387. Literature.-When political parties developed during Washington's second administration, they caused a rapid increase in the number of newspapers. These papers were small and had no way of getting general news. The editors were very abusive in their political writings. The people generally read magazines containing abstract essays and sentimental poetry. The few books read were imported from the old world. About 1820, the people seemed to have accomplished their first work of clearing the forests and had leisure for intellectual affairs. Washington Irving began to write his delightful sketches and James Fenimore Cooper to write his novels. These two authors with some minor writers made the beginning of an American literature.

OCCUPATIONS

388. Agriculture, Fishing, and Commerce.-In colonial days, agriculture was followed in the fertile lands of the southern states. The people of New England on a rocky soil were obliged to turn fishermen and sailors. In making the treaty with England at the close of the Revolutionary war, John Adams, a New Englander, had insisted on the Americans sharing the cod fisheries of Newfoundland with the Canadians. His son, John Quincy Adams, had insisted upon the same right in making the treaty at the close of the second war with England. On the steeple of the statehouse in Boston was a weathervane in the shape of a gilded codfish to show the value of the fisheries. The trading and ship-building interests of New England and the middle states continued to grow.

389. Growth of Manufactures.-The rocky soil of New England and the northern states, although preventing farming on a large scale, proved a blessing in the end. The falls in the rivers such as those at Fall River, Massachusetts, and at Passaic, New Jersey,-the result of the broken and uneven surface of the region through which those streams ran,-early turned attention to manufacturing. Water

wheels were harnessed to these falls, and made to run machinery. Corn and wheat were ground into flour, and gradually cloth was woven, nails made, iron rolled, and various manufactures begun. Washington set a good example by wearing when he was inaugurated, clothing made entirely in the United States. Yet the people had been so long dependent on Europe that American goods became the fashion very slowly. It needed the war of 1812, which shut out European goods, to develop home factories. Soon every available river fall was pressed into service to aid in the upbuilding of home industries, such as the "protective tariff" laws were passed to protect. In 1821, some men went to a rapid place in the Merrimac River, built a dam, and established the manufacturing town of Lowell, which soon grew into a great city. With the discovery of the great coal fields which underlie most of the northern states, steam power began to aid and even to supersede water power.

NATIONAL DEFENCE

390. Army and Navy.-After the Revolutionary war had closed, the army was disbanded, only a few troops being retained to guard the frontier settlements against the Indians. There was no need of a standing army such as European nations are obliged to maintain because of powerful neighbors. A standing army is also a heavy burden to the taxpayers, and is contrary to the idea of self-government. By an act of congress under the constitution, the army was put on a permanent basis of only a little more than a thousand men and officers. Each state was expected to keep a militia, consisting of men who were drilled occasionally and could go to war when it was necessary, but who did not have to be clothed, fed, and paid all the time, as did the regular soldiers. Most of the fighting in the Indian campaigns, as well as the war of 1812, was done by the militiamen from the different states. After the close of the war of 1812, the regular army was not

reduced to the former standing because troops were needed in the western and southern forts to guard settlers against the Indians. Andrew Jackson had been a general in the regular army, and was known as an "Indian fighter.”

After

A navy, like an army, is a heavy expense. the close of the Revolutionary war, the navy had been abandoned. The last vessel, the Alliance, was sold because there was no money to make repairs. But the experience with the Mediterranean pirates a few years later showed that any nation which expects to have an ocean trade must have a navy to defend it. Six vessels were begun in 1794, named the Constitution, the United States, the Chesapeake, the President, the Constellation, and the Congress. Four were finished and made the beginning of our present great navy. The war of 1812 found the United States unprepared. During the war, our navy at one time was reduced to three frigates; but others were added as rapidly as they could be built. Also private vessels were enlisted as war vessels, from which they were called "privateers." They did the best service, and really won the war. Only sufficient vessels were maintained after the war to help keep the African slave-trade down and to aid scientific investigation.

POLITICAL LIFE

391. Growth of Popular Government.-What we now know as politics,—that is, the right and duty of each citizen to bear his share of public affairs, -were developed slowly as time went on. In the old world, government had been generally in the hands of a few men like kings or princes, who managed the state for the people. There was no pattern for a republic, such as our fathers planned in the constitution, embracing such a large territory and so many people. It was natural that statesmen should differ in opinion upon the manner of conducting the republic. Jefferson, for instance, believed that the people as a whole should be allowed to manage affairs as they

thought best; others, like Hamilton, feared that the people, if left to themselves, would go too far and breed revolution. John Adams thought this could be prevented by the people choosing the "well-born" to fill the offices and to conduct the government for them.

Since ideas of government had been derived from the old world, the people at first were kept out of a complete control in several ways. They were not allowed to vote directly for a president, but chose a set of electors who would select the best man in the United States for president. Very early the people learned to choose electors who were pledged to vote for a certain candidate. The name of the candidate was printed over the list of electors. In this way the people really vote directly for the president, although that was not what the framers of the constitution had planned. About President Jackson's time, national nominating conventions were invented, which are held to this day to select candidates for the presidency. About the same time, the number of people entitled to vote was greatly increased. The feeling that the government was instituted for the protection of property was so strong that, when the first constitutions were adopted which changed the colonies into states, no one was allowed to vote who did not own a certain amount of land or pay a certain amount of taxes. The constitutions adopted by the new states when they were admitted to the union allowed all white men over twenty-one to vote, and the constitutions of the older states were gradually changed to this qualification.

CHAPTER XI

FROM JACKSON TO LINCOLN

1829-1861

JACKSON'S ADMINISTRATION

DEMOCRATIC: 1829-1837

392. Andrew Jackson, the seventh president of the United States, was the son of a farmer. He had been a member of congress, a United States senator from Tennessee, and a justice on the supreme bench of that state. He won his great popularity in the wars against the Creek and Seminole Indians, and in the crushing defeat of the British at the battle of New Orleans. It being due to his course in the Seminole war that the United States had won Florida, he was appointed the first governor of that territory.

As president, he revived Jefferson's plan of removal of political opponents from office, and during the first year of his administration dismissed nearly seven hundred officeholders-ten times as many as had been removed in all the previous history of the government. He thus surrounded himself with his personal friends and impressed his strong character upon his administration.

Though Jackson was an unpolished man, and little skilled in the science of government, he possessed such native ability and inflexible honesty as to make him personally popular with the masses and the idol of his party. He came to the presidency as a military hero, and many had fears for the government under his administration. Yet he astonished his party and the country by the vigorous manner in which he upheld the government. His stern and rugged