Chapter 7 Apush - 1800's France and Britain War

Chapter 7 FR

Weixiang Deng

During the early 1800's France and Britain were at war and America were neutral. But later on, Great Britain began seizing American ships and impressing the Americans into the British Navy. In addition, Great Britain supported the Native Americans in North America with guns, and, as a result, America declared war on Britain which is known as the war of 1812. After the war, the period during the presidency of James Monroe is called “Era of good feelings” because of the spread of nationalism. Many believes that this time period is “Era of good feeling”, but its Correctness is questionable. In fact, it is misnomer because all the events happened during this time are not consistent with this label, and there were various problems, such as economy depressing and controversy over Missouri, that contradicted this era’s name, “Era of good feelings”.

The major problem was economic panic. During “The panic of 1819”, which was caused by the Second Bank of United States, the Second Bank of U.S forced western banks to foreclose on western farm in order to control the inflation that was caused by the war of 1819. Besides this, they made people to pay in gold, silver and other hard money instead of paper money. Lots of banks were affected, and people who took the loans were harmed because they have to payoff their debts by hard money. Because of this, the value of paper money was decreased, lots of banks were closed and lots of people were becoming unemployment. In those people, farmer suffered the most. Furthermore, because most of the western people were in panic, they started asking government for land reform and became opposed to the national banks. “The panic of 1819” shows an economy depression caused by the national banks and the panic of the civilians, which is opposite to the principles of “Era of good feelings”.

Sectionalism emerged in U.S because of the slavery. When Missouri ask to join U.S as a slave state, the northern-dominated House of representatives denied the territory statehood even Missouri met all the requirements to become a new state in America. They denied it because they think it would tip the sectional balance they had with southern states which would let the southern states have twelve states. The House also passed the Tallmadge Amendment in 1819, declaring that no new slaves could be taken into Missouri and that slaves born there should be freed at age of 25. But this law bothered Southern states a lot, they think this amendment threatened the sectional balance.Southern states feared that the Congress would abolish the slavery they had, and they also feel angry because they think the northern was attempting to eliminate their slavery. So the Southern states blocked the Tallmedge Amendment in the Senate. As a solution to this deadlock, Henry Clay proposed the Missouri compromise in 1820. Although this compromise was accepted by both Southern and Northern states, some Northerners were upset about this. The controversy between Northern and Southern states prove that America was disunity, and it states that the “Era of good feelings”.is not accuracy for this time period.