CHAPTER 8

Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

n March 4, 1801, Vice President Thomas Jefferson walked from his board- Oing house to the Capitol to be inaugurated as the nation’s third president. His decision to walk rather than ride in a coach reflected his distaste for pomp and ceremony, which he thought had grown out of hand in the Washington and Adams administrations. The stroll was also practical, for the new capital, Washington, had scarcely any streets. Pennsylvania Avenue was no more than a path cut through swamp and woods (so dense that congress- men got lost in them) to connect the unfinished Capitol with the city’s only other building of note, the president’s mansion. Officials called the place “hateful,” “this abode of splendid misery,” a “desert city,” and the “abomina- tion of desolation.” After arriving at the Capitol, Jefferson was sworn in by the new chief jus- tice, John Marshall, a John Adams appointee whom Jefferson already had begun to distrust. The absence of the outgoing president reminded everyone of the bitterness of the 1800 election, which Federalists had interpreted as a victory for the “worthless, the dishonest, the rapacious, the vile and the ungodly.” CHAPTER OUTLINE Nevertheless, in his inaugural address, Jefferson struck a conciliatory note. The will of the majority must prevail, but the minority had “their equal The Age of Jefferson rights,” he assured the beaten Federalists. He traced the political convulsions The Gathering Storm

The War of 1812

The Awakening of American Nationalism

227 228 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

of the 1790s to differing responses to the French divided along sectional lines over the extension of slav- Revolution, an external event whose fury had passed, ery into Missouri, much to the dismay of Jefferson, who and he thereby suggested that the source of American found nothing in the Constitution to prevent either slav- discord was foreign and distant. What Americans need- ery or its extension. ed to recognize was that they agreed on essentials, that “every difference of opinion is not a difference of princi- This chapter focuses on five major questions: ple,” that “we are all republicans, we are all federalists.” Newspapers added capitals and printed the last ■ How did Jefferson’s philosophy of government clause as “we are all Republicans, we are all Federalists,” shape his policies toward public expenditures, the but in Jefferson’s manuscript the words appear as judiciary, and the Louisiana Purchase? “republicans” and “federalists.” The distinction is criti- ■ What divisions emerged within the Republican party cal. Jefferson’s point was not that the Federalist and during Jefferson’s second term? Republican parties would merge or dissolve. Compared to President Adams, Jefferson would play a much more ■ What led James Madison to abandon Jefferson’s active role as leader of his party. Rather, Jefferson hoped policy of “peaceable coercion” and go to war with that, since the vast majority of Americans accepted the Britain in 1812? federal union (federalism) and representative govern- ■ How did the War of 1812 influence American domes- ment (republicanism), they would develop a more har- tic politics? monious spirit in politics. Jefferson’s ideals cast a lengthy shadow over the ■ To what extent did Jefferson’s legacy persist into period from 1801 to 1824. His purchase in 1803 of the the Era of Good Feelings? To what extent was it vast Louisiana Territory, motivated by a mixture of prin- discarded? ciple and opportunity, nearly doubled the size of the United States. His successors in the “Virginia Dynasty” of Republican presidents, James Madison and James THE AGE OF JEFFERSON Monroe, warmly supported his principle that govern- ments were strong to the extent that they earned the Narrowly elected in 1800, Jefferson saw his popularity affection of a contented people. Increasingly deserted by rise during his first term, when he moved quickly to voters, the opposition Federalist party first disintegrated scale down seemingly unnecessary government expen- and then collapsed as a national force by 1820. ditures. Increasingly confident of popular support, he Yet the harmony for which Jefferson longed proved worked to loosen the Federalists’ grip on appointive elusive. Contrary to Jefferson’s expectation, events in federal offices, especially in the judiciary. His purchase Europe continued to agitate American politics. In 1807 of Louisiana against Federalist opposition added to the United States moved to end all trade with Europe to his popularity. In all of these moves, Jefferson was avoid being sucked into the ongoing war between guided not merely by political calculation but also by Britain and France. The failure of this policy led to war his philosophy of government, eventually known as with Britain in 1812. Jeffersonianism. Foreign policy was not the only source of discord. The Federalist decline opened the way for intensified Jefferson and Jeffersonianism factionalism in the Republican party during Jefferson’s second term (1805–1809) and again during the mislead- A man of extraordinary attainments, Jefferson was fluent ingly named Era of Good Feelings (1817–1824). Repub- in French, read Latin and Greek, and studied several lican factionalism often grew out of conflicting assess- Native American languages. He served for more than ments of Jefferson’s philosophy by his followers. Some, twenty years as president of America’s foremost scientif- like the eccentric John Randolph, argued that, as presi- ic association, the American Philosophical Society. A dent, Jefferson was deserting his own principles. Other student of architecture, he designed his own mansion in Republicans interpreted the often inept performance of Virginia, Monticello, and spent over forty years oversee- the American government and army during the War of ing its construction. Gadgets fascinated him. He invent- 1812 as proving the need for a stronger centralized gov- ed a device for duplicating his letters, of which he wrote ernment than Jefferson had desired. Most ominously, over twenty thousand, and he improved the design for a in 1819 and 1820 northern and southern Republicans revolving book stand, which enabled him to consult up The Age of Jefferson 229 to five books at once (by 1814 he owned seven thousand ing the timing of Jefferson’s visits to Monticello with the books in a host of languages). His public career was start of Sally’s pregnancies, most scholars now view it as luminous: principal author of the Declaration of Inde- very likely that Jefferson, a widower, was the father of at pendence, governor of Virginia, ambassador to France, least one of her four surviving children. secretary of state under Washington, and vice-president Callender’s story did Jefferson little damage in under John Adams. Virginia, not because it was discounted but because Yet he was, and remains, a controversial figure. His Jefferson acted according to the rules of white Virginia critics, pointing to his doubts about some Christian doc- gentlemen by never acknowledging any of Sally’s chil- trines and his early support for the French Revolution, dren as his own. Although he freed two of her children portrayed him as an infidel and radical. During the elec- (the other two ran away), he never freed Sally, the tion campaign of 1800, Federalists alleged that he kept a daughter of Jefferson’s own father-in-law and so light- slave mistress. In 1802 James Callender, a former sup- skinned that she could pass for white, nor did he ever porter furious about not receiving a government job he mention her in his vast correspondence. Yet the story of wanted, wrote a newspaper account in which he named Sally fed the charge that Jefferson was a hypocrite, for Sally Hemings, a house slave at Monticello, as the mis- throughout his career he condemned the very “race- tress. Drawing on the DNA of Sally’s male heirs and link- mixing” to which he appears to have contributed. Jefferson did not believe that blacks and whites could live permanently side-by-side in American socie- ty. As the black population grew, he feared a race war so vicious that it could be suppressed only by a dictator. This view was consistent with his conviction that the real threat to republics rose less from hostile neighbors than from within. He knew that the French had turned to a dictator, Napoleon Bonaparte, to save them from the chaos of their own revolution. Only by colonizing blacks in Africa, an idea embodied in the American Colonization Society (1816), could America avert a simi- lar fate. Jefferson worried that high taxes, standing armies, and public corruption could destroy American liberty by 230 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

turning government into the master rather than servant Jefferson’s “Revolution” of the people. To prevent tyranny, he advocated that state governments retain considerable authority. In a Jefferson described his election as a revolution, but the vast republic marked by strong local attachments, he revolution he sought was to restore the liberty and tran- reasoned, state governments would be more responsive quillity that (he thought) the United States had enjoyed to the popular will than would the government in in its early years and to reverse the drift toward despot- Washington. ism that he had seen in Alexander Hamilton’s economic He also believed that popular liberty required popu- program and John Adams’s Alien and Sedition Acts (see lar virtue. For republican theorists like Jefferson, virtue Chapter 7). One alarming sign of this drift was the consisted of a decision to place the public good ahead of growth of the national debt by $10 million under the one’s private interests and to exercise vigilance to keep Federalists. Jefferson and his secretary of the treasury, governments from growing out of control. To Jefferson, Albert Gallatin, rejected Hamilton’s idea that a national the most vigilant and virtuous people were educated debt would strengthen the government by giving credi- farmers, who were accustomed to act and think with tors a stake in its health. Paying the interest alone would sturdy independence. The least vigilant were the inhabi- require taxes, which sucked money from industrious tants of cities. Jefferson regarded cities as breeding farmers, the backbone of the Republic, and put it into grounds for mobs and as menaces to liberty. Men who the hands of wealthy creditors, parasites who lived off relied on merchants or factory owners for their jobs others’ misfortune. Increased tax revenues might also could have their votes influenced, in contrast to the tempt the government to create a standing army, always independence of farmers who worked their own land. a threat to liberty. When the people “get piled upon one another in large Jefferson and Gallatin induced Congress to repeal cities, as in Europe,” he wrote, “they will become corrupt many taxes, and they slashed expenditures by closing as in Europe.” some embassies overseas and reducing the army. They The Age of Jefferson 231 placed economy ahead of military preparedness. this was proof that the Federalists intended to use Gallatin calculated that the nation could be freed of the judiciary as a stronghold from which “all the works of debt in sixteen years if administrations held the line on Republicanism are to be beaten down and erased.” expenditures. In Europe, the Peace of Amiens (1802) In 1802 he won congressional repeal of the Judiciary Act brought a temporary halt to the hostilities between of 1801. Britain and France that had threatened American ship- Jefferson’s troubles with the judiciary were not over. ping in the 1790s, which buoyed Jefferson’s confidence On his last day in office, Adams had appointed an obscure that minimal military preparedness was a sound policy. Federalist, William Marbury, as justice of the peace in the The Peace of Amiens, he wrote, “removes the only dan- District of Columbia but failed to deliver Marbury’s com- ger we have to fear. We can now proceed without risks mission before midnight. When Jefferson’s secretary of in demolishing useless structures of expense, lighten- state, James Madison, refused to release the commission, ing the burdens of our constituents, and fortifying the Marbury petitioned the Supreme Court to issue a writ principles of free government.” This may have been compelling delivery. In Marbury v. Madison (1803), Chief wishful thinking, but it rested on a sound economic Justice John Marshall, an ardent Federalist, wrote the calculation, for the vast territory of the United States unanimous opinion. Marshall ruled that, although could not be secured from attack without astronomical Madison should have delivered Marbury’s commission, expense. he was under no legal obligation to do so because part of While cutting back expenditures on the army, the Judiciary Act of 1789, which had granted the Court the Jefferson was ready to use the navy to gain respect for authority to issue such a writ, was unconstitutional. the American flag. In 1801 he ordered a naval squadron For the first time, the Supreme Court had declared its into action in the Mediterranean against the so-called authority to void an act of Congress on the grounds that Tripolitan (or Barbary) pirates of North Africa. For cen- it was “repugnant” to the Constitution. Jefferson did not turies, the Muslim rulers of Tripoli, Morocco, Tunis, and reject this principle, known as the doctrine of judicial Algiers had solved their budgetary problems by engag- review and destined to become highly influential, but he ing in piracy and extorting tribute in exchange for pro- was enraged that Marshall had used part of his decision tection; seamen whom they captured were held for ran- to lecture Madison on his moral duty (as opposed to his som or sold into slavery. Most European powers handed legal obligation) to have delivered Marbury’s commis- over the fees demanded, but Jefferson calculated that sion. This gratuitous lecture, which was really directed at going to war would be cheaper than paying high tribute Jefferson as Madison’s superior, struck Jefferson as to maintain peace. Although suffering its share of revers- another example of Federalist partisanship. es during the ensuing fighting, the United States did not While the Marbury decision was brewing, the come away empty-handed. In 1805 it was able to con- Republicans had already taken the offensive against the clude a peace treaty with Tripoli. The war cost roughly judiciary by moving to impeach (charge with wrongdo- half of what the United States had been paying annually ing) two Federalist judges. One, John Pickering, was an for protection. insane alcoholic; the other, Supreme Court justice Samuel Chase, was a partisan Federalist notorious for jailing several Republican editors under the Sedition Jefferson and the Judiciary Act of 1798. These cases raised the same issue: Was Jefferson had hoped to conciliate the moderate Fed- impeachment, which the Constitution restricted to cases eralists, but conflicts over the judiciary derailed this of treason, bribery, and “high Crimes and Misde- objective. Because the Washington and Adams adminis- meanors,” an appropriate remedy for judges who were trations had appointed only Federalists, not a single insane or excessively partisan? Pickering was removed Republican sat on the federal judiciary when Jefferson from office, but the Senate narrowly failed to convict came to office. Still bitter about the zeal of federal courts Chase, in part because moderate Republicans were in enforcing the Alien and Sedition Acts, Jefferson saw coming to doubt whether impeachment was a solution the Federalist-sponsored Judiciary Act of 1801 as the last to judicial partisanship. straw. By reducing the number of Supreme Court jus- Chase’s acquittal ended Jefferson’s skirmishes with tices from six to five, the act threatened to strip him of an the judiciary. His more radical followers attacked the early opportunity to appoint a justice. At the same time, principle of judicial review and called for an elected the act created sixteen new federal judgeships, which rather than appointed judiciary. But Jefferson merely outgoing president John Adams filled by last-minute challenged the Federalist use of judicial power for polit- (“midnight”) appointments of Federalists. To Jefferson, ical goals. There was always a gray area between law and 232 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

