Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 23.djvu/792

762 been rotting on their farms; competition among manufacturers was to keep down prices; migration to all the new advantages of the West was to be made easy at national expense; and Henry Clay's eloquence was to commend the whole policy to the people. The old Democracy, particularly in the South, insisted that the whole scheme really had its basis in benefits to classes, that its communistic features were not such as the constitution meant to cover by its grant of power to Congress to levy taxation for the general welfare, and that any such legislation would be unconstitutional. The dissatisfaction in the

South rose higher when the tariffs were increased in 1824 and 1828. The proportion of customs revenue to dutiable imports rose to 37 per cent. in 1825 and to 44 per cent. in 1829; and the ratio to aggregate imports to 33 per cent. in 1825 and 37 per cent. in 1829. As yet, however, the Southern dissatisfaction showed itself only in resolutions of State legislatures.

189. In the sudden development of the new nation circumstances had conspired to give social forces an abnormally materialistic cast, and this had strongly influenced the expression of the national life. Its literature and its art had amounted to little, for the American people were still engaged in the fiercest of warfare against natural difficulties, which absorbed all their energies.

190. In international relations the action of the Government was strong, quiet, and self-respecting. Its first weighty action took place in 1823. It had become pretty evident that the Holy Alliance, in addition to its interventions in Europe to suppress popular risings, meant to aid Spain in bringing her revolted South-American colonies to obedience. Great Britain had been drifting steadily away from the Alliance, and Canning, the new secretary, determined to call in the weight of the trans-Atlantic power as

a check upon it. A hint to the American minister was followed by a few pregnant passages in President Monroe's annual message in December. Stating the friendly relations of the United States with the new South-American republics, he went on to say, “We could not view an interposition for oppressing them (the South-American states), or controlling in any other manner their destiny by any European power, in any other light than as a manifestation of an unfriendly disposition towards the United States.” If both the United States and Great Britain were to take this ground the fate of a fleet sent by the Alliance across the Atlantic was not in much doubt, and the project was at once given up. The “Monroe doctrine,” however, has remained the rule of foreign intercourse for all American parties. Added to the already established refusal of the United States to become entangled in any European wars or alliances, it has separated the two continents, to their common advantage.

191. It was supposed at the time that Spain might transfer her colonial claims to some stronger power; and Mr Monroe therefore went on to say that “the American continents should no longer be subjects for any new European colonial settlement.” The meaning of this was well understood at the time; and, when its condition failed, the statement lost its force. It has been supposed that it bound the United States to resist any further establishment of European colonies in the Americas. Such a rôle of universal arbiter has always been repudiated by the United States, though its sympathies, more or less active, must always go with any American republic which falls into collision with any such colonizing scheme.

192. By a treaty with Russia (1825) that power gave up all claims on the Pacific coast south of the present limits of Alaska. The northern boundary of the United States had been settled by the treaty of 1783; and, after the acquisition of Louisiana, a convention with Great

Britain settled the boundary on the line of 49° N. lat. as far west as the Rocky Mountains (1818). West of these mountains the so-called Oregon country (§ 168), on whose limits the two powers could not agree, was to be held in common possession for ten years. This common possession was prolonged by another convention (1827) indefinitely, with the privilege to either power to terminate it on giving twelve months' notice. This arrangement lasted until 1846 (§ 224).

193. Monroe's terms of office came to an end in 1825. He had originally been an extreme Democrat, who could hardly speak of Washington with patience; he had slowly changed into a very moderate Republican, whose tendencies were eagerly claimed by the few remaining Federalists as identical with their own. The nationalizing faction of the dominant party had scored almost all the successes of the administration, and the divergence between it and the opposing faction was steadily becoming more apparent.

All the candidates for the presidency in 1824—Andrew Jackson, a private citizen of Tennessee; William H. Crawford, Monroe's secretary of the treasury; John Quincy Adams, his secretary of state; and Henry Clay, the speaker of the house of representatives—claimed to be Republicans alike; but the personal nature of the struggle was shown by the tendency of their supporters to call themselves “Adams men” or “Jackson men,” rather than by any real party title. Calhoun was supported by all parties for the vice-presidency, and was elected without difficulty. The choice of a president was more doubtful.

194. None of the four candidates had anything like a party organization behind him. Adams and Clay represented the nationalizing element, as Crawford and Jackson did not; but there the likeness among them stopped. The strongest forces behind Adams were the new manufacturing and commercial interests of the East; behind Clay were the desires of the West for internal improvements at public expense as a set-off to the benefits which the seaboard States had already received from the Government; and the two elements were soon to be united into the National Republican or Whig party. Crawford was the representative of the old Democratic party, with all its Southern influences and leanings. Jackson was the personification of the new democracy,—not very cultured, perhaps, but honest, and hating every shade of class control instinctively. As he became better known the whole force of the new drift of things turned in his direction; “hurrah for Jackson” undoubtedly often represented tendencies which the speaker would have found it hard to express otherwise. Crawford was taken out of the race, just after this election, by physical failure, and Adams by the revival of ancient quarrels with the Federalists of New England; and the future was to be with Clay or with Jackson. But in 1824 the question of success among the four was not an easy one to decide. The electors gave no one a majority; and the house of representatives gave the presidency to Adams (§§ 119, 120).

195. Adams's election in 1824 was due to the fact that Clay's friends in the house—unable to vote for him, as he was the lowest in the electoral vote, and only three names were open to choice in the house—very naturally gave their votes to Adams. As Adams appointed Clay to the leading position in his cabinet, the defeated party at once raised the cry of “bargain and intrigue,” one of the most effective in a democracy, and it was kept up throughout Adams's four years of office. Jackson had received the largest number of electoral votes, though not a majority; and the hazy notion that he had been injured because of his devotion to the people increased his popularity. Though demagogues made use of it for selfish purposes, this feeling was an honest one, and Adams had nothing to oppose to it.