HIS: Activities (Module 5)

Tumultuous political change came to the United States in the 1820s to 1840s. One of the biggest transformations was the emergence of the Second Party System. Unlike the First Party System between the Federalists and Democratic Republicans, the new parties of Democrats and Whigs in the Second Party System that emerged after 1834 were far more organized and developed clearer platforms articulating their stand on issues of the day. As increasing numbers of Americans were able to participate in the voting process, and as society faced ongoing economic, social, and technological changes, party lines were more sharply drawn around competing visions for the nation's future—whether it involved westward expansion, more or less slavery, and a smaller or bigger federal and state government. Evidence of the emergence of political parties—specifically, the Second Party System—could most clearly be seen in the outcome of presidential elections from 1824 to 1848.

"An available candidate—the one qualification for a Whig president" by N. Currier Firm (1848). With the solidification of the Second Party System in the 1820s, party lines became sharply defined and party competition on the national level increased. This political cartoon, from the 1848 presidential election, an attack on Whig principles, shows a man in military uniform holding a sword and seated on a pile of skulls. The skulls and sword allude to the bloody but successful Mexican War campaigns waged by both Taylor and Scott, which earned them popularity among Whigs. The figure here has traditionally been identified as Taylor, but the military uniform indicates this was more likely Scott. The print may have appeared during the swell of popular support that arose for Scott as a rival to Zachary Taylor in the last few months before the party's convention in Philadelphia on June 7, 1848. In those contests, Democrats and Republicans (and Whigs after 1834) fought bitterly to see their candidates—and visions of America—prevail'' John Quincy Adams and the Elections of 1824 and 1828 There were five strong contenders eyeing the presidency in 1824: William Crawford, secretary of the treasury, a Georgian and apparent heir to the Virginia dynasty; John Quincy Adams, the secretary of state and son of President John Adams; John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, secretary of war; Henry Clay of Kentucky, Speaker of the House of Representatives; and war hero Andrew Jackson of Tennessee. Although several of these candidates lacked national support, they hoped to prevail if the election went to the House of Representatives to be decided. Openly partisan newspapers praised their man and published negative rumors about his opponents. Disenchanted, many American voters stayed away from the polls in 1824. Jackson's popular vote nearly equaled that of Adams and Crawford combined, but the election was indeed sent to the House of Representatives to choose among the top three candidates: Jackson, Adams, and Crawford. Andrew Jackson. Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) first ran for president in the election of 1824, against four other candidates with extensive experience in national politics. With the solidification of the Second Party System, party loyalty and competition intensified. Although Jackson received a significant number of popular votes, the election was sent to the House of Representatives, which elected John Quincy Adams, after a deal was struck with another presidential candidate, Henry Clay

"War Hawks"—most notably congressmen Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun—desired to go to war with Great Britain under the banner of preserving the liberty that the Revolutionary generation fought for. Initially desirous of remaining neutral, President James Madison agreed with Clay and Calhoun by April 1812. Though Federalists did believe that the British violated the national sovereignty of the United States by impressing American seamen, restricting American trade with the rest of Europe via the British Order of Council, and attacking American cargo ships en route to France, they did not support going to war with Great Britain. The Federalists raised many concerns, arguing that the young republic lacked the financial and military resources to fight a war and fearing that the United States would foster an undesired alliance with Napoleon's France. Federalists opposed attacking British strongholds in neighboring Canada, an action that the "War Hawks" promoted.

A civil war between factions of Creek Indians raged concurrently with the War of 1812 as the nativist Red Sticks battled accommodationist Creek leaders who satisfied the seemingly endless Anglo-American demand for land. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March 1814 effectively ended this internal struggle as U.S. General Andrew Jackson led some 3,000 militia and Indian allies against 1,000 Red Sticks. Some 800 Red Sticks perished, and the remainder fled to Florida, where they allied with nativist Seminoles to continue their struggle, while the remaining Creeks ceded another 20 million acres of land to the United States in the wake of the battle.

Some Native American groups had strong nativist beliefs, or opinions that favor the preservation of a given native group over a given immigrant group. Groups led by Shawnee brothers Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh and the militant Red Sticks actively opposed white settlement in the West, which was made possible by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and land sales made by accommodationist Native American leaders in the Mississippi region. In addition, the 1809 Treaty of Fort Wayne surrendered millions more acres of Native American land in the Indiana Territory to the United States. Also, the Battle of Tippecanoe of November 1811, wherein General William Henry Harrison burned the Shawnee village of Prophetstown, contributed to an increased appreciation for the British cause among the nativist Shawnee. Hence, many militant Native Americans allied with the British during the War of 1812 in the hopes of opposing future U.S. expansion.

A civil war between factions of Creek Indians raged concurrently with the War of 1812 as the nativist Red Sticks battled accommodationist Creek leaders who satisfied the seemingly endless Anglo-American demand for land. The Battle of Horseshoe Bend in March 1814 effectively ended this internal struggle as U.S. General Andrew Jackson led some 3,000 militia and Indian allies against 1,000 Red Sticks. Some 800 Red Sticks perished, and the remainder fled to Florida, where they allied with nativist Seminoles to continue their struggle, while the remaining Creeks ceded another 20 million acres of land to the United States in the wake of the battle.

The Missouri Compromise of 1820 originated out of a need to balance political and economic power, mainly by having a balance between the number of slave and free states. Missouri would remain a slave state and be admitted to the Union. Maine would be admitted into the Union as a free state, keeping the balance of power between free and slave states. Additionally, it was decided that slavery would be prohibited in all the lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase that were north of the southern border of Missouri—with the exception of Arkansas—and slaves who escaped to free states would be returned. Even though a balance of power was reached, debates over slavery created a division in the Union between the North and the South. This article's author wanted readers to remember the themes surrounding the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark expedition. The Louisiana Purchase involved the selling of the Louisiana Territory by Napoleon to the United States, doubling the size of the United States and reducing Spain's dominance in the West. Lewis and Clark set out on an expedition to the Pacific Ocean in an attempt to find the Northwest Passage, gain geographic knowledge of the unexplored West, and gain descriptions of unknown species of plants and animals.

Building a National Economy Several factors paved the way for the development of a market-based economy in the early nineteenth century. Historians refer to this shift from an economy based largely on subsistence agriculture (or producing primarily what a family needed to consume, with some trade for other necessary items) to production primarily for sale in the marketplace as the market revolution. But the growth of the U.S. economy could not happen without changing expectations of the role of the federal and state governments in stimulating and stabilizing the economy. The market revolution would have wide-ranging impact on society, particularly on the roles of men and women. The changes it produced would also inspire a host of new movements to reform and improve society. Leading members of the Republican Party, long opposed to federal power, began to view the central government more favorably after the victory over Britain in 1815. Believing that the nation's future lay in commerce and industry, young Republicans such as Henry Clay of Kentucky and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina urged Congress and the president to encourage and aid the growth of enterprise by creating roads, canals, a strong navy, and a national bank.

Although cotton was by far the most profitable crop in the South, it was not the only one. The Upper South grew very little cotton and instead focused on growing corn, wheat, and tobacco. Coastal South Carolina and Georgia, along with inland Louisiana, became wealthy from slave-grown rice, and coastal Louisiana and Texas had a sufficiently tropical climate to raise sugar, a highly profitable crop. Moreover, several regions of the Upper and Deep South raised the beef cattle or harvested the timber that supported the South's rapidly expanding slave-based economy.

The Erie Canal As the United States entered into a period of industrial and agricultural growth, new forms of transportation emerged to facilitate this process, including the engineering developments associated with man-made canals. The most famous of these canals was the Erie Canal, which was intended to stimulate growth in the western portion of New York State. Construction began in 1817, and despite predictions that it would take nearly thirty years to complete, the canal was finished in 1825.

The War of 1812 Begins Many Washington officials interpreted Tippecanoe as evidence that a British-Indian alliance already existed. "War Hawks" in Congress, including the newly elected Speaker of the House, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and Representative John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, advocated preparations for war. Henry Clay. Henry Clay (1777-1852) played a key role in national politics in the first half of the nineteenth century. During James Madison's administration, he— along with South Carolina Representative John C. Calhoun—supported going to war against Great Britain in 1812. This print shows a full-length portrait of Clay sitting under tree with a dog at his feet.

