A Brief History of the United States9. By treaties with Great Britain and Spain, boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were established, Florida was purchased, and the Oregon country was held jointly with Great Britain.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD STAGECOACH.]
FOOTNOTES
[1] A serious quarrel over the West Indian trade now arose and was not settled till 1830. Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. V, pp. 483-487.
[2] The agreement of 1817 provided that each power might have one armed vessel on Lake Ontario, two on the upper lakes, and one on Lake Champlain.
Each vessel was to have but one eighteen-pound cannon. All other armed vessels were to be dismantled and no others were to be built or armed. In Europe such a water boundary between two powers would have been guarded by strong fleets and forts and many armed men.
[3] The fishery treaty provides (1) that our citizens may _forever_ catch and dry fish on certain parts of the coasts of Newfoundland and of Labrador; (2) that they may not catch fish within three miles of any other of the coasts of the British dominions in America; (3) that our fishermen may enter the harbors on these other coasts for shelter, or to obtain water, or wood, or to repair damages, "and for no other purpose whatever."
[4] As to the straits to which people were put for small change, read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. IV, pp. 297-298.
[5] This bank had branches in the various states, and specie could be had for its notes at any branch. Hence its notes pa.s.sed at their face value over all the country, and became, like specie, of the same value everywhere. Authority to charter the bank was found in the provision of the Const.i.tution giving Congress power to "regulate the currency."
[6] Thirty-nine of our colleges, theological seminaries, and universities were founded between 1783 and 1820.
[7] For Rumsey and Fitch, see p. 239. William Longstreet in 1790 tried a small model steamboat on the Savannah River; and in 1794 Elijah Ormsbee at Providence and Samuel Morey on Long Island Sound, in 1796 John Fitch on a pond in New York city, in 1797 Morey on the Delaware, in 1802 Oliver Evans at Philadelphia, and in 1804 and 1806 John Stevens at Hoboken, demonstrated that boats could be moved by steam. But none had made the steamboat a practical success.
[8] The state of New York gave Fulton and his partner, Livingston, the sole right to use steamboats on the waters of the state. This monopoly was evaded by using teamboats, on which the machinery that turned the paddle wheel was moved by six or eight horses. .h.i.tched to a crank and walking round and round in a circle on the deck. Teamboats were used chiefly as ferryboats. Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. IV, pp. 397-407.
[9] Read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. IV, pp.
381-394. All the great highways to the West were crowded with bands of emigrants. In nine days 260 wagons bound for the West pa.s.sed through one New York town. At Easton, in Pennsylvania, on a favorite route from New England (map, p. 194), 511 wagons accompanied by 3066 persons pa.s.sed in a month. A tollgate keeper on another route reported 2000 families as having pa.s.sed during nine months. From Alabama, whither people were hurrying to settle on the cotton lands, came reports of a migration quite as large.
When the census of 1820 was taken, the returns showed that there were but 75 more people in Delaware in 1820 than there were in 1810. In the city of Charleston there were 24,711 people in 1810 and 24,780 in 1820. In many states along the seaboard the rate of increase of population was less during the census period 1810-20 than it had been before, because of the great numbers who had left for the West.
[10] If the newcomer chose some settlement for his home, the neighbors would gather when the logs were cut, hold a "raising," and build his cabin in the course of one day. Tables, chairs, and other furniture were generally made by the settler with his own hands. Brooms and brushes were of corn husks, and many of his utensils were cut from the trunks of trees.
"I know of no scene more primitive," said a Kentucky pioneer, "than such a cabin hearth as that of my mother's. In the morning a buckeye backlog, a hickory forestick, resting on stones, with a johnny cake on a clean ash board, set before the fire to bake; a frying pan with its long handle resting on a splint-bottom chair, and a teakettle swung from a log pole, with myself setting the table, or turning the meat. Then came the blowing of the conch-sh.e.l.l for father in the field, the howling of old Lion, the gathering around the table, the blessing, the dull clatter of pewter spoons on pewter dishes, and the talk about the crops and stock."
[11] For an account of the social conditions in 1820, read McMaster's _History of the People of the U. S._, Vol. IV, Chap, x.x.xvii; also Eggleston's _Circuit Rider_, Cooper's _Prairie_, and _Recollections of Life in Ohio_, by W. C. Howells.
[12] A story is told of an early settler who was elected to the territorial legislature of Illinois. Till then he had always worn buckskin clothes, but thinking them unbecoming a lawmaker, he and his sons gathered hazel nuts and bartered them at the crossroads store for a few yards of blue strouding, out of which the women of the settlement made him a coat and pantaloons.
