Forming of the New Nation;

Westward Expansion and Regional Differences

In 1790 Hamilton conceived a plan that proposed that the federal government should pay the debts
incurred by individual states in furthering the Revolution. This decision was extremely unpopular. By then
the actual holders of national bonds were only speculators who were to be, with no exception, the main
beneficiaries of Hamilton’s decision. The reason why he refused to make any concessions (even for the
veterans who were paid for their service not with money but certificates sold quickly to speculators) was his
belief that to secure national credit and to convince the public of the government’s financial reliability there
must be no exception to the rules of the game. A year later Hamilton proposed to establish a Bank of the
United States. By then Hamilton’s uncompromising doggedness had made him many formidable enemies,
as he had managed to alienate many political leaders, among whom Jefferson provided the strongest
opposition. Hamilton’s supporters (Washington, among others) began to call themselves Federalists,
whereas Jefferson’s followers, who called themselves Republicans, claimed that the national bank was
illegal because the Constitution explicitly enumerated all the powers belonging to the federal government
and setting up a bank was not among them. Hamilton answered that Congress had the power ‘to make all
laws which shall be necessary and proper’ for carrying out other powers that had been specifically granted.
Those included levying taxes, paying debts, borrowing money, and to perform these functions and all other
financial operations a national bank was indispensable. Both Congress and Washington created a precedent
by agreeing with Hamilton’s arguments about the explicit and implied powers of the federal government,
and founding of the Bank of the United States was one of Hamilton’s greatest achievements.

In foreign policy the cornerstone of Washington’s administration was to preserve peace to give the country
the time it needed to recover and to build its vital institutions. This pacifist policy was quickly challenged by
the French Revolution and the Anglo-French war. Everyone favored neutrality, but neutrality was very
difficult to preserve and the American people wondered which side of the conflict to take. The relations with
the new revolutionary government in France were strained, the relations with the British government were
even worse. The British still had their troops on American soil, in Fort Detroit and some other posts in the
North West, and the markets of the British Empire were officially closed to American trade. Hamilton
thought that siding with the British could help to settle these issues. Jefferson argued that France was a great
sister-republic to whom Americans owed their loyalty. Finally the American grievances were partially
amended by negotiations with the British, who withdrew from the forts, but other matters were left
unsettled.

When Washington retired after eight years of office his vice-president John Adams, also a staunch
Federalist, was elected president, whereas Jefferson became the Vice President. Naturally the two of them
were not getting along too well, and by 1800 the President and the Vice President were no longer on
speaking terms. In 1800 the tables turned, and Jefferson became the third President of the United States. By
then most Americans were fed up with Hamiltonian influence on domestic policies. Under Washington and
Adams those policies alienated large groups of people who now wished to see some change. The strong
federal government was not dismantled, but new democratic procedures were introduced by Jefferson.
Jefferson was an idealist and a very successful politician who, unlike the cynical Hamilton, believed in
Americans, flattered them and was careful not to trample on people’s toes. Therefore he enjoyed
extraordinary favor among his countrymen, who preferred Jefferson’s sincere complements to Hamilton’s
sharp truths about the depravity of human nature. Jefferson introduced more liberal naturalization laws and
more humane laws for debtors and criminals.

Jefferson thought that the main business of the American people should be agriculture, and therefore he
encouraged westward expansion. Shortly after Jefferson came into office, with just one act, he doubled the
territory of the United States. The purchase of Louisiana in 1803 was possible after Napoleon had forced
the Spanish to cede to him this territory, whereby he sold it to the United States to feed his Exchequer and to
put Louisiana out of the British reach. Napoleon had known that French Louisiana had posed a danger to the
young American Republic, and in the face of an impending war with Great Britain he had predicted that
Americans would rally with Great Britain for the sole purpose – to oust him from Louisiana. Therefore in a
pre-emptive move, he sold Louisiana for 15 million dollars. Jefferson who bought it thus secured his
reelection for the second term of office (1804).1

During his second term in office Jefferson mainly had to strive to maintain neutrality in the war of Great
Britain and France (1803–1815). But his successor James Madison, who in 1809 succeeded the retired
Jefferson, found it difficult to tolerate some of the antiAmerican hostilities. Both French and English
warships tried to effect a blockade on the enemy’s harbors, and in this way they interfered with the
American trade. American ships were often intercepted, and their cargo was seized. Then in 1810 Napoleon
announced that he was going to lift the embargo, and Madison’s administration took his words at their face
value. In fact the embargo against the American shipments continued, but gradually the conflict with Great
Britain came to the foreground. In 1812 the United States declared war on Great Britain.