They, in Calhoun's words, had to prove to "the World, that we have not only inherited that liberty which our Fathers gave us, but also the will and power to maintain it." By April 1812, President Madison agreed. The Federalists, only one-fourth of Congress and primarily from New England, opposed conflict with Great Britain. The Democratic-Republicans were divided. Military funding would prove difficult because the charter of the Bank of the United States had been allowed to expire in 1811, leaving state banks, but no central agency as a source of loans. Lack of federal taxes beyond import duties, which fell sharply when the British blockaded the Atlantic coast, further limited the country's resources. The failure of New England leaders to provide their share of funds hampered the war effort, and the governors of Massachusetts and Connecticut refused to send their militia. But the majority of representatives from Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine (still part of Massachusetts) voted in favor of the June 1812 declaration of war. Large numbers of the region's young men enlisted in the army. The War of 1812 Many of the battles occurred in the Great Lakes region, on the U.S.-Canadian border. In 1814, the British failed in their attempt to defeat the United States by taking Washington, D.C. Their attack on New Orleans occurred after the Treaty of Ghent.

In New Mexico, the Spanish finally achieved peace with the Comanches and Apaches and signed a treaty recognizing their sovereignty. The Spanish sent prisoners of war to Cuba and settled others on reservations called establecimientos de paz, or peace establishments. Although many Apaches resisted, the fighting eventually stopped, making Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona safer for travel and economic development. For several decades, fearing Russian and British incursions along the Pacific coast, Spain had expanded settlements in California, setting up missions and presidios from San Diego to San Francisco. Alhough fewer than a thousand Hispanics lived in California by 1790, the missions controlled most of the arable land along the Pacific. California Indians declined sharply in population after contact with Europeans, from approximately 60,000 in 1769 to 35,000 at the end of the century. The Spanish also looked to the Pacific Northwest, but as the trade for sea otter furs grew, British and American merchants sailed to Nootka Sound, at Vancouver Island, challenging the Spanish claim to the area. When the Spanish seized two British ships, England threatened war. Spain signed the Nootka Convention (1790), yielding its sole claim to the Pacific Northwest. During the 1790s and beyond, the countries failed to negotiate a northern boundary of California. ^ Collapse MPI/Getty Images The Louisiana Purchase Jefferson boosted his popularity prior to the 1804 election with the Louisiana Purchase, the greatest success of his presidency, which doubled the size of the United States and reduced Spain's dominance west of the Mississippi River. The chain of events leading to the Louisiana Purchase began in 1800, when France signed a secret treaty with Spain to recover the lands in western North America it had ceded to Spain in 1763. When Jefferson and Madison heard in 1801 of the impending transfer, they sent the new U.S. minister to France, Robert R. Livingston, with instructions to prevent the exchange or at least obtain West Florida. Napoleon decided to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States. The French leader's zeal to construct an American empire had cooled with the loss of his army in St. Domingue. The United States agreed to pay France $15 million, respect the rights of the French and Native Americans living in the territory, and recognize the French residents as American citizens. Jefferson worried, as a strict constructionist, that the Louisiana Purchase was unconstitutional because the federal government had no specific power to acquire territory. However, he was confident that the Louisiana Purchase would extend the life of the republic by providing space for generations of virtuous, independent farmers. The establishment of boundaries raised diplomatic conflicts with Spain. Jefferson pushed for the most generous interpretation, demanding West Florida as well as all of Texas and part of New Mexico, and in the Northwest to the Rocky Mountains. Spain, however, said the Louisiana Territory included only a constricted region along the west bank of the Mississippi from northern Missouri to the Gulf of Mexico. The United States eventually conceded, but continued to eye these regions hungrily. ^ Collapse Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division The Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1804-1806 Jefferson next sponsored an exploratory mission to the Pacific Ocean for scientific knowledge and to promote American interests in the West. He appointed his private secretary, Meriwether Lewis, captain of the enterprise. Lewis chose his friend William Clark to be his partner in what became known as the Lewis and Clark expedition. Lewis and Clark had served in the army together in the Old Northwest and were familiar with frontier conditions. Jefferson wanted his explorers to find the elusive northwest passage, fill in huge blanks in geographic knowledge of the West, and bring back descriptions of species of previously unknown plants and animals. He also hoped they would make peaceful contact with Native Americans to expand commercial networks for fur traders. Lewis and Clark more than fulfilled their assignment, keeping daily journals of their experiences, including descriptions of Indian societies, systematic weather records, and observations of flora and fauna, as well as a detailed map of their journey. Their relations with the people of the Northwest were for the most part amicable. Lewis and Clark received commissions as army officers to lead the Corps of Discovery of about forty men who departed from St. Louis in May 1804. In April 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition set out with a Shoshone woman, Sacagawea, and her French husband and infant son. They proceeded up the Missouri River, made an arduous crossing of the Rockies, and reached the mouth of the Columbia River before winter. At the same time, concerned about protecting their silver mines in Mexico, the Spanish took steps to increase settlement in Texas. They welcomed Indian exiles—Cherokees, Choctaws, and Alabamas—from lands overrun by American settlers east of the Mississippi, but the Hispanic population failed to grow significantly. New Spain officials barred U.S. citizens from Texas. Anglo-American traders continued to infiltrate Texas, however, to trap animals and bargain for horses with the Comanches and other Indians. Meanwhile, Aaron Burr, who in 1804 had killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel and was estranged from Jefferson, conceived a plot to create a separate nation in the West. He contacted the double agent James Wilkinson, various unhappy politicians, and representatives of foreign governments, suggesting plans including an invasion of New Spain, an attack on Washington, D.C., and secession of the West. Wilkinson cooperated at first, then turned informer. Burr tried to escape to Europe but was captured and taken to Richmond, Virginia, where he was tried in 1807. ^ Collapse Cengage Learning New Borders President Monroe worked to establish clearer borders for the young nation and succeeded when Great Britain and the United States clarified the boundaries between Canada and the United States. The Rush-Bagot Treaty of 1817 calmed conflict on the Great Lakes, and the Convention of 1818 fixed the border with Canada at the forty-ninth parallel. In the West, Andrew Jackson was placed in charge of negotiating with the Creek, Cherokee, Chickasaw, and Choctaw nations of Alabama, Florida, and Mississippi after the peace of 1815. Jackson used heavy-handed treaties to force Native Americans from their former lands. Many resisted, objecting that the treaties Jackson had extracted had been signed by leaders who had no authority. Redrawing the Nation's Boundaries A series of land purchases and treaties expanded the nation's boundaries significantly between 1783 and 1819

White settlers rushed into the territories, pushing native peoples to the hilly, mountainous lands least desirable for farming. Such incursions occurred across millions of acres in North Carolina, Kentucky, and Tennessee, as well as in Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. In the Northwest, the U.S. government facilitated white settlement by establishing forts to intimidate Native Americans and ensure that the British did not regain a foothold. The growing numbers of white farmers made it difficult for Native Americans to hunt for a living. Lands Ceded by Native Americans The United States negotiated one treaty after another with Native Americans in the decades after 1815, acquiring land and pushing the natives of these areas to the west The Spanish in Florida After 1815, without the assistance of the British, the Spanish in Florida found it impossible to resist American incursions into their territory. To make relations even more volatile, sixty miles from the southern border of the United States stood the so-called Negro Fort near Pensacola, occupied by runaway slaves and their Indian allies. In 1816 the Americans sent an expedition against the fort; a projectile hit a powder magazine, killing 270 men, women, and children inside. Two years later, Jackson's forces also punished groups of Seminoles who, along with their Creek allies, had launched raids against white settlers in south Georgia and then fled into Florida. Meanwhile, American and Spanish officials negotiated. The U.S. delegation was led by John Quincy Adams, son of the former president. With Jackson's military victories giving force to his words, Adams held out until the Spanish, in return for $5 million in compensation for private claims, ceded to the United States all territories east of the Mississippi River. In this, the Adams-Onís Treaty of 1819, the Spanish kept the vast territory from Texas to present-day California, and the United States claimed a northern border that ran unbroken to Oregon and the Pacific Ocean. ^ Collapse Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images The Missouri Compromise, 1820 The recent admission of the new states of the Southwest and Old Northwest had left a precarious balance in the Senate between slave states and free, although northern states held preponderance in the House of Representatives. Slavery had quickly spread in Missouri; if Missouri were admitted with slavery, then slave states would hold a majority in the Senate. Slavery in Missouri, an area of the same latitude as much of Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, seemed to violate the assumption long held by many northerners that if slavery grew, it would expand only in the South. This was not about ending slavery; that viewpoint would come later. This was strictly about the balance of political (and indirectly economic) power. For months in 1819, congressmen introduced, debated, and voted unsuccessfully on various compromise measures. Both northern and southern politicians talked openly of ending the Union. In northern states, people began to oppose slavery publicly. Furious meetings erupted in towns and cities across the North, turning out antislavery petitions and resolutions in large numbers. Slavery, these petitions thundered, was a violation of the spirit of Christianity and a blot on the nation that must not spread into places it had not already ruined. After weeks of debate, the Missouri Compromise emerged from the Senate: Missouri, with no restriction on slavery, should be admitted to the Union at the same time as Maine, thereby ensuring the balance between slave and free states. Slavery would be prohibited in all the lands acquired in the Louisiana Purchase north of the southern border of Missouri at 36°30' latitude (with the exception of Arkansas, where slavery already existed). Slaves who escaped to free states would be returned. Neither side was happy: many northern congressmen who voted for the measure were defeated in reelection bids, and southerners were furious to hear themselves vilified in the national capital they had long dominated. The debates over slavery in Missouri created "the North" and "the South," uniting the new states of the Northwest with the states of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, and forging a tighter alliance among the new states of the Southwest and Virginia, the Carolinas, and Georgia