[13] On the Ohio River floated odd craft of many sorts. There were timber rafts from the mountain streams; pirogues built of trunks of trees; broadhorns; huge pointed and covered hulks carrying 50 tons of freight and floating downstream with the current and upstream by means of poles, sails, oars, or ropes; keel boats for upstream work, with long, narrow, pointed bow and stern, roofed, manned with a crew of ten men, and propelled with setting poles; flatboats which went downstream with the pioneer never to come back--flat-bottomed, box-shaped craft manned by a crew of six, kept in the current by oars 30 feet long called "sweeps" and a steering oar 50 feet long at the stern. Those intended to go down the Mississippi were strongly built, roofed over, and known as "Orleans boats." "Kentucky flatboats" for use on the Ohio were half roofed and slighter. Mingled with these were arks, galleys, rafts, and shanty boats of every sort, and floating shops carrying goods, wares, and merchandise to every farmhouse and settlement along the river bank. Now it would be a floating lottery office, where tickets were sold for pork, grain, or produce; now a tinner's establishment, where tinware was sold or mended; now a smithy, where horses and oxen were shod and wagons mended; now a factory for the manufacture of axes, scythes, and edge tools; now a dry- goods shop fitted up just as were such shops in the villages, and filled with all sorts of goods and wares needed by the settlers.
[14] This ca.n.a.l was originally a ditch 4 feet deep, 40 feet wide, and 363 miles long. The chief promoter was De Witt Clinton. The opponents of the ca.n.a.l therefore called it in derision "Clinton's big ditch," and declared that it could never be made a success. But Clinton and his friends carried the ca.n.a.l to completion, and in 1825 a fleet of ca.n.a.l boats left Buffalo, went through the ca.n.a.l, down the Hudson, and out into New York Bay. There fresh water brought from Lake Erie in a keg was poured into the salt water of the Atlantic.
[15] It was once hoped that Southern states also would in time abolish slavery; but as more and more land was devoted to cotton raising in the South, the demand for slave labor there increased. The South came to regard slavery as necessary for her prosperity, and to desire its extension to more territory.
[16] Meantime Arkansas (1819) had been organized as a slave-holding territory. As Missouri had to make a state const.i.tution and submit it to Congress she did not enter the Union till 1821. The Compromise line 36 30' was part of the south boundary of Missouri and extended to the 100th meridian. Missouri did not have the present northwestern boundary till 1836; compare maps on pp. 279 and 331. On the Compromise read the speech of Senator Rufus King, in Johnston's _American Orations_, Vol. II, pp. 33- 62; and that of Senator Pinckney, pp. 63-101.
[17] By the treaty with Great Britain in 1783 a line was to be drawn from the Lake of the Woods _due west_ to the Mississippi. This was impossible, but the difficulty was ended by the treaty of 1818. From the northwesternmost point of the Lake of the Woods a line (as the treaty provides) is drawn due south to the 49th parallel. This makes a little k.n.o.b on our boundary.
[18] We claimed it because in 1792 Captain Gray, in the ship _Columbia_, discovered the river, entered, and named it after his ship; because in 1805-6 Lewis and Clark explored both its main branches and spent the winter near its mouth; and because in 1811 an American fur-trading post, Astoria, was built on the banks of the Columbia near its mouth. Great Britain claimed a part of it because of explorations under Vancouver (1792), and occupation of various posts by the Hudson's Bay Company. At first Oregon was the country drained by the Columbia River. Through our treaty with Spain, in 1819, part of the 42d parallel was made the southern boundary. In 1824, by treaty with Russia, the country which then owned Alaska, 54 40' became the northern boundary. The Rocky Mountains were understood to be the eastern limit.
[19] What is called the purchase of Florida consisted in releasing Spain from all liability for damages of many sorts inflicted on our citizens from 1793 to the date of the treaty, and paying them ourselves; the sum was not to exceed $5,000,000.
[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1824.]
CHAPTER XXII
THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING
THE PARTY ISSUES.--The issues which divided the Federalists and the Republicans from 1793 to 1815 arose chiefly from our foreign relations.
Neutrality, French decrees, British orders in council, search, impressment, the embargo, non-intercourse, the war, were the matters that concerned the people. Soon after 1815 all this changed; Napoleon was a prisoner at St. Helena, Europe was at peace, and domestic issues began to be more important.
THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING.--The election of 1816, however, was decided chiefly on the issues of the war. James Monroe, [1] the Republican candidate for President, was elected by a very large majority over Rufus King. During Monroe's term domestic issues were growing up, but had not become national. They were rather sectional. Party feeling subsided, and this was so noticeable that his term was called "the Era of Good Feeling."
In this condition of affairs the Federalist party died out, and when Monroe was renominated in 1820, no compet.i.tor appeared. [1] The Federalists presented no candidate.
