Chapter 9: An Empire for Liberty 1790-1824

9.1: North American Communities from Coast to Coast

• In 1800 the United States of America seemed similar to before the American Revolution: a loose group of dispersed states that felt attached to the seafront of the Atlantic.

  • Two-thirds of the people of the young nation still live on the Atlantic coast fifty miles away.

• Although Britain lost the war to preserve the American colonies, British North America that once was French Canada remained firmly understood

  •  In 1800, the former French colony of Quebec remained its heart. 

  • Most other settlers, many loyalists driven out at the time of the revolution, were american.

• Spain was the United States' most serious threat, given that it owned most of North and South America. 

  • Mexico, with a population of 200,000, was by far the largest on the continent. 

  • In the 1790s, however, Spanish control quickly crumbled. 

  • Tensions sprung up between high officials and bureaucrats of the Spanish-born peninsulas and native Spanish descent criollos, especially after the success of the American Revolution that stumbled upon their subordination.

9.2: A National Economy

• It was mainly rural and agricultural in the United States in 1800. 

  • The census indicates that 94 out of 100 Americans live in communities of less than 2,500 and four out of 5 families cultivate the land. 

  • The crops were cultivated not for sale but for subsistence.

  •  Small and irregular cash incomes or barter items were generated by commodities like whiskey and hogs that are easy to transport.

• In the 1790s, shipping began in the colonial era in Atlantic harbours, despite these restrictions on American trade, as events in Europe provided the USA with outstanding opportunities.

9.3: The Jefferson Presidency

• In all its unpretentiousness, Jefferson's inauguration as the third president of the United States was a major opportunity in American history

  •  because the transition to his hated rivals, the Jefferson Republicans, from one party, the federalists, was peaceful. 

  • From the beginning, Jeffersons presidency showed a highly leading party system to shape national policy without either a dictatorship or a revolt in the atmosphere of extraordinary political bitterness.

• A clear political philosophy was presented to Jefferson's presidency. A clear array of beliefs embodying Jefferson's interpretation of the meaning of republicanism for Americans was found in his administration in (1801–1809) and his successors' dynasty.

• Thomas Jefferson took office to reverse the 1790's federalist policy and to ensure an agricultural "virtue republic." 

  • It therefore proposed a "simplicity and frugality" program that would push for a reduction in all internal taxes, a reduction in the size of the military, navy and state staff, and the removal of the entire Federalist national debt. 

  • All these commitments he kept. 

  • This government decline was a key issue in Jefferson's republican principle

• Despite Jefferson's resolve to overcome federalist tax policies, the Federalists were much more moderate. 

  • He resisted the demand of the other Jeffersonian Republicans for the substitution from party loyalist of all federalist office owners. 

  • Jefferson allowed 132 federalists to remain in their positions during his term of offices, while 158 other posts were held by Jeffersonian Republicans.

  •  However, Jefferson's retention did not extend to the so-called midnight judges of the most notorious federalists appointed.

• In 1800, in the world of the two contending powerful countries, Britain and France dominated a new and fragile democracy: the United States, which was almost continuously warring from 1789 to 1815, when Napoleon Bonaparte was defeated during the battle of Waterloo. 

  • The French revolution. Jefferson, who was once a strong supporter of the French Revolution, looked with increasing apprehension to Napoleon's ambitions

• The immediate problem after the purchase of Louisiana was how to handle Louisiana's French and Spanish citizens. 

  • When the Louisiana region was made American in 1803, it had a population of 43.000, of whom only 6,000 were American racially and ethnically diverse.

• The 1803 sale of Napoleon by Louisiana to America was objected in vain by Spain. 

  • Spain has tried for years to remove from trade with other nations its rich Mexican colony.

• American Louisiana has now shared a vague and controversial boundary with the Northern Province of Mexico, Texas, which some Americans already sought.

9.4: Renewed Imperial Rivalry in North America

• In his first inaugural address in 1801, Jefferson announced that he would "convert alliances with none" in a foreign policy of peace, trade and honest relations with all nations. 

  • After 1803 when the Napoleonic Wars began, it was a difficult policy to follow.

  • By 1805, the majority of Europe had been conquered by Napoleon, but Britain was in control of the seas as the victor in the big naval war in Trafalgar.

• Jefferson stressed the right of America to ship goods to Europe as a neutral nation. 

  • He tried diplomatic protests first, then negotiated and threatened, all in no use.

• In 1806 Congress passed the Non-Import Act, in the hope that a British boycott would be effective again, which worked so effectively during the Revolutionary War. 

  • It didn't. In December 1807, in despair, Jefferson finally imposed the Embargo Act

• The US faced conflicts with neutral shipping rights other than those with Britain and France. On the West, Ohio Valley's powerful Indian nations were determined to resist the wave of expansion that has brought to their lands thousands of white colons.

9.5: Indian Alternatives and the War of 1812

• But the Shawnees were divided by Anthony Wayne and Little Turtle led by the decisive defeat of the Indian confederation at Fallen Timbers in 1794, and the continued pressure of American colonization.

• However, one small group of militant Shawnees led by warrior Tecumseh refused to move to the west, embarking upon a rapidly becoming famous, pan-Indian military resistance movement.

• The Hawks of War The continuing influence of Britain in American affairs was strongly resented by the emerging young generation of politicians, first elected to Congress in 1810. 

  • The War Hawks were young Jeffersonian Republicans from the West and South, which included future leaders, including Henry Clay, from Kentucky, and John C.Calhoun from South Carolina.

• Everybody in the Federalism voted against the war. 

  • The vote was sectional and the opposition was strongly pro-war between New England and the Middle States, and the West and the South. 

  • The US thus became more divided along sectional lines than any other foreign war in American history during the war of 1812.

9.6: Defining the Boundaries 

• The population redistribution was dramatic: around 95% of the population in 1790 lived in countries bordering the Atlantic Ocean

  • About 25% of the population in 1820 lived west of the Appalachian Mountains.

• In 1816 his federalist opponent Rufus King was elected president by James Monroe, last of the Virginia Dynasty

  •  The federalists were running a candidate for the last election. 

  • In 1820 Monroe was without an opponent and almost unanimously reelected

• Adams' greatest diplomatic performance was the 1819 Treaty of Adams-OnÃ, where he wrested the wretched Spanish Empire concessions.

• The remarkable changes that have taken place in Latin America, Adams has chosen to develop the policy of his president, Monroe's Doctrine.

• Panic forced the Americans to reconcile their economic position in a peaceful world, as a retarded reaction to the end of the War of 1812 and Napoleonic Wars.

• The American shipping boom ended with British merchant ships restarting the trade on roads they had abandoned during the wars.

• The 1787 Northwest Ordinance explicitly banned, but made no reference to, slavery in the northern part of Trans-Appalachia. 

  • Because the Old Nordwest and Southwest expansion was so much lateral.