Construction of the Erie Canal began in 1817. The project took just over eight years, much to the surprise of detractors who questioned New York State's ability to complete such an arduous task. In addition to having to negotiate difficult terrain, more than one thousand workers died of swamp-borne diseases during construction. Diligence paid off, however, and by the time of its completion in 1825, the Erie Canal facilitated the efficient transportation of both goods and people between New York City and the towns and cities of the western portion of the state. Boats could take the Hudson River north from New York City, connect to the canal in Albany, and then continue west. The canal stimulated settlement west of the Appalachian Mountains, made New York City the economic center of the country, and contributed to the growth of cities such as Albany, Buffalo, and Rochester.

Due to a shortage of skilled engineers, the design and construction of the Erie Canal fell to amateurs. Facing obstacles such as natural waterways, forests, and differences in elevation between Buffalo and Albany, these amateur builders devised an innovative system of aqueducts over rivers and engineered locks to make up for the elevation difference. Despite their inexperience, however, they were able to conquer the 363 miles of challenging terrain between Albany and Buffalo.

An Expanding Nation During the 1780s, the region west of the Appalachians and south of the Ohio River developed quickly as families left Virginia and North Carolina, seeking fertile land and lower taxes. White settlement of Kentucky and Tennessee proceeded as state governments, speculators, and frontiersmen defeated the Cherokees, who claimed ancestral rights to the territory. Believing that they were renting the land, in 1775 some Cherokee leaders traded 27,000 square miles—most of Kentucky—to Richard Henderson and his associates for a cabin of consumer goods. Called Henderson's Purchase, the sale was illegal in Indian and English law. In the 1780s and early 1790s, militant Cherokees, called Chickamaugas, allied with Creeks and Shawnees against settlers along the frontier from Kentucky to Georgia. Fighting was vicious, with men, women, and children burned, scalped, and shot. The Washington administration attempted to end the hostilities with the Treaty of Holston in 1791, but it gave responsibility for negotiating with the Cherokees to Governor William Blount of the Tennessee Territory, a land speculator the Indians called "dirt king" for his greed. Blount ignored Washington's promise to the Cherokees that if they ceded territory on which the whites had settled, the United States would guarantee their remaining lands. The treaty fell apart and war continued. In 1794, after their leader Dragging Canoe died and the Spanish stopped supplying the Indians because of war in Europe, the Chickamaugas met defeat. By the end of the war, parts of Kentucky and Tennessee had passed the initial stages of settlement. Settlers grew corn, tobacco, hemp, cotton, vegetables, and fruits; raised cattle, sheep, horses, and pigs; and hunted and fished. Farmers sought markets via the Mississippi River and the port of New Orleans. But transporting crops overland through the mountains was much more difficult than sending them downstream, so southwestern farmers demanded that the federal government convince Spain to end its restrictions on lower Mississippi shipping. ^ Collapse National Archives The Ohio Country White settlement moved more slowly north of the Ohio River, where Delawares, Shawnees, Iroquois, and many others refused to cede lands. In the 1780s, the United States obtained a series of cessions, but Indians who were not party to the agreements rejected them. Forming a confederacy, Ohio Indians attacked whites who risked settling in the region. This northern Indian confederacy allied with the Chickamaugas and Creeks in the South, establishing a pan-Indian defensive that gained help from the Spanish in the South and the British in the North. In the early 1790s, President Washington challenged the northern confederacy by sending two expeditions, both of them unsuccessful. After regrouping, in 1794 he defeated the Native Americans at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. A year later, when it became clear to the Native Americans that their alliance with the British had ended, they signed the Treaty of Greenville, ceding to the United States the land south and east of the treaty line, most of it in present-day Ohio. Signatures of Native Americans on the Treaty of Greenville, 1795. Indian leaders commonly used symbols such as diagrams of animals to sign deeds and treaties.

The Whiskey Rebellion, 1794 In 1794, the Washington administration also sent troops against western Pennsylvania farmers, who since 1791 had resisted the whiskey tax. In what became known as the Whiskey Rebellion, farmers tarred and feathered collaborators, burned barns, and destroyed the stills of people who paid the tax. The insurgents understood their fight as a struggle for "the virtuous principles of republican liberty." Farmers' complaints also included failure to open up the Ohio country and remove the Spanish trade restrictions on the Mississippi. In July 1794, when officials continued to collect the tax and arrest resisters, 500 men surrounded the excise inspector's home, exchanged gunfire that killed several people, and burned the house. The official and his family escaped. Demonstrations and violence spread to central Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, and Ohio. Washington called up 13,000 eastern militia, who marched west with the president briefly in command. The show of force intimidated the rebels, and the revolt ended. The administration had demonstrated that armed resistance to federal policies would not be tolerated. ^ Collapse National Archives The Spanish Frontier The 1790s marked the high point of Spain's control in North America, with its provinces extending from East Florida across the Gulf Coast to Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and California. The Spanish government viewed these borderlands as a buffer against American and British designs on Mexican silver. Nevertheless, the Spanish decided to open their territory to Americans, hoping to bolster the small settler populations. Spain offered free land in the Floridas and Louisiana, and changed official policy to allow Protestants to keep their religion if they pledged allegiance to the Crown and had their children baptized as Catholic. It also allowed plantation owners in the borderlands to sell their sugar, cotton, and indigo in the United States. These new immigration and economic policies facilitated the later U.S. acquisition of the Floridas and Louisiana. California Indians. California Indians are lined up at the Spanish mission in Carmel to greet French visitors.

The combined population of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana more than tripled between 1810 and 1820. Newcomers to the Old Southwest first settled along rivers that made it possible to transport cotton to market and where the Creeks and other Native Americans exercised no claims. New plantation districts emerged, centering on Montgomery in Alabama, Jackson in Mississippi, and Memphis in Tennessee—all areas taken from Native Americans since 1814. Small farmers also settled in the region, although they were typically located farthest from the rivers, surviving by hunting, foraging, and growing small amounts of cotton. Young planters, lawyers, and newspaper editors headed to the Southwest as well, eager to build a prosperous world resembling that of Virginia or Carolina. ^ Collapse Print Collector/Hulton Archieve/Getty Images Emergence of the Old Northwest The area west of the Appalachians, north of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi River—the Old Northwest—was growing even faster than the Southwest, propelled by the promise of good land and, to some extent, freedom from slavery. Economically, the region would quickly become a source of commercial farming of foodstuffs early on, as well as lumber by the 1840s. From 1800 to 1820, the trans-Appalachian population grew from about 300,000 inhabitants to more than 2 million, most of whom emigrated in family or community groups. Northeasterners eyed the prospect of fertile land—increasingly scarce in their homeland—as a chance for upward mobility. Storekeepers, too, were among the first to arrive and flourish. People settled in regions with climates that most resembled those of their home states: large parts of southern Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois were settled by people from Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. New Englanders and New Yorkers filled the northern parts of the new states. Two out of three migrants moved within a few years as rumors circulated about better land or opportunities farther west. Those who remained in a community became its leading citizens, consolidating land into larger farms, setting up gristmills and sawmills, and running for office, establishing the small towns that served as county seats and trading centers. As the railroad pushed into the Old Northwest, it further shaped the region's growth. Farmers began to specialize, becoming dairymen, vegetable growers, or fruit producers. Corn, wheat, hogs, and cattle flowed out of Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin. This transformation encouraged similar specialization in the older farms of New England, New York, and Pennsylvania, which turned to such products as cheese, maple sugar, vegetables, and cranberries. Rural and urban areas of the Old Northwest were economically interdependent: cities served as markets for farm goods as well as hubs for crops and livestock to be transported to other regions by railroad or steamboat. ^ Collapse Cengage Learning Production in the Northeast The Northeast, too, grew and flourished. Local production prospered when trade dried up during the War of 1812. Local blacksmiths, tailors, cobblers, and other artisans supplied what families could not produce for themselves, and local mills processed crops and lumber. Household manufacturing peaked in 1815. After 1815, farms throughout New England, New York, and Pennsylvania were tied more tightly to the economies of towns and cities. Farm families produced more cash crops and bought more goods with money rather than through barter. Women worked in their homes to produce palm hats, portions of shoes, or articles of clothing that merchants from nearby cities had assembled in workshops. These women added such piecework to their farm work. With young men leaving New England for the West, many communities found themselves with young women who might never marry and older women who could not count on sons for support. Piecework enabled these women to provide scarce cash for their household economies. Early Cotton Mills in the Northeast, 1810-1840 The cheap cotton of the South combined with the cheap labor and abundant waterpower of the Northeast to create the United States' first industrial economy in small towns and cities located on streams.