politics. Federalists did not necessarily see a conflict from which to threaten the United States but as a bread- between protecting the Constitution and advancing basket for an essentially Caribbean empire. His immedi- their party’s cause. Nor did they use their control of the ate task was to subdue Santo Domingo, where by 1800 federal judiciary to undo Jefferson’s “revolution” of a bloody slave revolution had resulted in a takeover of 1800. The Marshall court, for example, upheld the con- the government by the black statesman Toussaint stitutionality of the repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801. L’Ouverture (see Chapter 7). Bonaparte dispatched an For his part, Jefferson never proposed to impeach army to reassert French control and reestablish slavery, Marshall. In supporting impeachment of Pickering and but an epidemic of yellow fever combined with fierce Chase, Jefferson was trying to make the judiciary more resistance by former slaves to destroy the army. responsive to the popular will by challenging a pair of In the short run, Jefferson worried most about New judges whose behavior had been outrageous. No other Orleans. Because no rivers, roads, or canals connected federal judge would be impeached for more than fifty the American territories of Ohio, Indiana, and Mis- years. sissippi with the eastern ports, farmers in the interior had to ship their cash crops, worth $3 million annually, down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers to New Orleans, The Louisiana Purchase, 1803 a port that did not belong to the United States. The Jefferson’s goal of avoiding foreign entanglements would Spanish had temporarily granted Americans the right to remain beyond reach as long as European powers had park their produce there while awaiting transfer to large landholdings in North America. In 1800 Spain, a seagoing vessels. But in 1802, the Spanish colonial weak and declining power, controlled East and West administrator in New Orleans issued an order revoking Florida as well as the vast Louisiana Territory. The latter this right. The order had originated in Spain, but most was equal in size to the United States at that time. In Americans assumed that it had come from Bonaparte, 1800 Spain ceded the Louisiana Territory to France, who, although he now owned Louisiana, had yet to take which was fast emerging under Napoleon Bonaparte as possession of it. An alarmed Jefferson described New the world’s foremost military power. It took six months Orleans as the “one single spot” on the globe whose pos- for news of the treaty to reach Jefferson and Madison but sessor “is our natural and habitual enemy.” “The day only a few minutes for them to grasp its significance. that France takes possession of N. Orleans,” he added, Jefferson had long dreamed of an “empire of liberty” “we must marry ourselves to the British fleet and extending across North America and even into South nation.” America. He saw this empire being gained not by mili- The combination of France’s failure to subdue Santo tary conquest but by the inevitable expansion of the free Domingo and the termination of American rights to and virtuous American people. An enfeebled Spain con- deposit produce in New Orleans stimulated two crucial stituted no real obstacle to this expansion. As long as decisions, one by Jefferson and the other by Bonaparte, Louisiana had belonged to Spain, time was on the side of that ultimately resulted in the purchase of Louisiana by the United States. But Bonaparte’s capacity for mischief the United States. First, Jefferson nominated James was boundless. What if Bonaparte and the British Monroe and Robert R. Livingston to negotiate with reached an agreement that gave England a free hand in France for the purchase of New Orleans and as much of the Mediterranean and France a license to expand into the Floridas as possible. (Because West Florida had North America? The United States would be sandwiched repeatedly changed hands among France, Britain, and between the British in Canada and the French in Spain, no one was sure who owned it.) Meanwhile, Louisiana. What if Britain refused to cooperate with Bonaparte, mindful of his military failure in Santo France? In that case, Britain might use its naval power to Domingo and of American opposition to French control seize Louisiana before the French took control, thereby of Louisiana, had concluded that his projected Car- trapping the United States between British forces in the ibbean empire was not worth the cost. In addition, he South and in the North. planned to recommence the war in Europe and needed Although Americans feared these two possibilities, cash. So he decided to sell all of Louisiana. After some Bonaparte actually had a different goal. He dreamed of a haggling between the American commissioners and new French empire bordering the Caribbean and the Bonaparte’s minister, Talleyrand, a price of $15 million Gulf of Mexico, centering on the Caribbean island of was settled on. (One-fourth of the total represented an Santo Domingo (modern Haiti and the Dominican agreement by the United States to pay French debts Republic). He wanted to use Louisiana not as a base owed to American citizens.) For this sum, the United The Age of Jefferson 233

States gained an immense, uncharted territory between speculation, Jefferson wanted to control development so the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains (see Map that Americans could advance “compactly as we multi- 8.1). No one knew its exact size; Talleyrand merely ply.” Few Republicans shared Jefferson’s constitutional observed that the bargain was noble. But the purchase reservations. The president himself soon began to worry virtually doubled the area of the United States at a cost, that ratification of an amendment would take too long omitting interest, of thirteen and one-half cents an acre. and that Bonaparte might in the meantime change his As a believer in a strict interpretation of the Consti- mind about selling Louisiana. He quietly dropped the tution, the president had doubts about the constitution- amendment and submitted the treaty to the Senate, ality of the purchase. No provision of the Constitution where it was quickly ratified. explicitly gave the government authority to acquire new It is easy to make too much of Jefferson’s dilemma territory. Jefferson therefore drafted a constitutional over Louisiana. Believing that the Constitution should amendment that authorized the acquisition of territory be interpreted (“constructed”) according to its letter, he and prohibited the American settlement of Louisiana for was also committed to the principle of establishing an an indefinite period. Fearing that an immediate and “empire of liberty.” Doubling the size of the Republic headlong rush to settle the area would lead to the would guarantee land for American farmers, the back- destruction of the Native Americans and an orgy of land bone of the nation and the true guardians of liberty. Like

MAP 8.1. The Louisiana Purchase and the Exploration of the West The explorations of Lewis and Clark demonstrated the vast extent of the area purchased from France.

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i O o G S r a n PACIFIC S d e A E . F L O R I D OCEAN ORLEANS W S TERR. S New Orleans I O N GULF OF S Louisiana Purchase MEXICO 0 100 200 300 Miles Route of Lewis and Clark 0 100 200 300 Kilometers 234 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

