A Short History of the United States for School Use Part 31

267. McDonough's Victory at Plattsburg, 1814.--General Prevost, with a fine army of veterans, marched southward from Canada, while a fleet sailed up Lake Champlain. At Plattsburg, on the western side of the lake, was General Macomb with a force of American soldiers. Anch.o.r.ed before the town was McDonough's fleet. Prevost attacked Macomb's army and was driven back. The British fleet attacked McDonough's vessels and was destroyed. That put an end to Prevost's invasion. He retreated back to Canada as fast as he could go.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FORT McHENRY.]

[Sidenote: Burning of Was.h.i.+ngton, 1814.]

[Sidenote: "The Star-Spangled Banner."]

268. The British in the Chesapeake, 1814.--Besides their operations on the Canadian frontier, the British tried to capture New Orleans and the cities on Chesapeake Bay. The British landed below Was.h.i.+ngton. They marched to the capital. They entered Was.h.i.+ngton. They burned the Capitol, the White House, and several other public buildings. They then hurried away, leaving their wounded behind them. Later on the British attacked Baltimore and were beaten off with great loss. It was at this time that Francis Scott Key wrote "The Star-Spangled Banner." He was detained on board one of the British wars.h.i.+ps during the fight. Eagerly he watched through the smoke for a glimpse of the flag over Fort McHenry at the harbor's mouth. In the morning the flag was still there. This defeat closed the British operations on the Chesapeake.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FLAG OF FORT McHENRY. Fifteen stars and fifteen stripes--one of each for each state.]

[Sidenote: Jackson's Creek campaign, 1814.]

269. The Creek War.--The Creek Indians lived in Alabama. They saw with dismay the spreading settlements of the whites. The Americans were now at war. It would be a good chance to destroy them. So the Creeks fell upon the whites and murdered about four hundred. General Andrew Jackson of Tennessee commanded the American army in the Southwest. As soon as he knew that the Creeks were attacking the settlers, he gathered soldiers and followed the Indians to their stronghold. He stormed their fort and killed most of the garrison.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS. From a sketch by one of Jackson's staff.]

[Sidenote: Battle of New Orleans, 1815.]

[Sidenote: _Hero Tales_, 139-147.]

270. Jackson's Defense of New Orleans, 1814-15.--Jackson had scarcely finished this work when he learned of the coming of a great British expedition to the mouth of the Mississippi River. He at once hastened to the defense of New Orleans. Below the city the country greatly favored the defender. For there was very little solid ground except along the river's bank. Picking out an especially narrow place, Jackson built a breastwork of cotton bales and rubbish. In front of the breastwork he dug a deep ditch. The British rushed to the attack. Most of their generals were killed or wounded, and the slaughter was terrible. Later, they made another attack and were again beaten off.

[Sidenote: Naval combats, 1814.]

271. The War on the Sea, 1814.--It was only in the first year or so of the war that there was much fighting between American and British wars.h.i.+ps. After that the American s.h.i.+ps could not get to sea, for the British stationed whole fleets off the entrances to the princ.i.p.al harbors. But a few American vessels ran the blockade and did good service. For instance, Captain Charles Stewart in the _Const.i.tution_ captured two British s.h.i.+ps at one time. But most of the wars.h.i.+ps that got to sea were captured sooner or later.

[Sidenote: The privateers. _Hero Tales_, 129-136.]

272. The Privateers.--No British fleets could keep the privateers from leaving port. They swarmed upon the ocean and captured hundreds of British merchantmen, some of them within sight of the sh.o.r.es of Great Britain. In all, they captured more than twenty-five hundred British s.h.i.+ps. They even fought the smaller wars.h.i.+ps of the enemy.

[Sidenote: Treaty of peace, 1814.]

273. Treaty of Ghent, 1814.--The war had hardly begun before commissioners to treat for peace were appointed by both the United States and Great Britain. But they did nothing until the failure of the 1814 campaign showed the British government that there was no hope of conquering any portion of the United States. Then the British were ready enough to make peace, and a treaty was signed at Ghent in December, 1814. This was two weeks before the British disaster at New Orleans occurred, and months before the news of it reached Europe. None of the things about which the war was fought were even mentioned in the treaty.

But this did not really make much difference. For the British had repealed their orders as to American s.h.i.+ps before the news of the declaration of war reached London. As for impressment, the guns of the _Const.i.tution_ had put an end to that.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE OLD STATE HOUSE. Where the Hartford Convention met.]

[Sidenote: New England Federalists.]

[Sidenote: Hartford Convention, 1814.]

274. The Hartford Convention, 1814.--While the New commissioners were talking over the treaty of peace, other debaters were discussing the war, at Hartford, Connecticut. These were leading New England Federalists. They thought that the government at Was.h.i.+ngton had done many things that the Const.i.tution of the United States did not permit it to do. They drew up a set of resolutions. Some of these read like those other resolutions drawn up by Jefferson and Madison in 1798 (p. 175).

The Hartford debaters also thought that the national government had not done enough to protect the coasts of New England from British attacks.

They proposed, therefore, that the taxes collected by the national government in New England should be handed over to the New England states to use for their defense. Commissioners were actually at Was.h.i.+ngton to propose this division of the national revenue when news came of Jackson's victory at New Orleans and of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent. The commissioners hastened home and the Republican party regained its popularity with the voters.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A REPUBLICAN SQUIB ON THE HARTFORD CONVENTION.]