Although it would be generations before cities and factories dominated the Northeast, the textile industry of New England was a dramatic example of early industrial growth. Francis Cabot Lowell of Boston designed a power loom in 1813, re-creating from memory a machine he had seen on a trip to England. The same year, Lowell and a partner, Nathan Appleton, spent more than $400,000 to open the first factory in the United States that could integrate under one roof every step of production: the Boston Manufacturing Company, in Waltham, Massachusetts, where a waterfall with a ten-foot drop offered free power. Lowell and Appleton, fearful of re-creating the alienated and despised working class they saw in England, recruited young New England farm girls as operatives. Young textile mill workers at Cornell Mill, Fall River, Massachusetts. One area of early development in manufacturing was in textiles, particularly in New England communities. Owners hired young girls from nearby farms to work in the textile mills, like the Cornell Mill at Fall River and the Lowell Mills at Lowell, both located in Massachusetts. At the Lowell Mills, the girls lived and worked in an environment that aimed to look after their moral well-being, as a means of reassuring their families. They convinced the girls' parents to consider their daughters' millwork a three- or four-year commitment before marriage. The girls worked fourteen hours a day, six days a week. The factory life was unlike anything the young women had ever experienced.

Though both Great Britain and the United States could claim military victories in several battles that took place during the War of 1812, neither country felt it could win the war. Thus, British and American delegations met in the neutral city of Ghent in what is now Belgium in August 1814. The negotiations dragged on until late that year, when, on Christmas Eve 1814, the delegates announced the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The treaty provided for a return to normal relations between Great Britain and the United States as they existed prior to the war. In addition, Britain dropped its territorial demands, and the United States discontinued its demands for the British to denounce impressment—a practice the British ceased before the war ended. Though British and American delegates signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814, news of the agreement did not cross the Atlantic until February 1815. In the meantime, American and British troops engaged in battles along the southern Gulf Coast, first at Mobile, Alabama, and then at New Orleans. Under General Andrew Jackson, American troops, including 600 free African American volunteers, engaged with British general Sir Edward Pakenham's troops on January 8, 1815. The Americans killed more than 2,000 British troops, including Pakenham and two other generals, in less than one hour. By comparison, Jackson lost only thirteen men. By mid-February 1815, Washington became aware of Jackson's victory and the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which restored peace between Great Britain and the United States.

As tensions flared between Great Britain and the United States, Anglo-Americans worried that the British would stoke Native American discontent that would foster an alliance between the two. However, Native Americans did not need the British to provide them with reasons to take issue with Anglo-Americans as white settlers poured onto Indian lands in steadily increasing numbers. Some Native American groups had strong nativist beliefs, or opinions that favor the preservation of a given native group over a given immigrant group. Groups led by Shawnee brothers Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh and the militant Red Sticks actively opposed white settlement in the West, which was made possible by the Louisiana Purchase in 1803 and land sales made by accommodationist Native American leaders in the Mississippi region.

1814: The Treaty of Ghent Peace came in 1814 as both the British and the United States recognized that they had little hope of victory. As the British considered the terms for peace, news arrived that the Americans had repelled the offensives at Lake Champlain and Baltimore. Although some Britons desired revenge, more wanted to resume trade. Madison authorized John Quincy Adams, Albert Gallatin, Henry Clay, and two others to meet a British peace delegation in August 1814 at Ghent, in what is now Belgium. After several months of stalemate, the negotiators agreed on Christmas Eve, 1814, to return to the status quo at the outbreak of war. The British dropped their demands for part of Maine and an independent Indian Territory north of the Ohio River, and the Americans stopped insisting that the British renounce impressment, which had ceased.

Battle of New Orleans, 1815 Bad weather in the Atlantic delayed the ship bringing news of the Treaty of Ghent until February. In the meantime, British forces prepared to move against the Gulf Coast. A fleet of 60 ships and 14,000 men planned to attack Mobile, seize control of the coast and the rivers, and then move against New Orleans. For Americans unaware of the peace treaty, such a plan posed a serious threat. A British invasion threatened to bring free and enslaved African Americans, French and Spanish settlers, Native Americans, and even pirates into the conflict throughout the Gulf territories. American commander Andrew Jackson repelled the British at Mobile, then raced to New Orleans, arriving before the British in December 1814. When 600 free blacks volunteered to help defend the city, Jackson gratefully accepted. The British general in charge, Sir Edward Pakenham, unleashed a frontal assault on January 8, 1815. Jackson's troops, dug in behind earthworks, fired into the charging British troops. In less than an hour, it was over: Pakenham and two of his generals lay dead, along with more than 2,000 of their troops. The Americans suffered only thirteen dead and a few dozen wounded or missing. Nearly a month later, word of Jackson's remarkable success reached the nation's capital. Nine days later, word of the Treaty of Ghent, ratified two weeks before the Battle of New Orleans, arrived. The Atlantic world was at peace.

Because his fourth-place finish took him out of the running, Clay, the Speaker of the House, sought to strike a deal with the other candidates, whereby he might also benefit. Considering Jackson a potential military despot, Clay discussed his possible future with Adams. When the vote came to the House of Representatives in early 1825, Adams won the presidency, taking the three states Clay had won in the electoral college. Two weeks later, Henry Clay received the appointment of secretary of state, which had people speculating about what promises Adams had made to Clay to win the presidency, and angering Andrew Jackson, who considered himself the true victor. As president, Adams wanted a stronger national government, internal improvements, and a tariff to protect American industry, but he could not mobilize public or political support. His administration was bogged down in factionalism and paralysis, with his supposed "corrupt bargain" with Clay darkening his reputation. As the 1828 election approached, supporters of Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, and William Crawford of Georgia united to unseat Adams. After some jockeying, Andrew Jackson emerged as the man to challenge Adams. Martin Van Buren, who had created a powerful political organization in New York, opposed Adams in the presidential contest of 1824 because Adams's nationally sponsored canals, roads, education, and other services would cut into the power of state government, elevating what Van Buren saw as dangerous federal power over power closer to home. In 1828, Van Buren, now a senator, worked energetically for Jackson. Adams's supporters warned of the dangers of electing a raw and rough "military chieftain" such as Jackson to the presidency and distributed a handbill marked with eighteen coffins, each one representing a man Jackson had supposedly killed under his military command. The most incendiary charge, however, was that Jackson had married a woman who was married to another man. It appears that Rachel Jackson was a religious woman trapped in a bad marriage, who thought she had received a divorce when she married Jackson.

Birth of the Democrats Van Buren traveled throughout the United States, hammering out a new coalition of ambitious state politicians supporting Jackson. Members called themselves "Democratic Republicans," eventually shortened to "Democrats." Their candidates did extremely well in the off-year congressional elections of 1827, exploiting people's disapproval of the ineffectual Adams administration. The Democrats controlled both the House and the Senate. In preparation for Jackson's contest with Adams, Van Buren and other party leaders organized voters using various strategies—bonfires, speeches, barbecues, parades, professional writers, and the first campaign song—and claimed that "Old Hickory," as Jackson was called, was a true man of the people. The National Republicans, as Adams's supporters became known, scoffed that Jackson's team diverted attention from real issues, but they could not deny the power of the new methods to win voters' attention. In the meantime, American politics became more democratic and inclusive. Most legislatures lowered property requirements for voting and made judicial offices elective rather than appointed. As a result, voter turnout in 1828 was double that of the 1824 election. The dramatic confrontation of men and styles contributed to widespread voter interest. Jackson easily beat Adams, securing 178 of the 261 electoral votes and capturing the critical mid-Atlantic states and the entire West and South. The Election of 1828 Andrew Jackson overwhelmed John Quincy Adams almost everywhere except in Adams's native New England.

