Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties refers to the decade of the 1920s in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the United States and Western Europe in major cities such as Berlin, London, Los Angeles, New York City and Sydney. In France, the decade was known as the "années folles", emphasizing the era's social and cultural dynamism. Jazz blossomed, the flapper redefined the modern look for British and American women, Art Deco peaked. Not everything roared: in the wake of the hyper-emotional patriotism of World War I, Warren G. Harding "brought back normalcy" to the politics of the United States; this period saw the large-scale development and use of automobiles, movies and electrical appliances. Aviation became a business. Nations saw rapid industrial and economic growth, accelerated consumer demand, significant changes in lifestyle and culture; the media focused on celebrities sports heroes and movie stars, as cities rooted for their home teams and filled the new palatial cinemas and gigantic sports stadiums.
In most major democratic states, women won the right to vote. The right to vote made a huge impact on society; the social and cultural features known as the Roaring Twenties began in leading metropolitan centers and spread in the aftermath of World War I. The United States gained dominance in world finance. Thus, when Germany could no longer afford to pay World War I reparations to the United Kingdom and the other Allied powers, the United States came up with the Dawes Plan, named after banker, 30th Vice President Charles G. Dawes. Wall Street invested in Germany, which paid its reparations to countries that, in turn, used the dollars to pay off their war debts to Washington. By the middle of the decade, prosperity was widespread, with the second half of the decade known in Germany, as the "Golden Twenties"; the spirit of the Roaring Twenties was marked by a general feeling of novelty associated with modernity and a break with tradition. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology.
New technologies automobiles, moving pictures, radio, brought "modernity" to a large part of the population. Formal decorative frills were shed in favor of practicality in architecture. At the same time and dancing rose in popularity, in opposition to the mood of World War I; as such, the period is referred to as the Jazz Age. The Wall Street Crash of 1929 ended the era, as the Great Depression brought years of hardship worldwide; the Roaring Twenties was a decade of economic growth and widespread prosperity, driven by recovery from wartime devastation and deferred spending, a boom in construction, the rapid growth of consumer goods such as automobiles and electricity in North America and Western Europe and a few other developed countries such as Australia. The economy of the United States, which had transitioned from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy and provided loans for a European boom as well; some sectors stagnated farming and coal mining. The US became the richest country in the world per capita and since the late-19th century had been the largest in total GDP.
Its industry was based on mass production, its society acculturated into consumerism. European economies, by contrast, had a more difficult postwar readjustment and did not begin to flourish until about 1924. At first, the end of wartime production caused a brief but deep recession, the post–World War I recession of 1919–20. However, the economies of the U. S. and Canada rebounded as returning soldiers re-entered the labor force and munitions factories were retooled to produce consumer goods. Mass production made technology affordable to the middle class; the automotive industry, the film industry, the radio industry, the chemical industry took off during the 1920s. Of chief importance was the automotive industry. Before the war, cars were a luxury good. In the 1920s, mass-produced vehicles became commonplace in the Canada. By 1927, the Ford Motor Company discontinued the Ford Model T after selling 15 million units of that model, it had been in continuous production from October 1908 to May 1927.
The company planned to replace the old model with a newer one, the Ford Model A. The decision was a reaction to competition. Due to the commercial success of the Model T, Ford had dominated the automotive market from the mid-1910s to the early-1920s. In the mid-1920s, Ford's dominance eroded as its competitors had caught up with Ford's mass production system, they began to surpass Ford in some areas, offering models with more powerful engines, new convenience features, styling. Only about 300,000 vehicles were registered in 1918 in all of Canada, but by 1929, there were 1.9 million, automobile parts were being manufactured in Ontario, near Detroit, Michigan. The automotive industry's influence on other segments of the economy were widespread, jump starting industries such as steel production, highway building, service stations, car dealerships, new housing outside the urban core. Ford opened factories around the world and proved a strong competitor in most markets for its low-cost, easy-maintenance vehicles.
