1816.
The last two years’ experience had taught the government and the people many important lessons by which they hastened to profit. The coast was fortified, the navy increased, manufactures and commerce encouraged, and the best measures that the wisdom of the times could suggest, employed to restore the finances. The violently factious opposition of parties was much moderated by the confidence gained to our government and institutions, and the evident folly of excessive fears. The Second U.S. Bank was chartered for 20 years, with a capital of $35,000,000.
Nov. 5—Governeur Morris, an eminent and excellent American statesman died.
Dec. 11—Indiana admitted into the Union as a State. James Monroe was, this autumn, elected President.
CHAPTER XXI.
HISTORY OF THE U. S. FROM 1817 TO 1846.
Monroe’s Administration.
A new era for America commenced with this administration, or rather, reached its period of uninterrupted development; for the whole past history of the country had been a preparation for it, but especially so the late war and its results. The failure of the French revolution, and, finally, the failure of Napoleon Bonaparte and the re-establishment of the old monarchy in France, as a result of the excesses, first of the French republic, and then of the military interference of Bonaparte with the existing state of things in Europe, had an important influence in modifying the politics of the republican party in the United States; so that they came partially in Jefferson’s administration, and completely by the close of Madison’s, to follow the wise and vigorous policy pursued by Washington and the federal party; while the general government and the institutions of the country became deeply imbued with the regard to popular rights, and attention to the interests and will of the people that formed the leading idea of Jefferson and the original democrat, or, as it was then called, the republican party. Thus the two points of supreme importance, vigor in the general government, and security to the people, were happily mingled and wrought into the spirit and form of our institutions.
The leading events of Monroe’s two administrations were the attention given to internal improvements—among which may be mentioned the Erie canal in New York, and the encouragements to manufactures—the acquisition of Florida from Spain, and a definite settlement of the slavery question (for the next thirty years only, as it proved,) by the Missouri compromise. The people now began to feel and act together, as a single nation, and material progress was rapid.