Skip Essays July 3, 2005. 1. The market economy boomed shortly after the War of 1812.

Free-enterprise or free-market was coined by the philosopher Adam Smith. He used the expression the invisible hand to demonstrate how self-interest guides the most efficient use of resources in a nation's economy. We still live in a free-market economy today. Before our common era of the market economy, citizens lived a different way. Townsmen lived in interdependent communities and exchanged goods with their neighbors. Generally, farm families supplied their self with food, clothing, candles, and soap. If a particular farmer could not supply its family with a certain good, then they would trade with another family. Cooking pots, horseshoes, coffee, tea and sugar were among the goods that families traded. Majority of the trading that took place was domestically. The War of 1812 led to interdependent trading. Americans now had the idea of marketing. Societies produced goods that were being sold for cash. The idea of trading a good for another was no longer desired. The American currency served as a determination to produce and sell. People who made a profit were able to purchase goods from other producers. This producing and selling idea allowed the economy to prosper. Individual farmers were not the only ones affected by the new economy. Slave plantations raised rice, tobacco, sugar, and or cotton. The cotton gin and interchangeable parts allowed mass production of goods. Hiring employees began to take affect in mills and local businesses. Specialization was a demand for manufactured goods. People started to study certain fields.

Automation, the division of labor, new methods of financing, and improvements in transportation all led to the growth of the new economy. In the 1820s and 1830s streets, turnpikes, canals and railroads were being made. Regular work was needed on these projects as well as construction of buildings. In the later part of the 1830s foreign investment rose. From 1832 through 1839, the United States had a net capital inflow of $189 million. Just as the Economy was prospering hard times hit in 1819. Production surpassed demand, causing prices and wages to drop. Land and stock values collapsed causing investment money to flow out of the United States.

2. After the War of 1812 the United States was becoming too populated on the American soil. Expansion to westward lands was only the beginning. It began with the purchase in April 1803 of the Louisiana Territory which included 827,000 square miles. Napoleon of France sold it to the United States for 15 million dollars. The land acquired from France nearly doubled the area of the United States. Shortly after the Louisiana Purchase the United States acquired land northwest of the Mississippi in 1841 when Oregon joined the Union. In 1845 Texas was annexed into America after they fault for independence from Mexico. With the United States gaining all this land, hungry land seekers headed west. The term Manifest Destiny describes the westward expansion. President Andrew Jackson had no problem filling the land out west. He passed the Indian Removal Act. All the Indians in the Florida area were forced to move out west. Approximately 100,000 south eastern Indian people were removed between 1820 and 1850. Another act of force

upon Indians was the Trail of Tears. The Cherokee Indians were forced from the south east to the Okalahoma region. This caused aggravation between western Indians already occupying the land out west and the Indians that are being forced to move. The people of America had a choice to back the government up on their decisions. The democratic Republicans favored expansion and economic growth where as the Whigs did not. Another factor in inspiring westward expansion was transportation methods. Railroads, canals and roadways were being developed. In the 1820s new arteries opened up east-west travel. The National Road which consisted of a stone based, gravel topped highway went from Columbus, Ohio to Maryland to New York. Eventually the road went far west as California. Canal building allowed easy transportation by waterways. By 1840 canals connected the Northeast and the West. Besides the roads and canals, the railroad method boomed. Peter Coopers created the first locomotive which steamed along 13 miles of Baltimore and Ohio Railroad track. This was just the beginning of long destinations in a much quicker time period. By 1850 the United States had nearly 9,000 miles of railroad track. Along with expansion to the west came the issue of slavery. Slave holders wanted to create bigger plantations since their soil was getting old do to over production on the same fields. Political people wanted to know which state was going to become a slave state or a free state. The attainment of all this land allowed a less centralized government. The Whigs and the Democrats had to be more optimistic with all the new areas they had to reach for voters. Lastly the Gold Rush was a big impact on expansion. Once word got out that California had gold, peoples goal was to get rich fast.

3. John Quincy Adams had a desire to insulate the United States and the Western Hemisphere from European conflict. The Monroe Doctrine stated for immediate recognition of new governments in Latin America. His message called for no colonization of the western Hemisphere by European nations. The inspiration of the doctrine led to the freedom of Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, Colombia, and Mexico from Spain. Adams and Monroe did not want to cause conflict with Spain. The end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 marked the breakup of the Spanish empire in the New World. The new republics sought and expected recognition by the United States, and many Americans approved that idea. President James Monroe and his secretary of state, John Quincy Adams, were not willing to risk war for nations they did not know would survive. From their point of view, as long as the other European powers did not intervene, the government of the United States could just let Spain and her rebellious colonies fight it out. Adams said it would be more candid, as well as more dignified, to avow our principles explicitly to Russia and France, than to come in as a cockboat in the wake of the British man-of-war. Although it would take years to join together into a particular policy, John Quincy Adams did raise a standard of an independent American foreign policy so strongly that future administrations could not ignore it. One should understand that the policy succeeded because it met British interests as well as American, and for the next 100 years was secured by the backing of the British fleet.