General Motors, to a lesser degree, followed. European competitors avoided the low-price market and concentrated on more expensive vehicles for upscale consumers. Radio became the first mass broadcasting medium. Radios were expensive. Radio advertising became a platform for mass marketing, its economic importance led to the mass culture. During the "Golden Age of Radio", radio programming was as varied as
James Madison
James Madison Jr. was an American statesman, diplomat and Founding Father who served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. He is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for his pivotal role in drafting and promoting the United States Constitution and the United States Bill of Rights, he co-wrote The Federalist Papers, co-founded the Democratic-Republican Party, served as the fifth United States Secretary of State from 1801 to 1809. Born into a prominent Virginia planting family, Madison served as a member of the Virginia House of Delegates and the Continental Congress during and after the American Revolutionary War, he became dissatisfied with the weak national government established by the Articles of Confederation and helped organize the Constitutional Convention, which produced a new constitution to supplant the Articles of Confederation. Madison's Virginia Plan served as the basis for the Constitutional Convention's deliberations, he was one of the most influential individuals at the convention.
Madison became one of the leaders in the movement to ratify the Constitution, he joined with Alexander Hamilton and John Jay in writing The Federalist Papers, a series of pro-ratification essays, considered to be one of the most influential works of political science in American history. After the ratification of the Constitution, Madison emerged as an important leader in the United States House of Representatives and served as a close adviser to President George Washington, he was the main force behind the ratification of the United States Bill of Rights, which enshrines guarantees of personal freedoms and rights within the Constitution. During the early 1790s, Madison came to oppose the economic program and accompanying centralization of power favored by Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Madison organized the Democratic-Republican Party, which was, alongside Hamilton's Federalist Party, one of the nation's first major political parties. After Jefferson won the 1800 presidential election, Madison served as Secretary of State from 1801 to 1809.
In that position, he supervised the Louisiana Purchase. Madison succeeded Jefferson with a victory in the 1808 presidential election. After diplomatic protests and a trade embargo failed to end British attacks against American shipping, he led the United States into the War of 1812; the war was an administrative morass and ended inconclusively, but many Americans saw it as a successful "second war of independence" against Britain. The war convinced Madison of the necessity of a stronger federal government, he presided over the creation of the Second Bank of the United States and the enactment of the protective Tariff of 1816, he retired from public office in 1817 and died in 1836. He is considered to be one of the most important Founding Fathers of the United States, historians have ranked Madison as an above-average president. James Madison Jr. was born on March 16, 1751, at Belle Grove Plantation near Port Conway, Virginia, to James Madison Sr. and Nelly Conway Madison. He grew up as the oldest of twelve children, with seven brothers and four sisters, though only six of his siblings would live to adulthood.
His father was a tobacco planter who grew up on a plantation called Mount Pleasant, which he had inherited upon reaching adulthood. With numerous slaves and a 5,000 acres plantation, Madison's father was the largest landowner and a leading citizen in the Piedmont. Madison's maternal grandfather was a prominent tobacco merchant. In the early 1760s, the Madison family moved into a newly built house. From age 11 to 16, Madison was sent to study under Donald Robertson, a Scottish instructor who served as a tutor for a number of prominent planter families in the South. Madison learned mathematics and modern and classical languages—he became proficient in Latin. At age 16, Madison returned to Montpelier, where he began a two-year course of study under the Reverend Thomas Martin in preparation for college. Unlike most college-bound Virginians of his day, Madison did not attend the College of William and Mary, where the lowland Williamsburg climate - thought to be more to harbor infectious disease - might have strained his delicate health.
Instead, in 1769, he enrolled at the College of New Jersey. His studies at Princeton included Latin, Greek and the works of the Enlightenment. Great emphasis was placed on both debate. Along with another classmate, Madison undertook an intense program of study and completed Princeton's three-year bachelor of arts degree in just two years, graduating in 1771, he remained at Princeton to study Hebrew and political philosophy under President John Witherspoon before returning home to Montpelier in early 1772. His ideas on philosophy and morality were shaped by Witherspoon, who converted Madison to the philosophy and modes of thinking of the Age of Enlightenment. Biographer Terence Ball says that at Princeton: He was immersed in the liberalism of the Enlightenment, converted to eighteenth-century political radicalism. From on James Madison's theories would advance the rights of happiness of man, his most active efforts would serve devotedly the cause of civil and political liberty. After returning to Montpelier, who had not yet decided on a specific career, served as a tutor to his younger siblings.