In spite of some early successes the war turned to be for Americans a total disaster. An American attempt to
invade British-ruled Canada ended in a fiasco, and the American embarrassment was compounded by a very
successful British raid against the new capital city Washington where all public buildings were burned
down. Finally in December 1814 the United States and Great Britain signed a treaty in Europe that ended
that pointless and unnecessary war that could have been easily avoided had the British made timely
concessions. For Americans the war had been inevitable. The Royal Navy had kidnapped several thousand
American sailors and forced them into service on British ships. Moreover, Americans blamed the English
for the Indian restlessness, which, in their opinion, was encouraged by British agents in Canada. The war

1 The purchase was possible only by obtaining foreign loans which would not have been available if Hamilton had not
established the National Bank and the credit of the US government.
was not very satisfactory for either side and the peace treaty was little more than an agreement not to fight 2
and neither side made any explicit concessions. But the war also had some positive consequences. It
strengthened American unity and patriotism. It also brought it home to the American statesmen how
dangerous was the Jeffersonian doctrine favoring agriculture over the new rising industries. The British
blockade of the American ports brought about the realization how hopelessly dependent on imports was the
young American Republic. Therefore finally it was understood that full political independence was not
possible without a complete self-sufficiency in which both agriculture and industries were equally important.

Finally during the next administration of President James Monroe a warning was sent to all European
powers, which later was labeled as the famous Monroe Doctrine. It announced that the American continents
should not henceforth be considered ‘as subjects for future colonization by any European power.’ This
doctrine was an effective deterrent for Great Britain not to try to extend her possessions in America. It also
foreshadowed the American desire to acquire hegemony over the New World. There was another important
concept encapsulated in Monroe’s doctrine, which came to be called isolationism – a wish not to interfere in
the internal concerns of any European powers and in any European wars.

One of John Adam’s last actions as President was to appoint John Marshall Chief Justice the United States
(1801). He also appointed a dozen of other judges (William Marbury among others). However, these
appointments were not delivered by the new Secretary of State, none other than James Madison later
president of the United States, for whom the new judges were all political opponents. So he refused to
deliver the appointments whereby he was sued by Marbury. The case Marbury v. Madison came up before
the Supreme Court and Marshall found in favor of Madison explaining that the law under which Madison
was sued was unconstitutional. This famous case established the principle of judicial review and judicial
supremacy, and what it boils down to is that if the Supreme Court decides that a law is in opposition to the
Constitution, the Court may declare the law illegal. This precedent made the Court the main interpreter of
the Constitution. Madison disliked that doctrine very much but could not fight it since it was embodied in a
decision in his favor. So John Marshall got away with it and maintained it through his long tenure as Chief
Justice (1801–1833). Owing to Marshall’s effort the Supreme Court was transformed into a powerful
tribunal whose position was as strong as that of the government or the President.3

As important as politics in the shaping of the new nation was what was happening on the Frontier, the areas
where white men had just penetrated. Before 1789 the American society kept close to the shore and looked
seawards. Afterwards the vast unexplored West started to play an ever more important place in shaping the
nation. The Frontier encouraged individual initiative, it broke down conservatism and fostered democracy,
and by roughening manners created a more egalitarian society. The people in the West developed an idea
that they were equal because on the Frontier men were valued not for their aristocratic descent, inherited

2 Ironically the greatest battle in the war – in New Orleans was fought after the Treaty because the news of the Treaty did not
reach the combatants on time. Americans won this battle under the leadership of General Andrew Jackson.
3 The Court not always used this power with wisdom in the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857) the judges declared that Scott
had not been freed while being taken through a free state and that the Mis-
wealth or years of schooling but for what they could do. Thus the West had a great faith in democracy, the
ability of the common man. Every adult male was eligible for vote and run for public office. Farms were
easy to acquire and land was cheap. It was a time when, as one journalist said ‘young people could go West
and grow up with the country.’

Frontier settlers were a very varied group. The first to come to the wilderness were woodsmen also called
frontiersmen. They were followed by pioneers who cleared the land of the forest. Then came the doctors,
lawyers, storekeepers, preachers and politicians. The woodsmen and pioneers paved the way for the rest, and
those who came after them built roads, mills, churches, and schools and introduced better farming methods
and improved stock. When Jefferson made the Louisiana purchase, he predicted that it would take a
thousand years to people the unexplored West but he was wrong. By 1830 1/3 or maybe even a half of the
American nation lived west of the Appalachian Mountains. Chicago, on the shore of the Great Lakes,
became the gateway to the West. It is the best example illustrating the enormous speed of transformation. At
the beginning of the 19th century it had been just an unpromising cluster of huts, but before some of its first
settlers died it was one of the largest and richest cities in the United States.

Naturally, the white settlers encroached on the Indian lands and encountered a stiff resistance. The Indians
made fierce attacks on the settlers, in response the settlers exterminated whole Indian villages. During
Monroe’s presidency the government intervened to protect the interests of the settlers, and the Indians were
to be moved to some new territories further west to empty the lands that the settlers wanted. In 1830 the
Indian Removal Act was passed. All Indians living east of Mississippi were to be moved west to the so-
called Indian territory, where according to the government they could continue their way of life.
Dislodging Indians, as the government claimed, was designed to save them from extinction and to make it
possible for them to preserve their culture in the territory, which was to be forever theirs, where they could
live unmolested by the settlers.