the principle of states’ rights to which Jefferson also sub- adoption in 1804 of the Twelfth Amendment, which scribed, strict construction was not an end in itself but a required separate and distinct ballots in the electoral col- means to promote republican liberty. If that end could lege for the presidential and the vice-presidential candi- be achieved some way other than by strict construction, dates, put an end to the possibility of an electoral tie for so be it. Jefferson was also alert to practical considera- the chief executive. But it did not put an end to Burr. tions. Most Federalists opposed the Louisiana Purchase Between 1801 and 1804, Burr entered into enough on the grounds that it would decrease the relative impor- intrigues with the Federalists to convince the Republi- tance of their strongholds on the eastern seaboard. As cans that it would be unsafe to renominate him for the the leader of the Republican party, Jefferson saw no rea- vice presidency. The Republicans in Congress rudely son to hand the Federalists an issue by dallying over dumped Burr in favor of George Clinton. ratification of the treaty. Without a hope of success, the Federalists nominat- ed Charles C. Pinckney and Rufus King, and then The Election of 1804 watched their candidates go down in complete and crushing defeat in the election. The Federalists carried Jefferson’s acquisition of Louisiana left the Federalists only two states, failing to hold even Massachusetts. dispirited and without a popular national issue. As the Jefferson’s overwhelming victory brought his first term election of 1804 approached, the main threat to Jefferson to a fitting close. Between 1801 and 1804, the United was not the Federalist party but his own vice president, States had doubled its territory, taken steps to pay off its Aaron Burr. In 1800 Burr had tried to take advantage of a debt, and remained at peace. tie in the electoral college to gain the presidency, a betrayal in the eyes of most Republicans, who assumed that he had been nominated for the vice presidency. The The Lewis and Clark Expedition Louisiana dazzled Jefferson. Here was an immense terri- tory about which Americans knew virtually nothing. No one was sure of its western boundary. A case could be made for the Pacific Ocean, but Spain still possessed the American Southwest. Jefferson was content to claim that Louisiana extended at least to the mountains west of the Mississippi. No one, however, was certain of the exact location of these mountains because few Americans had ever seen them. Jefferson himself had never been more than fifty miles west of his home in Virginia. Thus the Louisiana Purchase was both a bargain and a surprise package. Even before the acquisition of Louisiana, Jefferson had planned an exploratory expedition; picked its leader, his personal secretary and fellow Virginian Lieu- tenant Meriwether Lewis; and sent him to Philadelphia for a crash course in sciences such as zoology, astrono- my, and botany that were relevant to exploration. Jefferson instructed Lewis to trace the Missouri River to its source, cross the western highlands, and follow the best water route to the Pacific. Jefferson was genuinely interested in the scientific information that could be col- lected on the expedition. His instructions to Lewis cited the need to learn about Indian languages and customs, climate, plants, birds, reptiles, and insects. But, above all, Jefferson hoped that his explorers would find a water route across the continent (see Technology and Culture: Mapping America). The potential economic benefits from such a route included diverting the lucrative fur The Gathering Storm 235 trade from Canadian to American hands and boosting trade with China. Setting forth from St. Louis in May 1804, Lewis, his second-in-command William Clark, and about fifty others followed the Missouri River and then the Snake and Columbia Rivers. In the Dakota country, Lewis and Clark hired a French-Canadian fur trader, Toussaint Charbonneau, as a guide and interpreter. Slow-witted and inclined to panic in crises, Charbonneau proved to be a mixed blessing, but his wife, Sacajawea, who accompanied him on the trip, made up for his failings. A Shoshone and probably no more than sixteen years old in 1804, Sacajawea had been stolen by a rival tribe and then claimed by Charbonneau, perhaps in settlement for a gambling debt. When first encountered by Lewis and Clark, she had just given birth to a son; indeed, the infant’s presence helped reassure Native American tribes of the expedition’s peaceful intent. Additionally, Sacajawea showed Lewis and Clark how to forage for wild artichokes and other plants, often their only food, by digging into the dens where rodents stored them. Clutching her baby, she rescued most of the expedition’s scientific instruments after a boat capsized on the Missouri River. Burr, and to face down challenges within his own party, The group finally reached the Pacific Ocean in led by John Randolph. November 1805 and then returned to St. Louis, but not before collecting a mass of scientific information, Challenges on the Home Front including the disturbing fact that more than three hun- dred miles of mountains separated the Missouri from Aaron Burr suffered a string of reverses in 1804. After the Columbia. The expedition also produced a sprin- being denied renomination as vice president, he entered kling of tall tales, many of which Jefferson believed, into a series of intrigues with a faction of despairing and about gigantic Indians, soil too rich to grow trees, and a extreme (or “High”) Federalists in New England. Led by mountain composed of salt. Jefferson’s political oppo- Senator Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, these High nents railed that he would soon be reporting the discov- Federalists plotted to sever the Union by forming a pro- ery of a molasses-filled lake. For all the ridicule, the British Northern Confederacy composed of Nova Scotia expedition’s drawings of the geography of the region led (part of British-owned Canada), New England, New York, to more accurate maps and heightened interest in the and even Pennsylvania. Although most Federalists dis- West. dained the plot, Pickering and others settled on Burr as their leader and helped him gain the Federalist nom- THE GATHERING STORM ination for the governorship of New York. Alexander Hamilton, who had thwarted Burr’s plans for the presi- In gaining control of Louisiana, the United States had dency in 1800 by throwing his weight behind Jefferson, benefited from the preoccupation of European powers now foiled Burr a second time by allowing the publi- with their own struggles. But between 1803 and 1814, the cation of his “despicable opinion” of Burr. Defeated in renewal of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe turned the the election for New York’s governor, Burr challenged United States into a pawn in a chess game played by oth- Hamilton to a duel and mortally wounded him at Wee- ers and helped make Jefferson’s second term far less suc- hawken, New Jersey, on July 11, 1804. cessful than his first. Under indictment in two states for his murder of Europe was not Jefferson’s only problem. He had to Hamilton, Burr, still vice president, now hatched a deal with a conspiracy to dismantle the United States, scheme so bold that it gained initial momentum the product of the inventive and perverse mind of Aaron because his political opponents doubted that even Burr TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Mapping America

riting to Congress in 1777, George Washington equipped with paper, a compass, a telescope for meas- Whad complained that “the want of accurate uring direction and heights, and an instrument for meas- maps of the Country” placed him at “a great disadvan- uring angles called a theodolite. A surveyor first meas- tage.” Treating mapmaking as a public expense, the ured a baseline from one point to another, as marked by British government staffed its army with surveyors, the chain bearers. Next he commenced a process known whose skills were indispensable to making maps. As a as triangulation by picking a landmark in the distance, result, the British often had a better knowledge of the like a hilltop, and measuring its angle from the baseline. American countryside than did Washington’s army. A staff man might be standing on the hilltop with a flag Washington himself was a surveyor, but American attached to his staff. Finally, the surveyor employed surveyors had been employed by land-seeking clients, trigonometry to calculate the length of each side of the not governments. This approach to mapping yielded triangle, one of which would serve as the next baseline. local maps, some of which were biased since the clients For every hour spent walking a plot of land, the survey had an interest in the outcome. Existing maps of entire party would spend three hours recording their measure- colonies were compilations of local maps, subject to the ments on paper. all errors that had crept into local surveys and lacking Washington’s complaint about inadequate maps led any common geographic frame of reference. to the appointment of Scottish-born Robert Erskine as The accurate mapping of large areas that Wash- surveyor general of the Continental Army and to govern- ington desired required government funding of many sur- ment funding of his workers. After the war, the Land vey parties. A typical survey party included several axe- Ordinance of 1785, which specified that public lands be men to clear trees, two chain bearers, two or three staff surveyed and divided into townships six miles square carriers, an instrument carrier, and the surveyor. Sur- before auction, again led the national government to veyors used several basic instruments, including a table employ survey parties. The Land Ordinance applied only to

[GUIDE]P-08-14 and P-08-15

236 land lying outside any state. The national government did not take responsibility for mapping the states. Jefferson’s purchase of Louisiana in 1803 pricked a new popular interest in geography. Mapping the Purchase presented several obstacles. Early explorers had surveyed small portions of it, but the territory’s vast- ness ruled out surveys of the entire Purchase. Spain dis- couraged even local surveys, lest information about this valuable possession leak out. Jefferson and others had to rely on maps compiled from the accounts of travelers who relied on a mixture of their own observations, hearsay accounts of fur traders, and wishful thinking. Wishful thinking took the form of the belief, embraced by Jefferson, that the sources of the major North American rivers were near each other. If this were true, it would be possible to find a great water highway linking the Pacific to American settlements on the Mississippi. Such a highway would turn America into a commercial link between the riches of the East—Persian silks, Arabian perfumes, the wealth of China—and published in 1814, this map gave ordinary Americans Europe. It would also facilitate the export of American their first picture of what Jefferson had bought in 1803. In agricultural produce. 1816 John Melish, drawing on Clark’s map and his own Eager to ensure the profitability of agriculture, Jef- travels, published by far the most accurate map yet of ferson warmed to this idea. He knew more about geo- the United States. graphy than anyone else in the American government, By enabling ordinary Americans to see the vastness and he collected maps, most of which supported the of their nation, Melish’s map subtly reinforced their sense water-highway theory. For example, one map published that the West rightfully belonged to them, not to the in Britain in 1778 showed the major American rivers— Indians or anyone else. The negotiators of the Trans- the Mississippi, Missouri, Colorado, and Columbia—all continental Treaty of 1819, which gave the United States originating in a small pyramid of high land in present-day a claim to part of the Pacific Coast, relied exclusively on South Dakota. the 1818 edition of Melish’s map. Melish’s example also By the time Jefferson launched the Lewis and Clark spurred state legislatures to subsidize the drawing of expedition to explore the Louisiana Purchase, better accurate state maps. maps were available. Jefferson saw to it that Lewis and Hiring Melish in 1816, Pennsylvania became the first Clark carried a recent map by an Englishman, Aaron state to finance construction of a state map based whol- Arrowsmith. Arrowsmith’s map showed the Rocky ly on “actual survey.” Melish was delighted. He had been Mountains, which were often omitted by other maps. But insisting that “every state should have its own map” and when Lewis and Clark reached the source of the Missouri that such maps should be state property, “subject to the River in June 1805, they found no sign of the Columbia, control of no individual whatever.” Taking six years to whose source the Arrowsmith map portrayed as a complete, the project cost Pennsylvania $30,000 and stone’s throw from the source of the Missouri, just “an exhausted Melish, who died shortly after the map’s pub- immense range of high mountains.” lication. But other states were quick to follow Pennsyl- Their expedition established Lewis and Clark as vania’s lead. authorities on the West and stimulated the public’s and states’ interest in geography. During their expedition, Focus Question: We usually think of maps as accurate Lewis and Clark had benefited from accurate charts of depictions of land and water, but the early maps con- local geography drawn by Indians on the ground with tained many inaccuracies. These inaccuracies resulted sticks or on hides with charcoal. Settled in St. Louis after not just from limits of technology and finance but also the expedition, Clark received a stream of explorers from widely held beliefs about what America should look and traders who brought him more information about like. Since Americans acted on the basis of their beliefs, the geography of the Purchase, enough to enable him how much did maps actually shape events in the age of to draw a manuscript map of the territory. When finally Jefferson?

