Early Republic Era

- Hey guys, welcome back to another quick review, right, with Mr. Rualtna here to talk about the early Republic period in the United States history. And the first few presidencies as well. Hey guys, so the big thing kind of going on, right, is of course now that the Constitution has been ratified is of course the first presidential administration under George Washington, right? It will serve two terms as president from, you know, winning the election of 1788 all the way through 1796. Get big issues for Washington, right? Kind of getting the country settled, defining, you know, the job itself, you know, defining what it is, you know, to run the central government, right? And to deal with financial problems. Dealings are for initial dealings with other nations and things, these are all the things that he's trying to balance as he takes power in 1789. Very good. Big things to know, right, just to make up of his cabinet. How, of course he had two very, a lot of good kind of people at his side, right? From Thomas Jefferson as a Secretary of State, of course, to Hamilton as Secretary of the Treasury. His VP was John Adams, right? Yet Henry Knox as a Secretary of War. And a guy named Edmund Rand office is attorney general at the time. And again, the big also takeaway for Washington's presidency is just a lot of people see him as sort of a lead by example. The famous word is precedence, right? He said a lot of examples in his presidency. Of, you know, when to use federal power, of what exactly are the powers of the president, of proclaiming neutrality, right? In the ongoing conflict between England and France, running only two terms, right? And then eventually stepping down. So those are kind of the key takeaways from the Washington administration. If other big things, right, kind of going on, are the, of course, tasks for the Secretary of the Treasury, right? To develop a plan to deal with big fiscal issues or the financial problems with the nation. It's where we spent some time talking about Hamilton, right? And his report on the public credit and his recommendations of assuming the state debt, right? Combining both federal and state money owed. You know, if paying that off as soon as you can, right? To take on more loans and to start expanding the scope of the central government, establishing a national bank as well, right? And the use of tariffs and taxes to raise revenue or raise funds. Get that everything we'll go through, right? But for sure, the bank is created. And then again, the assumption of that state debt is something that goes through with, of course, the promise that the South will have the new capital of the nation, right? In Washington, D.C. Other big things, right, is the breakout of 1794's whiskey rebellion. And this takes place in Pennsylvania. And, you know, the taxes passed really early 1791. But it takes time to kind of go into effect. And then time for, you know, the Western Pennsylvania and farmers to kind of react to it. In very politically charged, right? There's a lot of kind of factors going into play. But, you know, for a lot of these farmers, sometimes we're not great after the revolution. And they saw this as just another measure that was, you know, kind of going after them. So they, you know, refused to pay. They kind of make mockery of the tax collectors, and eventually Hamilton and Washington himself have to show up with a large number of troops to kind of settle that situation, right? And make sure these taxes and these new federal laws are passed and followed by the states. From there, of course, we have his farewell address, right? In October of 1796 where he warned against those foreign alliances, warned against political factions, right, or parties, and, you know, setting up that he was retiring from public life. So the election of that year and we'll see John Adams rise to the presidency become our second president of the United States. I'm not going to get into a ton of the Federalist Party and Democratic Republican Party dynamics, right? Just, of course, you know, the leadership of those is Hamilton and Jefferson. So no bit about their views, right, as far as how they saw the future of the nation, right? How they saw the role of the federal government versus the state government. You know, these are key things to think about as they both kind of have their turn at having some power politically in the country and things. Very good. And from there, right, we talk about main things for the presidency of John Adams is the ongoing difficulties with France messing with American shipping, especially in the Caribbean, right? Because of their ongoing conflict with England, what we call the quasi-war breaking out, right? What we call, so the XYZ affair, which was that situation where we're trying to kind of recoup or at least, you know, have peace with France, but our politicians are, you know, treated very unfairly over there, right? They tried to demand money from the US politicians and it just makes matters worse. So, you know, a lot of tension between us and France and the tail end are later part of those 1790s. Getting the results of that, right? We have passage of the alien and sedition acts. Remember to kind of two separate ones, but we just kind of clump them in together because they're passed kind of so close together. And for the alien act, kind of targeted the president having certain powers over immigrants into the US, you see them pop up in the news recently, stuff like that. Of course, this is all rising from that tension we have with France at that time. The sedition act is the part that I mostly talked about, which was, you know, this sort of assault on first amendment right to free speech, where it kind of made it a crime to criticize the government, to criticize the presidency, and things like that. And, you know, definitely not enjoyed by the likes of James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, having the rebuttals in the Kentucky and the Virginia resolutions. Very good. And from there, we got into a bit of the presidency with Thomas Jefferson, right? You know, first tying, of course, with Aaron Burr for the president, the president's in 1800. And eventually, through the House of Representatives, being able to win the White House outright, and then he will have two terms in office. Keep things to remember for Jefferson, right? Or his whole views on federal government in particular, wanting to kind of downsize it or limit it, reducing the military, right? Controlling spending, kind of raining all that in, was sort of his main goal, right, for the presidency. In that same vein, around that time, right? We also have the role