Even before the Indian Removal Act of 1830, Indians had been cheated of their lands. Illiterate Indians were
coerced to put their names on documents transferring the land title, which they did not understand. But the
Indian Removal Act was the greatest wrong committed against Indians.29 Under the Act 60.000 Indians of
the so-called Five Civilized Tribes where uprooted from the land which they had always occupied and
moved to lands far across Mississippi (in Oklahoma) that eventually in due time were also wrested from
them. In 1831 and 32 President Andrew Jackson had the Choctaw tribe (Alabama and Mis-

souri compromise was unconstitutional and thus they contributed to the outbreak of the Civil War. In the
19th century the Court interpreted the Constitution in favor of capital and against labor and in favor of
segregation. In the 20th century it disgraced itself by its support for the anti-communist witch-hunt (until
Earl Warren, Chief Justice from 1953–69, stopped it).
29
Another wrong on a similar scale was the Allotment Act of 1887.
sissippi) relocated to Oklahoma. Before they started on their long trek the white settlers had arrived to trick
Indians of their property. The winter when they marched to Oklahoma was the coldest since 1776 – at least
1.600 Indian children and old people died due to coldness, starvation and the epidemic of cholera. A similar
fate befell Cherokees who long before the Removal Act had realized that in order to survive the encounter
with the white man they had to learn his ways. They had changed their life style from that of a Stone Age
tribe to a civilized society. They had become successful farmers. They had invented a written alphabet for
their language; they had a printing press and published a weekly newspaper. In 1827 they had adopted a
constitution based on that of the United States’. They had converted to Christianity, went to church and sent
their children to school. To no avail. In 1837 and 38 they were driven out of their farms and marched in the
dead of winter to Oklahoma. The nightmare lasted over five months; the death toll amounted to more than
4.000 people. The Cherokee called this chapter in their tribal history the Trail of Tears – it was perhaps the
most glaring example of the American government’s hypocrisy.

The 19th century was the Indian era of defeat, and if Indians had any victories they were usually short-lived
and cruelly retaliated. When the government decided to pen Indians in ‘reservations’ because their
wandering way of life simply took too much space, the Indians of the Sioux and Cheyenne tribes rebelled in
June 1876. The warriors of the two tribes led by Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull wiped out an American
regiment (225 people). The battle is often called ‘Custer’s last stand’ because General George Custer died
in the battle. For the Sioux it was also their last stand. In 1890 among the Sioux began the socalled Ghost
Dance Movement. A religious leader persuaded the Sioux that if they kept on dancing a certain dance the
dead warriors would rise from the dead and outnumber the whites, thus making it possible for the Indians to
sweep the white men away. Such a wish deeply bothered the American government, which sent the army to
restore order. On 29 December 1890 the United States soldiers killed more than 200 Indians. Those who did
not perish on the spot, died in a blizzard.

A year later some of the Nez Perces were forced out of their homes in Oregon. They devised a brilliant
campaign in defense of their homes. General Sherman said that they fought with almost scientific skill.
Finally, however, they were caught near the Canadian border, which, for them, was a border between
annihilation and safety. They surrendered and tried to henceforth use diplomacy to get back to their
homelands. They received generous promises, which were of course broken. Geronimo was the last Indian
chief to organize armed resistance. He was an Apache who fought with the American army for ten years in
Arizona (1876–86), then he surrendered and spent the rest of his life as a farmer in Oklahoma.

The Allotment Act of 1887 completed Indian expropriation – 86 million acres were taken away from
Indians. The reservations in which they were closed were poverty-ridden and the Indians died there by ten of
thousands of diseases and famine. In fewer than one hundred years since the Declaration of Independence,
Americans succeeded in robbing Indians of their land.

The settlement in the West proceeded with great haste. Indiana was admitted in 1816, Mississippi in 1817,
Illinois in 1818, Alabama in 1819, Main in 1820, Missouri in 1821. In 1845 Texas entered the Union. In
1846 Oregon4 was admitted. In 1848 after the war with Mexico new areas in the South West were annexed
to the Union.5 Around 1845 a New York journalist’s coined a phrase ‘manifest destiny’ which designated
American nationalists’ claim that America should straddle the two oceans because it was the mission of the
American people to bring the entire continent under their control. The extremists demanded that the United
States should stretch all the way North to the boundary with Alaska at latitude 54° 40 minutes. The
boundary with Canada remained at the 49th parallel of latitude, but below it the American hunger for land
continued unchecked.

4 At first settlers had gone to Oregon by ship round South America and along the Pacific coast. In 1832 they started to travel by
land – the route was called the Oregon Trail.
5 The territory seized after the war are today California, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, Colorado.