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A deep dive into the political history of the United States, hosted by President Shrimpo. In the West Wing with President Shrimpo is a deep dive into the political history of the United States. Each episode looks at the people and driving factors that created the country we live in today with special focus on the stories and voices least heard.
President Shrimpo 0:00
Hello, my name is President Trimco. And you're listening to in the West Wing, a political history podcast brought to you by WKNC 88.1. And in this week's episode, we will be talking about the end of partisanship as we know it, and the collapse of political parties all together. Well, maybe not that, but that's certainly what people believed was happening, and what is known as the era of good feelings.
Now, before we start our discussion today, I just want to have a small bit of housekeeping note. While I'm recording this, I am recovering from a very nasty cold. So if my voice sounds a little bit more nasal than usual, that's why I apologize if this doesn't sound up to the quality of the previous recordings. But that's life. That's, that's having a cold. But anyways, let's get into our discussion today. So where we left off, America sort of ended the war of 1812. triumphant. And it seems that the Democratic Republican agenda was sort of on the upswing, with with our status quo, ending of the war. But we're actually going to be jumping back and sort of having a little bit of overlap with the previous episode, just just to give some some context that was left out in the previous episode. So there was a presidential election in 1812. I don't think I mentioned that at all. But yes, there was an election in 1812. And this was one of the first signs that there was something sort of not good going on within the party structure of the Federalist Party, which had been defeated in the three previous elections up to that point. So the election of 1812, it was the incumbent President James Madison, a Democratic Republican from the state of Virginia, facing against DeWitt Clinton, of New York, another Democratic Republican. Yes, that is correct. The Federalist Party did not field their own presidential candidate in the election of 1812. This is the first national election held in which the Federalist Party did not participate since the election of 1792, which is when George Washington ran for re election. So why exactly did the Federalist party not feel their own candidate and that's simple. They were opposed to the war of 1812. But they also recognized that they probably wouldn't perform very well on a national level. And so they sort of formed a, an unofficial alliance with the sort of opposition of the Democratic Republican Party. From the north, it's sort of felt that the party had become dominated by the Southern wing of the party, and was opposed to the war of 1812 against the British. And so, Federalists on a national scale, voted for a Democratic Republican for President DeWitt Clinton was the mayor of New York City as well as the Lieutenant Governor of the state, and was the son of George Clinton, who was vice president under Thomas Jefferson. However, they did not officially endorse Clinton. But the number of state Federalist parties did endorse Clinton and put him under their their party on the on the ballot, but in any case, Clinton solidly carried the northeast, but ultimately failed to contest Madison in the south and performed poorly. In the mid Atlantic states. There was a relatively minor effort by some Federalists to elect Rufus King, who was an outright Federalist candidate. But this was not supported by the majority of the party, who favored a sort of unofficial endorsement with DeWitt Clinton. So with yet another handy defeat under their belt with the election of 1812. The Federalist Party was not doing terribly well, but they saw an opportunity I with sort of the War of 1812, dragging on into the late months of 1814, a number of state governments up in the northeast, which were dominated by the Federalist party,
had grown to really be discontent with the carrying out of the War of 1812. Many in the region were very unhappy with the progression of the war, there was a sort of opportunity that we seized by the politicians in the region to really make a serious effort to oppose the War of 1812. And so several state governments in New England organized a convention in Hartford, Connecticut, which became known as the Hartford Convention, it was primarily filled out by Federalist politicians, and was organized with the purpose of creating a list of specific grievances against the previous Democratic Republican administrations of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson. But more specifically, very specific complaints against the war of 1812. A list of of amendments that the convention demanded be enacted, were made as well. And these demands included ending the embargo of trade against Great Britain and France, which had decimated the livelihoods of many New Englanders demanding the requirement of a two thirds majority in Congress for any declaration of war elimite limit to presidents only serving a single term and an end to the three fifths compromise, which the three fifths compromise as a reminder, was a policy in which slaveholding states would count three fifths of their slave population towards the total population of the state, which sounds confusing, why would that matter? That was how congressional apportionment was decided. So slave states essentially, would get a large boost in the number of congressional representatives that they would get based on their slave population. And so rightfully, many New Englanders recognize that that was an unfair advantage for these states, which is why it was in the list of demands made by the Hartford Convention, because they wanted to sort of fix the political process of the country. While it was never adopted. There were some rumors to suggest that one of the issues suggested at the convention was for the states of New England to secede from the Union. As far as we're aware, none of the attending delegates ever considered this secession. However, it was a rumor that was spread, and it seriously damaged the Federalist party in public opinion. So in early February of 1815, three delegates were sent from by the convention to Washington DC. However, by the time