The new politics

Economic developments

In the early nineteenth century, the United States changed rapidly and a distinctive American identity emerged.

As settlers poured westwards, the United States developed a transport infrastructure to cope with the movements of population. In 1806 congress authorized the National Road (also known as the Cumberland Road), America’s first interstate highway. Construction started at Cumberland, Maryland in 1811, and the road reached Vandalia, Illinois, in 1839.  The West was becoming increasingly significant. 

Since 1817 the Erie Canal had been under construction and was opened in 1825. At  363 miles long and with 83 locks it was the longest canal in the world, and it cost $7 million dollars to build. By linking the Great Lakes with New York City via the Hudson River, it connected the Western interior to the Atlantic. 

In 1828 the cornerstone for the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was laid on 4 July 1828.  At the end of 1829 it carried passengers on the first completed 13-mile stretch. By 1850 America had nine thousand miles of track. 

Cornerstone of the B&O, laid July 4, 1828
by Charles Carroll of Carrollton,
now displayed at the B&O Railroad Museum.
Public domain

Agriculture remained central to the American economy: cotton and tobacco in the South, grains and livestock in the North and West. Industry was also growing, as skilled immigrants brought with them their knowledge of British production technologies. In 1822 Boston investors opened the mechanised Lowell cotton mills along the Merrimack River. However the majority of American towns were commercial rather than manufacturing centres, providing goods and services for the surrounding farms. It was only after the Civil War that industrialization seriously took shape. 

Jacksonian Democracy

In the 1824 presidential election  John Quincy Adams defeated General Andrew Jackson, the victor of the battle of New Orleans, in an extremely bitter contest. Jackson won the popular vote but not the necessary majority in the electoral college that was needed to win and the result was controversially decided by the House of Representatives. 

The election showed that the Federalist party (which Adams had left in 1803) was dead. It had failed to expand beyond its New England base and produce leaders who could appeal to the nation as a whole.

Andrew Jackson
7th President of the
United States (1829-37)
Public domain

The extremely scurrilous election of 1828 was Jackson’s revenge.   The electorate had now increased to comprise all white males in all states except South Carolina.  Adams lost the election by a decisive margin. He retained his support in New England, but Jackson won the rest of the states, picking up 178 electoral votes to Adams' 83 votes. Significantly, he picked up votes from the Irish immigrants. Adams and his father were the only U.S. presidents to serve a single term during the first 48 years of the Presidency (1789–1837). 

In March 1829 Jackson entered Washington like a conqueror. On inauguration day  (4 March) the White House was invaded by a triumphant mob. The revellers pushed into the White House, where a reception was scheduled for all who chose to come. They surged through rooms, broke dishes and leaped onto the furniture in an attempt to shake the president’s hand.  

The inauguration of Andrew Jackson
From the Library of Congress

This disorderly behaviour seemed to mark the beginning of the age of the common man.  By 1832 Jackson's movement had a name: the Democratic Party. The president governed through his close inner-circle, called his ‘Kitchen Cabinet’, which included newspaper editors as well as politicians. His party was suspicious of elites and vested interest, hostile to high tariffs that kept up prices and bitterly opposed to bankers.

Henry Clay
leader of the Whigs

In 1834 the enemies of 'King Andrew' formed the Whig Party, a conservative, business-oriented party that copied the Democrats' campaign tactics of mobilised torchlight parades, miniature log cabins, and hard (i.e. alcoholic) cider. The Whigs supported the supremacy of Congress over the presidency and favoured a programme of banking and tariffs to stimulate manufacturing. Their pre-eminent leader was Henry Clay. Both parties went out to win the support of the common man, by appealing to his prejudices, libelling the opposition, and addressing large crowds. They had more in common than they cared to admit.

Conclusion

In the second quarter of the nineteenth century the patrician republic associated with the Virginia Dynasty gave way to the frontier democracy of the Jacksonians. Europeans noted the change. 

In 1835 the Frenchman Alexis de Tocqueville published his two-volume Democracy in America. He saw the United States as the

prototype of an egalitarian democratic order, lacking an aristocracy, governed by majority rule and maintaining order through voluntary associations and strong religious beliefs. In describing this society, he coined a new word – individualism.