Which president encouraged nationalism

Monroe achieved the primary goal of his tour in the heart of Federalist territory. Monroe was assiduous in avoiding any remarks or expressions that might chasten or humiliate his hosts. He presented himself strictly as the head of state and not as the leader of a triumphant political party. His nearly unanimous electoral victory for reelection in seemed to confirm this unity. Recognizing the danger of intraparty rivalries, Monroe attempted to include prospective presidential candidates and top political leaders in his administration.

His cabinet comprised three of the political rivals who would vie for the presidency in John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, and William H. A fourth, Andrew Jackson, held high military appointments. Monroe felt he could manage the factional disputes and arrange compromise on national politics within administration guidelines. His great disadvantage, however, was that amalgamation deprived him of appealing to Republican solidarity that would have cleared the way for passage of his programs in Congress.

The end result was a loss of party discipline. Old Republican critics of the new nationalism, among them John Randolph of Roanoke, Virginia, had warned that the abandonment of the Jeffersonian scheme of Southern preeminence would provoke a sectional conflict between the North and the South that would threaten the Union. Old Republicans feared such an outcome was inevitable if universal adherence to the precepts of Jeffersonianism was absent. Maryland reanimated the disputes over the supremacy of state sovereignty and federal power.

The Missouri Crisis in made the explosive political conflict between slave and free states open and explicit.

The Panic marked the end of the economic expansion that had followed the War of and ushered in new financial policies that would shape economic development. The first major economic crisis after the War of was due, in large measure, to factors in the larger Atlantic economy. It was made worse, however, by land speculation and poor banking practices at home. British textile mills voraciously consumed American cotton, and the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars had made Europe reliant on other American agricultural commodities such as wheat.

This drove up both the price of American agricultural products and the value of the land on which staples such as cotton, wheat, corn, and tobacco were grown. Small merchants and factory owners, hoping to take advantage of this boom time, also sought to borrow money to expand their businesses.

When existing banks refused to lend money to small farmers and others without a credit history, state legislatures chartered new banks to meet the demand. As loans increased, paper money from new state banks flooded the country, creating inflation that drove the price of land and goods still higher. This, in turn, encouraged even more people to borrow money with which to purchase land or to expand or start their own businesses.

Speculators took advantage of this boom in the sale of land by purchasing property not to live on, but to buy cheaply and resell at exorbitant prices. During the war, the Bank of the United States had suspended payments in specie. When the war ended, the bank continued to issue only paper banknotes and to redeem notes issued by state banks with paper only.

The newly chartered banks also adopted this practice, issuing banknotes in excess of the amount of specie in their vaults. This shaky economic scheme worked only so long as people were content to conduct business with paper money and refrain from demanding that banks instead give them the gold and silver that was supposed to back it. If large numbers of people, or banks that had loaned money to other banks, began to demand specie payments, the banking system would collapse, because there was no longer enough specie to support the amount of paper money the banks had put into circulation.

But this new institution only compounded the problem by making risky loans, opening branches in the South and West where land fever was highest, and issuing a steady stream of Bank of the United States notes, a move that increased inflation and speculation. The Panic was also partially impacted by international events. After the Napoleonic Wars came to an end, European demand for American foodstuffs decreased as agriculture in Europe began to recover. In , to make the economic situation worse, prices for American agricultural products began to fall both in the United States and in Europe; the overproduction of staples such as wheat and cotton coincided with the recovery of European agriculture, which reduced demand for American crops.

Crop prices tumbled by as much 75 percent. In addition, war and revolution in the New World destroyed the supply line of precious metals from Mexico and Peru to Europe. The inflated economic bubble burst in , resulting in the Panic of Because it was the first economic depression experienced by the nation, the American public panicked as they saw the prices of agricultural products fall and businesses fail.

The Second Bank of the United States was forced to call a halt to its expansion and launch a painful process of contraction. There was a wave of bankruptcies, bank failures, and bank runs; prices dropped, and wide-scale urban unemployment occurred.

This dramatic decrease in the value of agricultural goods left farmers unable to pay their debts. As they defaulted on their loans, banks seized their property. However, because the drastic fall in agricultural prices had greatly reduced the value of land, the banks were left with farms they were unable to sell. Land speculators lost the value of their investments.

As the countryside suffered, hard-hit farmers ceased to purchase manufactured goods. Factories responded by cutting wages or firing employees. President Monroe, interpreting the economic crisis in narrow monetary terms, limited governmental action to economizing and ensuring fiscal stability.

He acquiesced in suspending specie payments to bank depositors, setting a precedent for the Panics of and Although he agreed to the need for improved transportation facilities, he refused to approve appropriations for internal improvements without a prior amendment of the Constitution.

In an effort to stimulate the economy in the midst of the economic depression, Congress passed several acts modifying land sales. The Relief Act of allowed people from Ohio to return land to the government if they could not afford to keep it. The money they received in return was credited toward their debt. The act also extended the credit period to eight years. Bush G.

Frum, D. Grant, R. Grant and K. Open University Press. Reagan, R. Smith, A. Before you download your free e-book, please consider donating to support open access publishing. E-IR is an independent non-profit publisher run by an all volunteer team.

Your donations allow us to invest in new open access titles and pay our bandwidth bills to ensure we keep our existing titles free to view. Any amount, in any currency, is appreciated. Many thanks! Donations are voluntary and not required to download the e-book - your link to download is below. Katie Smith. This content was originally written for an undergraduate or Master's program.

It is published as part of our mission to showcase peer-leading papers written by students during their studies. Nationalism in America Nationalism is a discourse defining a certain group of people as a nation and constructing for them a shared identity and sense of belonging.

New nationalism in an "Era of Good Feelings". By Matthew Dennis, University of Oregon. You Might Also Like. Loading results In fact, Monroe had an ability to assemble great minds and then allow them the freedom to work.

Scholars have long regarded his cabinet as an exceptionally strong one. Indeed, he was not a renaissance man like Jefferson; his overwhelming interest and passion was politics. But he was a deliberate thinker and had the ability to look at issues from all sides, encouraging debate from his advisers.

President Monroe was a great advocate of nationalism and reached out to all the regions of the country. In foreign policy, he put the nation on an independent course, no longer tied to the mast of European policy.

Although the nation would have to wait until Andrew Jackson to see a significant increase in presidential power over domestic affairs, Monroe's aggressive and successful conduct of foreign policy undoubtedly strengthened the presidency itself. Grant Rutherford B. Hayes James A.