The early part of the last century was an exciting time to live in
America. The signers of the Declaration of Independence and the framers
of the Constitution, mostly old men by now, saw that their experiment in
republican government had turned out to be a success. The nation was
flourishing in these years like a healthy adolescent. There were growing
pains, to be sure, but no one doubted now that the youngster would reach
manhood. The question was: What is he going to be like?
The party battles of John Adams’ administration left the Federalist
Party in ruins, and Thomas Jefferson succeeded to the presidency with an
overwhelming popular mandate. During his first term, Jefferson increased
his popularity through buying from France the enormous Louisiana
Territory which doubled the size of the United States. By the time the
Lewis and Clark Expedition returned from exploring the new land, people
began to realize the immense possibilities that the Louisiana Purchase
held for the future of the United States.
Jefferson’s second term was beset by foreign problems that culminated
eventually in the War of 1812, during James Madison’s administration.
Despite George Washington’s advice in his Farewell Address to stay out
of entangling foreign alliances, America could not avoid being affected
by events abroad. She was caught between the hammer and the anvil during
Napoleon’s wars with the rest of Europe. The War of 1812 settled no
issues but, soon afterward, the main Anglo-American problems left over
from the Revolution were adjusted. Napoleon’s downfall at Waterloo
removed France as an obstacle to American development.
The period known as the “Era of Good Feeling” followed the War of 1812.
During the two terms of James Monroe, internal matters were the main
concern of the country: tariffs, banking, domestic improvements, the
admission of new states into the Union. With the Monroe Doctrine, which
warned Europe to respect the independence of Latin America, the United
States began to emerge as a power in the world. Even more important was
the appearance of storm warnings heralding the eventual coming of the
Civil War. The Missouri Compromise, which drew a line between slave and
free territory, established an uneasy truce between the North and the
South.
By the time John Quincy Adams became the sixth President, sectionalism
was rapidly developing, and the balance of power between the East and
the West, the industrial North and the agricultural South, was beginning
to shift. The two-party system, which had largely disappeared with the
collapse of the Federalists in 1800, was revived. In 1828 the long
monopoly that Virginia and Massachusetts had enjoyed in supplying
American Presidents came to an end with the election of Andrew Jackson
of Tennessee and a new era began.
The selections in this booklet reflect most of the significant events of
these years from 1801 to 1829. The Louisiana Purchase, the Lewis and
Clark Expedition, the War of 1812, the Missouri Compromise, all are
represented. In addition we have included accounts of some small events
and background descriptions which give the flavor of the age. A proper
notion of this period requires not only a knowledge of the major issues,
such as understanding the Embargo Act or the significance of the
_Marbury_ vs. _Madison_ decision, but also an appreciation of the
quality of the experience of being an American in the first quarter of
the nineteenth century. Hence we have used such documents as Lorenzo
Dow’s diary describing the life of a frontier preacher and Morris
Birkbeck’s account of settling in Illinois.
In editing the manuscripts in this booklet, we have followed the
practice of modernizing punctuation, capitalization, and spelling only
when necessary to make the selections clear. We have silently corrected
misspelled words and typographical errors. Wherever possible we have
used complete selections, but occasionally space limitations have made
necessary cuts in the original documents. Such cuts are indicated by
spaced periods. In general, the selections appear as the authors wrote
them.
Richard B. Morris
James Woodress