In the early 1770s the relationship between the American colonies a
John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun was an American statesman and political theorist from South Carolina who served as the seventh vice president of the United States from 1825 to 1832. He is remembered for defending slavery and for advancing the concept of minority rights in politics, which he did in the context of protecting the interests of the white South when it was outnumbered by Northerners, he began his political career as a nationalist and proponent of a strong national government and protective tariffs. In the late 1820s, his views changed radically and he became a leading proponent of states' rights, limited government and opposition to high tariffs—he saw Northern acceptance of these policies as the only way to keep the South in the Union, his beliefs and warnings influenced the South's secession from the Union in 1860–1861. Calhoun began his political career with election to the House of Representatives in 1810; as a prominent leader of the war hawk faction, Calhoun supported the War of 1812 to defend American honor against British infractions of American independence and neutrality during the Napoleonic Wars.
He served as Secretary of War under President James Monroe, in this position reorganized and modernized the War Department. Calhoun was a candidate for the presidency in the 1824 election. After failing to gain support, he let his name be put forth as a candidate for vice president; the Electoral College elected Calhoun for vice president by an overwhelming majority. He served under John Quincy Adams and continued under Andrew Jackson, who defeated Adams in the election of 1828. Calhoun had a difficult relationship with Jackson due to the Nullification Crisis and the Petticoat affair. In contrast with his previous nationalism, Calhoun vigorously supported South Carolina's right to nullify federal tariff legislation he believed unfairly favored the North, putting him into conflict with unionists such as Jackson. In 1832, with only a few months remaining in his second term, he resigned as vice president and entered the Senate, he sought the Democratic nomination for the presidency in 1844, but lost to surprise nominee James K. Polk, who went on to become president.
Calhoun served as Secretary of State under John Tyler from 1844 to 1845. As Secretary of State, he supported the annexation of Texas as a means to extend the slave power, helped settle the Oregon boundary dispute with Britain, he returned to the Senate, where he opposed the Mexican–American War, the Wilmot Proviso, the Compromise of 1850 before his death in 1850. Calhoun served as a virtual party-independent who variously aligned as needed with Democrats and Whigs. In life, Calhoun became known as the "cast-iron man" for his rigid defense of white Southern beliefs and practices, his concept of republicanism emphasized approval of slavery and minority rights, as embodied by the Southern states. His concept of minority rights did not extend to slaves. Calhoun asserted that slavery, rather than being a "necessary evil," was a "positive good," benefiting both slaves and slave owners. To protect minority rights against majority rule, he called for a concurrent majority whereby the minority could sometimes block proposals that it felt infringed on their liberties.
To this end, Calhoun supported states' rights and nullification, through which states could declare null and void federal laws that they viewed as unconstitutional. Calhoun was one of the "Great Triumvirate" or the "Immortal Trio" of Congressional leaders, along with his Congressional colleagues Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. In 1957, a Senate Committee headed by Senator John F. Kennedy selected Calhoun as one of the five greatest United States Senators of all time. John Caldwell Calhoun was born in Abbeville District, South Carolina on March 18, 1782, the fourth child of Patrick Calhoun and his wife Martha Caldwell. Patrick's father named Patrick Calhoun, had joined the Scotch-Irish immigration movement from County Donegal to southwestern Pennsylvania. After the death of the elder Patrick in 1741, the family moved to southwestern Virginia. Following the defeat of British General Edward Braddock at the Battle of the Monongahela in 1755, the family, fearing Indian attacks, moved to South Carolina in 1756.
Patrick Calhoun belonged to the Calhoun clan in the tight-knit Scotch-Irish community on the Southern frontier. He was known as an Indian fighter and an ambitious surveyor, farmer and politician, being a member of the South Carolina Legislature; as a Presbyterian, he stood opposed to the Anglican elite based in Charleston. He was a Patriot in the American Revolution, opposed ratification of the federal Constitution on grounds of states' rights and personal liberties. Calhoun would adopt his father's states' rights beliefs. Young Calhoun showed scholastic talent, although schools were scarce on the Carolina frontier, he was enrolled in an academy in Appling, which soon closed, he continued his studies privately. When his father died, his brothers were away starting business careers, so the 14-year-old Calhoun took over management of the family farm and five other farms. For four years he kept up his reading and his hunting and fishing; the family decided he should continue his education, so he resumed studies at the Academy after it reopened.
