The Louisiana Purchase was crowned in 1818 by the purchase of Florida from Spain. Spanish authority in North America had long been little more than a thin disguise, behind which the British plotted and operated against the welfare of the United States. General Jackson had found it necessary in 1814 to capture Pensacola, which the English were using as a base of hostilities. Again in 1818 General Jackson invaded Florida to punish Indians who, incited by British subjects under Spanish protection, were plundering and murdering in American settlements. Jackson took by force the Spanish post of St. Marks, entered Pensacola, and attacked the fort at Barrancas, compelling it to surrender. Two British subjects who had stirred up the Indians to attack the Americans were executed. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams sustained Jackson, notwithstanding the protests of Spain, and the latter power concluded to yield to the inevitable, and sold Florida to the United States on the extinction of the various American claims for spoliation, for the satisfaction of which the United States agreed to pay $5,000,000 to the claimants. Thus all foreign authority was extinguished in the Southeast and the American flag waved from the Florida Keys to the boundaries of New Spain.
The Missouri Compromise—Erie Canal Opened—Political Parties and Great National Issues—President Jackson Crushes the United States Bank—South Carolina Pronounces the Tariff Law Void—Jackson's Energetic Action—A Compromise—Territory Reserved for the Indians—The Seminole War— Osceola's Vengeance—His Capture and Death—The Black Hawk War—Abraham Lincoln a Volunteer—Texas War for Independence—Massacre of the Alamo —Mexican Defeat at San Jacinto—The Mexican President a Captive—Texas Admitted to the Union—Oregon—American Statesmen Blinded by the Hudson Bay Company—Marcus Whitman's Ride—Oregon Saved to the Union—The "Dorr War."
The Missouri Compromise, by which Congress, after admitting Missouri as a slave State, took the parallel of thirty-six degrees thirty minutes as a dividing line through the rest of the Louisiana Purchase, between slavery and freedom, averted for another generation the great struggle between North and South. At peace with the rest of the world, the United States had time to devote to national development without the distraction of war, and financial questions, the tariff and internal improvements engrossed the attention of Congress and of the States. The opening of the Erie Canal, connecting Lake Erie with the Hudson River, in 1825, made central New York the great highway of commerce and of travel, and New York gradually became the leading State of the Union in population, wealth and trade. There was a strong agitation in favor of a general system of roads and canals, connecting the various parts of the country, and to be constructed at the expense of the nation, and not of the States. The party known as National Republicans, direct successors of the Federalists, supported this proposition, and also advocated a high tariff on imports and an extension of the charter of the United States Bank, about to expire in 1836. The Democratic Republicans, now known simply as Democrats, denied the constitutional authority of the national government to construct roads and canals, or to impose a tariff except for revenue, or to charter a national bank. During the administration of John Quincy Adams the National Republicans succeeded in having tariff laws enacted in 1824 and 1828, which gave substantial and, in the view of the Democrats, excessive protection to domestic manufactures.
General Andrew Jackson was elected President in 1828, after a most bitter contest, in which John Quincy Adams was his opponent. Jackson claimed—and the evidence seems to support his claim—that the United States Bank had used all its influence against him, and had even made antagonism to Jackson a condition of mercantile accommodation. He had long before been prejudiced against the bank through the stupid red tapeism of an agent of the bank in New Orleans who stood by a rule not intended for emergencies when Jackson needed money for his army. He was convinced that not only all the power of the bank, but all the power which the Federal Government could exert to defeat him had been exerted, and being victorious in despite of this opposition, he resolved to crush the bank and to make a clean sweep of the officeholders. The old pamphlets in the Astor Library which tell the story of the bank's struggle to escape annihilation are almost pathetic reading. The giant was prostrate, and his enemy had no mercy. In 1832 Jackson vetoed the bill to renew the charter of the bank. Re-elected President in 1832 by an overwhelming majority of votes in the Electoral College, Jackson, in the following year, removed the public money which had been deposited in the United States Bank, and distributed it among various State banks. The Senate censured Jackson, but the censure was expunged after a long struggle, in which Senator Thomas Hart Benton, of Missouri, championed the President.