that they arrived, the Battle of New Orleans had already been won by General Andrew Jackson, and the Treaty of Ghent had finally arrived in Washington, ending the war officially. And so the demands of the Hartford Convention seemed ridiculous, unnecessary and downright seditious. The delegates left DC in absolute shame and public opinion towards the Federalist Party as a whole, really seriously soured, despite the fact that only a small fraction of party leadership even participated in the convention. While the Federalist Party did not feel to their own candidate in 1812 1816, would be the last time a Federalist candidate would appear on a presidential ballot, with Rufus King running in 1816. Again, Secretary of State James Monroe, why was this the final time that a Federalist candidate would run for president and it's sort of complicated, but But ultimately, it has to do with this sort of the absorption of of Federalist political ideas into the Democratic Republican mainstream. Under President James Madison. Several Federalist policies were adopted, such as the chartering of a national bank, the establishment of a protective tariff, a number of other policies that really appealed to moderates and sort of draw drew in Federalists into the Democratic Republican Party, especially as the Federalist Party became increasingly seen as a sort of a radical party of secession and political change. Additionally, I There was a very serious lack of organization within the Federalist party at this point. During this time period, most presidential nominations for major parties were done through through a nominating convention usually hosted it by the Congressional delegates of that particular party. The Federalist Party failed to do this in 1816, Rufus King, despite being the party's nominee in several states, was only nominee by default. He was not nominated by anybody, it was just sort of a de facto decision that he was the I guess you could say the party leader. And so he was the candidate despite the fact that there's no real official decision to nominate him by anybody. And ultimately, Rufus King only won three states, I believe those states were Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Delaware. And that's a very, very poor showing, even with the fewer states that the the union had at the time, that was just the sort of the cherry on top of just yet another absolutely devastating defeat for the party. And because of that, the party just kind of drifted off into obscurity on the national level. And so as the Democratic Republican Party absorbed these Federalist ideas into their platform, sort of adopted the sort of more moderate stance on many policies, the core constituents of the Federalist party, were brought into the Democratic Republican fold. And increasingly, prominent Federalist politicians align themselves with the Democratic Republican Party, most notably, John Quincy Adams, John Quincy Adams, of course, is the son of John Adams, the only Federalist to have held the office of the presidency, which I think is very telling that you know, and that's also to say, John Quincy Adams, and John Adams, politically, really were not that distinct, they didn't have many major policy differences. And despite that, they served under two different political parties. And so with that, the Federalist Party drifted off into political obscurity, they only seriously continued to participate in elections on the state and local level, specifically in New England states with Federalist governors being elected well into the early 1820s. But that largely ceased to exist on the national level of politics. And so with the election of James Monroe to the presidency in 1816, we're sort of entering the period that is generally known by historians as the era of good feelings. So what exactly is the era of good feelings? Well, the era of good feelings is, I think, sort of best described as one of the brief moments in American politics, where there was really only a single national level party, and with that sort of one party de facto sort of regime
that led to a lot of idealism in sort of the realm of political thought at the time. And so there was sort of this idea that America could go back to having politics without parties. The sort of stems from sort of the myth of the presidency of George Washington, sort of the idea that American politics would be so much better off if we just had independent candidates running on their own merits rather than having sort of an ideological party backing. And so with the sort of one party dominance under democratic Republicans and President James Monroe, people sort of felt that they could return to this sort of state of of ideal politics. But in reality, as we'll see, as the history progresses, that's impossible. different constituencies within society, different interest groups inevitably clash with one another. You can have big tent parties in politics, but you can't fit every single voter under the same tent. So what exactly was the agenda under James Monroe and the Democratic Republican Party? internal improvements was what was on the agenda? By internal improvements, I mean, infrastructure programs, that's what we would most likely refer to them today. But at the time, the issue was sort of framed under the label of internal improvements. And this was essentially the first large scale federal program for infrastructure that had been seriously enacted, and that had long been one of the policies of the Federalist party, and the issue of infrastructure and in national internal improvements had sort of been a point of contention within Democratic Republican circles. And that's because the Democratic Republican party early on evolved from anti Federalist political ideas. But with the absorption of sort of moderate Federalist sets, that sort of anti Federalists ideology tempered somewhat. And so with that large scale, federal infrastructure programs seriously began in earnest. One striking example is the federal Road, which began in 1811. And ultimately was completed in 1818, which connected the Ohio and Potomac rivers, which this was the first ever federal highway, canals and other interstate infrastructure programs were also developed. Namely, things like the Erie Canal and sort of other canal projects meant to connect large waterways in the United States. The reason that there had been sort of a struggle to get these