With financing from his brothers, he went to Yale College in Connecticut in 1802. For the first time in his life, Calhoun encountered serious, well-organized intellectual dialogue that could shape his mind. Yale was dominated by a Federalist who became his mentor. Dwight's brilliance entranced (and sometimes repell
Colonial history of the United States
The colonial history of the United States covers the history of European colonization of America from the early 16th century until the incorporation of the colonies into the United States of America. In the late 16th century, France and the Netherlands launched major colonization programs in America; the death rate was high among those who arrived first, some early attempts disappeared altogether, such as the English Lost Colony of Roanoke. Successful colonies were established within several decades. European settlers came from a variety of social and religious groups, including adventurers, indentured servants, a few from the aristocracy. Settlers included the Dutch of New Netherland, the Swedes and Finns of New Sweden, the English Quakers of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English Puritans of New England, the English settlers of Jamestown, the English Catholics and Protestant non-conformists of the Province of Maryland, the "worthy poor" of the Province of Georgia, the Germans who settled the mid-Atlantic colonies, the Ulster Scots people of the Appalachian Mountains.
These groups all became part of the United States when it gained its independence in 1776. Russian America and parts of New France and New Spain were incorporated into the United States at various points; the diverse groups from these various regions built colonies of distinctive social, religious and economic style. Over time, non-British colonies East of the Mississippi River were taken over and most of the inhabitants were assimilated. In Nova Scotia, the British expelled the French Acadians, many relocated to Louisiana. No civil wars occurred in the thirteen colonies; the two chief armed rebellions were short-lived failures in Virginia in 1676 and in New York in 1689–91. Some of the colonies developed legalized systems of slavery, centered around the Atlantic slave trade. Wars were recurrent between the French and the British during the Indian Wars. By 1760, France was defeated and its colonies were seized by Britain. On the eastern seaboard, the four distinct English regions were New England, the Middle Colonies, the Chesapeake Bay Colonies, the Southern Colonies.
Some historians add a fifth region of the Frontier, never separately organized. A significant percentage of the Indians living in the eastern region had been ravaged by disease before 1620 introduced to them decades before by explorers and sailors. Colonists came from European kingdoms that had developed military, naval and entrepreneurial capabilities; the Spanish and Portuguese centuries-old experience of conquest and colonization during the Reconquista, coupled with new oceanic ship navigation skills, provided the tools and desire to colonize the New World. These efforts were managed by the Casa de Contratación and the Casa da Índia. England and the Netherlands had started colonies in the West Indies and North America, they had the ability to build ocean-worthy ships but did not have as strong a history of colonization in foreign lands as did Portugal and Spain. However, English entrepreneurs gave their colonies a foundation of merchant-based investment that seemed to need much less government support.
Matters concerning the colonies were dealt with by the Privy Council of England and its committees. The Commission of Trade was set up in 1625 as the first special body convened to advise on colonial questions. From 1696 until the end of the American Revolution, colonial affairs were the responsibility of the Board of Trade in partnership with the relevant secretaries of state, which changed from the Secretary of State for the Southern Department to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in 1768. Mercantilism was the basic policy imposed by Britain on its colonies from the 1660s, which meant that the government became a partner with merchants based in England in order to increase political power and private wealth; this was done to the exclusion of other empires and other merchants in its own colonies. The government protected its London-based merchants and kept out others by trade barriers and subsidies to domestic industries in order to maximize exports from the realm and minimize imports.
The government fought smuggling, this became a direct source of controversy with American merchants when their normal business activities became reclassified as "smuggling" by the Navigation Acts. This included activities, ordinary business dealings such as direct trade with the French, Spanish and Portuguese; the goal of mercantilism was to run trade surpluses so that silver would pour into London. The government took its share through duties and taxes, with the remainder going to merchants in Britain; the government spent much of its revenue on a superb Royal Navy which protected the British colonies and threatened the colonies of the other empires, sometimes seizing them. Thus, the British Navy captured New Amsterdam in 1664; the colonies were captive markets for British industry, the goal was to enrich the mother country. The prospect of religious persecution by authorities of the crown and the Church of England prompted a significant number of colonization efforts; the Pilgrims were separatist Puritans who fled persecution in England, first to the Netherlands and to Plymouth Plantation in 1620.
