Northern manufacturers were expected to gain from the tariff because it made competing goods from abroad more expensive than those they made. Southern plantation owners expected the tariff would be costly for them, because it raised the price of goods they could only import. Southerners also feared the tariff represented an unwelcome expansion of federal power over the states.
For this reason, they named themselves after the eighteenth-century British-American Whigs, who stood in opposition to King George. Whigs believed in an active federal government committed to internal improvements, including the establishment of a national bank.
The Cumberland Road made transportation to the West easier for new settlers. The Erie Canal facilitated trade with the West by connecting the Hudson River to Lake Erie. Railroads shortened transportation times throughout the country, making it easier and less expensive to move people and goods.
Many people saw the Second Bank of the United States, the "monster bank," as a tool for the privileged few, not for the public good. To Jackson, who saw himself as a spokesman for the common people against a powerful minority elite, it represented the elites' self-serving policies. Fighting to dismantle the bank increased his popularity among many American voters.
A. Experienced British builders traveled to the United States to advise American merchants.
The Petticoat affair divided those loyal to President Jackson from Washington, DC, insiders. When Washington socialite Peggy O'Neal's husband committed suicide and O'Neal then married John Eaton, a Tennessee senator with whom she was reportedly unfaithful to her husband, Jackson and those loyal to him defended Peggy Eaton against other Washington, DC, socialites and politicians. Martin Van Buren, in particular, supported the Eatons and became an important figure in Jackson's "Kitchen Cabinet" of select supporters and advisers.
The federal government passed laws allowing people to sell back land they could not pay for and use the money to pay their debt. States made it more difficult to foreclose on mortgages and tried to make it easier for people to declare bankruptcy.
The final indicator of the Panic of 1819 was Westward Expansion. During the early 1800s, waves of settlers headed west of the Appalachian Mountains for better prospects, joining the few who had already ventured. These prospectors would invest in land they had never seen before they left. As the economic downturn started, those who went after this land were suddenly unable to pay for it.
Back in the early 1800s, banks gave loans to anyone regardless of credit or income, which is not the case today. These offers were called speculatory loans and they were loans for people to speculate on purchases, such as on land, with the bank really having no idea what the money would be spent on. Imagine trying to get a loan today for a house the bank has never seen!
The Panic of 1819 (1819-1824) was the first major economic depression in American history. It came on quickly and harshly, just like a severe bout of the flu. Many people are familiar with The Great Depression of the 1920s and 1930s and those who lived it might have seen it as a sickness on this country. You perhaps are even thinking about the recession of the 2000s, whose effects are still felt today.
Investigate the three main causes of this depression: questionable bank policies and unpaid loans, the War of 1812, and Western Expansion. Updated: 10/14/2021
Another symptom of the Panic of 1819 was economic expansion during and following the War of 1812, a military conflict that pitted the U.S. against the U.K. and its allies. When at war, a nation must produce weapons and other materials. During this war, the U.S. produced rifles, muskets, artillery, field supplies, uniforms, and ships to use in battle. This meant jobs since there was demand for these products. And not just in the U.S.: industry also supplied other countries. Why would the U.S. supply others with products when we were fighting a war? Well, other countries saw we were capable of high quantities of goods, ones made from raw materials foreign nations lacked. So, they bought American goods and made Americans a lot of money!
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Europeans also discovered their own ways to produce materials and products previously purchased from the U.S. This caused demand to fall off rapidly and with this, workers lost jobs, income, and their own demand for products diminished. Like a nasty cold bug, economic problems spread from the international level all the way down to local cities and towns, affecting everyone.