The era after the war of 1812 is often regarded as the “era of good feelings”. It was the period from 1816 to 1824, when a tide of nationalism swept the United States, united its citizens and eased the political prevailing unrest (Campbell and Ratner 2018). This paper is going to elaborate on discussing whether or not the Era of Good Feelings fully live up to its name. It would further analyse the transformation of the U.S and its people from the revolutionaries to the nationalists and then, from the nationalists to the sectionalists.
The period of “Era of Good Feelings” is regarded as a coextensive era with two terms of President James Monroe. It started in the year 1815, when the citizens of America could afford to ignore and pay less attention to the European military and political affairs. It was finally possible for them to do so as it was the end of the Napoleonic wars. It was the predominant attitude of the citizens and common people which in twentieth century was regarded as the isolationism (Huston 2017). It was the good feeling, which were better termed as complacency, were all stimulated and triggered by the two events of the year 1816, at the time of the last year of rule of James Madison and they were- a) enactment of the very first United States avowedly protective tariff and b) establishment or development of the second most National Bank that resulted in bankruptcies, money fell etc. in U.S.
When the Federalism in United States ended, a one-party state on the domestic level was heading the Democratic Republicans. President James Monroe saved all but only one electoral vote in the year 1820. It was then sectionalism was gradually replaced by the unassertive nationalism and it was comparative abeyance. However, again, by the beginning of 1820, a much longer period of conflict would have been foretold and it welcomed differed sectional interests of the people, especially about the expansion and the slavery which was established at the time of the second term of Monroe (Wilson 2018). It is to state that the “Era of Good Feelings” was proved to be a part-time or temporary period of political and personal clashes of leadership and was also the period of emergence of new things. It is both accurate and inaccurate in its own way for the period after the war of 1812 considering the development of sectionalism and nationalism. It is accurate foe the reason that the sense of nationalism among the people made the United States take some notable decisions. At the same time, it is inaccurate for the fact that there was growth of sectionalism and debates on the subjects at the time of this period that made some real unpleasant situations for the public.
Hence, from the above analysis it is to state that the “Era of Good Feelings” did not live up to its name fully. It was not all about good. The emergence of second National Bank was a significant panic of the year 1819. Majority of the people were left in debt because of this.
References:
Campbell, K.M. and Ratner, E., 2018. The China reckoning: how Beijing defied American expectations. Foreign Aff., 97, p.60.
Huston, R., 2017. Can ‘The People’Speak? Popular Meetings and the Ambiguities of Popular Sovereignty in the United States, 1816–1828. In Organizing Democracy (pp. 63-83). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Wilson, J.G., 2018. The Republican Empire of Conquest. In The Imperial Republic (pp. 123-152).