237 238 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

was capable of such treachery. He allied himself with the originally shared these beliefs, but he recognized them unsavory military governor of the Louisiana Territory, as an ideology of opposition, not power; once in office, General James Wilkinson. Wilkinson had been on Spain’s he compromised. In contrast, Randolph remained fro- payroll intermittently as a secret agent since the 1780s. zen in the 1770s, denouncing every change as decline Together, Burr and Wilkinson conspired to separate the and proclaiming that he would throw all politicians to western states south of the Ohio River into an independ- the dogs if he had less respect for dogs. ent confederacy. In addition, Wilkinson had long enter- Not surprisingly, Randolph turned on Jefferson, tained the idea of an American conquest of Mexico, and most notably for backing a compromise in the Yazoo Burr now added West Florida as a possible target. They land scandal. In 1795 the Georgia legislature had sold presented these ideas to westerners as having the covert the huge Yazoo tract (35 million acres comprising most support of the administration, to the British as a way to of present-day Alabama and Mississippi) for a fraction of attack Spanish-owned Mexico and West Florida, and to its value to land companies that had bribed virtually the the Spanish (not naming Mexico and West Florida as tar- entire legislature. The next legislature canceled the sale, gets) as a way to divide up the United States. but many investors, knowing nothing of the bribery, had By fall 1806, Burr and about sixty followers had left already bought land in good faith. The scandal posed a their staging ground, an island in the upper Ohio River, moral challenge to Jefferson because of these good-faith and were making their way down the Ohio and Mis- purchases, and a political dilemma as well, for some sissippi Rivers to join Wilkinson at Natchez. In October purchasers were northerners whom Jefferson hoped to 1806 Jefferson, who described Burr as a crooked gun woo to the Republican party. In 1803 a federal commis- that never shot straight, denounced the conspiracy. sion compromised with an award of 5 million acres to Wilkinson abandoned the conspiracy and proclaimed Yazoo investors. For Randolph, the compromise was himself the most loyal of Jefferson’s followers. Burr tried itself a scandal—further evidence of the decay of repub- to escape to West Florida but was intercepted. Brought lican virtue. back to Richmond, he was put on trial for treason. Chief Justice Marshall presided at the trial and instructed the The Suppression of jury that the prosecution had to prove not merely that American Trade and Impressment Burr had treasonable intentions but also that he had committed treasonable acts, a virtually impossible task Burr’s acquittal and Randolph’s taunts shattered the aura inasmuch as the conspiracy had fallen apart before Burr of invincibility that had surrounded Jefferson in the accomplished what he had planned. Jefferson was furi- wake of the Louisiana Purchase and the election of 1804. ous, but Marshall was merely following the clear word- In 1803 the Peace of Amiens collapsed. As Britain and ing of the Constitution, which deliberately made treason France resumed their war, the United States prospered difficult to prove. The jury returned a verdict of not at Britain’s expense by carrying sugar and coffee from proved, which Marshall entered as “not guilty.” Still the French and Spanish Caribbean colonies to Europe. under indictment for his murder of Hamilton, Burr fled This trade not only provided Napoleon with supplies but to Europe, where he tried to interest Napoleon in mak- also drove down the price of sugar and coffee from the ing peace with Britain as a prelude to a proposed Anglo- British colonies by adding to the glut of these commodi- French invasion of the United States and Mexico. He ties on the world market. Understandably, the British returned to the United States in 1812. In keeping with his concluded that American prosperity was the cause of reputation as a womanizer, he fathered two illegitimate Britain’s economic difficulties. children in his seventies and was divorced for adultery at America’s boom was being fueled by the reexport eighty. Perhaps the most puzzling man in American his- trade. According to the British Rule of 1756, any trade tory, Burr died in 1836. closed in peacetime could not be reopened during war. Besides the Burr conspiracy, Jefferson faced a chal- For example, France usually restricted the sugar trade to lenge from a group of Republicans known as the Quids French ships during peacetime and thus could not open (from the Latin tertium quid or third thing; roughly, a it to American ships during war. The American response dissenter). They were led by the president’s fellow to the Rule of 1756 was the “broken voyage,” by which Virginian, John Randolph, a man of abounding eccen- American vessels would carry sugar from the French tricities and acerbic wit. Randolph still subscribed to the West Indies to American ports, unload it, pass it through “country” ideology of the 1770s, which celebrated the customs, and then reexport it as American produce. wisdom of farmers against rulers and warned of govern- Britain tolerated this dodge for nearly a decade but in ment’s tendency to encroach on liberty. Jefferson had 1805 initiated a policy of total war against France, The Gathering Storm 239 including the strangulation of French trade. In 1805 a impressment did less damage to the American economy British court declared the broken voyage illegal. than the seizure of ships, it was more offensive. In May 1806 the British followed this decision Any doubts Americans had about British arrogance with the first of several regulations known as Orders evaporated in June 1807. A British warship, HMS Leo- in Council, which established a blockade of French- pard, patrolling off Hampton Roads, Virginia, attacked controlled ports on the continent of Europe. Napoleon an unsuspecting American naval vessel, USS Chesa- responded with his so-called Continental System, a peake, and forced it to surrender. The British then board- series of counterproclamations that ships obeying ed the vessel and seized four supposed deserters. One, British regulations would be subject to seizure by a genuine deserter, was later hanged; the other three France. In effect, this Anglo-French war of decrees out- were former Britons, now American citizens, who had lawed virtually all U.S. trade; if an American ship com- “deserted” only from impressment. Even the British had plied with British regulations, it became a French target, never before asserted their right to seize deserters and vice versa. off U.S. navy ships. The so-called Chesapeake Affair Both Britain and France seized American ships, but enraged the country. Jefferson remarked that he had not British seizures were far more humiliating to Americans. seen so belligerent a spirit in America since 1775. Yet France was a weaker naval power than Britain; much of while making some preparations for war, the president the French fleet had been destroyed by the British at the sought peace, first by conducting fruitless negotiations Battle of Trafalgar in October 1805. Accordingly, most of with Britain to gain redress for the Chesapeake outrage, France’s seizures of American ships occurred in Euro- and second by steering the Embargo Act through pean ports where American ships had been lured by Congress in December 1807. Napoleon’s often inconsistent enforcement of his Con- tinental System. In contrast, British warships hovered The Embargo Act of 1807 just beyond the American coast. The Royal Navy stopped and searched virtually every American vessel off New By far the most controversial legislation of either of York, for example. At times, U.S. ships had to line up a Jefferson’s administrations, the Embargo Act prohibited few miles from the American coast to be searched by the vessels from leaving American ports for foreign ports. Royal Navy. Technically, it prohibited only exports, but its practical To these provocations the British added impress- effect was to stop imports as well, for few foreign ships ment. For centuries, Royal Navy press gangs had seized would venture into American ports if they had to leave British civilians and forced them into service. As war with France intensified Britain’s need for sailors, Britain increasingly extended the practice to seizing purported Royal Navy deserters from American merchant ships and forcing them into service. British sailors had good reason to be discontented with their navy. Discipline on the Royal Navy’s “floating hells” was often brutal and the pay low; sailors on American ships made up to five times more than those on British ships. Consequently, the Royal Navy suffered a high rate of desertion to American ships. In 1807, for example, 149 of the 419 sailors on the American warship Constitution were British subjects. Impressed sailors led harrowing lives that included frequent escapes and recaptures. One seaman suffered impressment eleven times. Another, facing his third recapture, drowned himself rather than spend an addi- tional day in the Royal Navy. Impressment was, more- over, galling to American pride. Many deserters who had become American citizens were impressed on the prin- ciple that once a Briton, always a Briton. The British also impressed U.S.-born seamen, including those who could prove their American birth. Between 1803 and 1812, six thousand Americans were impressed. Although 240 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

without cargo. Amazed by the boldness of the act, a The situation was not entirely bleak. The embargo British newspaper described the embargo as “little short forced a diversion of merchants’ capital into manufac- of an absolute secession from the rest of the civilized turing. In short, unable to export produce, Americans world.” began to make products. Before 1808 the United States Jefferson advocated the embargo as a means of had only fifteen mills for fashioning cotton into textiles; “peaceable coercion.” By restricting French and espe- by the end of 1809, an additional eighty-seven mills had cially British trade with the United States, he hoped to been constructed (see Chapter 9). But none of this com- pressure both nations into respecting American neutral- forted merchants already ruined or mariners driven to ity. But the embargo did not have the intended effect. soup kitchens. Nor could New Englanders forget that the Although British sales to the United States dropped 50 source of their misery was a policy initiated by one of the percent between 1807 and 1808, the British quickly “Virginia lordlings,” “Mad Tom” Jefferson, who knew found new markets in South America, where rebellions little about New England and who had a dogmatic against Spanish rule had flared up, and in Spain itself, loathing of cities, the very foundations of New England’s where a revolt against Napoleon had opened trade to prosperity. A Massachusetts poet wrote, British shipping. Furthermore, the Embargo Act con- Our ships all in motion once whitened the ocean, tained some loopholes. For example, it allowed Amer- They sailed and returned with a cargo; ican ships blown off course to put in at European ports if Now doomed to decay they have fallen a prey necessary; suddenly, many captains were reporting that To Jefferson, worms, and embargo. adverse winds had forced them across the Atlantic. Treating the embargo as a joke, Napoleon seized any American ships he could lay hands on and then James Madison and the informed the United States that he was only helping to Failure of Peaceable Coercion enforce the embargo. The British were less amused, but the embargo confirmed their view that Jefferson was an Even before the Embargo Act, Jefferson had announced ineffectual philosopher, an impotent challenger com- that he would not be a candidate for reelection. With his pared with Napoleon. blessing, the Republican congressional caucus nomi- The harshest effects of the embargo were felt not in nated James Madison and George Clinton for the presi- Europe but in the United States. Some thirty thousand dency and vice presidency. The Federalists countered American seamen found themselves out of work. with Charles C. Pinckney and Rufus King, the same Hundreds of merchants stumbled into bankruptcy, and ticket that had made a negligible showing in 1804. In jails swelled with debtors. A New York City newspaper 1808 the Federalists staged a modest comeback, gaining noted that the only activity still flourishing in the city twenty-four congressional seats. Still, Madison won 122 was prosecution for debt. Farmers were devastated. of 175 electoral votes for president, and the Republi- Unable to export their produce or sell it at a decent price cans retained comfortable majorities in both houses of to hard-pressed urban dwellers, many farmers could not Congress. pay their debts. In desperation, one farmer in Schoharie The Federalist revival, modest as it was, rested on County, New York, sold his cattle, horses, and farm two factors. First, the Embargo Act gave the party the implements, worth eight hundred dollars before the national issue it long had lacked. Second, younger embargo, for fifty-five dollars. Speculators who had pur- Federalists had abandoned their elders’ gentlemanly chased land expecting to sell it later at a higher price also disdain for campaigning and deliberately imitated vote- took a beating because cash-starved farmers stopped winning techniques such as barbecues and mass meet- buying land. “I live and that is all,” wrote one New York ings that had worked for the Republicans. speculator. “I am doing no business, cannot sell any- To some contemporaries, the diminutive “Little body property, nor collect any money.” Jemmy” Madison (he was only five feet, four inches tall) The embargo fell hardest on New England and par- seemed a weak and shadowy figure compared to the ticularly on Massachusetts, which in 1807 had twice the commanding presence of Jefferson. But in fact, Madison ship tonnage per capita of any other state and more than brought to the presidency an intelligence and a capacity a third of the entire nation’s ship tonnage in foreign for systematic thought that matched Jefferson’s. Like trade. For a state so dependent on foreign trade, the Jefferson, Madison believed that American liberty had to embargo was a calamity. Wits reversed the letters of rest on the virtue of the people, which he saw as being embargo to form the phrase “O grab me.” critically tied to the growth and prosperity of agriculture. The Gathering Storm 241