Over the following 20 years, people fleeing persecution from King Charles I settled most of New England. The Province of Maryland was founded in part to be a haven for Roman Catholics. Anonymous Portuguese explorers were the first
Great Depression in the United States
The Great Depression began in August 1929, when the United States economy first went into an economic recession. Everyone in the Great Depression struggled financially due to the collapse of the banking system. Although the country spent two months with declining GDP, it was not until the Wall Street Crash in October 1929 that the effects of a declining economy were felt, a major worldwide economic downturn ensued; the stock market crash marked the beginning of a decade of high unemployment, low profits, plunging farm incomes, lost opportunities for economic growth as well as for personal advancement. Altogether, there was a general loss of confidence in the economic future; the usual explanations include numerous factors high consumer debt, ill-regulated markets that permitted overoptimistic loans by banks and investors, the lack of high-growth new industries. These all interacted to create a downward economic spiral of reduced spending, falling confidence and lowered production. Industries that suffered the most included construction, mining and agriculture.
Hard hit was the manufacturing of durable goods like automobiles and appliances, whose purchase could be postponed. The economy hit bottom in the winter of 1932–33; the Depression caused major political changes in America. Three years into the depression, President Herbert Hoover shamed for not doing enough to combat the crisis, lost the election of 1932 to Franklin Delano Roosevelt by an embarrassingly wide margin. Roosevelt's economic recovery plan, the New Deal, instituted unprecedented programs for relief and reform, brought about a major realignment of American politics; the Depression resulted in an increase of emigration for the first time in American history. Some immigrants went back to their native countries, some native U. S. citizens went to Canada and South Africa. There were mass migrations of people from badly hit areas in the Great Plains and the South to places such as California and the cities of the North. Racial tensions increased during this time. By the 1940s immigration had returned to normal, emigration declined.
A well-known example of an emigrant was Frank McCourt, who went to Ireland, as recounted in his book Angela's Ashes. The memory of the Depression shaped modern theories of economics and resulted in many changes in how the government dealt with economic downturns, such as the use of stimulus packages, Keynesian economics, Social Security, it shaped modern American literature, resulting in famous novels such as John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men. Examining the causes of the Great Depression raises multiple issues: what factors set off the first downturn in 1929. Many banks began to fail in October 1930. There was no federal deposit insurance during that time as bank failures were considered a normal part of economic life. Worried depositors started to withdraw savings, so the money multiplier worked in reverse. Banks were forced to liquidate assets; this caused the money supply to shrink and the economy to contract, resulting in a significant decline in aggregate investment.
The decreased money supply further aggravated price deflation, putting more pressure on struggling businesses. The U. S. Government's commitment to the gold standard prevented it from engaging in expansionary monetary policy. High interest rates needed to be maintained in order to attract international investors who bought foreign assets with gold. However, the high interest inhibited domestic business borrowing; the U. S. interest rates were affected by France's decision to raise their interest rates to attract gold to their vaults. In theory, the U. S. would have two potential responses to that: Allow the exchange rate to adjust, or increase their own interest rates to maintain the gold standard. At the time, the U. S. was pegged to the gold standard. Therefore, Americans converted their dollars into francs to buy more French assets, the demand for the U. S. dollar fell, the exchange rate increased. One of the only things the U. S. could do to get back into equilibrium. Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman and his fellow monetarist Anna Schwartz argued that the Federal Reserve could have stemmed the severity of the Depression, but failed to exercise its role of managing the monetary system and ameliorating banking panics, resulting in a Great Contraction of the economy from 1929 until the New Deal began in 1933.
This view was endorsed by Fed Governor Ben Bernanke who made this statement in a speech honoring Friedman and Schwartz: Let me end my talk by abusing my status as an official representative of the Federal Reserve. I would like to say to Milton and Anna: Regarding the Great Depression, you're right. We did it. We're sorry, but thanks to you, we won't do it again. — Ben S. Bernanke The Wall Street Crash of 1929 is cited as the beginning of the Great Depression, it began on October 24, 1929, was the most devastating stock market crash in the history of the United States. Much of the stock market crash can be attributed to exuberance and false expectations. In the years leading up to 1929, the rising stock market prices had created vast sums of wealth for those invested, in turn encouraging borrowing to further buy more stock. How
1824 United States presidential election
The United States presidential election of 1824 was the tenth quadrennial presidential election, held from Tuesday, October 26, to Thursday, December 2, 1824. In an election contested by four members of the Democratic-Republican Party, no candidate won a majority of the electoral vote, necessitating a contingent election in the House of Representatives under the provisions of the Twelfth Amendment to the United States Constitution. On February 9, 1825, the House of Representatives elected John Quincy Adams as president; the 1824 presidential election was the first election in which the winner of the election lost the popular vote. Prior to the election, the Democratic-Republican Party had won six consecutive presidential elections, by 1824 the opposition Federalist Party had collapsed as a national party. Secretary of State Adams, General Andrew Jackson, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford, Speaker of the House Henry Clay all sought the presidency as members of the Democratic-Republican Party.
