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The Era of Good Feelings
It was an Era of peace, pride, and progress. The Era of Good Feelings marked a period in the political history of the United States that reflected a sense of national purpose and a desire for unity among Americans in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars. The era saw the collapse of the Federalist Party and an end to the bitter partisan disputes between it and the dominant Democratic-Republican Party during the First Party System. -
The Era of Good Feelings pt 2
President James Monroe had the ultimate goal of national unity and eliminating parties altogether from national politics. The period is so closely associated with Monroe's presidency and his administrative goals that his name and the era are virtually synonymous. -
Sectionalism
Even during the Era of Good Feelings, disagreement among the different Regions, called Sectionalism, Threatened the unity of the Union. One case arose in 1819 when congress wanted Missouri to enter as a slave state. Adding another slave state would in the balance of the house towards slave states. So to protect the power of Free states, the house declared that the US would accept Missouri as a slave state, but importing slaves to Missouri would be illegal. It was evetually rejected. -
McCulloch v. Maryland
It was a landmark decision by the Supreme Court. The state of Maryland had attempted to impede operation of a branch of the Second Bank of the United States by imposing a tax on all notes of banks not chartered in Maryland. Though the law was generally applicable to all banks not chartered in Maryland, the Second Bank of the United States was the only out-of-state bank then existing in Maryland, and the law was recognized in the court's opinion as having specifically targeted -
McCulloch v. Maryland pt 2
the Bank of the United States. The Court invoked the Necessary and Proper Clause of the Constitution. -
Adams-Onis Treaty
It settled all border disputes between Spain and US. The US got Florida and Mexico got Texas. Following the acquisition of the Louisiana Purchase during the administration of Thomas Jefferson, the United States faced a problem, as it was not entirely clear where the border lay between the territory obtained from France and the territory of Spain to the south. So, The treaty was negotiated in Washington, D.C. by the American secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, and the Spanish ambassador to the -
The Missouri compromise
Henry Clay convinced congress to agree on the Missouri compromise, which said:
Missouri would enter the union as a slave state
Maine would join the union as a free state, keeping the number of states equal
And slavery would be prohibited in any territory’s above 36o30’ latitude
Congress passed the compromise in 1820. Despite the compromise, there were still disagreements between North and south -
Santa Fe Trail
Between 1821 and 1880, the Santa Fe Trail was primarily a commercial highway connecting Missouri and Santa Fe, New Mexico. From 1821 until 1846, it was an international commercial highway used by Mexican and American traders. In 1846, the Mexican-American War began. The Army of the West followed the Santa Fe Trail to invade New Mexico. -
Santa Fe Trail pt 2
When the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war in 1848, the Santa Fe Trail became a national road connecting the United States to the new southwest territories. Commercial freighting along the trail continued, including considerable military freight hauling to supply the southwestern forts. The trail was also used by stagecoach lines, thousands of gold seekers heading to the California and Colorado gold fields, adventurers, fur trappers, and emigrants. -
Monroe Doctrine
It was an exclusive statement of American policy warning European powers to interfere. Because of the recently freed Mexico might attract invaders from Europe, and Russia’s increasing interest in Alaska, President Monroe Decided to make a speech. He said that US has always been Friendly with European powers and that the US did not want to fight with them. He also implied that the US would not fight for the recently freed Latin countries. The doctrine had 4 main points: -
Monroe Doctorine pt 2
The US would not interfere in the affairs of European nations,
The US would recognize and not interfere with colonies that already existed in NA and SA,
The western hemisphere was off-limits to future colonization by any foreign power,
The US government would consider any European power’s attempt to colonize or interfere with nations in the Western Hemisphere to be a hostile act. -
Nationalism
It is the feeling of pride and loyalty to a nation. Henry Clay believed that a strong national economy would promote national feeling and reduce regional conflicts. He developed a plan called the American system, which would make America economically self-sufficient and would increase American nationalism. -
The Bureau of Indian Affairs
The Bureau of Indian Affairs is an agency of the federal government of the United States within the U.S. Department of the Interior. It is responsible for the administration and management of 55,700,000 acres (225,000 km2) of land held in trust by the United States for Native Americans in the United States, Native American Tribes and Alaska Natives. The Bureau of Indian Affairs is one of two bureaus under the jurisdiction of the Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs: -