More clearly than Jefferson, Madison also recognized by thirty-four-year-old Henry Clay of Kentucky, who pre- that agricultural prosperity depended on the vitality of ferred war to the “putrescent pool of ignominious American trade, for Americans would continue to enter peace,” the war hawks included John C. Calhoun of farming only if they could get their crops to market. In South Carolina, Richard M. Johnson of Kentucky, and particular, the British West Indies, dependent on the William King of North Carolina, all future vice presi- United States for much of their lumber and grain, struck dents. Clay was elected Speaker of the House. Madison as a natural trading partner. Britain alone could not fully supply the West Indies. Therefore, if the Tecumseh and the Prophet United States embargoed its own trade with the West Indies, Madison reasoned, the British, who imported Voicing a more emotional and pugnacious nationalism sugar from the West Indies, would be forced to their than Jefferson and Madison, the war hawks called for the knees before Americans could suffer severe losses from expulsion of the British from Canada and the Spanish the embargo. Britain, he wrote, was “more vulnerable in from the Floridas. Their demands merged with western her commerce than in her armies.” settlers’ fears that the British in Canada were actively The American embargo, however, was coercing no recruiting the Indians to halt the march of American set- one. Increased trade between Canada and the West tlement. In reality, American policy, not meddling by the Indies made a shambles of Madison’s plan to pres- British, was the source of bloodshed on the frontier. sure Britain. On March 1, 1809, Congress replaced In contrast to his views about blacks, Jefferson the Embargo Act with the weaker, face-saving Non- believed that Indians and whites could live peacefully Intercourse Act. The act opened trade to all nations together if the Indians abandoned their hunting and except Britain and France and then authorized Congress nomadic ways for farming. If they farmed, they would to restore trade with those nations if they stopped violat- ing neutral rights. But neither complied. In May 1810 Congress substituted a new measure, Macon’s Bill No. 2, for the Non-Intercourse Act. This legislation opened trade with Britain and France, and then offered each a clumsy bribe: if either nation repealed its restrictions on neutral shipping, the United States would halt trade with the other. None of these steps had the desired effect. While Jefferson and Madison lashed out at France and Britain as moral demons (“The one is a den of robbers and the other of pirates,” snapped Jefferson), the belligerents saw the world as composed of a few great powers and many weak ones. When great powers went to war, there were no neutrals. Weak nations like the United States should logically seek the protection of a great power and stop babbling about moral ideals and neutral rights. Despite occasional hints to the contrary, neither Napoleon nor the British intended to accommodate the Americans. As peaceable coercion became a fiasco, Madison came under fire from militant Republicans who demanded more aggressive policies. Coming mainly from the South and West, regions where “honor” was a sacred word, the militants were infuriated by insults to the American flag. In addition, economic recession between 1808 and 1810 had convinced the firebrands that British policies were wrecking their regions’ economies. The election of 1810 brought several young malcontents, christened “war hawks,” to Congress. Led 242 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

need less land. Jefferson and Madison insisted that the erupted into violence and that led Harrison to conclude Indians be compensated fairly for ceded land and that that it was time to attack the Indians. His target was a only those Indians with a claim to the land they were Shawnee encampment called Prophetstown near the ceding be allowed to conclude treaties with whites. mouth of the Tippecanoe River. With Tecumseh away Reality conflicted with Jefferson’s ideals. (See Chapter 7.) recruiting southern Indians to his cause, Tenskwatawa The march of white settlement was steadily shrinking ordered an attack on Harrison’s encampment, a mile Indian hunting grounds, while some Indians themselves from Prophetstown, in the predawn hours of November were becoming more willing to sign away land in pay- 7, 1811. Outnumbered two to one and short of ammuni- ment to whites for blankets, guns, and the liquor that tion, Tenskwatawa’s force was beaten off after inflicting transported them into a daze even as their culture heavy casualties. collapsed. Although it was a small engagement, the Battle of In 1809 no American was more eager to acquire Tippecanoe had several large effects. It made Harrison a Indian lands than William Henry Harrison, the governor national hero, and the memory of the battle would con- of the Indiana Territory. The federal government had just tribute to his election as president three decades later. It divided Indiana, splitting off the present states of Illinois discredited Tenskwatawa, whose conduct during the and Wisconsin into a separate Illinois Territory. Harrison battle drew criticism from his followers. It elevated Te- recognized that, shorn of Illinois, Indiana would not cumseh into a position of recognized leadership among achieve statehood unless it could attract more settlers the western tribes. Finally, it persuaded Tecumseh, who and that the territory would not gain such settlers with- long had distrusted the British as much as the Amer- out offering them land currently owned by Indians. icans, that alliance with the British was the only hope to Disregarding instructions from Washington to negotiate stop the spread of American settlement. only with Indians who claimed the land they were ced- ing, Harrison rounded up a delegation of half-starved Congress Votes for War Indians, none of whom lived on the rich lands along the Wabash River that he craved. By the Treaty of Fort Wayne By spring 1812 President Madison had reached the deci- in September 1809, these Indians ceded millions of acres sion that war with Britain was inevitable. On June 1 he along the Wabash at a price of two cents an acre. sent his war message to Congress. Meanwhile, an eco- This treaty outraged the numerous tribes that had nomic depression struck Britain, partly because the not been party to it, and no one more than Tecumseh, American policy of restricting trade with that country the Shawnee chief, and his brother, Lalawéthica. Late in had finally started to work. Under pressure from its mer- 1805 Lalawéthica had had a spiritual experience after a chants, Britain repealed the Orders in Council on June frightening dream in which he saw Indians who drank or 23. But Congress, unaware that the British were contem- beat their wives tormented for eternity. Until then, the plating repeal of the orders, had already passed the dec- Shawnees had looked down on Lalawéthica as a drunk- laration of war. en misfit, a pale reflection of his handsome brother, Neither war hawks nor westerners held the key to Tecumseh. Overnight, Lalawéthica changed. He gave up the vote in favor of war. The war hawks comprised a liquor, began tearful preaching to surrounding tribes to minority within the Republican party; the West was still return to their old ways and avoid contact with whites, too sparsely settled to have many representatives in and quickly became known as The Prophet. Soon, he Congress. Rather, the votes of Republicans in populous would take a new name, Tenskwatawa, styling himself states like Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia were the “Open Door” through which all Indians could the main force propelling the war declaration through achieve salvation. Demoralized by the continuing loss of Congress. Opposition to war came mostly from Fed- Native American lands to the whites and by the ravages eralist strongholds in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and of their society by alcoholism, Shawnees listened to his New York. Because Federalists were so much stronger in message. Meanwhile, Tecumseh sought to unite sev- the Northeast than elsewhere, congressional opposition eral tribes in Ohio and the Indiana Territory against to war revealed a sectional as well as a party split. In gen- American settlers. eral, however, southern Federalists opposed the war The Treaty of Fort Wayne infuriated Tecumseh, who declaration, and northern Republicans supported it. In insisted that Indian lands belonged collectively to all the other words, the vote for war followed party lines more tribes and hence could not be sold by needy splinter closely than sectional lines. Much like James Madison groups. He held a conference with Harrison that nearly himself, the typical Republican advocate of war had not The War of 1812 243 wanted war in 1810 or even in 1811, but had been led by concluded that time was on America’s side; the seizures the accumulation of grievances to demand it in 1812. would stop as soon as the war in Europe ceased. In con- In his war message, Madison had listed impress- trast, Madison had become persuaded that Britain’s real ment, the continued presence of British ships in motive was to strangle American trade once and for all American waters, and British violations of neutral rights and thereby eliminate the United States as a trading as grievances that justified war. None of these com- rival. War or no war in Europe, Madison saw Britain as a plaints were new. Taken together, they do not fully menace to America. In his war message, he stated flatly explain why Americans went to war in 1812 rather than that Britain was meddling with American trade not earlier—for example, in 1807 after the Chesapeake because that trade interfered with Britain’s “belligerent Affair. Madison also listed British incitement of the rights” but because it “frustrated the monopoly which Indians as a stimulus for war. This grievance of recent she covets for her own commerce and navigation.” origin contributed to war feeling in the West. “The War on the Wabash,” a Kentucky newspaper proclaimed, “is purely British. The British scalping knife has filled many THE WAR OF 1812 habitations both in this state as well as in the Indiana Territory with widows and orphans.” But the West had Maritime issues had dominated Madison’s war message, too few American inhabitants to drive the nation into but the United States lacked a navy strong enough to war. A more important underlying cause was the eco- challenge Britain at sea. American cruisers, notably the nomic recession that affected the South and West after Constitution, would win a few sensational duels with 1808, as well as the conviction, held by John C. Calhoun British warships, but the Americans would prove unable and others, that British policy was damaging America’s to prevent the British from clamping a naval blockade economy. on the American coast. Canada, which Madison viewed Finally, the fact that Madison rather than Jefferson as a key prop of the British Empire, became the principal was president in 1812 was of major importance. Jef- target. With their vastly larger population and resources, ferson had believed that the only motive behind British few Americans expected a long or difficult struggle. To seizures of American ships was Britain’s desire to block Jefferson, the conquest of Canada seemed “a mere mat- American trade with Napoleon. Hence Jefferson had ter of marching.” 244 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

. R (Modern e boundary) BRITISH NORTH AMERICA c Lake of n re the Woods (CANADA) w a L t. S Montreal MAINE L. Sup Prevost (MASS.) erior Michilimackinac Châteaugay 1814 5

July 17, 1812 Oct. 25, 1813 1

8

Chrysler’s Farm Lake Champlain 1

Nov. 11, 1813 (Plattsburgh) – L . Sept. 11, 1814 4 IL H 1 L u VT. N.H. 8 I r N n o a 1 O n g rio ta Boston e IS i On N.Y. h L. MASS. d c i a T k E M MICH. TERR. CONN. c R . o R.I. l R L B I T ie l r a O E L. PA. N.J. New York v M R a N i Y

s Philadelphia OHIO h 14 s s 18 o i k Harrison ) Baltimore t ttac u ight i lower r r h a r 1813 ap at Sept.1814 itis i Tippecanoe (M B Br R DEL. . Bladensburg IND. MD. Washington, D.C. Ohio R. VA. KY. ATLANTIC OCEAN MISSOURI TERRITORY

5 . N.C. 1 R 8 i 1 p TENN. ip – American forces s 3 is s 1 s S.C. 8 i 1 M e British forces GA. d a k MISSISSIPPI Horseshoe Bend c l o American victory TERRITORY March 27, 1814 B l a Jackson v LA. a British victory Pensacola 1814 N NEW SPAIN Nov. 7, 1814 h S i s P i t AN r Indecisive IS B H P SPANISH E New Orleans a A ke WEST FLORIDA S Jan. 8, 1815 nh T a F 0 150 300 Miles m L 1 O 8 R I 1 D 0 150 300 Kilometers 4 A GULF OF MEXICO

MAP 8.2. Major Battles of the War of 1812 UPPER CANADA L. Huron Most of the war’s major engagements occurred on or near the northern frontier of the United States; but the Royal Navy blockaded the entire 1813 Atlantic coast, and the British army penetrated as far south as York (Toronto) Dearborn burned April 27, 1813 L. Ontario Washington and New Orleans.