John C. Calhoun. John C. Calhoun (1782-1850) had a long and storied career in national politics, having been vice president, secretary of state, and senator and representative from the state of South Carolina. After the War of 1812, Calhoun increasingly supported federal policies—collectively known as the American System—that would encourage economic growth. These nationalists dubbed their vision the American System and called for tariffs that would protect American manufacturing, federal roads to tie the newly expanded markets and farms together, and a system of canals to connect the abundant rivers and lakes throughout the nation. ^ Collapse Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-DIG-det-4a31386], Washington, D.C. 20540 USA Widening Distribution of Money and Credit Many influential men, including the recently elected President Monroe, supported a new national bank to stabilize the economy and distribute money more uniformly. Advocates of the bank argued that the expanding country's economic system needed a central institution to coordinate the flow of money because notes issued by state banks varied greatly in value, making the economic system dangerously unstable. Accordingly, in 1816 Congress chartered the Second Bank of the United States. Based in Philadelphia, the new national bank was an amalgam of public and private enterprise: the federal government deposited its funds in the bank and appointed a fifth of the directors, but the bank operated as a private business and could establish branches wherever it wished. The bank pumped paper currency into the system to feed the hungry postwar economy, especially in the West, where land speculation fueled demand for access to easy credit. The Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Marshall issued several important decisions following the War of 1812 that also hastened economic development.

Chief Justice John Marshall. John Marshall was chief justice of the Supreme Court during several key cases in the early nineteenth century that helped establish the right of the court to make decisions on constitutional law and the extent of the court's power. Several court decisions made after the War of 1812 provided an impetus for national economic growth. An 1819 decision made bankruptcy laws more uniform nationwide; another, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, sheltered corporations from legislative interference; and yet another, Gibbons v. Ogden, limited states' rights to interfere in commerce with special favors, monopolies, or restrictive laws. In McCulloch v. Maryland, which established the constitutionality of the Bank of the United States and protected it from state taxation, the Supreme Court ruled that the laws of the federal government "form the supreme law of the land." In this new legal environment, business flourished. ^ Collapse SSPL/Getty Images New Modes of Transport After 1815, investors, states, and the federal government built thousands of miles of private roads called turnpikes that fostered transportation and fueled business between states. In 1818, the U.S. government opened the National Road, connecting the Potomac River at Cumberland, Maryland, with Wheeling, Virginia (now West Virginia), on the Ohio River. The road had excellent bridges and a relatively smooth stone surface. It attracted so much business, however, that traffic jammed and it quickly fell into poor condition. Private corporations and state governments began to plan dependable canals with controllable locks and a steady flow of water. In New York, in 1817 construction began on the Erie Canal connecting the Hudson River with Lake Erie—which, at 363 miles, would be ten times longer than any canal then in existence. As soon as workers completed a segment, boats crowded its waters, and the tolls they paid financed the portions yet unfinished. The Erie Canal was completed in 1825, and by 1834, approximately nine boats passed through its major locks each minute. Rivers were also exploited for transportation. The Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio offered faster and cheaper travel than over land, but they could be dangerously fast in some seasons and too slow in others. In addition, they often froze in winter, and strong currents ran in only one direction. Not surprisingly, people dreamed of using steam engines to drive riverboats. By 1811, Robert Fulton built a steamship intrepid enough for the Mississippi and soon faced dozens of competitors. In 1819, the journey from New Orleans to Louisville had been reduced from several months to fourteen days. The increasing speed and frequency of the steamboats encouraged the growth of villages and towns along the rivers, such as Louisville, Pittsburgh, and Cincinnati. Ships carried mail, freight, and passengers along the eastern seaboard and Great Lakes, and facilitated international travel between New York and Liverpool beginning in 1848. Along with the world's fastest ships, in the late 1840s and early 1850s, the United States had the fastest-growing railroad lines. Private investors poured tens of millions of dollars into rail expansion, and the federal government aided railroads with free surveys and vast land grants. Railroads flourished in New England and New York with their dense populations and industrialization. Midwestern states such as Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana were also well suited to the railroads and benefitted from the links they provided for the region's farm products with the burgeoning markets of the East. Chicago had no railroads at all in 1850, but by 1860 twelve lines converged in the city. In the South, still recovering from failed improvement schemes and loan repudiation after the economic crises of the late 1830s, railroad building trailed off in the 1840s. Still, states such as Virginia aggressively pursued rail construction beginning in 1847 and had spent more than $15 million by 1860 in loans for the building of two state-owned lines. North Carolina reversed decades of opposition to state-supported improvements in 1849, building a major line and subsidizing plank roads and private rail lines. Nonetheless, most southerners relied on the steamboats that plied the Mississippi and other major rivers. ^ Collapse Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Regional Growth Following the War of 1812, America experienced a surge in economic growth that, combined with internal improvements in transportation, led each region—Northeast, South, and Northwest—to develop in unique but interconnected ways. The South became increasingly focused on cotton cultivation, which also meant greater dependence on slave labor. The Northeast concentrated on industrial growth, particularly the textile factories that transformed southern cotton into fabric and the shoe factories that sold inexpensive footwear worn by slaves. The Old Northwest developed commercial agriculture and lumber needed by the South and Northeast. ^ Collapse Collection of the New-York Historical Society The Cotton South In the early nineteenth century, cotton became king in the South, fueling the region's growth and expansion, and making more than a few farmers wealthy. Two trends powered this development: first, the advent of the cotton gin in the late eighteenth century made cotton cultivation cheaper and more profitable. Second, the demand for cotton increased worldwide after the War of 1812, as the textile became the fabric of choice for clothing production for the first time. In the 1810s and 1820s, small farmers and planters from the older states of the southern seaboard moved to the new states of Alabama and Mississippi further west (sometimes called the Old Southwest), seeking larger landholdings and opportunities for wealth. They brought with them hundreds of thousands of slaves—some they owned previously, but many others were acquired as slave owners in the older states of the Atlantic seaboard sold off "surplus" slaves. Demand for slaves in the newer territories drove up prices, which had been stagnant or declining before 1815. This domestic trade constituted 13.5 percent of the total economy of the South. Laborers Returning from Picking Cotton. Enslaved people of both genders and of all ages labored long hours to bring the South's valuable cotton crop from seed to bale.

He later served in the House of Representatives and the Senate and was not known for allying with any particular political position. Seeking to balance their ticket, the Whigs chose Senator John Tyler of Virginia as vice president. Tyler shared few beliefs with fellow Whigs, but his embrace of slavery helped mollify southerners. Moreover, his name made a nice pairing in the campaign phrase: "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too." The Democrats considered Harrison a nonentity; one reporter commented sarcastically that if Harrison were given hard cider and a small pension, he would contentedly spend the rest of his life in a log cabin. (He actually was wealthy and lived in a mansion.) The sarcasm backfired: many Americans, still living in rural homesteads, saw log cabins as emblems of American self-reliance. The Whigs, long frustrated by their reputation as elitists, seized on hard cider and log cabins as symbols of their party's loyalty to the common American. Whig speakers nationwide displayed paintings, flags, and models of log cabins at outdoor rallies while dispensing cider to thirsty crowds. Harrison became the first presidential candidate to go out on the campaign trail, helping to forge a new kind of American political style. General William Henry Harrison. William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) was the Whig candidate for president in 1840. A soldier who gained notoriety for fighting Indians, Harrison's activism on the campaign trail helped to inaugurate a new style of politics in the United States. This print shows a campaign banner with Harrison on horseback, surrounded by twelve vignettes of his home, military service, and political activity.

For the first time, women became prominent at rallies, encouraging husbands, fathers, and suitors by waving kerchiefs and riding in parades with pro-Harrison banners they had sewn. The Whigs embraced causes many women supported, such as temperance and church attendance. In comparison, Democrat Martin Van Buren's portly figure and penchant for silk vests made the Democrats' long-standing claims of representing the common man look hypocritical.