The Bureau of Indian Affairs pt 2
the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Bureau of Indian Education, which provides education services to approximately 48,000 Native Americans. The BIA’s responsibilities once included providing health care to American Indians and Alaska Natives. In 1954 that function was legislatively transferred to the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, now known as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, where it has remained to this day as the Indian Health Service. -
Jacksonian Democracy
Due to the wealth of America being the hands of a few people, many Americans were upset. Jackson believed in a democracy ruled by the common man, and his policies of extended suffrage and anti- banking demonstrated this belief. Jacksonians also encouraged national expansion and hands-off economic policies. So Andrew Jackson started a range of democratic reforms. Some included lowing the qualifications so that normal men could vote. -
Spoils System
In the politics of the United States, a spoils system (also known as a patronage system) is a practice in which a political party, after winning an election, gives government jobs to its supporters, friends and relatives as a reward for working toward victory, and as an incentive to keep working for the party as opposed to a merit system, where offices are awarded on the basis of some measure of merit, independent of political activity. -
The Tariff of Abominations
The controversial 1828 Tariff of Abominations was designed to protect American industry from cheaper British commodities. Opposition to the rise of taxes on raw materials, like cotton and tobacco, in the South led to the Nullification Crisis. The purpose was to provide even more protection to the Industrialists and manufacturers in the North by increasing duties on imported British goods to nearly 50%. The bill also included a clause that considerably increased the taxes on raw materials. -
Whig Party
A political party active in the middle of the 19th century in the United States. Four presidents were members of the party during their terms in office. Along with the rival Democratic Party, it was central to the Second Party System from the early 1830s to the mid-1850s. It was formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. -
Trail of Tears
At the beginning of the 1830s, nearly 125,000 Native Americans lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida–land their ancestors had occupied and cultivated for generations. By the end of the decade, very few natives remained anywhere in the southeastern United States. Working on behalf of white settlers who wanted to grow cotton on the Indians’ land, the federal government forced them to leave their homelands and walk thousands of miles -
Trail of Tears pt 2
to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River. This difficult and sometimes deadly journey is known as the Trail of Tears. -
Indian Removal Act
Passed by Congress on May 28, 1830. The law authorized the president to negotiate with southern Indian tribes for their removal to federal territory west of the Mississippi River in exchange for their ancestral homelands. The act was supported by the non-Indian peoples of the South, who were eager to gain access to lands inhabited by the southeastern tribes. -
Nullification Crisis
A sectional crisis which involved a confrontation between South Carolina and the federal government. The crisis erupted after South Carolina declared that the federal Tariffs of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional and therefore null and void within the sovereign boundaries of the state. The nation suffered an economic downturn throughout the 1820s, and South Carolina was particularly affected. -
States’ Rights Doctrine
Refers to political powers reserved for the U.S. state governments rather than the federal government according to the United States Constitution, and the Tenth Amendment. The enumerated powers that are listed in the Constitution include exclusive federal powers that are shared with the states, and all of those powers are contrasted with the reserved power, also called states' rights, that only the states possess. -
The Alamo
During Texas’ war for independence from Mexico, a group of Texan volunteer soldiers occupied the Alamo, a former Franciscan mission located near the present-day city of San Antonio. On February 23, 1836, a Mexican force numbering in the thousands and led by General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began a siege of the fort. -
The Alamo pt 2
Though vastly outnumbered, the Alamo’s 200 defenders–commanded by James Bowie and William Travis and including the famed frontiersman Davy Crockett–held out courageously for 13 days before the Mexican invaders finally overpowered them. For Texans, the Battle of the Alamo became an enduring symbol of their heroic resistance to oppression and their struggle for independence, which they won later that year. -
The Oregon Trail
