THE SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE UPSURGE OF NATIONALISM.

THE SECOND WAR OF INDEPENDENCE AND THE UPSURGE OF NATIONALISM

INTRODUCTION

• The war of 1812 was an especially divisive and ill fought war. Americans

came out of the war with a renewed sense of

nationhood. For the next dozen of years, a spirit of nationalism will inspire activities ranging from

protecting manufacturing to building roads to

defending authority of the federal government over

the states.

ON TO CANADA OVER LAND AND LAKES

• On the eve of the war of 1812, the regular army was ill-trained, ill-disciplines, and widely scattered. Some of the ranking generals were rusting on their laurels and lacking in vigor and vision.

• Canada became an important battleground in the war of 1812 because the British forces were the weakest there. Americans could have squashed the British forces, but the offensive strategy was poorly conceived. If

• Americans had gone into Montreal, everything west might have died. Instead Americans went ahead with a three-pronged attack. The trio of invading forces that set out from Detroit, Niagara, and Lake Champlain. The British were beaten back shortly after they crossed the Canadian border.

ON TO CANADA OVER LAKES AND LAND

• Britain and Canadian forces displayed energy from the outset. Early in the war, the British captured a lot of American forts. Americans will now look for success on the water. Man for man and ship for ship, the American navy did much better than the army.

• Control of the Great Lakes was vital, and Oliver Hazard Perry, managed to build a fleet on the shores of Lake Erie. Perry captured the British army and when doing so he said: “We have met the enemy and they are ours”. Britain’s were forced to withdraw from Detroit and General Harrison’s army was beaten in October 1813. 

ON TO CANADA OVER LAKES AND LAND

• Despite these successes, the Americans by late 1814 were far from invading Canada. The British were preparing for crushing blow in 1814. A weaker American fleet by Thomas Macdonough, challenged the British. Macdonough made a blood move and confronted the enemy with a fresh broadside and snatched a victory. • The results were that the British armies were

forced to retreat. Macdonough thus saved at least upper New York. He also affected negotiations of the Anglo-American peace treaty in Europe.  

WASHINGTON BURNED AND NEW ORLEANS DEFENDED

• A second British force landed in the Chesapeake Bay and advanced into Washington. The invaders then entered into the capital and set fire to most of the public buildings, including the capitol and the White House.

• Despite the burnings, the Americans held firm in Baltimore. The British fleet hammered Fort McHenry, and watching this was Francis Scott Key. He wrote the Star Spangled Banner. The song quickly became popular.

WASHINGTON BURNED AND NEW ORLEANS DEFENDED

• Third British blow of 1814 aimed at New Orleans. The overconfident British numbering some 8,000 battle-seasoned veterans, made terrible mistakes. The mistake was a frontal assault, on January 8, 1815.

• The attackers suffered the most devastating defeat of the entire war, losing over two thousand killed and wounded. This lost was in a half of an hour. Americans lost 70. This was an amazing defeat for Jackson.

• Andrew Jackson became a national hero as poets and politicians lined up to sing his praises of the defenders of New Orleans.

• The Battle of New Orleans restored that honor, at least in American eyes, and unleashed a wave of nationalism and self-confidence.

• America’s economic life: Fishing was destroyed, custom revenues were choked off, and near the end of the war, and the bankrupt Treasury was unable to meet its maturing obligations.

THE TREATY OF GHENT

• John Quincy Adams, Henry Clay, and Albert Gallatin went to Belgium for the negotiations. The final treaty did little more than end the fighting. The treaty was signed on Christmas Eve 1814. The war was over two weeks before the Battle of New Orleans!

• This treaty was essentially an armistice. Both sides simply agreed to stop fighting and to restore conquered territory. With neither side able to impose will, the treaty negotiations ended in a virtual draw. “Not one inch of Territory ceded or lost.”

THE SECOND WAR FOR AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE

• The war of 1812 was a small war, involving 6,000 Americans killed or wounded. War heroes emerged, especially the two Indian fighters Andrew Jackson and William Henry Harrison. Both of them will eventually become President.

• The war of 1812 was heightened with a spirit of nationalism. America may not have fought the war as one nation, but it emerged as one nation.

• A revived Bank of the United States was voted in Congress in 1816. A more handsome national capital began to rise from the ashes of Washington.

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM

• Nationalism likewise manifested itself in manufacturing. Patriotic Americans took pride in the factories. The British began to dump the contents of the warehouses on the United States; they cut prices below to strangle the American factories.

• A nationalist Congress responded by passing the Tariff of 1816. This tariff in American history instituted for protection, not revenue. Its rates were between 20 to 25 percent.

THE AMERICAN SYSTEM

• Also established was the American System. This system had three main parts. It began with a strong banking system, also a protective tariff, which manufacturing would flourish. The third component was a network of roads and canals especially in the Ohio Valley. • This will bring the country together

economically and politically. Congress voted in 1817 to distribute 1.5 million to the states, but President Madison vetoed this measure. States then had to go ahead with construction on its own.

THE SO-CALLED ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS

• James Monroe was six feet tall, somewhat stooped, courtly, and mild mannered. He was nominated for president. Monroe beat Madison by 183 to 34 votes. The Federalist Party will end.  