these infrastructure programs off the ground, is because there was a very serious debate over whether or not this was constitutional. A long time, there had been sort of an interpretation that the federal government was not explicitly granted the ability to build infrastructure connecting states. However, under James Monroe, the executive branch increasingly sided with those in favor of internal improvements. Why is this? That's because the development of infrastructure really assisted the economic growth of the country, and made it easier for Americans to move out West and sort of expand and settle the territories that were seized in the Northwest Indian War, and also crossing into the Louisiana Territory and sort of developing the infrastructure of those regions. Another fairly contentious issue, under the presidency of James Monroe, was the admission of new states. As America expanded westward, the issue of slavery became increasingly pressing in rapid succession, slave and free states were paired together. So the states of Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, and Alabama, were all admitted to the Union under the second term of James Madison into the first term of James Monroe. And these were not terribly contentious, he was sort of a very clear cut issue in each of those, whether they would be free or slave states based on, you know, the majority of the population supporting or opposing slavery. And so it was under sort of this very geographic distribution, that the, the issue of slavery was sort of kept, sort of under wraps and bottled up. However, when the territory of Missouri petitioned for statehood, it was clear that the new state would permit slavery, despite the fact that Missouri was relatively farther north than most other slave states. And so, New York congressman, a Democratic Republican Congressman at that, James Talmadge, Jr, introduced the following amendment to phase out slavery in the new state,
James Talmadge Jr. 18:45
provided that the further introduction of slavery or involuntary servitude be prohibited, except for the punishment of crimes were of the party shall have been fully convicted, and that all children born within the set state after the admission thereof into the Union shall be free at the age of 25 years.
President Shrimpo 19:05
Now, the wording of that is a bit opaque. And I recognize that I'll just put it in very simple terms. What it essentially stated is that slavery would be prohibited in the state barring under as a punishment. So So prison slavery, which is actually still legal unconstitutional today in the United States, but in any case, barring prison slavery, all people born within the state will be free once they reach the age of 25. So that essentially, what it's saying is that the children of slaves in the state of Missouri, once they became adults, would be freed and so that would essentially kill the institution of slavery within the new state and This, this caused sort of a massive uproar. Southern slaveholding states sort of were frustrated because this was the first time that the issue of slavery was even questioned on the federal level. Up to that point, the issue had largely been just left up to the states. Ultimately, a compromise would be made within Congress, and Missouri would be admitted fully as a state with legal slavery, with no amendments, attempting to phase out the institution. However, no new state from based out of the Louisiana Territory, or north of the 36 and a half parallel, could be a slave state. So essentially, nothing north of the sort of southern edge of Missouri could be a slave state. And then on top of that, the state of Maine would be admitted as a free state along with Missouri, about the same time. Which man, sidenote, is one of only three states to have been carved out of the territory of a pre existing state, or the other two states being Kentucky, and West Virginia, the state of Maine was originally sort of a separate piece of land owned, and under the administration of the state of Massachusetts. However, it eventually grew large enough that it could be its own state independently. And what's so interesting is that this sort of represents the first time that there was a very serious political clash on the federal level, between slave and abolitionist interests. And it's sort of the first of many more conflicts to come and will be increasingly become the political issue in America. Now, at this time, it's still up to sort of compromises and political debate. But as we go down the road in this series, we will see slavery become a hotter and more dangerous issue down the line. And so with that, I should mention that James Monroe won reelection to a second term unopposed, the election of 1820. He is the only other person than George Washington to run for president without any opposition. James Monroe would win every single state, and would be elected by every single elector in the Electoral College, barring one, one electorate would cast their votes for Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, this was not out of some serious push to block that Monroe from being elected president. But it was sort of a protest to indicate the belief that no president should be elected, unopposed, barring, of course, George Washington. And so entering James Monroe his second term, we see this sort of further development of his foreign policy ideas, something that is articulated in what we understand today to be the Monroe Doctrine, it was not called that at the time, that's sort of a more modern label. But essentially, it's best understood that that James Monroe had long been in support of Latin American revolutionary movements, such as under the sort of movements of Simone Bulevar, in Venezuela and Colombia, and sort of broader independence movements for countries like Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Central America, the Caribbean, etc. Based on sort of the idea that many of these independence movements were rooted in the same sort of Republican ideals that America held. And so, in James Monroe is 1823 annual address to Congress. President articulated his foreign policy doctrine, America would not interfere with existing European colonies, but interference by European powers against independent American states would not be permitted by the United States, as sort of articulated in the following excerpt from that address.
