(FIFTH PRESIDENT—TWO TERMS: 1817-1825.)
DOMESTIC AFFAIRS. The Missouri Compromise.—When the admission of Missouri as a State was proposed, a violent discussion arose as to whether it should be free or slave. Through the efforts of Henry Clay, it was admitted as a slave state (1821), under the compromise that slavery should be prohibited in all other territories west of the Mississippi and north of parallel 36 degrees 30 minutes—the southern boundary of Missouri.
[Footnote: The question of slavery was already one of vast importance. At first slaves were owned in the northern as well as the southern States. But at the North, slave labor was unprofitable, and it had gradually died out; while at the South it was a success, and hence had steadily increased. In 1793, Eli Whitney, of Connecticut, invented the cotton-gin, a machine for cleaning cotton from the seed, an operation before performed by hand, and very expensive. (Read Barnes's Pop. Hist, of the U. S., p 346.) This gave a new impulse to cotton-raising. Sugar and tobacco, also great staples of the South, were cultivated exclusively by slave labor.]
La Fayette's Visit to this country (1824) as "the nation's guest" was a joyous event. He traveled through each of the twenty-four States, and was everywhere welcomed with delight. His visit to the tomb of Washington was full of affectionate remembrance. He was carried home in a national vessel, the Brandywine, named in honor of the battle in which La Fayette first drew his sword in behalf of the colonies.
FOREIGN AFFAIRS.—Florida.—By a treaty (1819), Spain now ceded
Florida to the United States. (See p. 146.)
Monroe Doctrine.—In one of President Monroe's messages he advocated a principle since famous as the Monroe Doctrine. He declared that any attempt by a European nation to gain dominion in America would be considered by the United States as an unfriendly act.
POLITICAL PARTIES.—Divisions now became apparent in the great party which had twice so triumphantly elected Monroe as President. The whig party, as it came to be called in Jackson's time, was forming in opposition to the republican—thenceforth known as the democratic party. The whigs were in favor of a protective tariff, and a general system of internal improvements; the democrats opposed these. No one of the four candidates obtaining a majority of votes, the election went to the House of Representatives, where John Quincy Adams, son of John Adams, was chosen.
[Footnote: John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay were the champions of the whigs; Andrew Jackson and John C. Calhoun, of the democrats. In 1834, the democrats began to be called "Locofocos," because, at a meeting in Tammany Hall, the lights having been put out, were relighted with locofoco matches, which several, expecting such an event, had carried in their pockets.]
[Footnote: A protective tariff is a duty imposed on imported goods for the purpose of encouraging their manufacture at home. By internal improvements are meant the improving of the navigation of rivers, the building of bridges and railroads, the dredging of harbors, etc.]