[Sidenote: Gains of the war.]

[Sidenote: The American nation.]

275. Gains of the War.--The United States gained no territory after all this fighting on sea and land. It did not even gain the abolition of impressment in so many words. But what was of far greater importance, the American people began to think of itself as a nation. Americans no longer looked to France or to England as models to be followed. They became Americans. The getting of this feeling of independence and of nationality was a very great step forward. It is right, therefore, to speak of this war as the Second War of Independence.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JAMES MONROE.]

CHAPTER 26

THE ERA OF GOOD FEELING, 1815-1824

[Sidenote: Monroe elected President, 1816, 1820.]

[Sidenote: Characteristics of the Era of Good Feeling. _McMaster_, 260.]

276. The Era as a Whole.--The years 1815-24 have been called the Era of Good Feeling, because there was no hard political fighting in all that time--at least not until the last year or two. In 1816 Monroe was elected President without much opposition. In 1820 he was reelected President without any opposition whatever. Instead of fighting over politics, the people were busily employed in bringing vast regions of the West under cultivation and in founding great manufacturing industries in the East. They were also making roads and ca.n.a.ls to connect the Western farms with the Eastern cities and factories. The later part of the era was a time of unbounded prosperity. Every now and then some hard question would come up for discussion. Its settlement would be put off, or the matter would be compromised. In these years the Federalist party disappeared, and the Republican party split into factions. By 1824 the differences in the Republican party had become so great that there was a sudden ending to the Era of Good Feeling.

[Sidenote: Hard times, 1816-18.]

[Sidenote: Emigration to the West, 1816-18. _McMaster_, 241, 266-273.]

[Sidenote: Four states admitted, 1816-1819]

[Sidenote: Maine and Missouri apply for admission.]

277. Western Emigration.--During the first few years of this period the people of the older states on the seacoast felt very poor. The s.h.i.+powners could no longer make great profits. For there was now peace in Europe, and European vessels competed with American vessels. Great quant.i.ties of British goods were sent to the United States and were sold at very low prices. The demand for American goods fell off. Mill owners closed their mills. Working men and women could find no work to do. The result was a great rush of emigrants from the older states on the seaboard to the new settlements in the West. In the West the emigrants could buy land from the government at a very low rate, and by working hard could support themselves and their families. This westward movement was at its height in 1817. In the years 1816--19, four states were admitted to the Union. These were Indiana (1816), Mississippi (1817), Illinois (1818), and Alabama (1819). Some of the emigrants even crossed the Mississippi River and settled in Missouri and in Arkansas. In 1819 they asked to be admitted to the Union as the state of Missouri, or given a territorial government under the name of Arkansas. The people of Maine also asked Congress to admit them to the Union as the state of Maine.

[Sidenote: Objections to the admission of Missouri.]

278. Opposition to the Admission of Missouri.--Many people in the North opposed the admission of Missouri because the settlers of the proposed state were slaveholders. Missouri would be a slave state, and these Northerners did not want any more slave states. Originally slavery had existed in all the old thirteen states. But every state north of Maryland had before 1819 either put an end to slavery or had adopted some plan by which slavery would gradually come to an end.

Slavery had been excluded from the Northwest by the famous Ordinance of 1787 (p. 135). In these ways slavery had ceased to be a vital inst.i.tution north of Maryland and Kentucky. Why should slavery be allowed west of the Mississippi River? Louisiana had been admitted as a slave state (1812). But the admission of Louisiana had been provided for in the treaty for the purchase of Louisiana from France. The Southerners felt as strongly on the other side. They said that their slaves were their property, and that they had a perfect right to take their property and settle on the land belonging to the nation. Having founded a slave state, it was only right that the state should be admitted to the Union.

[Ill.u.s.tration: (Map) Missouri Compromise of 1820]

[Sidenote: This Missouri Compromise, 1820. _Higginson_, 254-256; _Eggleston_, 258-261.]

[Sidenote: Both states admitted, 1820. _McMaster_,274-276.]

279. The Missouri Compromise, 1820.--When the question of the admission of Maine and Missouri came before Congress, the Senate was equally divided between the slave states and the free states. But the majority of the House of Representatives was from the free states. The free states were growing faster than were the slave states and would probably keep on growing faster. The majority from the free states in the House, therefore, would probably keep on increasing. If the free states obtained a majority in the Senate also, the Southerners would lose all control of the government. For these reasons the Southerners would not consent to the admission of Maine as a free state unless at the same time Missouri was admitted as a slave state. After a long struggle Maine and Missouri were both admitted--the one as a free state, the other as a slave state. But it was also agreed that all of the Louisiana purchase north of the southern boundary of Missouri, with the single exception of the state of Missouri, should be free soil forever. This arrangement was called the Missouri Compromise. It was the work of Henry Clay. It was an event of great importance, because it put off for twenty-five years the inevitable conflict over slavery.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1820]

[Sidenote: Reasons for the purchase of Florida.]

[Sidenote: Jackson invades Florida, 1818.]

[Sidenote: The Florida purchase, 1819.]