James Monroe 24:22
With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power, we have not interfered and shall not interfere, but with the governments who have declared their independence and maintained it and whose independence we have, on great consideration and unjust principles acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them by any European power.
President Shrimpo 24:44
Despite this sort of, gesture towards protection towards Latin American countries, many Latin American politicians were rightfully very suspicious of the motivations for this new doctrine. They sort of viewed This is an attempt by the United States to assert power over the entire western hemisphere. And in future, this doctrine would essentially be used as justification distorted to justify America intervening against other Latin American countries, and sort of installing sort of puppet regimes much, much later down the line. This suspicion of American interests, was best articulated by a Chilean politician and businessman, Diego Portales. Having said quote,
Diego Portales 25:39
but we have to be very careful for the Americans of the North, the only Americans are themselves.
President Shrimpo 25:45
Now, jumping ahead to the election of 1824, we start to see the cracks in the era of good feelings begin to form, we get to we see the sort of beginnings of a new development of partisanship in politics. Because realistically, not everybody can fit under the same political party. And so at the end of James Monroe's presidency, there was no real clear natural successor to the long Virginia President dynasty. As a reminder, from 1800 to 1824. There were three presidents in a row who both who all served two terms, all democratic Republicans, all of them from the state of Virginia, all of them being sort of like minded in ideology. That was, again, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe. But there was no clear follow up, who would be the person to come up after James Monroe. And that's partly to do with the fact that party politics lacked the same clear structure for nominating a new candidate. So all modern political parties enjoy the process of party primaries, or caucuses, and, and partly conventions and sort of being able to have the public or and also, party officials determine which candidate they wish to back most. There really wasn't the same process at the time. And so ultimately, the race for the being the next Democratic Republican president of the United States, was a free for all. Ultimately, four major candidates would emerge to run for the presidency, James Monroe, Secretary of State and the son of John Adams, John Quincy Adams, a war hero from the War of 1812. And sitting senator from Tennessee, General Andrew Jackson, Speaker of the House from Kentucky, Henry Clay, the Secretary of the Treasury, and former senator from Georgia, William H. Crawford. And these four candidates, each represented very distinct subsets of the Democratic Republican coalition. John Quincy Adams essentially represented the sort of moderate subset of the party had who had kind of fled from the Federalist party and sort of been absorbed into the Democratic Republican fold, which makes sense, Adam, of course, was the son of the only Federalist President of the United States, John Adams. And accordingly, he performed most strongly in the states of New England, and sort of the Mid Atlantic, you know, Pennsylvania, Maryland, New Jersey, sort of that region. And many of those states had been former Federalist strongholds. So it makes sense that, you know, relative moderate would perform well, their general Andrew Jackson sort of represented sort of the, the hard, ideological underbelly of the Democratic Republican Party. Of course, the Democratic Republican Party had been born from anti Federalist ideology, but it had sort of been tempered and sort of kept as a sort of elitist exercise sort of focused more on political theory rather than the heart practice. Jackson formed sort of a populist coalition, sort of opposed to the sort of moderate direction that had been taken under the presidencies of James Monroe and James Madison. And accordingly, he competed in the most states out of all the candidates winning in the south Mid Atlantic and Midwest. Henry Clay is interesting. He was sort of a political apparatchik sort of a creature of the party apparatus, sort of, of, of not only the party apparatus, but congressional functions. You sort of a real creature of Congress, and he's sort of represented the interests of the young Western states of the Union. So those those would be the states of Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri. All these western states would benefit most from the infrastructure programs of the internal improvements. And so, you know, he sort of recognized the importance of of a federal program to develop these states economically. And so accordingly, in the election, he performed best in that region. And finally, William H. Crawford. Crawford represented sort of the old guard of the Democratic Republican Party, he was a southern Democratic Republican, and sort of was was the establishment of the Southern wing of the party, sort of attempted to be in the mold of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison and Jameson row. He really was kind of trying to position himself to be the fourth man. in that long line of Virginia presidents. I say that despite being you know, a senator from Georgia, he was born and raised in the state of Virginia, I think