"A hard road to hoe! Or, the White House Turnpike, macadamized by the North Benders" by Huestis & Co. (1840). Martin Van Buren was the Democratic incumbent for president in 1840, running against Whig challenger William Henry Harrison. This political cartoon is a crude satire on the obstacles facing Van Buren's reelection effort in 1840. Weighed down by a large bundle labeled "Sub Treasury," Van Buren follows the lead of Andrew Jackson toward the White House. His way is blocked by barrels of "Hard Cider" and log cabins, symbolizing the popular appeal of Harrison's candidacy. In the upper right, the Capitol is visible, and in the upper left, Van Buren's home at Kinderhook is visible. A mischievous youth stands behind Van Buren thumbing his nose

Harrison won nineteen of the twenty-six states, bringing about half a million new voters to the Whigs. Voter turnout surged: eight of every ten eligible voters cast ballots. After 1840, electoral success would demand the same combination of active campaigning and potent symbols. The Election of 1840 Although William Henry Harrison won resoundingly in the electoral college, Whig and Democratic support balanced each other among voters in most states. National leaders had to appeal to both proslavery and antislavery voters if they were to remain in power. The Whig celebration did not last long. Harrison, determined to prove his fitness despite his age, expounded the longest inaugural speech in American history in March 1841, in bitterly cold weather. He contracted pneumonia and died exactly a month after taking office, making Tyler president. ^ Collapse Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division [LC-USZ62-1972] Politics in Turmoil, 1844-1845 In 1844, James K. Polk, a former governor of Tennessee, received the Democratic nomination for president after an acrimonious convention and nine ballots. The Democrats appealed to northerners and southerners with a program of aggressive expansion, attempting to counter fears of slavery's growth not by rejecting Texas but by embracing Oregon as a free territory. The Whigs nominated Henry Clay for president on a platform opposed to expansion. Choosing between Clay and Polk became complicated when Clay announced that he would not oppose Texas annexation if it could be done peacefully and by consensus. His strategy backfired, attracting few advocates of expansion but alienating antislavery advocates and opponents of expansion. The abolitionist Liberty Party won 62,000 votes in 1844. In New York, the Liberty Party's strong showing took enough votes from Clay to give the state to Polk, which made the difference in the national election. Although Polk won only 49.6 percent of the vote, he entered office with clear plans to annex large areas of Mexican territory, Texas, and Oregon.

The Madison administration pushed into battle, targeting Canada, which had only 5,000 regular British soldiers. U.S. military leaders planned three advances: one from Lake Champlain to Montreal, a second at the Niagara River, and the third from Fort Detroit east through Upper Canada. They hoped Canada would fall, forcing Britain to recognize U.S. rights. The Americans moved first in the West. General William Hull received orders to lead about 2,000 troops against Fort Malden, opposite Detroit, under the command of British General Isaac Brock and reinforced by Tecumseh and his men. Tecumseh. Tecumseh (1768-1813) was a Shawnee leader and war chief who attempted to orchestrate a Pan-Indian resistance against encroaching American settlers on Native American lands in the trans-Appalachian west. He fought with the British in the War of 1812 and died on the battlefield. This print shows Tecumseh in a full-length portrait holding a rifle

Hull moved too slowly, though, and not only failed to take Fort Malden, but also surrendered Detroit. The British and Native Americans then seized much of the region by capturing Fort Michilimackinac, to the north, and Fort Dearborn, at the present site of Chicago. In October, the U.S. Army lost the Battle of Queenston, opposite Fort Niagara, after the New York militia refused to leave American soil to assist the regular troops. General William Henry Harrison reinforced Fort Wayne and undermined Tecumseh's war effort by destroying Indian towns and cornfields in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois. While the army struggled, the tiny U.S. fleet had surprising victories against the Royal Navy, including the U.S.S. Constitution's sinking of the British Guerrière in August 1812.

Introduction Who: Mary Pickersgill, a Baltimore seamstress assisted by her daughter, two nieces, and an African American indentured servant What: A battle flag, forty-two feet long by thirty-two feet wide, made to the stipulations of the 1794 Flag Act, with fifteen stars and fifteen stripes, commissioned by Major George Armistead, who commanded Fort McHenry When & Where: 1813, Baltimore, Maryland Why: To have a flag to display over the fort that would be, Armistead wrote, "so large that the British will have no difficulty in seeing it from a distance. After British troops burned Washington, D.C., to the ground in August 1814, they sailed north to Baltimore, Maryland, where they planned to capture the city by sending troops onto land while simultaneously bombarding Fort McHenry from the water. British forces did not, however, anticipate Baltimoreans' determination to defend themselves, and fifteen thousand militiamen blocked the land route while the Americans created a barrier in the harbor and withstood an artillery assault that lasted until dawn. Poet and lawyer Francis Scott Key observed the long battle from a boat in the harbor, where he anxiously watched to see whether Pickersgill's stars and stripes still flew over the fort or whether the opponent's flag had been raised to signal a British victory; as dawn broke, the sight of the American flag at first light inspired a swell of patriotic pride, and he penned the first stanza of the poem that would become "The Star-Spangled Banner." The flag became an important icon, and the Armistead family, who held the flag until 1907, allowed war veterans and important people to take cuttings from the fabric. Star-Spangled Banner Mary Pickersgill

Important objects such as the original star-spangled banner (as well as everyday objects, too) are examples of what historians call "material culture," the physical evidence of a society's values, beliefs, and culture. How things are made, used, and preserved conveys information about the people who have done the making, using, and preserving. The original star-spangled banner is an important piece of physical evidence because of the many stories it can tell. In addition to the information we can get from the flag's design and construction, the ways in which the flag has changed and deteriorated over time offer evidence regarding how it was handled and what it has meant. The fact that the flag has holes in it from where the Armistead family let people cut souvenir scraps, for example, conveys how venerated, even sacred, the flag was. The fabric's deterioration and fading are evidence that it was handled and displayed a lot, also reflections of its importance.

White settlement beyond the original colonies increased as families sought fertile land and lower taxes. However, this expansion was met with resistance by Native Americans who already inhabited these outer lands. Militant Cherokees, referred to as Chickamaugas, built alliances with other Native American tribes and battled for their land along the frontier from Kentucky to Georgia. The governor of the Tennessee territory, William Blount—a land speculator whom the Cherokees referred to as the "dirt king" for his apparent greed—was sent to negotiate with the Cherokees. Blount was unsuccessful and fighting continued, as Native Americans on both sides of the Ohio River united to battle the settlers. Ultimately, a lack of Spanish supplies due to the start of war in Europe, a defeat at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, and the end of an alliance with the British caused the Native Americans to sign the Treaty of Greenville and cede to the United States much of what is now Ohio.

In 1790, Spain's control in the United States spanned from East Florida to the Gulf of Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and California. Even though these lands were viewed as buffers against the Americans and British gaining access to Mexico's silver, Spain opened these territories to American settlers. Hoping to increase settler populations in these areas, the Spanish offered free land in the Floridas and Louisiana, even allowing Protestants to keep their religion if they pledged allegiance to the crown and baptized their children as Catholic. During this time the Spanish in New Mexico were able to achieve peace with Comanches and Apaches, making travel and economic development safer. Across California, missions and presidios were established to protect the Spanish from Russian and British incursions. However, Spanish prosperity did not extend to the Pacific Northwest after trade for sea otter furs became popular. With England threatening war, Spain signed the Nootka Convention (1790) and yielded its claim to the area, but the two countries failed to negotiate a northern boundary for California.

The flag known as the star-spangled banner, which is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's Museum of American History, originally flew over Baltimore's Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. Though it immediately became a powerful symbol of national pride, it remained in the possession of the descendants of Major George Armistead, commander of Fort McHenry, for nearly a century. During this time, the family allowed war veterans and prominent people to cut off swatches of the flag as souvenirs, which is why Pickersgill's flag is missing one of the original stars. The flag was important in Francis Scott Key's poem not because of the design, which met the standards of the 1794 Flag Act, but because it symbolized the resilience and bravery of the American forces that successfully defended Fort McHenry against great odds.

In this excerpt from her article, historian Nicole Eustace suggests that the single achievement of the War of 1812 was that it generated a powerfully emotional new form of patriotism, one that compared love for country to the intensity of romantic love. The facts of the war were, in fact, quite dismal: It was largely a series of desertions, disasters, and embarrassments that underscored the fact that the entire enterprise was costly, wasteful, and even a gross expression of American hubris. Yet, Eustace points out, Americans remained in favor of the war over its entire course because their patriotism allowed them to ignore the war's realities. So, too, did the fact that the war was fairly remote and abstract for most Americans. Few men were mustered into military service, and many critical battles were fought far from population centers. Pointing out that the War of 1812 was largely unsuccessful—Washington, D.C., was destroyed; the national debt tripled; and the United States gained no territory—Eustace argues that Americans were nonetheless able to ignore the war's costs. This was because they were occupied by an intensely sentimental patriotism, one that turned relatively small victories, such as Andrew Jackson's late victory in New Orleans, into major triumphs.

