MONROE 



3897 



MONROE 



ADMINISTRATIONS OF MONROE 



1817 - 18Z5 - v___ .r-/ 



= "e-x^V" 



Five States 

 Admitted 

 to the Union 



1819 



- Florida 



Purchased 



from Spain for 



$5,000,000 



First 



Seminole 



War 



1817-18 



Lafayette 

 Visits the United States 



First Steamship Crossed Atlantic, 1819 



1789 to 1815 the European nations were ab- 

 sorbed in politics and war, and at the end of 

 that time they turned to the West to find that 

 a new nation had begun to grow in America. 

 On land, to be sure, the Americans had suf- 

 fered several severe defeats, but they had 

 proved that on the sea they could sail and 

 fight ships of war on an equal basis with the 

 English. This fact alone helped to give Eu- 

 rope a new respect for the United States. In 

 domestic affairs the United States was to reap 

 the advantage of broken party lines. The Fed- 

 eralist- party, largely because of its unpatriotic 

 stand during the War of 1812, had lost almost 

 all influence. There were really no political 

 parties during Monroe's administration. There 

 were sharp differences of opinion on many great 

 problems, but there were no hard, set lines of 

 division. There were, too, many smaller con- 

 tests between men whose personal ambitions 

 conflicted. These created as much bitterness 

 in this "era of good feeling" as the differences 

 of opinion on important public policies. An 

 excellent example is Henry Clay's bitterness 

 against Monroe after the latter had passed him 

 by and made John Quincy Adams Secretary of 

 State. 



Westward Expansion. One of the first ques- 

 tions on which Clay and Monroe became oppo- 

 nents involved "internal improvements." In 

 the closing months of the preceding adminis- 

 tration Congress had voted a fund for such Im- 

 provements, which Madison vetoed. Monroe, 

 in his characteristically conscientious fashion, 

 made an extended tour of the Northern and 

 Western states two months after his inaugura- 

 tion. Instead of converting him, the trip seems 

 to have removed none of his objections. In 

 his first message to Congress he declared it to 

 be his "settled conviction" that Congress did 

 not possess the right of constructing roads and 

 canals. The challenge thus offered was accepted 

 by Clay, who maintained that the Constitution 

 did give the Federal government the power to 

 construct roads and canals, and even asserted 

 that the consent of the states, which had been 

 thought necessary before beginning the con- 

 struction of the Cumberland Pike, was not re- 

 quired at all. He spoke, he said, as a Western 

 man, as a representative of a new country and 

 a pioneer population, needing means of com- 

 munication, channels of commerce and intelli- 

 gence as the breath of life. He spoke as a citi- 

 zen of the Union, looking forward to a' great 