he sort of held personal allegiance to Virginia. And so he sort of thought of himself as sort of a natural successor. But politically, nobody really cared at that point. And ultimately, he only carried the states of Virginia, Georgia, and Delaware. And throughout this entire election cycle, the policy supported by the candidates really didn't matter a whole lot to voters. What mattered most was the rhetoric of the candidates, the personal character, with the expansion of suffrage, the right to vote to white men who did not hold property, Jackson was able to surge ahead sort of an unprecedented way. Jackson was was was a political outsider, he was sort of seen as a strong man, rugged, Western frontiersman who ultimately would be able to capture the plurality of the popular vote, and the largest share of the electoral vote. There's a lot to say about Andrew Jackson, both on a personal level and a political level. His life is really crazy. And there will be an episode dedicated entirely to his presidency. But just to sort of put it in brief, Andrew Jackson represented sort of a new breed of wild political populism, that up to that point had not really been exerted in the same way. And so he's surge ahead and political prominence in this period represents both sort of an important step in the evolution of American democracy, and also a very dark, ugly side to the way that the public chin, react and behave in regards to politics. Also, an important thing to note is that John C. Calhoun of South Carolina will be elected as the vice president, he would be the undisputed winner of the election for vice president. And that's because he was both the running mate of John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. And so despite the fact that the the electoral vote for the presidency was fractured, and split, Calhoun was able to consolidate enough electoral votes to outright be elected vice president. Ultimately, no candidate would win an outright majority through the Electoral College, and the vote for the presidency of the United States would be thrown to a contingent election in the House of Representatives. This is the second and final instance of this occurring in American political history. Essentially, I'll briefly explain the mechanics of a contingent election. If no candidate receives an electoral majority, on the first vote, a second vote will be held here in the chamber of the House of Representatives, in which each state's congressional delegation is granted a single vote. And so, you know, the majority party of each state's delegation would essentially decide which candidate the state would vote for. And so whichever candidate receives the most votes from a majority of states, ultimately is elected President. Through this process, John Quincy Adams, Andrew Jackson, and and then William H. Crawford, would advance to the contingent election. However, Speaker of the House Henry Clay will be eliminated because he came in fourth place in terms of electoral votes. Through this process, John Quincy Adams would be elected the next president of the United States. However, people at the time, more specifically, Jackson's supporters alleged that there was a quote, corrupt bargain, which stole the election from Andrew Jackson.
Very specifically accuses Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams. An important thing to say is that introjection not only won the popular vote, but won the most electoral votes out of any candidate through the election. And so what is sort of the merits of this allegation that really paint very heavy over the election? Henry Clay definitely aligned most with John Adams on policy. And, and what's alleged is that he instructed his supporters in Congress to vote for Adams, giving out his presidency. In turn, Adams appointed Henry Clay to be the secretary of state, which does prove that there was this sort of corrupt deal struck up. However, it's important to say there's no real hard evidence that there was any sort of formal agreement between the two. There's sort of just political speculation and hearsay. But it's sort of interesting to note that this is sort of the first stolen presidential election, there'll be a number of elections later down the line, that would be very contentious. And this sort of, sowed the seeds for for the chaos and sort of populist rage of the Jacksonian Democratic Party, which will sort of be more the focus of next episode of In the West Wing. And so with that, the era of good feelings went out in sort of a very messy and ugly way. And starting in the next episode of In the West Wing, we will see sort of the development of the next American party system, sort of the revenge of Andrew Jackson, against the corrupt bargain of Henry Clay and John Quincy Adams, and sort of the political consequences of of Andrew Jackson's populism, both on the political life of the country, the economy, and just sort of how it generally affected sort of the entire course of the nation. As always, I have been your host President Truffaut. And you have been listening to in the west wing political history podcast brought to you by WKNC 88.1. Special thanks to those who helped give history a voice in this week's episode of In the West Wing, with Spencer Groton as James Talmage, Jr. Caitlin Carroll as James Monroe, and Bug LaRue as Diego Portales, the intro music used for in the West Wing Star Spangled Banner by the United States Marine Band and our outro music is Libertad by Iriarte and Pesoa
Transcribed by https://otter.ai