Andrew Jackson won 43.1% of the popular vote in this election, receiving 153,544 votes. He failed to win a majority of the electoral vote, however, which sent the election to the House of Representatives. Henry Clay, the fourth-place candidate in the election, also happened to be Speaker of the House. Fearing Jackson as a potential military dictator, Clay threw his support behind John Quincy Adams, transferring the electoral votes he had received by winning Ohio, Kentucky, and Missiouri to Adams. This was enough to put Adams in the White House. Two weeks later, Adams appointed Clay as secretary of state, infuriating Jackson and leading many to suspect a "corrupt bargain" had been struck between the two. The election of 1824 featured five candidates, but John C. Calhoun of South Carolina dropped out. None of the four remaining candidates was able to secure a majority of the electoral college. In this circumstance, the House of Representatives decides who wins the election from the three candidates who receive the most electoral votes. Speaker of the House Henry Clay finished fourth and was in a position to exert considerable influence over the election. He threw his support behind John Quincy Adams rather than Andrew Jackson or William Crawford, which led to Adams's victory. Soon after, Clay was named secretary of state. This appointment clouded Adams's administration, with some describing the appointment as a "corrupt bargain." The 1828 election resulted in supporters of several of the candidates in the 1824 election uniting behind Andrew Jackson to defeat Adams. This election featured much higher voter turnout than in 1824, partially due to lower property requirements for voting and the introduction of campaign organization tactics, such as bonfires, parades, and the first campaign song. Jackson, running as a "man of the people," was ultimately victorious over Adams.

President Andrew Jackson was a polarizing figure, attracting both allies and enemies who mobilized during the election of 1832. One faction opposed to him called themselves Whigs and had similar principles to their British counterparts. Whigs claimed to be opposed to unchecked monarchical power, and they saw Jackson as despotic and anti-democratic. Henry Clay, running on the National Republican ticket, criticized Jackson's use of the spoils system as a corruption of government. The Anti-Mason Party, represented by William Wirt in the presidential race, declared itself opposed to all conspiracies and subversions. Martin Van Buren's personal presentation and fondness for silk vests made the attempt by the Democrats to be seen as representatives of the common man seem somewhat hypocritical. He was not an effective president and lost the office to William Henry Harrison in 1840, who campaigned with the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too."

A view from the Potomac River of Washington, DC, under attack by British forces under Major General Ross, August 24, 1814. On August 24, 1814, British general Robert Ross led his troops into Washington with strict orders to burn only public buildings. On August 25, a tornado blew through the city, bringing torrential rains that quelled both fires and the British desire to pursue further action in Washington. This print shows a view from the the Potomac River of the capital being attacked by Ross's forces in August of 1814.

The British then assaulted Baltimore. Despite heavy bombardment of Fort McHenry by the Royal Navy, the redcoats failed to take the city. Francis Scott Key memorialized the scene of flaming rockets and exploding bombs in his poem "The Star Spangled Banner." The British sailed south to the Gulf Coast, intending to block off the Mississippi River. In late 1814, Andrew Jackson captured Pensacola, Florida, and then organized the defense of New Orleans

The Election of 1832 and Expansionist Tensions Andrew Jackson made fervent enemies as well as devoted followers throughout his presidency. The election of 1832 saw voters and leaders mobilize for or against Jackson, latching on to such issues as the economy, states' rights, and morality. In the 1832 election, Jackson portrayed himself as the champion of the common man fighting against a bloated aristocracy of privilege and monopoly. Henry Clay, the candidate of the National Republicans, characterized Jackson as having disregarded morality in his dealing with Native Americans, corrupting the government with the spoils system, and attacking the national bank. William Wirt, the Anti-Mason candidate, declared himself opposed to all conspiracies, corruptions, and subversions. Jackson won by a considerable margin. Emboldened by his majority at the polls, the president went on the offensive. Those opposed to Jackson began to call themselves "Whigs." Like its British namesake, the American Whig Party saw itself as the counterbalance to otherwise unchecked monarchical power—in this case Jackson, whom the Whigs dubbed "King Andrew I," "the most absolute despot now at the head of any representative government on earth." "King Andrew the First." Fearing the president's growing power, Whigs began referring to Jackson as "King Andrew I."

The Elections of 1836 and 1840 The election of 1840 should have offered an easy contest for the Whigs, given the Democrats' challenges. Much of the nation remained mired in depression that began with the Panic of 1837. Democratic President Van Buren, elected in 1836, offered little effective leadership during the economic crisis, and many people blamed him for the hard times. The Whigs—which emerged in the 1830s in reaction to Jackson—were a hodgepodge of interests and factions too diverse to mount any real challenge to Van Buren in 1836. In that election, the party had permitted three candidates to run because no one man could command the party's full allegiance. When they all lost to Van Buren, party leaders vowed that in the 1840 election, they would find a candidate who stood for the beliefs that unified Whigs, despite their other differences. Those beliefs centered on faith in commerce, self-control, Protestantism, learning, and self-improvement. Their candidate in 1840 was William Henry Harrison, a general in the Old Northwest known for his defeat of an Indian confederacy in the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. Battle of Tippecanoe. William Henry Harrison (1773-1841) gained fame while serving in the U.S. Army fighting against Indians on the frontier. Under his leadership, the army achieved a victory over the Shawnee at the Battle of Tippecanoe in 1811. This victory helped to make Harrison a national hero. This print shows American soldiers arriving on the left to turn back Native Americans during the battle of Tippecanoe, Indiana, in 1811.

War of 1812 As war between Britain and France escalated, Americans upheld their rights as neutrals to sell provisions to both sides and considered British impressment of 6,000 seamen as a violation of national sovereignty. Between 1809 and 1812, these conflicts developed into war. In 1811, Madison appointed James Monroe, his former rival for the presidency, as secretary of state. Monroe took office hoping to reach an accord with the British, but Great Britain adhered to its Order in Council that American exports must go to England before shipment to Europe. When Napoleon partially lifted his blockade in 1811, the United States resumed trade with France, but the British disrupted it with attacks on American ships. Meanwhile, Anglo-Americans believed that the British in Canada were stirring up Native American discontent. In fact, an alliance between militant Indians and the British took time to evolve, as each group moved independently toward war with the Americans. Native Americans had their own gripes against the United States. The nativist message of Tenskwatawa, the Shawnee Prophet, and his brother Tecumseh found widespread support as a result of the Louisiana Purchase, expanding white settlement, and massive land sales by accommodationist Indian leaders of the Mississippi

The Louisiana Purchase and Western Exploration, 1803-1807 At about the same time that Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the Corps of Discovery along the northern route to trade with Native Americans, explore the natural resources, and locate a northwest passage, Zebulon Pike traveled north along the Mississippi River and west to the Rocky Mountains. The Treaty of Fort Wayne (1809), which turned over 2.5 million acres to the United States, was the last straw. Tecumseh first sought that the treaty be annulled by William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana Territory. Failing that, the Indian leader found allies among militant Creeks and Seminoles called the Red Sticks. Tecumseh's effort to create a pan-Indian movement throughout the trans-Appalachian West ultimately failed, however, because by 1811, large white populations in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio formed a barrier between northern and southern Indians. In November 1811, Harrison led a force against Prophetstown, a village Tenskwatawa had founded on the Tippecanoe River. The prophet attacked the encamped soldiers at night, but suffered casualties and withdrew. Harrison also lost men, but burned the town and claimed victory in what became known as the Battle of Tippecanoe. Harrison's action had little effect except to drive the opposition closer to the British.

A number of conditions made America's major market revolution possible. Among them were changing attitudes toward the federal government. Supreme Court decisions such as McCulloch v. Maryland strengthened the federal government relative to the states, and many politicians previously opposed to a strong central government began to change their positions. As a result, the federal government undertook a number of major public works projects that improved the country's transportation infrastructure. The government also helped establish a national bank, which stabilized lending and increased the availability of credit. The federal government created a number of projects designed to facilitate transportation. Federal workers built new streets, such as the National Road, connecting the Potomac River to Wheeling, Virginia. They also dug the Erie Canal, a man-made waterway connecting the Hudson River (which empties into the Atlantic Ocean through New York Bay) to Lake Erie. At 363 miles, the canal was the longest in existence. Improved transportation was also facilitated by commercial companies producing new vehicle technologies. Among the most profound inventions during this era of trading was the creation of steamboats. These crafts allowed companies to quickly move people and goods through the many rivers that traversed the middle of the country. These improvements made it faster, easier, and cheaper to take goods produced in a given locale and sell them in distant markets.