POLITICAL EVENTS.--The chief political events of Monroe's first term (1817-21), as we have seen, were the admission of several new states, the Compromise of 1820, and the treaties of 1818 and 1819, with Great Britain and Spain. The chief political events of his second term (1821-25) were: a dispute over the disposition of public lands in the new states; [3] a dispute over the power of Congress to aid the building of roads and ca.n.a.ls, called "internal improvements"; the recognition of the independence of South American colonies of Spain; the announcement of the Monroe Doctrine; the pa.s.sage of a new tariff act; and the breaking up of the Republican party.
THE SOUTH AMERICAN REPUBLICS.--In 1808 Napoleon invaded Spain, drove out the king, and placed his brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne. Thereupon many of the Spanish colonies in America rebelled and organized themselves as republics. When Napoleon was sent to St. Helena, the Spanish king (who was restored in 1814) brought back most of the colonies to their allegiance. La Plata, however, rebelled, and was quickly followed by the others. In 1822 President Monroe recognized the independence of La Plata (Argentina), Chile, Peru, Colombia, Mexico, and Central America.
THE HOLY ALLIANCE.--The king of Spain, unable to conquer the revolted colonies, applied for aid to the Holy Alliance which was formed by Russia, Prussia, Austria, and France for the purpose of maintaining monarchical government in Europe. For a while these powers did nothing, but in 1823 they called a conference to consider the question of restoring to Spain her South American colonies. But the South American republics had won their independence from Spain, and had been recognized by us as sovereign powers; what right had other nations to combine and force them back again to the condition of colonies? In his annual message (December, 1823), the President therefore took occasion to make certain announcements which have ever since been called the Monroe Doctrine. [4]
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD-TIME SOFA.]
THE MONROE DOCTRINE.--Referring to the conduct of the Holy Alliance, he said--
1. That the United States would not meddle in the political affairs of Europe.
2. That European governments must not extend their system to any part of North and South America, nor in any way seek to control the destiny of any of the nations of this hemisphere.
As Russia had been attempting to plant a colony on the coast of California, which was then a part of Mexico, the President announced (as another part of the doctrine)--
3. That the American continents were no longer open for colonization by European powers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: AN OLD-TIME PIANO.]
THE TARIFF OF 1824.--Failure of the tariff of 1816 to shut out British manufactures, the hard times of 1819, and the general ruin of business led to a demand for another tariff in 1820. To this the cotton states were bitterly opposed. In the South there were no manufacturing centers, no great manufacturing industries of any sort. The planters sold their cotton to the North and (chiefly) to Great Britain, from which they bought almost all kinds of manufactured goods they used. Naturally, they wanted low duties on their imported articles; just enough tax to support the government and no more.
In the North, especially in towns now almost wholly given up to manufactures, as Lynn and Lowell and Fall River and Providence and Cohoes and Paterson and others; in regions where the farmers were raising sheep for wool; in Pennsylvania, where iron was mined; and in Kentucky, where the hemp fields were, people wanted domestic manufactures protected by a high tariff.
The struggle was a long one. At each session of Congress from 1820 to 1824 the question came up. Finally in 1824 a new tariff for protection was enacted despite the efforts of the South and part of New England.
BREAKING UP OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.--Though the three questions of internal improvements, the tariff, and the use of the public lands led to bitter disputes, they did less to break up the party harmony than the action of the leaders. After the second election of Monroe the question of his successor at once arose. The people of Tennessee nominated Andrew Jackson; South Carolina named the Secretary of War, Calhoun; Kentucky wanted Henry Clay, who had long been speaker of the House of Representatives; the New England states were for John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State. Finally the usual party caucus of Republican members of Congress nominated Crawford of Georgia, the Secretary of the Treasury.
THE ELECTION OF 1824-25.--The withdrawal of Calhoun from the race for the presidency left in it Adams, Clay, Crawford, and Jackson, representing the four sections of the country--Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southwest.
As no one had a majority of the electoral votes, it became the duty of the House of Representatives to elect one from the three who had received the highest votes. [5] They were Jackson, Adams, and Crawford. The House chose Adams, [6] who was duly inaugurated in 1825. [7] The electoral college had elected Calhoun Vice President. [8]
THE CHARGE OF CORRUPTION.--The friends of Jackson were bitterly disappointed by his defeat. He was "the Man of the People," had received the highest number of electoral votes (though not a majority), and ought, they said, to have been elected by the House. That he had not been elected was due, they claimed, to a bargain: Clay was to urge his friends to vote for Adams; if elected, Adams was to make Clay Secretary of State. No such bargain was ever made. But after Adams became President he appointed Clay Secretary of State, and then the supporters of Jackson were convinced that the charge was true.
RISE OF THE NEW PARTIES.--The legislature of Tennessee, therefore, at once renominated Jackson, and about him gathered all who, for any reason, disliked Adams and Clay, all who were opposed to the tariff and internal improvements, or wanted "a man of the people" for President. They were called Jackson men, or Democratic Republicans.