The Oregon Trail began as a network of unconnected trails used by Native American Indians and Fur Traders. The Oregon Trail was the Important route taken by settlers from the east migrating to build a new life in the western part of the United States. The Oregon Trail covered over 2000 miles originally starting in Independence, Missouri from where it followed the Platte River westwards, crossing the Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada Mountains and then crossed Wyoming and ended Oregon City -
The Oregon Trail pt 2
in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Early settlers in the 1840's traveled in large wagon trains using covered wagons to carry their supplies and belongings for the six month journey. -
Donner Party
A group of nearly 90 emigrants left Springfield, Illinois, and headed west for gold. Led by brothers Jacob and George Donner, the group attempted to take a new and supposedly shorter route to California. They had rough terrain and numerous delays, and they eventually became trapped by heavy snowfall high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Purportedly reduced to cannibalism to survive through the winter, only half of the original group reached California the following year. -
Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush was the largest mass migration in American history since it brought about 300,000 people to California. It started on January 24, 1848, when James W. Marshall found gold on his piece of land at Sutter’s Mill in Coloma. The news of gold quickly spread. People from Oregon, Hawaii, and Latin America were the first to hear the breaking news, so they were the first to arrive in order to test their luck in California by the end of 1848. -
Gold Rush pt 2
Soon the others from the rest of US, Europe, Australia and China followed and since they mainly arrived during 1849 they were called the “forty-niners”. At first, the gold could be picked up from the ground but later on it was recovered from the streams and rivers with the use of pans. The gold rush peaked in 1852 and after that the gold reserves were getting thinner and harder to reach so that more sophisticated methods of mining had to be employed. -
Gold Rush pt 3
The best results were achieved with hydraulic mining although it was environmentally damaging. The gold rush resulted in the hasty development of California: many roads, churches, schools and towns were built to accommodate the gold-diggers. The gold helped to speed up the admission of California into the US as a State. All the preparations in terms of constitution and legislature were made in 1849 and California became a state in 1850. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
In February 1848, Mexico and the us signed the treaty, which ended the war and forced Mexico to turn over much of its northern territory to the US. The land included parts of California, Nevada, and Utah. The Mexican cessation totaled more than 500,000 square miles and increased the size of the US by 25%. In exchange for the land, the US paid Mexico 15 million and paid back 3 million in debts that Americans had towards Mexico. -
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
The treaty also provided that Mexicans would be protected in the enjoyment of their liberty and property, and secured in the free exercise of their religion -
The 49ers
The discovery of gold nuggets in the Sacramento Valley in early 1848 sparked the Gold Rush, arguably one of the most significant events to shape American history during the first half of the 19th century. As news spread of the discovery, thousands of prospective gold miners traveled by sea or over land to San Francisco and the surrounding area. By the end of 1849, the non-native population of the California territory was some 100,000 (compared with the pre-1848 figure of less than 1,000). -
the 49ers pt 2
A total of $2 billion worth of precious metal was extracted from the area during the Gold Rush, which peaked in 1852. Due to the massive amount of people that migrated, Settlement in California continued, however, and by the end of the decade the state’s population was 380,000. -
Manifest Destiny
Manifest Destiny is a term for the during the 19th century period of American expansion that the United States not only could, but was destined to, stretch from coast to coast. This attitude helped fuel western settlement, Native American removal and war with Mexico. O’Sullivan said ‘It was our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions. -
Manifest Destiny pt 2
the concept was taken up by those desiring to secure Oregon Territory, California, and Mexican land in the Southwest, and, in the 1850s. -
Gadsden Purchase
After the war with Mexico, Americans wanted to guarantee that southern railroads to California would be built on us soil. So the negotiated an agreement with Mexico, where the us would pay Mexico 10 million in exchange for what are now the southern parts of Arizona and New Mexico. With this purchase the boundary with Mexico was finally fixed. -
Indian Territory
An evolving land area set aside by the United States Government for the relocation of Indians. In general, the tribes took land they occupied in exchange for land grants in an area purchased by the United States federal government from the Louisiana Purchase. The concept of an Indian Territory was an outcome of the 18th- and 19th-century policy of Indian removal.
