After the War of 1812 the Federalist Party faded, and James Monroe (1817 to 1825) governed with little organized opposition. A Boston newspaper called it an "era of good feelings" in 1817. Under the calm, three big issues took shape: the economy, slavery in the West, and the country's place in the world.
Key idea
Henry Clay's American System proposed a national bank, a protective tariff, and roads and canals to tie the regions together. The Missouri Compromise (1820) admitted Missouri as a slave state and Maine as a free state, and banned slavery in the rest of the Louisiana Purchase north of 36°30′. The Monroe Doctrine (1823) warned Europe against new colonies in the Americas.
Why it works
Why did Missouri cause a crisis? In 1819 there were eleven free states and eleven slave states, so the Senate was evenly split. Missouri would tip the balance. A New York congressman, James Tallmadge, proposed gradually ending slavery there, and the House and Senate deadlocked along sectional lines. Thomas Jefferson wrote that the news woke him "like a fire bell in the night." Adding Maine kept the Senate even, and the line decided where slavery could spread in the rest of the territory.
Worked example: Reading the compromise
Could a settler hold enslaved people in the Arkansas Territory in 1825? In the land that later became Kansas?
- The Missouri Compromise drew the line at 36°30′ north across the rest of the Louisiana Purchase.
- Arkansas lay south of the line, so slavery was allowed there.
- Kansas lay north of the line (and was not Missouri), so slavery was banned there.
- That ban held until the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 repealed it.
Answer: Arkansas: yes (south of the line). Kansas: no (north of the line), until 1854.
Common mistake
The Missouri Compromise did not settle slavery in the West for good. It postponed the fight for about thirty years. The Kansas-Nebraska Act repealed its line in 1854, and in 1857 the Supreme Court said Congress never had the power to draw it. Check: any question about the 1850s that treats the line as still in force is out of date.