MICHIGAN Queenston Heights Lundy’s Lane Oct. 13, 1812 TERRITORY July 25,1814 Thames River Chippewa Little justified this optimism. Although many Oct. 5, 1813 July 5, 1814 Detroit 3 1 Canadians were immigrants from the United States, to 8 surrendered 1 NEW YORK Aug. 16, 1812 n L. Erie o the Americans’ surprise they fought to repel the is r 3 r 181 Frenchtown a ry Per invaders. Many of the best British troops were in Europe Jan. 22, 1813 H fighting Napoleon, but the British in Canada had an invaluable ally in the Native Americans, who struck fear Put-in-Bay PENNSYLVANIA by dangling scalps from their belts. The British played on Sept. 10, 1813 this fear, in some cases forcing Americans to surrender by hinting that the Indians might be uncontrollable in OHIO 0 50 100 Miles battle. Too, the American state militias were filled with 0 50 100 Kilometers Sunday soldiers who “hollered for water half the time, and whiskey the other.” Few militiamen understood the goals of the war. In fact, outside Congress there was not much blood lust in 1812. Opposition to the war ran strong in New England; and even in Kentucky, the home The War of 1812 245 of war hawk Henry Clay, only four hundred answered offensive meant to split the New England states, where the first call to arms. For many Americans, local attach- opposition to the war was strong, from the rest of the ments were still stronger than national ones. country. The British advanced down Lake Champlain until meeting the well-entrenched American forces at Plattsburgh. Resolving that he had to control the lake On to Canada before attacking Plattsburgh, Prevost called up his fleet, From the summer of 1812 to the spring of 1814, the but an American naval squadron under Captain Thomas Americans launched a series of unsuccessful attacks on Macdonough defeated their British counterparts on Sep- Canada (see Map 8.2). In July 1812 General William Hull tember 11. Dispirited, Prevost abandoned the campaign. led an American army from Detroit into Canada, quickly Ironically, the British achieved a far more spectacu- returned when Tecumseh cut his supply line, and sur- lar success in an operation originally designed as a rendered Detroit and two thousand men to thirteen diversion from their main thrust down Lake Champlain. hundred British and Indian troops. In fall 1812 a force of In 1814 a British army sailed from Bermuda for American regulars was crushed by the British at the Chesapeake Bay, landed near Washington, and met a Battle of Queenston, near Niagara Falls, while New York larger American force, composed mainly of militia, at militia, contending that they had volunteered only to Bladensburg, Maryland, on August 24. The Battle of protect their homes and not to invade Canada, looked Bladensburg quickly became the “Bladensburg races” as on from the New York side of the border. A third Amer- the American militia fled, almost without firing a shot. ican offensive in 1812, a projected attack on Montreal The British then descended on Washington. Madison, from Plattsburgh, New York, via Lake Champlain, fell who had witnessed the Bladensburg fiasco, escaped into apart when the militia again refused to advance into the Virginia hills. His wife, Dolley, pausing only long Canada. The Americans renewed their offensive in 1813 when General William Henry Harrison tried to retake Detroit. A succession of reverses convinced Harrison that offensive operations were futile as long as the British controlled Lake Erie. During the winter of 1812–1813, Captain Oliver H. Perry constructed a little fleet of vessels; on September 10, 1813, he destroyed a British squadron at Put-in-Bay on the western end of the lake. “We have met the enemy, and they are ours,” Perry triumphantly reported. Losing control of Lake Erie, the British pulled back from Detroit, but Harrison overtook and defeated a combined British and Indian force at the Battle of the Thames on October 5. Tecumseh died in the battle; Colonel Richard Johnson’s claim, never proved, to have killed Tecumseh later contributed to Johnson’s election as vice president. These victories by Perry and Harrison cheered Americans, but efforts to invade Canada continued to falter. In June 1814 American troops crossed into Canada on the Niagara front but withdrew after fighting two bloody but inconclusive bat- tles at Chippewa (July 5) and Lundy’s Lane (July 25).

The British Offensive With fresh reinforcements from Europe, where Napo- leon had abdicated as emperor after his disastrous inva- sion of Russia, the British took the offensive in the sum- mer of 1814. General Sir George Prevost led a force of ten thousand British veterans, the largest and best- equipped British force ever sent to North America, in an 246 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

enough to load her silver, a bed, and a portrait of George of gruesome carnage, Jackson’s troops shredded the line Washington onto her carriage, hastened to join her hus- of advancing redcoats, killing Pakenham and inflicting band, while British troops ate the supper prepared for more than two thousand casualties while losing only the Madisons at the presidential mansion. Then they thirteen Americans. burned the mansion and other public buildings in Washington. A few weeks later, the British attacked The Hartford Convention Baltimore, but after failing to crack its defenses, they broke off the operation. Because the Treaty of Ghent had already concluded the war, the Battle of New Orleans had little significance for diplomats. Indirectly, however, it had an effect on The Treaty of Ghent, 1814 domestic politics by eroding Federalist strength. In August 1814 negotiations to end the war commenced The Federalist comeback in the election of 1808 had between British and American commissioners at Ghent, continued into the 1812 campaign. Buoyed by hostility Belgium. The American delegation included Henry Clay, to the war in the Northeast, the Federalists had thrown Albert Gallatin, and John Quincy Adams. The son of the their support to DeWitt Clinton, an antiwar Republican. last Federalist president, Adams had been the only Although Madison won the electoral vote 128 to 89, Federalist in the Senate to support the Louisiana Clinton carried all of New England except Vermont, as Purchase. He later backed the embargo, joined the well as New York and New Jersey. American military set- Republican party, and served as minister to Russia. backs in the war intensified Federalist disdain for the The British appeared to command a strong position. Madison administration. Federalists saw a nation mis- Having frustrated American designs on Canada, they ruled for over a decade by Republican bunglers. Jef- stood poised for their Lake Champlain initiative. ferson’s attack on the judiciary had seemed to threaten Initially, the British demanded territorial concessions the rule of law. His purchase of Louisiana, a measure from the United States. News of the American naval vic- of doubtful constitutionality, had enhanced Republican tory at Plattsburgh and Prevost’s retreat to Canada, how- strength and reduced the relative importance of Fed- ever, brought home to the British the fact that after two eralist New England in the Union. The Embargo Act years of fighting, they controlled neither the Great Lakes had severely damaged New England’s commerce. Now nor Lake Champlain. Similarly, the spectacular raid on “Mr. Madison’s War” was bringing fresh misery to New Washington had no strategic significance, so the British England in the form of the British blockade. A few gave way on the issue of territorial concessions. The final Federalists began to talk of New England’s secession treaty, signed on Christmas Eve 1814, restored the status from the Union. Most, however, rejected the idea, quo ante bellum (the state of things before the war); the believing that they would soon benefit from popular United States neither gained nor lost territory. Several exhaustion with the war and spring back into power. additional issues, including fixing a boundary between In late 1814 a Federalist convention met in Hartford, the United States and Canada, were referred to joint Connecticut. Although some advocates of secession commissions for future settlement. Nothing was done were present, moderates took control and passed a about impressment, but with Napoleon out of the way, series of resolutions summarizing New England’s griev- neutral rights became a dead issue. Because there was ances. At the root of these grievances lay the belief that no longer a war in Europe, there were no longer neutrals. New Englanders were becoming a permanent minority Ironically, the most dramatic American victory of in a nation dominated by southern Republicans who the war came after the conclusion of the peace negotia- failed to understand New England’s commercial inter- tions. In December 1814 a British army, composed of ests. The convention proposed to amend the Consti- veterans of the Napoleonic Wars and commanded by tution to abolish the three-fifths clause (which gave the General Sir Edward Pakenham, descended on New South a disproportionate share of votes in Congress by Orleans. On January 8, 1815, two weeks after the signing allowing it to count slaves as a basis of representation), of the Treaty of Ghent but before word reached America, to require a two-thirds vote of Congress to declare war Pakenham’s force attacked an American army under and admit new states into the Union, to limit the pres- General Andrew (“Old Hickory”) Jackson. Already a leg- ident to a single term, to prohibit the election of two end for his ferocity as an Indian fighter, Jackson inspired successive presidents from the same state, and to bar little fear among the British, who advanced into battle embargoes lasting more than sixty days. far too confidently, but he did strike enough terror in his The timing of these proposals was disastrous for the own men to prevent another American rout. In an hour Federalists. News of the Treaty of Ghent and Jackson’s The Awakening of American Nationalism 247