A fifth candidate, John C. Calhoun sought the presidency before dropping out to run for vice president; the 1824 Democratic-Republican congressional nominating caucus nominated Crawford for president, but the other candidates disregarded this nomination and continued to seek the presidency. In the election, Adams won New England and Adams split the mid-Atlantic states and Clay split the Western states, Jackson and Crawford split the Southern states. Jackson finished with a plurality of the electoral and popular vote, while the other three candidates each finished with a significant share of the electoral and popular vote. Calhoun, who supported Jackson became the de facto running mate of Adams and as such was elected with a comfortable majority of the vice presidential vote in the Electoral College. However, no one had won a majority of the presidential electoral vote, the 1824 election thus became the first election to be decided in the House of Representatives under the terms of the 12th Amendment.
The 12th Amendment specified that only the three top finishers in the electoral vote were eligible to be selected by the House, thus eliminating Clay, influential within that chamber. In the contingent election, Clay threw his support behind Adams, who shared many of his positions on the major issues. With Clay's backing, Adams won the contingent election on the first ballot. After Adams took office, he appointed Clay as Secretary of State, supporters of Jackson accused Clay and Adams of having agreed to a "corrupt bargain" in which Clay supported Adams in return for his appointment to the most prestigious Cabinet position; the faction led by Jackson would evolve into the modern Democratic Party, while supporters of Adams and Henry Clay would form the National Republican Party and the Whig Party. Adams's 1824 election victory was thus the last of seven consecutive wins by the Democratic-Republican Party; the Era of Good Feelings associated with the administration of President James Monroe, was characterized by the dissolution of national political identities.
With the discredited Federalists in decline nationally, the "amalgamated" or hybridized Republicans adopted key Federalist economic programs and institutions, further erasing party identities and consolidating their victory. The economic nationalism of the Era of Good Feelings that would authorize the Tariff of 1816 and incorporate the Second Bank of the United States portended an abandonment of the Jeffersonian political formula for strict construction of the constitution, limited central government and commitments to the primacy of Southern agrarian interests; the end of opposition parties meant the end of party discipline and the means to suppress internecine factional animosities. Rather than produce political harmony, as President James Monroe had hoped, amalgamation had led to intense rivalries among Republicans. Bereft of any party apparatus to contain these outbursts, Monroe attempted to enlist the leading statesmen of his day into his cabinet so as to commit them to advancing his policies.
Of the five politicians who would run for president in 1824, three were in Monroe's cabinet: Secretary of State John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Secretary of the Treasury William H. Crawford of Georgia, Secretary of War John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. General Andrew Jackson of Tennessee, a commander in the regular US Army, was tapped for high-profile military assignments. Only Speaker of the House of Representatives Henry Clay of Kentucky held political power independent of the Monroe administration. Monroe's efforts to bring Clay into his cabinet failed, the Speaker remained a persistent critic of the Monroe administration. Amid these reconfigured political landscapes arose two pivotal events: the Panic of 1819 and the Missouri crisis of 1820. Both the alarming economic disaster, which fell upon both agrarian and industrial workers, the distressing sectional disputes over slavery expansion, produced widespread social unrest and calls for increased democratic control over the future of the American republic.
