
  • Building of highways and land routes to the Ohio Valley (like the Cumberland Road) and the use of the first steamboat provided the means to go west.
  • But the West was still populationally weak, and it had to ally with other sections to be heard.
  • They wanted cheap land, and the Land Act of 1820 helped this by letting buyers purchase 80 acres at a minimum of $1.25 an acre.
  • They wanted cheap transportation and eventually got it despite constitutionality disputes and hostility from the east.
  • They wanted cheap money issued by their own banks and fought to obtain it.
  • Slavery and the Sectional Balance
  • 1819- Fight between South and North over control of the west was revealed.
  • Missouri told Congress they wanted to be admitted as a slave state.
  • They had a large enough population, but the House of Representatives made the Tallmadge amendment saying that no more slaves should be brought into Missouri. It also provided for the emancipation of children of slave parents.
  • There was much anger over this amendment.
  • Slave-holding southerners were mad.
  • Pioneers suffering from the economic depression wanted unhampered expansion.
  • Northerners (federalists) wanted to use the issue to disrupt the VA dynasty.
  • Southerners thought amendment would disrupt sectional balance.
  • It was defeated.
  • When the Constitution was adopted, North and South had same wealth and population. However, over time the North had become wealthier and more settled. They had majority in the House.
  • In the Senate, however, the southerners still had equality and could stop Northern abolitionist efforts. They didn’t want to lose that power.
  • They thought Missouri, the first state entirely west of the Mississippi, being slave-free would set a precedent for the rest of the area.
  • They also worried about Congress abolishing slavery in older states of the South.
  • And also, some northerners were calling for an end to slavery altogether.
  • The Uneasy Missouri Compromise
  • 1820- Deadlock was broken by a compromise. Henry Clay from KY helped out.
  • Congress decided to admit Missouri as a slave state, but then also admit Maine as a free state (it was a part of MA before). This kept the balance for 15 years.
  • Slavery was forbidden in all other Louisiana Purchase land above the southern boundary of Missouri.
  • Extremists on both sides were still mad about this, but it was actually very fair. And the South didn’t think it would have made sense to have slaves in the Prairie lands anyway.
  • But a majority of the Southern Congressmen still voted against the Compromise.
  • The Compromise lasted 34 years and preserved the states for a time, but the dispute still led to the future breakup of the Union. The Compromise didn’t deal with the real issues.
  • 1820- Despite panic and Compromise, Monroe still won almost unanimously (since people liked him a lot and the Federalist opposition was really weak. Really, really weak.)
  • He was the only president to be reelected after the beginning of a big financial panic.
  • John Marshall and Judicial Nationalism
  • There was a lot of nationalism in the post-Ghent years. The Supreme Court helped this.
  • Chief Justice John Marshall had a group of famous decision boosting the federal government.
  • McCulloch vs. MD (1819)- MD tried to tax a Second Bank of the United States into oblivion, but Marshall ruled that the bank was Constitutional (as an implied power) and MD could not tax them under the supremacy clause.
  • This promoted Hamilton’s doctrine of “loose construction”.
  • He thought the Constitution had to be reinterpreted to deal with new events.
  • Cohens vs. VA (1821)- The Cohens were found guilty of illegally selling lottery tickets by the VA supreme court. The Supreme Court upheld this conviction, but limited states’ rights by asserting the right of the SC to review decisions of state supreme courts when powers of the federal government were involved.
  • Gibbons vs. Ogden (1824)- NY tried to give a monopoly on waterborne commerce between NY and NJ. Marshall said that only Congress got control over interstate commerce.
  • Judicial Dikes Against Democratic Excesses
  • Some of Marshall’s decisions benefitted private property rights.
  • Fletcher vs. Peck (1810)- Georgia legislature was bribed to give a lot of land to private speculators. There was outcry, so the next legislature reversed the transaction.
  • SC said that the legislative grant was a contract, and the Constitution forbids state laws impairing contracts.
  • This also affirmed SC’s right to invalidate state laws.
  • Dartmouth College vs. Woodward (1819)- College had gotten charter from the king in 1769, but NH tried to change it. College had Daniel Webster argue for them.
  • Marshall said the original charter was a contract and that states could not encroach on the contract. This saved enterprise from state governments.
  • But this also set a bad precedent of chartered corporations being able to escape public control. They did some bad things.
  • Senator Daniel Webster challenged states’ rights and nullification, and had a great impact on SC.
  • Sharing Oregon and Acquiring Florida
  • Monroe and JQA (Secretary of State) teamed up to organize new foreign policy.
  • They made the Treaty of 1818. This allowed Americans to share New England fisheries with Canadians.
  • It also fixed northern limits of Louisiana, and allowed for joint occupation of the Oregon Country for ten years without any claims from either side.
  • Many Americans thought Florida was destined to become part of the US, and had already claimed West Florida in 1810.