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By the end of this section, you will be able to:
  • Explain and illustrate the new style of American politics in the 1820s
  • Describe the policies of John Quincy Adams’s presidency and explain the political divisions that resulted
A timeline shows important events of the era. In 1824, John Quincy Adams is elected president in a “corrupt bargain”; a portrait of Adams is shown. In 1828, the “Tariff of Abominations” protects northern manufacturers, and Andrew Jackson wins the popular and electoral votes; a portrait of Jackson is shown. In 1830, Congress passes the Indian Removal Act; a portrait of Sauk chief Black Hawk is shown. In 1832, the Nullification Crisis risks violent secession, and President Jackson vetoes the renewal of the Second Bank of the United States. In 1834, the Whig Party forms in opposition to the Democratic Party. In 1837, a financial panic prompts an extended recession. In 1840, Whig candidate William Henry Harrison is elected president; a portrait of Harrison is shown.

In the 1820s, American political culture gave way to the democratic urges of the citizenry. Political leaders and parties rose to popularity by championing the will of the people, pushing the country toward a future in which a wider swath of citizens gained a political voice. However, this expansion of political power was limited to white men; women, free blacks, and Indians remained—or grew increasingly—disenfranchised by the American political system.

The decline of federalism

The first party system in the United States shaped the political contest between the Federalists and the Democratic-Republicans. The Federalists, led by Washington, Hamilton, and Adams, dominated American politics in the 1790s. After the election of Thomas Jefferson—the Revolution of 1800—the Democratic-Republicans gained ascendance. The gradual decline of the Federalist Party is evident in its losses in the presidential contests that occurred between 1800 and 1820. After 1816, in which Democratic-Republican James Monroe defeated his Federalist rival Rufus King, the Federalists never ran another presidential candidate.

Before the 1820s, a code of deference    had underwritten the republic’s political order. Deference was the practice of showing respect for individuals who had distinguished themselves through military accomplishments, educational attainment, business success, or family pedigree. Such individuals were members of what many Americans in the early republic agreed was a natural aristocracy. Deference shown to them dovetailed with republicanism and its emphasis on virtue, the ideal of placing the common good above narrow self-interest. Republican statesmen in the 1780s and 1790s expected and routinely received deferential treatment from others, and ordinary Americans deferred to their “social betters” as a matter of course.

For the generation who lived through the American Revolution, for instance, George Washington epitomized republican virtue, entitling him to great deference from his countrymen. His judgment and decisions were considered beyond reproach. An Anglican minister named Mason Locke Weems wrote the classic tale of Washington’s unimpeachable virtue in his 1800 book, The Life of Washington . Generations of nineteenth-century American children read its fictional story of a youthful Washington chopping down one of his father’s cherry trees and, when confronted by his father, confessing: “I cannot tell a lie” ( [link] ). The story spoke to Washington’s unflinching honesty and integrity, encouraging readers to remember the deference owed to such towering national figures.

A painting depicts George Washington as a child, pointing out to his father a cherry tree with damaged bark. A hatchet lies on the ground. Washington’s father smiles and places his hand on Washington’s shoulder.
Father, I Can Not Tell a Lie: I Cut the Tree ” (1867) by John McRae, after a painting by George Gorgas White, illustrates Mason Locke Weems’s tale of Washington’s honesty and integrity as revealed in the incident of the cherry tree. Although it was fiction, this story about Washington taught generations of children about the importance of virtue.

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Source:  OpenStax, U.s. history. OpenStax CNX. Jan 12, 2015 Download for free at http://legacy.cnx.org/content/col11740/1.3
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