From these disaffected social groups would be assembled the popular base on which political parties would be revived, though these were only beginning to take shape at the time of the 1824 presidential election. The previous competition between the Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party collapsed after the War of 1812 due to the disintegration of the Federalists' popular appeal, U. S. President James Monroe of the Democratic-Republican Party was able to run without opposition in the election of 1820. Like previous presidents, elected to two terms, James Monroe declined to seek re-nomination for a third term. Monroe's vice president, Daniel D. Tompkins, was considered unelec
Federalist Era
The Federalist Era in American history ran from 1788-1800, a time when the Federalist Party and its predecessors were dominant in American politics. During this period, Federalists controlled Congress and enjoyed the support of President George Washington and President John Adams; the era saw the creation of a new, stronger federal government under the United States Constitution, a deepening of support for nationalism, diminished fears of tyranny by a central government. The era began with the ratification of the United States Constitution and ended with the Democratic-Republican Party's victory in the 1800 elections. During the 1780s, an era sometimes known as the "Confederation Period" of United States history, the United States had functioned under the Articles of Confederation, which provided for a loose confederation of states. At the 1787 Philadelphia Convention, delegates from most of the states wrote a new constitution that created a more powerful federal government. After the convention, this constitution was submitted to the states for ratification.
Those who advocated ratification became known as Federalists, while those opposed to ratification became known as anti-Federalists. After the Federalists won the ratification debate in all but two states, the new constitution took effect and new elections were held for Congress and the presidency; the first elections returned large Federalist majorities in both houses and elected George Washington, who had taken part in the Philadelphia Convention, as president. The Washington administration and the 1st United States Congress established numerous precedents and much of the structure of the new government. Congress shaped the federal judiciary with the Judiciary Act of 1789 while Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton's economic policies fostered a strong central government; the first Congress passed the United States Bill of Rights to constitutionally limit the powers of the federal government. During the Federalist Era, U. S. foreign policy was dominated by concerns regarding Britain and Spain.
Washington and Adams sought to avoid war with each of these countries while ensuring continued trade and settlement of the American frontier. Hamilton's policies divided the United States along factional lines, creating voter-based political parties for the first time. Hamilton mobilized urban elites who favored his economic policies, his opponents coalesced around James Madison. Jefferson feared that Hamilton's policies would lead to an aristocratic, monarchical, society that clashed with his vision of a republic built on yeomen farmers; this economic policy debate was further roiled by the French Revolutionary Wars, as Jeffersonians tended to sympathize with France and Hamiltonians with Britain. The Jay Treaty established peaceful commercial relations with Britain, but outraged the Jeffersonians and damaged relations with France. Hamilton's followers organized into the Federalist Party while the Jeffersonians organized into the Democratic-Republican Party. Though many who had sought ratification of the Constitution joined the Federalist Party, some advocates of the Constitution, led by Madison, became members of the Democratic-Republicans.
The Federalist Party and the Democratic-Republican Party contested the 1796 presidential election, with the Federalist Adams emerging triumphant. From 1798 to 1800, the United States engaged in the Quasi-War with France, many Americans rallied to Adams. In the wake of these foreign policy tensions, the Federalists imposed the Alien and Sedition Acts to crack down on dissidents and make it more difficult for immigrants to become citizens. Historian Carol Berkin argues that the Federalists strengthen the national government, without arousing fears of tyranny; the Federalists embraced a quasi-aristocratic, elitist vision, unpopular with most Americans outside of the middle class. Jefferson's egalitarian vision appealed to farmers and middle-class urbanites alike and the party embraced campaign tactics that mobilized all classes of society. Although the Federalists retained strength in New England and other parts of the Northeast, the Democratic-Republicans dominated the South and West and became the more successful party in much of the Northeast.
In the 1800 elections, Jefferson defeated Adams for the presidency and the Democratic-Republicans took control of Congress. Jefferson referred to the election as the "Revolution of 1800," as Jeffersonian democracy came to dominate the country in the succeeding decades; the Federalists collapsed after the war. Despite the Federalist Party's demise, many of the institutions and structures established by the party would endure, Hamilton's economic policies would influence generations of American political leaders; the United States Constitution was written at the 1787 Philadelphia Convention and ratified by the states in 1788, taking effect in 1789. During the 1780s, the United States had operated under the Articles of Confederation, a treaty of thirteen sovereign states. Domestic and foreign policy challenges convinced many in the United States of the need for a new constitution that provided for a stronger national government; the supporters of ratification of the Constitution were called Federalists while the opponents were called Anti-Federalists.
The immediate problem faced by the Federalists was not one of acceptance of the Constitution but the more fundamental concern of legitimacy for the government of the new republic. With this challenge in mind, the new national government needed to act with the idea that every act was being carried out for the first time and would therefore have great significance and be viewed along the lines of the symbolic as well as