victory at New Orleans dashed the Federalists’ hopes of observer, Francis Scott Key, to compose “The Star- gaining broad popular support. The goal of the Hartford Spangled Banner.” Convention had been to assert states’ rights rather than The Battle of New Orleans boosted Andrew Jackson disunion, but to many the proceedings smelled of a trai- onto the stage of national politics and became a source torous plot. The restoration of peace, moreover, stripped of legends about American military prowess. It appears the Federalists of the primary grievance that had fueled to most contemporary scholars that the British lost the convention. In the election of 1816, Republican because Pakenham’s men, advancing within range of James Monroe, Madison’s hand-picked successor and a Jackson’s riflemen and cannon, unaccountably paused fellow Virginian, swept the nation over negligible Feder- and became sitting ducks. But in the wake of the battle, alist opposition. He would win reelection in 1820 with Americans spun a different tale. The legend arose that only a single dissenting electoral vote. As a force in Jackson owed his victory not to Pakenham’s blundering national politics, the Federalists were finished. tactics but to hawk-eyed Kentucky frontiersmen whose rifles picked off the British with unerring accuracy. In fact, many frontiersmen in Jackson’s army had not car- THE AWAKENING OF ried rifles; even if they had, gunpowder smoke would AMERICAN NATIONALISM have obscured the enemy. But none of this mattered at the time. Just as Americans preferred militia to profes- The United States emerged from the War of 1812 bruised sional soldiers, they chose to believe that their greatest but intact. In its first major war since the Revolution, the victory of the war had been the handiwork of amateurs. Republic had demonstrated not only that it could fight on even terms against a major power but also that Madison’s Nationalism and the Era republics could fight wars without turning to despotism. of Good Feelings, 1817–1824 The war produced more than its share of symbols of American nationalism. Whitewash cleared the smoke The War of 1812 had three major political consequences. damage to the presidential mansion; thereafter, it First, it eliminated the Federalists as a national political became known as the White House. The British attack on force. Second, it went a long way toward convincing the Fort McHenry, guarding Baltimore, prompted a young Republicans that the nation was strong and resilient, 248 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

capable of fighting a war while maintaining the liberty of description of Monroe’s two administrations from 1817 to its people. Third, with the Federalists tainted by suspi- 1825. Compared with Jefferson and Madison, Monroe cion of disloyalty and no longer a force, and with fears was not brilliant, polished, or wealthy, but he keenly about the fragility of republics fading, Republicans desired to heal the political divisions that a stronger intel- increasingly embraced doctrines long associated with lect and personality might have inflamed. The phrase “Era the Federalists. of Good Feelings” reflects not only the war’s elimination In a message to Congress in December 1815, of some divisive issues but also Monroe’s conscious effort Madison called for federal support for internal improve- to avoid political controversies. ments, tariff protection for the new industries that had But the good feelings were paper-thin. Madison’s sprung up during the embargo, and the creation of a 1817 veto of the internal-improvements bill revealed the new national bank. (The charter of the first Bank of the persistence of disagreements about the role of the fed- United States had expired in 1811.) In Congress another eral government under the Constitution. Furthermore, Republican, Henry Clay of Kentucky, proposed similar the continuation of slavery was arousing sectional ani- measures, which he called the American System, with mosities that a journalist’s phrase about good feelings the aim of making the young nation economically self- could not dispel. Not surprisingly, the postwar consen- sufficient and free from dependence on Europe. In 1816 sus began to unravel almost as soon as Americans recog- Congress chartered the Second Bank of the United nized its existence. States and enacted a moderate tariff. Federal support for internal improvements proved to be a thornier problem. John Marshall and Madison favored federal aid in principle but believed the Supreme Court that a constitutional amendment was necessary to authorize it. Accordingly, just before leaving office in In 1819 Jefferson’s old antagonist John Marshall, who 1817, he vetoed an internal-improvements bill. was still chief justice, issued two opinions that stunned As Republicans adopted positions that they had once Republicans. The first case, Dartmouth College v. disdained, an “Era of Good Feelings” dawned on Amer- Woodward, centered on the question of whether New ican politics. A Boston newspaper, impressed by the warm Hampshire could transform a private corporation, reception accorded President Monroe while touring New Dartmouth College, into a state university. Marshall con- England, coined the phrase in 1817. It has stuck as a cluded that the college’s original charter, granted to its The Awakening of American Nationalism 249

was clearly engaging in a broad, or “loose,” rather than strict, construction (interpretation) of the Constitution. The second issue was whether a state could tax an agency of the federal government that lay within its bor- ders. Marshall argued that any power of the national government, express or implied, was supreme within its sphere. States could not interfere with the exercise of federal powers. A tax by Maryland on the Baltimore branch was such an interference. Since “the power to tax involves the power to destroy,” Maryland’s tax was plain- ly unconstitutional. Marshall’s decision in the McCulloch case dismayed many Republicans. Although Madison and Monroe had supported the establishment of the Second Bank of the United States, the bank had made itself unpopular by tightening its loan policies during the summer of 1818. This contraction of credit triggered the Panic of 1819, a severe depression that gave rise to considerable distress throughout the country, especially among western farmers. At a time when the bank was widely blamed for the panic, Marshall’s ruling stirred controversy by plac- ing the bank beyond the regulatory power of any state government. His decision, indeed, was as much an attack on state sovereignty as it was a defense of the trustees by George III in 1769, was a contract. Since the bank. The Constitution, Marshall argued, was the cre- Constitution specifically forbade states to interfere with ation not of state governments but of the people of all contracts, New Hampshire’s effort to turn Dartmouth the states, and thus was more fundamental than state into a state university was unconstitutional. The impli- laws. His reasoning assailed the Republican theory, best cations of Marshall’s ruling were far-reaching. Charters expressed in the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions of or acts of incorporation provided their beneficiaries 1798–1799 (see Chapter 7), that the Union was essen- with various legal privileges and were sought by busi- tially a compact among states. Republicans had con- nesses as well as by colleges. In effect, Marshall said that tinued to view state governments as more immediately once a state had chartered a college or a business, it sur- responsive to the people’s will than the federal govern- rendered both its power to alter the charter and, in large ment and to regard the compact theory of the Union as measure, its authority to regulate the beneficiary. a guarantor of popular liberty. As Republicans saw it, A few weeks later, the chief justice handed down Marshall’s McCulloch decision, along with his decision an even more momentous decision in the case of in the Dartmouth College case, stripped state govern- McCulloch v. Maryland. The issue here was whether the ments of the power to impose the will of their people on state of Maryland had the power to tax a national corpo- corporations. ration, specifically the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank of the United States. Although the bank was a The Missouri Compromise, national corporation chartered by Congress, most of the 1820–1821 stockholders were private citizens who reaped the prof- its the bank made. Speaking for a unanimous Court, The fragility of the Era of Good Feelings became even Marshall ignored these private features of the bank and more apparent in the two-year-long controversy over concentrated instead on two issues. First, did Congress statehood for Missouri. Carved from the Louisiana have the power to charter a national bank? Nothing in Purchase, Missouri attracted many southerners who, the Constitution, Marshall conceded, explicitly granted facing declining tobacco profits, expected to employ this power. But the Constitution did authorize Congress their slaves in the new territory to grow cotton and to lay and collect taxes, to regulate interstate commerce, hemp. In 1819, 16 percent of its seventy thousand inhab- and to declare war. Surely these enumerated powers, he itants were slaves. By the end of 1819, three slave states reasoned, implied a power to charter a bank. Marshall had been formed out of the Purchase without notable 250 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

controversy: Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Mis- Missouri as a slave state would upset this balance to the souri would prove different. advantage of the South. Equally important, northerners Early in 1819, as the House of Representatives was worried that admitting Missouri as a slave state would considering a bill to admit Missouri, a New York set a precedent for the extension of slavery into the Republican offered an amendment that prohibited the northern part of the Purchase, for Missouri was on the further introduction of slaves and provided for the same latitude as the free states of Ohio, Indiana, and emancipation, at age twenty-five, of all slave offspring Illinois. Finally, the disintegration of the Federalists as a born after Missouri’s admission as a state. Following national force reduced the need for unity among rancorous debate, the House accepted the amendment, Republicans, and they increasingly heeded sectional and the Senate rejected it. Both chambers voted along pressures more than calls for party loyalty. sectional lines. Virtually every issue that was to wrack the Union Sectional divisions had long troubled American pol- during the next forty years was present in the contro- itics, but prior to 1819 slavery had not been the primary versy over Missouri: southern charges that the North source of division. For example, Federalists’ opposition was conspiring to destroy the Union and end slavery; to the embargo and the War of 1812 had sprung from accusations by northerners that southerners were con- their fear that the dominant Republicans were sacrific- spiring to extend the institution. Southerners openly ing New England’s commercial interests to those of the proclaimed that antislavery northerners were kindling South and West, not from hostility to slavery. For various fires that only “seas of blood” could extinguish. Such reasons, the Missouri question thrust slavery into the threats of civil war persuaded some northern congress- center of sectional conflict. By the end of 1819 the Union men who had originally supported the restriction of had eleven free and eleven slave states. The admission of slavery in Missouri to back down. The result was a series

MAP 8.3. The Missouri Compromise, 1820–1821 The Missouri Compromise temporarily quelled controversy over slavery by admitting Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state, and by prohibiting slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30′.

Lake of BRITISH NORTH AMERICA the Woods OREGON (CANADA) COUNTRY rior MAINE upe . S Disputed territory L Admitted as free occupied jointly by VT. L state,1820 M . Great Britain and ICH H IG n u N.H. A a r N o o United States ig ari NEW n nt MASS. h . O c L i TE YORK M R UNORGANIZED TERRITORY . R 42n L . R.I. d Pa rie ralle . E CONN. l L PA. N.J. OHIO Adams-Onís IND. DEL. ILL. Treaty Line, 1819 Washington, D.C. MD. VIRGINIA S 36˚30´ Missouri MISSOURI P Compromise Line A Admitted N as slave KENTUCKY IS H state,1821 N. CAROLINA TENNESSEE PO SS ARKANSAS TERRITORY ES S. CAROLINA SIO PACIFIC NS GEORGIA MISS. ALA. OCEAN ATLANTIC LA. OCEAN Closed to slavery by Missouri Compromise FLORIDA Open to slavery by Missouri Compromise TERRITORY Ceded by Spain, 1819 Free states and territories 0300 600 Miles

