Era of Good Feelings

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The Era of Good Feelings describes the period 1815-1824 when partisan tensions virtually disappeared in United States politics. The phrase was coined by the Boston Columbian Centinel newspaper on July 12, 1817 following the good-will visit to Boston of the new President James Monroe. In the election of 1820, President Monroe was re-elected with all but one electoral vote. Elector William Plumer of New Hampshire voted for John Quincy Adams. (Legend has it that he voted for John Q. Adams because he thought George Washington should be the only president unanimously elected. In reality, he didn't think Monroe would make a good president.) Slavery came to the forefront as an national issue, but Henry Clay's negotiation of the Missouri Compromise ameliorated the crisis. The solution was to balance admission of Missouri Territory as a slave state, with the admission of Maine as a free state. During this time, the Federalist Party and its opposing Democratic-Republican Party dissolved. Local politics flourished, of course, but without party labels or party conventions.

The Era also saw a pause in bitter debates over the protective tariff and the Second National Bank. Florida was purchased from Spain to general acclaim. President Monroe promulgated the The Monroe Doctrine, advising European powers against attempts to re-assert their control over former colonies in the New World.

"...We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States...." --The Monroe Doctrine, December 2 1823, [excerpt from President James Monroe's Seventh Annual Message to Congress]

The Era ended in 1824, due to the breakdown of the electoral system. Previously the Democratic-Republican members of Congress had met and decided on the party's presidential candidate. The problem was the competing presidential ambitions of five men: three of Monroe's cabinet members, John Quincy Adams, John C. Calhoun, and William H. Crawford; plus Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson. Calhoun took himself out of the running by deciding to seek the Vice-Presidency. The other four formed regional coalitions with state politicians and pursued the electorate. At the polls, turnout was light because there were no parties to mobilize voters. Then, since no one received a majority in the electoral college, the decision on the presidency went to House of Representatives. Clay, who was Speaker of the House of Representatives, swung the election to Adams, who then appointed Clay as Secretary of State. The result outraged Jackson and his supporters. They alleged that a "corrupt bargain" had taken place and immediately began their crusade to regain the "stolen" presidency. Partisan politics began again.

References

George Dangerfield. The Era of Good Feelings (1952).
George Dangerfield. The Awakening of American Nationalism: 1815 - 1828 (1965).

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