The changes in market forces during this period were profound, but they differed dramatically by region. In the South, the invention of the cotton gin substantially decreased the cost of production while improving efficiency. At the same time, global demand for cotton rose, and the result was a major boom in cotton sales. In New England, the Boston Manufacturing Company began to improve efficiency by bringing all elements of the production process under one roof. With more efficient production methods, production costs dropped, and producers were able to generate more goods than ever before. In the area known as the Old Northwest (the region west of the Appalachians, north of the Ohio River, and east of the Mississippi), commercial farming experienced tremendous growth, providing many materials needed to sustain the South and the Northeast. The expansion of the railroad system into the Old Northwest allowed farmers to sell their goods more easily and facilitated greater agricultural specialization. Many northeastern men left for opportunities farther west, leaving more women in the Northeast. Those women often performed piecework, creating products for sale outside the home, but they still performed the traditional farm work required of women. The economy of the Northeast transformed rapidly in the early nineteenth century. The region's concentration of cities and fast-running streams facilitated the growth of the textile, shoe, and iron and steel industries. Meanwhile, unable to compete with farmers in the Old Northwest who could grow cereal grains and raise cattle more efficiently, farmers in the Northeast abandoned farming altogether, migrated westward, or shifted production to dairy or orchard fruits and vegetables. Those farms that remained became commercial in their focus, producing commodities that fetched a good price in the urban market as the food that fed Northeast's expanding industrial workforce.

William Henry Harrison, the Whig candidate, won this election by a wide electoral margin, 79.6% (234 votes) to Martin Van Buren's 20.4% (60 votes). He even won the popular vote by a safe margin: 53.1% to Van Buren's 46.9%. Harrison carried the electoral vote in every state with the exception of three states in the South—Virginia, South Carolina, and Alabama—and three in the West—Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas. Although Harrison was a wealthy man who occupied a mansion in Indiana, he managed to shed the Whigs' reputation as elitists by touting his humble birth in a frontier log cabin and holding rallies at which hard cider was distributed freely to crowds. In the end, the electorate saw Harrison as a man of the people, voting for "Tippecanoe and Tyler, Too" over Democratic candidate Martin Van Buren, whose predilection for silk vests and fine clothes made him look like an elitist.

The election of 1824 featured five candidates, but John C. Calhoun of South Carolina dropped out. None of the four remaining candidates was able to secure a majority of the electoral college. In this circumstance, the House of Representatives decides who wins the election from the three candidates who receive the most electoral votes. Speaker of the House Henry Clay finished fourth and was in a position to exert considerable influence over the election. He threw his support behind John Quincy Adams rather than Andrew Jackson or William Crawford, which led to Adams's victory. Soon after, Clay was named secretary of state. This appointment clouded Adams's administration, with some describing the appointment as a "corrupt bargain." The 1828 election resulted in supporters of several of the candidates in the 1824 election uniting behind Andrew Jackson to defeat Adams. This election featured much higher voter turnout than in 1824, partially due to lower property requirements for voting and the introduction of campaign organization tactics, such as bonfires, parades, and the first campaign song. Jackson, running as a "man of the people," was ultimately victorious over Adams. President Andrew Jackson was a polarizing figure, attracting both allies and enemies who mobilized during the election of 1832. One faction opposed to him called themselves Whigs and had similar principles to their British counterparts. Whigs claimed to be opposed to unchecked monarchical power, and they saw Jackson as despotic and anti-democratic. Henry Clay, running on the National Republican ticket, criticized Jackson's use of the spoils system as a corruption of government. The Anti-Mason Party, represented by William Wirt in the presidential race, declared itself opposed to all conspiracies and subversions.Selected through an acrimonious convention process and nine ballots, James K. Polk faced Henry Clay, who was nominated by the Whig Party in the election of 1844. Polk and the Democrats were in favor of aggressive expansion into the West. The Liberty Party, which supported the abolition of slavery, caused enough people not to vote for Clay, allowing Polk to win New York and ultimately the election.

Eustace points out that the "easy emotional victories" of the War of 1812 allowed Americans to ignore the war's realities. Distant from their ordinary lives, the popular memory of the war was a romantic one. This effect lingered. At the beginning of the Civil War, spectators with picnic hampers flocked to the Battle of Bull Run, expecting pleasure and excitement rather than gory destruction. Taking pleasure in war, rather than experiencing and recognizing the suffering war invariably brings, poorly prepared the American people for the devastation of the Civil War, which involved the lives of ordinary people to a far greater and more violent degree. In this excerpt from her article, historian Nicole Eustace suggests that the single achievement of the War of 1812 was that it generated a powerfully emotional new form of patriotism, one that compared love for country to the intensity of romantic love. The conflict was the first formally declared war in a modern democracy. Americans remained in favor of the war over its entire course because their patriotism allowed them to feel as if they were participating in a war that was actually fairly remote and abstract for ordinary people. Few men were mustered into military service, and many critical battles were fought far from population centers, but Americans believed that expressions of patriotism and of their opinions about the conflict truly mattered and represented a kind of participation. Though Andrew Jackson won a powerful victory in New Orleans in January 1815, this had no effect on the outcome of the war; the Treaty of Ghent had been signed two weeks before. That Americans had supported the war throughout also meant that it did not inspire new confidence. It did, however, further entrench the new spirit of patriotic ardor that had swept the country.

The flag known as the star-spangled banner is a primary source because it was made during the War of 1812, while Nicole Eustace's article is a secondary source, written two centuries later. Both, however, invite reflection on the nature of American patriotism, of which the flag has long been a symbol, and both can tell historians something about the years after the War of 1812. The flag bears evidence of its long-standing importance as a venerated relic, both in the holes where cuttings were taken from the fabric, and from the deterioration of a flag that was often on display and in use in the two

Victories and Losses, 1813-1814 On land, in early 1813 British and Native Americans killed or captured nearly an entire force of 900 troops at Frenchtown, south of Detroit. The U.S. Army managed to hold Fort Meigs and Fort Stephenson in northern Ohio but needed naval support to destroy British control of Lake Erie. The United States began building ships at Presque Isle, Pennsylvania (now Erie), and on September 10, 1813, Oliver Hazard Perry defeated the British squadron at Put-in-Bay. This victory cleared the way for General Harrison to attack Fort Malden, from which the British and Indians hastily retreated toward Niagara. The Americans caught up with them at Moraviantown on October 5, winning a victory in the Battle of the Thames. Tecumseh died on the battlefield. To the east, the U.S. Army had burned York (Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada. But the Americans met defeat in an offensive against Montreal and lost Fort Niagara. In the Mississippi Territory, the nativist Red Sticks waged civil war against Creek leaders who accommodated Anglo-American demands for land. The fratricidal conflict became a war against the United States in July 1813, when 180 American militia struck a much smaller group of Red Sticks. A month later, the nativists killed about 250 settlers who had taken cover in a stockade called Fort Mims. The turning point came in March 1814 when General Andrew Jackson, with 3,000 militia and Indian allies, defeated 1,000 Red Sticks in the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, killing 800 of them. Andrew Jackson with the Tennessee forces on the Hickory Grounds (Alabama), 1814. Andrew Jackson (1767-1845) gained national prominence both as an Indian fighter, including at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend, and as a military leader against the British in the War of 1812, particularly at the Battle of New Orleans. This national attention would assist him when he entered politics

The surviving militants escaped to Florida, where they joined nativist Seminoles and continued to fight, while the Creeks were forced to cede more than 20 million acres of land. Having defeated Napoleon in April 1814, the British sent 10,000 experienced redcoats to Canada, threatening New York until an American naval victory on Lake Champlain in September cut short the British invasion. Britain also sent forces to Chesapeake Bay, where in August they attacked the nearly defenseless Washington, D.C., burning the Capitol and the president's mansion, as President Madison fled.A view of the capitol building in Washington, D.C., before it was burned down by the British. During the War of 1812, the United States was financially and militarily unprepared for a conflict with Great Britain. In August of 1814, the British marched unopposed into the U.S. capital of Washington where they proceeded to set fire to the White House and several other government buildings.