The opposition to a tariff for protection was very bitter in the South, where the people regarded the tariff duties as a tribute exacted from them for the benefit of the North. This feeling was especially strong in South Carolina, where a State convention undertook to pronounce the tariff law null and void, and held out a threat of secession should the Federal Government attempt to collect the duties. The States of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia took firm ground against nullification, and on December 10, 1832, President Jackson issued his famous proclamation, exhorting all persons to obey the laws, and denouncing the South Carolina ordinance. "I consider then," said the President, "the power to annul a law of the United States, assumed by one State, incompatible with the existence of the Union, contradicted expressly by the letter of the Constitution, unauthorized by its spirit, inconsistent with every principle on which it was founded, and destructive of the great object for which it was formed." The President declared it to be his intent to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and he warned the citizens of South Carolina that "the course they are urged to pursue is one of ruin and disgrace to the very State whose rights they affect to support." Major Heileman, commanding the United States troops at Charleston, was instructed to be vigilant in defeating any attempt to seize the forts in that harbor, and two companies of artillery were ordered to Fort Moultrie. The Unionist sentiment in South Carolina itself was strong, and the crisis fortunately passed without any attempt to carry into execution the nullification ordinance. Excitement ran high, however, until the adoption in March, 1833, of a compromise tariff, which provided for a gradual reduction of duties.
General Jackson in his annual message of 1830, recommended the devotion of a large tract of land, west of the Mississippi, to the use of the Indian tribes yet remaining east of that river, and Congress, in 1834, enacted that "all that part of the United States west of the Mississippi River, and not within the States of Missouri and Louisiana, or the Territory of Arkansas, shall be considered the Indian country." This was the origin of the present Indian Territory, gradually reduced in area by the successive formation of States and Territories. The Seminoles of Florida naturally objected to removal from the land of their ancestors to a far-distant region, and under the leadership of a brave and skillful chief named Osceola they resisted the troops sent to coerce them into obedience. The most memorable event of the war was the massacre of Major Dade and about one hundred soldiers in an ambuscade, December 28, 1835. On the same day Osceola with a small party of followers killed and scalped General Wiley Thomson, of the United States army and five of Thomson's friends. Before the opening of hostilities Thomson had put Osceola in irons on account of his refractory attitude, and the Indian chief long planned the act of vengeance which he thus signally executed. The war lasted almost seven years, and was attended with a distressing loss of life and property. Not less than 9000 United States troops were in the Seminole territory in the latter part of 1837, and while the Indians were more than once severely chastised when brought to an engagement, it was almost impossible to pursue them in their native everglades. Osceola was taken prisoner when in conference, under a flag of truce, with General Jesup, of the United States army, but the Seminoles maintained the struggle under other leaders, and it was not until 1842 that peace was established, and the Indians driven to surrender. Osceola did not live to see the defeat of the cause for which he had fought so resolutely. He died of fever at Fort Moultrie on the last day of 1839.
The Black Hawk War in the Northwest was, as usual with Indian wars, a struggle on the part of the red men to retain the lands of their fathers. Black Hawk was a noted chief of the Sacs and Foxes, and he claimed that the original treaty by which his tribe sold all their lands in Illinois to the United States was made by only four chiefs, and that they were drunk when they signed it. Assuming this charge to be true it remains that the provisions of the first treaty were confirmed by two subsequent treaties, the last in 1830, when the principal chief, Keokuk, made the final cession to the United States of all the country owned by the Sacs and Foxes east of the Mississippi River. This was done without the knowledge of Black Hawk, whose indignation was greatly aroused upon hearing of the negotiation. Black Hawk was yet more enraged when he found, in April, 1831, that during the absence of himself and his people from their village on a hunting expedition a fur-trader had purchased from the government the ground on which the village stood, and was preparing to cultivate the field upon which the Indians had for many years raised their corn. This was in violation of the letter and spirit of the treaty, which provided that the Indians could occupy their lands until they were needed for settlement, and the frontier settlements were yet fifty miles distant. War soon followed between the whites and Indians, Abraham Lincoln, afterward President of the United States, being enlisted as a volunteer. Colonel Zachary Taylor, afterward President, was one of the officers in command of the United States troops. After fighting with varied fortunes for several months, Black Hawk was defeated with the loss of many warriors, and fled to a village of the Winnebagoes. The latter escorted the fallen chieftain to the United States authorities at Prairie du Chien. "Black Hawk is an Indian," said the captive warrior, speaking in the third person. "He has done nothing an Indian need be ashamed of. He has fought the battles of his country against the white men, who come year after year to cheat them and take away their lands. He will go to the world of spirits contented." Black Hawk was well treated as a prisoner, taken to Washington to visit the President, and liberated after peace had been made.