In October,1814,a convention of delegates from Connecticut,Massachusetts,Rhode Island,and certain counties of New Hampshire and Vermont was held at Hartford,on the call of Massachusetts.The counsels of the extremists were rejected but the convention solemnly went on record to the effect that acts of Congress in violation of the Constitution are void;that in cases of deliberate,dangerous,and palpable infractions the state is duty bound to interpose its authority for the protection of its citizens;and that when emergencies occur the states must be their own judges and execute their own decisions.Thus New England answered the challenge of Calhoun and Clay.Fortunately its actions were not as rash as its words.The Hartford convention merely proposed certain amendments to the Constitution and adjourned.At the close of the war,its proposals vanished harmlessly;but the men who made them were hopelessly discredited.
The Second United States Bank.-In driving the Federalists towards nul-lification and waging a national war themselves,the Republicans lost all their old taint of provincialism.Moreover,in turning to measures of reconstruction called forth by the war,they resorted to the national devices of the Federal-ists.In 1816,they chartered for a period of twenty years a second United States Bank-the institution which Jefferson and Madison once had condemned as unsound and unconstitutional.The Constitution remained unchanged;times and circumstances had changed.Calhoun dismissed the vexed question of con-stitutionality with a scant reference to an ancient dispute,while Madison set aside his scruples and signed the bill.
The Protective Tariff of 1816.-The Republicans supplemented the Bank by another Federalist measure-a high protective tariff.Clay viewed it as the be-ginning of his "American system"of protection.Calhoun defended it on national principles.For this sudden reversal of policy the young Republicans were taunted by some of their older party colleagues with betraying the "agricultural inter-est"that Jefferson had fostered;but Calhoun refused to listen to their criticisms."When the seas are open,"he said,"the produce of the South may pour anywhere into the markets of the Old World....What are the effects of a war with a maritime power-with England?Our commerce annihilated ...our agriculture cut off from its accustomed markets,the surplus of the farmer perishes on his hands....The recent war fell with peculiar pressure on the growers of cotton and tobacco and the other great staples of the country;and the same state of things will recur in the event of another war unless prevented by the foresight of this body....When our manufactures are grown to a certain perfection,as they soon will be under the fostering care of the government,we shall no longer experience these evils."With the Republicans nationalized,the Federalist party,as an organization,dis-appeared after a crushing defeat in the presidential campaign of 1816.
Monroe and the Florida Purchase.-To the victor in that political contest,James Monroe of Virginia,fell two tasks of national importance,adding to the prestige of the whole country and deepening the sense of patriotism that weaned men away from mere allegiance to states.The first of these was the purchase of Florida from Spain.The acquisition of Louisiana let the Mississippi flow "unvexed to the sea";but it left all the states east of the river cut off from the Gulf,affording them ground for discontent akin to that which had moved the pioneers of Kentucky to action a generation earlier.The uncertainty as to the boundaries of Louisiana gave the United States a claim to West Florida,set-ting on foot a movement for occupation.The Florida swamps were a basis for Indian marauders who periodically swept into the frontier settlements,and hid-ing places for runaway slaves.Thus the sanction of international law was given to punitive expeditions into alien territory.
The pioneer leaders stood waiting for the signal.It came.President Monroe,on the occasion of an Indian outbreak,ordered General Jackson to seize the offenders,in the Floridas,if necessary.The high-spirited warrior,taking this as a hint that he was to occupy the coveted region,replied that,if possession was the object of the invasion,he could occupy the Floridas within sixty days.Without waiting for an answer to this letter,he launched his expedition,and in the spring of 1818was master of the Spanish king's domain to the south.
There was nothing for the king to do but to make the best of the inevitable by ceding the Floridas to the United States in return for five million dollars tobe paid to American citizens having claims against Spain.On Washington's birthday,1819,the treaty was signed.It ceded the Floridas to the United States and defined the boundary between Mexico and the United States by drawing a line from the mouth of the Sabine River in a northwesterly direction to the Pacific.On this occasion even Monroe,former opponent of the Constitution,forgot to inquire whether new territory could be constitutionally acquired and incorporated into the American union.The Republicans seemed far away from the days of "strict construction."And Jefferson still lived!
The Monroe Doctrine.-Even more effective in fashioning the national idea was Monroe's enunciation of the famous doctrine that bears his name.The oc-casion was another European crisis.During the Napoleonic upheaval and the years of dissolution that ensued,the Spanish colonies in America,following the example set by their English neighbors in 1776,declared their independence.Unable to conquer them alone,the king of Spain turned for help to the friendly powers of Europe that looked upon revolution and republics with undisguised horror.