of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, who is leading the Supreme Court for over 30 years, pointed by John Adams, a staunch federalist, and establishing judicial review with Marty Case of Marbury versus Madison in 1803, and then setting up a series of cases of, you know, kind of showing the government's power, right? Whether it be interstate trade, issues of taxation, that's kind of the power of John Marshall is, you know, he has that position so long, he's able to kind of exert his influence over some of the big things that happened, you know, during that time period, excellent stuff. Alright, beyond that, sort of make sure about missing anything. Good, so other than that, right, the big thing to know is of course the Louisiana Purchase, how, you know, this opportunity presented itself after exploring purchasing only part of that territory, right, for much less money, but because of, you know, going conflict in Europe, right? And raising revenue, the French are interested in getting rid of that whole territory, and the US ends up making that purchase in 1803, for $15 million, kind of changing, right, the future of the nation, establishing the Lewis and Clark expedition to go explore that new territory, and, you know, ushering in kind of a new era of American history. From there, we can start to get into the issue of British imprisonment, right? Where the British are, you know, kind of suffering, as far as numbers in regards to their navy, so they start kind of kidnapping Americans that are board ships in the Caribbean and other parts of the Atlantic, even at one point attacking a US ship just off the coast of Virginia. This creates again a lot of tension, right, and eventually has Jefferson passed the 1807 Embargo Act that halted trade with both of the, you know, battling nations, but ends up hurting the US pretty badly economically. So, you know, very unpopular decision he made. And in that climate, you know, he's about to turn over the government to a new president, right, James Madison, and there's a lot of kind of tension and stuff bubbling to the surface as far as frustration over how we've been treated by both Spain and England, but at that point, England in particular, very good. Again, the big thing kind of that happens, right, is eventually fast forward to 1812, and we have the beginning of the war of 1812. As far as causes for this, it all has to do with that merchant situation with England continuously kidnapping our soldiers and not respecting our naval rights, right, or our rights on the open ocean. A group important to know in this is the war hawks. This is kind of the term we have for a kind of new group of congressmen that are arising from the South and West primarily. These are kind of amplified by Henry Clay and John Calhoun, but you know, very aggressive. Wanted to push American expansion into potentially new places like Canada, and you know, it's all this kind of pressure kind of building that causes the US to increase its army size and eventually causes, you know, President James Madison to declare war and to ask for a declaration of war against Britain. So that is how the war of 1812 starts. Again, not gonna get too bogged down. We have an activity that we're gonna do in class for this, but the big thing is, initially, US is outing expansion into Canada. That's shut down really, really quickly. And then a lot of the war is actually not looking great for the Americans. Washington DC is a lot of it destroyed during the war. It's famous with the British and burning down the White House, right, at least that first iteration of it. And you know, it's not so the latter part of the war where things start to turn around. Some of the battles around Lake Erie or the Great Lakes and then finally ending with the Battle of New Orleans, right, where American troops led by Andrew Jackson have a pretty decisive victory over a relatively large British force. But it war lasts basically 1812 through 1814 and negotiations happen, you know, basically over that last month and into the New Year of 1815. And, you know, key impacts of the war are, You know, it's kind of a weird thing because not a whole lot is accomplished by the war and getting territory, but you know, the idea is, hey, we held our own, right? We fought very hard. We see a big uptick in nationalism. We see the emergence of Andrew Jackson as a new, you know, celebrity/star in the American kind of political landscape. And then some people claim also the War of 1812 helped the US become a little bit more reliant, you know. Ever since the embargo act trade with England and other European countries was kind of very disrupted. So some people claim that this war and the lead up to it helped us kind of be realized that we needed to be a little bit more independent, a little bit more, you know, like making our own goods, making our own items and things like that. Last couple of areas and I'll go over these in much greater detail in class is the era of good feeling. So the aftermath of the War of 1812, what I try to tell students is kind of the first time in a long time, we have a relatively peaceful situation in the country. There's a pretty stable, you know, political situation. There's no foreign issue or crisis that's happening. And hence why it's called the era of good feeling. So the present during that time is James Monroe. And then the last thing to bring up is just the, what we call the Monroe Doctrine. So basically the speech to Congress, right, circa about the mid-1810s. The big thing that the U.S. is dealing with is a breakout of a lot of revolutions in Latin America primarily. But the Monroe Doctrine is important because as we emerged from the War of 1812, even though we didn't technically win, right, there is a really like a big high of American confidence. So what the Monroe Doctrine basically does is sort of kind of shoot a warning to England, to European nations that the U.S. kind of takes responsibility for this part of the world for the Western hemisphere. And that European countries, you know, do risk potential, you know, war or American involvement if they continue to be aggressive in this part of the world, in the Americas. So you know, at the time again, we're not in a great position, but this helps set up kind of the sort of standard, right, that later on, the U.S., you know, as we continue to gain power, we'll have a very big influence on over the Americas and all these newly kind of creative countries in this part of the world. Thanks so much, get apologies for going kind of fast, or start going a little bit longer than usual, but it was kind of a lot of stuff to cover. Pull this up, and we'll see you next time.