• James Monroe was a part of two generation: which the age of the Founding Fathers and the emergence of nationalism.

• Never brilliant, perhaps not great.

• Virginian with gray-blue eyes was intellect and personal force

• No dashing heroics• He was experienced• Level-headed executive• Had an ear to the ground for

talent and interpreting popular rumblings.

THE SO-CALLED ERA OF GOOD FEELINGS

• The era of good feelings was true in the beginning, but there were

major issues: the tariff, the bank, internal improvements, and the sale

of public lands were contested. Sectionalism was brewing and the conflict of slavery was beginning to

raise its ugly head.

THE PANIC OF 1819 AND THE CURSE OF HARD TIMES

• Panic of 1819 happened when economic panic descended. It brought on deflation, depression, bankruptcies, bank failures, unemployment, soup kitchens, and overcrowded pesthouses known as debtor’s prisons. This financial crisis is going to last for several years and was a setback to nationalistic feeling.

• The Panic of 1819 created backwashes in the political and social world.

GROWING PAINS OF THE WEST

•The onward march of the west continued: nine of the Frontier

states had joined the original 13, between 1791-1819. Despite

the inflow of settlers, was still weak in population and

influence.

SLAVERY AND THE SECTIONAL BALANCE

• Sectional tensions, involving rivalry between the slave south and the free North over the control of the West, was revealed in 1819. The House of Representatives passed the Tallmadge Amendment because the Missouri knocked on the doors of Congress for admission as a slave state. • The Tallmadge Amendment stated that no

slave should be brought into Missouri and also provided for the gradual emancipation of children born to slave parents already there.

SLAVERY AND THE SECTIONAL BALANCE

• Southerners saw this amendment as an ominous threat to sectional balance. Burning moral questions also protruded, even though the main issue was political

and economic balance. A small but growing group of antislavery agitators in the North seized the occasion to raise an

outcry against the evils of slavery.

THE UNEASY MISSOURI COMPROMISE

• Deadlock in Washington was at length broken in 1820 by the time honored American solution of compromise. Three compromises came from this. Admit Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Thus the balance stayed at 12 free and 12 slave states. The last compromise was all future bondage was prohibited in the remainder of the Louisiana Purchase north of the line of 36 30- the southern boundary of Missouri.

• Neither the south nor the north was either displeased or happy with the Missouri Compromise. Both the Missouri Compromise and the Panic of 1819 dampened the era of good feelings. Monroe, as it turned out was the only president in American history to be re-elected after a term in a major financial panic began.

JOHN MARSHALL AND JUDICIAL NATIONALISM

• The high tribunal continued to be dominated by John Marshall with a group of decisions:

McCulloch v. Maryland• State of Maryland wanted to destroy a branch of

the Bank of the United States, by imposing a tax on its notes.

• Marshall’s ruling in this case gave the doctrine of loose construction its most famous formulation.

This permits the government to act for their benefit and from the consent of the people.

JOHN MARSHALL AND JUDICIAL NATIONALISM

Cohen’s’ v. Virginia• The Cohen brothers were found guilty by courts for selling illegally selling lottery tickets.

Gibbons v. Ogden• Private concern a monopoly of waterborne commerce between New York and New Jersey

SHARING OREGON AND ACQUIRING FLORIDA

• James Monroe teamed up with John Quincy Adams and negotiated with Britain in 1818. The Anglo-American Convention fixed the northern limits along the 49th parallel from the Lake of the Woods to the Rocky Mountains. It also provided for a ten year occupation in untamed Oregon country.

• To the south laid Florida. Jackson secured a commission to enter Spanish territory, punish the Indians, and recapture the runaways. But he was to respect all posts under the Spanish flag. Jackson in 1818 swept across Florida hanging two Indian chiefs. Monroe wanted to punish Jackson, but John Quincy Adams didn’t.

SHARING OREGON AND ACQUIRING FLORIDA

• In the mislabeled Florida Purchase Treaty of 1819

known as the Adams-Onis Treaty, Spain ceded

Florida as well as shadowy Spanish Claims to Oregon, in exchange

for America’s abandonment of claims

to Texas, soon to become independent

Mexico.

MONROE AND HIS DOCTRINE

• The Monroe Doctrine was born late in 1823, when the nationalistic Adams won over Monroe with his thinking. Monroe regulated this message to Congress and gave a stern warning to the European powers.

• It had 2 basic features: 1- Noncolonization and 2- Nonintervention.

• At the same time, Monroe sent out a warning against foreign intervention. He was clearly concerned with regions to the south. Monroe directed the crowned heads of Europe to keep their hated systems out of his hemisphere.

MONROE’S DOCTRINE APPRAISED

• In truth, Monroe’s message did not have much contemporary significance. Americans applauded it and then forgot about it. Not until 1845 did President Polk revive it, and not until midcentury did it become an important national dogma.

• The Russian tsar formally agreed to the Russo American Treaty of 1824, which fixed his southernmost limits at the line 54 40, which is the present southern tip of the Alaska.