Slave states and territories 0 300 600 Kilometers The Awakening of American Nationalism 251 of congressional agreements in 1820 and 1821 known between Federalists and Republicans. Moreover, Mon- collectively as the Missouri Compromise. roe was fortunate to have as his secretary of state an The first of these agreements preserved the balance extraordinary diplomat, John Quincy Adams. An austere between slave states and free states. At the same time and scholarly man whose library equaled his house in that Congress was considering statehood for Missouri, monetary value, Adams was a tough negotiator and a Maine was seeking admission as a free state. In 1820 fervent nationalist. Congress agreed to admit Maine as a free state, to pave As secretary of state, Adams moved quickly to the way for Missouri’s admission as a slave state, and to strengthen the peace with Great Britain. During his prohibit slavery in the remainder of the Louisiana tenure, the United States and Britain signed the Rush- Purchase territory north of 36°30’—the southern bound- Bagot Treaty of 1817, which effectively demilitarized the ary of Missouri (see Map 8.3). But compromise did not Great Lakes by severely restricting the number of ships come easily. The components of the eventual compro- that the two powers could maintain there. Next the mise passed by close and ominously sectional votes. British-American Convention of 1818 restored to No sooner had the compromise been forged than it Americans the same fishing rights off Newfoundland nearly fell apart. As a prelude to statehood, Missourians that they had enjoyed before the War of 1812 and fixed drafted a constitution that prohibited free blacks, whom the boundary between the United States and Canada some eastern states viewed as citizens, from entering from the Lake of the Woods west to the Rockies. Beyond their territory. This provision clashed with the federal the Rockies, the vast country known as Oregon was Constitution’s provision that citizens of one state were declared “free and open” to both American and British entitled to the same rights as citizens of other states. citizens. As a result of these two agreements, the United Balking at Missourians’ exclusion of free blacks, anti- States had a secure border with British-controlled slavery northerners barred Missouri’s admission into Canada for the first time since independence, and a the Union until 1821, when Henry Clay engineered a claim to the Pacific. new agreement. This second Missouri Compromise pro- The nation now turned its attention to dealing with hibited Missouri from discriminating against citizens of Spain, which still owned East Florida and claimed West other states but left open the issue of whether free blacks Florida. No one was certain whether the Louisiana were citizens. Purchase included West Florida. Acting as if it did, the The Missouri Compromise was widely viewed as a United States in 1812 had simply added a slice of West southern victory. The South had gained admission of Florida to the state of Louisiana and another slice to the Missouri, whose acceptance of slavery was controver- Mississippi Territory. In 1818 Andrew Jackson, the sial, while conceding to the North the admission of American military commander in the South, seized on Maine, whose rejection of slavery inspired no contro- the pretext that Florida was both a base for Seminole versy. Yet the South had conceded to freedom a vast Indian raids into the United States and a refuge for fugi- block of territory north of 36°30’. Although much of this tive slaves. He invaded East Florida, hanged two British territory was unorganized Indian country that some subjects, and captured Spanish forts. Jackson had acted viewed as unfit for white habitation, the states of Iowa, without explicit orders, but Adams supported the raid, Minnesota, Wisconsin, the Dakotas, Nebraska, and Kan- guessing correctly that it would panic the Spanish into sas eventually would be formed out of it. Also, the Mis- further concessions. souri Compromise reinforced the principle, originally In 1819 Spain agreed to the Adams-Onís (or set down by the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, that Transcontinental) Treaty. By its terms, Spain ceded East Congress had the right to prohibit slavery in some terri- Florida to the United States, renounced its claims to all tories. Southerners had implicitly accepted the argu- of West Florida, and agreed to a southern border of the ment that slaves were not like other forms of property United States west of the Mississippi that ran north that could be moved from place to place at will. along the Sabine River (separating Texas from Louisiana) and then westward along the Red and Arkansas Rivers to the Rocky Mountains, finally following the forty-second Foreign Policy Under Monroe parallel to the Pacific (see Map 8.3). In effect, the United American foreign policy between 1816 and 1824 reflected States conceded that Texas was not part of the Louisiana more consensus than conflict. The end of the Napo- Purchase, while Spain agreed to a northern limit to its leonic Wars and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent claims to the West Coast. It thereby left the United States had removed most of the foreign-policy disagreements free to pursue its interests in Oregon. 252 CHAPTER 8 Jeffersonianism and the Era of Good Feelings, 1801–1824

the Europeans might have taken the doctrine more seri- The Monroe Doctrine, 1823 ously, for it had important implications. First, by pledg- John Quincy Adams had long believed that God and ing itself not to interfere in European wars, the United nature had ordained that the United States would even- States was excluding the possibility that it would sup- tually span the entire continent of North America. port revolutionary movements in Europe. For example, Throughout his negotiations leading up to the Adams- Adams opposed U.S. recognition of Greek patriots fight- Onís Treaty, he made it clear to Spain that, if the Spanish ing for independence from the Ottoman Turks. Second, did not concede some of their territory in North by keeping open its options to annex territory in the America, the United States might seize all of it, including Americas, the United States was using the Monroe Texas and even Mexico. Americans were fast acquiring a Doctrine to claim a preeminent position in the New reputation as an aggressive people. Yet Spain was con- World. cerned with larger issues than American encroachment. Its primary objective was to suppress the revolutions CONCLUSION against Spanish rule that had broken out in South America. To accomplish this goal, Spain sought support Jefferson’s philosophy left a strong imprint on his age. from the European monarchs who had organized the Seeking to make the federal government more respon- Holy Alliance in 1815. The brainchild of the tsar of sive to the people’s will, Jefferson moved quickly to Russia, the Holy Alliance aimed to quash revolutions slash public expenditures and to contest Federalist everywhere in the name of Christian and monarchist control of the judiciary. His purchase of the Louisiana principles. By 1822 its members talked of helping Spain Territory in 1803 reflected his view that American lib- suppress the South American revolutions. But Britain erty depended on the perpetuation of agriculture, and refused to join the Holy Alliance; British foreign minister it would bring new states, dominated by Republicans, George Canning proposed that the United States and into the Union. As the Federalist party waned, Jef- Britain issue a joint statement opposing any European ferson had to face down challenges from within his interference in South America while pledging that nei- own party, notably from the mischief of Aaron Burr and ther would annex any part of Spain’s old empire in the from die-hard old Republicans like John Randolph, who New World. charged that Jefferson was abandoning pure Republican While sharing Canning’s opposition to European doctrines. intervention in the New World, Adams preferred that the The outbreak of war between Napoleon’s France United States make a declaration of policy on its own and Britain and the threat it posed to American neutral- rather than “come in as a cock-boat in the wake of the ity preoccupied Jefferson’s second term and both terms British man-of-war.” Adams flatly rejected Canning’s of his successor, James Madison. The failure of the insistence on a joint Anglo-American pledge never to embargo and peaceable coercion to force Europeans to annex any part of Spain’s former territories, for Adams respect American neutrality led the United States into wanted the freedom to annex Texas or Cuba, should war with Britain in 1812. The war destroyed the Fed- their inhabitants one day “solicit a union with us.” eralists, who committed political suicide at the Hartford This was the background of the Monroe Doctrine, as Convention. It also led Madison to jettison part of President Monroe’s message to Congress on December Jefferson’s legacy by calling for a new national bank, fed- 2, 1823, later came to be called. The message, written eral support for internal improvements, and protective largely by Adams, announced three key principles: that tariffs. The Transcontinental Treaty of 1819 and the unless American interests were involved, U.S. policy was Monroe Doctrine’s bold pronouncement that European to abstain from European wars; that the “American con- powers must not meddle in the affairs of the Western tinents” were not “subjects for future colonization by Hemisphere expressed America’s increasingly assertive any European power”; and that the United States would nationalism. construe any attempt at European colonization in the Conflict was never far below the surface of the New World as an “unfriendly act.” apparent consensus of the Era of Good Feelings. In the Europeans widely derided the Monroe Doctrine as absence of Federalist opposition, Republicans began to an empty pronouncement. Fear of the British navy, not fragment into sectional factions, most notably in the the Monroe Doctrine, prevented the Holy Alliance from conflict over Missouri’s admission to the Union as a intervening in South America. With hindsight, however, slave state. For Further Reference 253

CHRONOLOGY, 1801–1824 FOR FURTHER REFERENCE READINGS 1801 Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration. 1802 Repeal of the Judiciary Act of 1801. Stephen Ambrose, Undaunted Courage (1997). Fine new Yazoo land compromise. study of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Joseph J. Ellis, American Sphinx: The Character of Thomas 1803 Marbury v. Madison. Jefferson (1997). A prize-winning attempt to unravel Conclusion of the Louisiana Purchase. Jefferson’s complex character. 1804 Impeachment of Justice Samuel Chase. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, eds., Sally Hemings and Aaron Burr kills Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Thomas Jefferson (1999). An excellent compilation of cur- Jefferson elected to a second term. rent scholarship on the relationship between Jefferson 1804–1806 Lewis and Clark expedition. and Sally Hemings. 1805 British court declares the broken voyage illegal. Drew R. McCoy, The Last of the Fathers: James Madison and 1807 Chesapeake Affair. the Republican Legacy (1989). The best recent book on Embargo Act passed. Madison. 1808 James Madison elected president. Merrill Peterson, Thomas Jefferson and the New Nation: A Biography (1970). The best one-volume biography of 1809 Non-Intercourse Act passed. Jefferson. Embargo Act repealed. J. C. A. Stagg, Mr. Madison’s War: Politics, Diplomacy and 1810 Macon’s Bill No. 2. Warfare in the Early Republic (1983). An important rein- 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe. terpretation of the causes of the War of 1812. 1812 United States declares war on Britain. John Sugden, Tecumseh: A Life (1997). A biography that illu- Madison reelected to a second term. minates the culture of the western Indians as they fought General William Hull surrenders at Detroit. the Americans’ advance. Battle of Queenston. G. Edward White, The Marshall Court and Cultural Change, 1813 Battle of the Thames. 1815–1835 (1991). A seminal reinterpretation of the Supreme Court under John Marshall. 1814 British burn Washington, D.C. Hartford Convention. Treaty of Ghent signed. WEBSITES 1815 Battle of New Orleans. Monticello: The Home of Thomas Jefferson 1816 James Monroe elected president. http:www:monticello.org/ Second Bank of the United States chartered. The American War of 1812 1817 Rush-Bagot Treaty. http://www.hillsdale.edu/dept/history/documents/war/ 1818 British-American Convention of 1818 sets U.S.- FR1812.htm Canada border in West. A website that provides links to many primary sources, Andrew Jackson invades East Florida. including contemporary newspaper articles debating American entry into the war, accounts of naval battles 1819 Adams-Onís (Transcontinental) Treaty. and military campaigns in the East and Northwest, and Dartmouth College v. Woodward. accounts of the Battle of New Orleans. McCulloch v. Maryland. Lewis and Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery 1820 Monroe elected to a second term. http://www.pbs.org/lewisandclark/ 1820–1821 Missouri Compromise. This website provides timelines and maps of the 1823 Monroe Doctrine. historic expedition, along with scholars’ assessments of the journey.