History of the United States 1812-1900 (Napoleon's World)

The Postwar Era 1812-1829
With the victory of Napoleon over Russia in 1813 and subsequently Britain in late 1815 and early 1816, the United States of America found itself on the victorious end of the War of 1812, which ended officially with William Clark's (of Lewis and Clark fame) capture of Louisbourg, the last British stronghold in Canada, on May 4th, 1814. Britain's losses in Europe opened the door for a rapid American absorption of Canada and Caribbean territories, as well as Andrew Jackson's swift campaign to seize Florida and Cuba before France could make designs on the former Spanish territories. As a further result of Spain's ruling at the hands of Napoleon, the Central and South American colonies detached themselves quickly from Spanish control, sometimes even with the help of the elite installed by the deposed Spanish royalty themselves, before Napoleon's armies arrived in the New World.

The fear of Napoleonic intervention in the Western hemisphere led to the election of Georgia's William Crawford over James Monroe, the outgoing President Madison's Secretary of State. Crawford and his Vice President, John Quincy Adams, made their best effort to keep Napoleon disinterested in the spoils of the West. France, however, had ravaged Europe in many years of what became known as the Imperial War, and Napoleon had his attention turned towards putting down revolts throughout his new Empire. The trans-Atlantic alliance tentatively formed during what Americans knew as the Canadian War became one primarily of courtesy; Napoleon had seen the tenacity of American soldiers called up from around the young country during the battles against the British and had no intention to involve himself in another costly war.

Witrh the Virginia Dynasty of Thomas Jefferson and James Madison now over, Crawford set about developing and organizing teh newly captured territories in Canada, Flordia, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Unfortunately, his presidency ended somewhat prematurely; in 1819 he fell terribly ill and while officially President, it was Adams and Secretary of State Henry Clay who carried out the day-to-day activities of the Crawford regime. On June 6th, 1821, only months after leaving office, Crawford would die peacefully on his Georgia estate, only the second President to pass away.

Against the backdrop of the ailing President was an increasingly heated campaign to succeed Crawford. The specter of the French Empire - which stretched from the border of the Portuguese runt state to the Urals bordering the divided remnants of the old Russian Empire - just across the ocean made foreign affairs critical in the 1820 election. Adams, backed by the remains of the Federalist party from the north that had managed to survive through a sympathetic Crawford presidency, ran against William Clark, a Virginian who had made his fame exploring the West and later becoming a hero of the Canadian War, and a territorial governor of the Huron Territory. Adams, despite his support of Northern industrialists, lost narrowly to the upstart and inexperience Clark. He would run for a Senate seat from New Englad two years later, a seat his family would hold for the next eighty-four years.

Clark was a self-described moderate; he believed in expansion of territory, expansion of agriculture and expansion of industry. He built what is today known as the Great Coalition, also the Clark Coalition, a powerful bloc of voters who supported his policies in all three major regions of the United States; the Industrial North, the Slaveholding South, and the Expanding West.

Clark dealt favorably with Indians, as did Chief Justice John Marshall. General Andrew Jackson, a passionate Tennessean, disagreed however, and his efforts to create new lands for plantation owners in the south made him a champion of the opposition to Clark: southern gentry and northern laborers in an unusual bloc that became known as the Democratic Party. Jackson ran against Clark in the 1824 election but lost heavily. Clark and his new Secretary of State, Henry Clay, continued their work of expanding the economy in three directions, and by 1828 the United States had welcomed the new states of Huron, Cuba and Nova Scotia.

Clark debated seeking a third term in 1828, but a stroke in the summer made it a virtual impossibility. Clay vowed to seek the Presidency in his mentor's stead, but was upended unexpectedly by New York Democrat Martin Van Buren and his fierce South Carolinan running mate, John C Calhoun. The Postwar Era of Crawford and Clark had ended.

The Rise of Latin America 1815-1840
The Peninsular War left Spain tired and unable to keep an eye on its New World colonies, which received support from the Napoleonic regime to engage in revolutions against the Spanish oppressors. American backers, especially James Monroe, encouraged revolution in order to help their French allies. After Andrew Jackson's successful campaign to seize Cuba and Puerto Rico from Britain, and Napoleon's Foreign Legion excursion to seize the East Antilles and all of Hispaniola, the Spanish gentry in the continental colonies worked as hard as possible to secure power before the Spanish returned. In Mexico, the civil war already underway by Jose Morelos took strength and finally toppled the corrupt officials in Mexico City in January of 1815. While there was an intense internal struggle between the rich landowners and the peasants led by Morelos, the country was for all practical purposes independent. A powerful criollo, Agustin de Iturbide, finally took control from Morelos in 1818 and, for all practical purposes, the populist movement was over not long after the Spanish left. Mexico was free to rule itself, but Iturbide was by no means a democratic leader and the status quo of years before remained.

In South America, Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin quickly waged campaigns in different parts of the continent to remove the Spanish-appointed governors. Bolivar formed the nation of Colombia out of the former Viceroyalty of New Granada, while elsewhere Bolivia, Peru, Chile and Argentina gained independence. In 1820, the Empire of Brazil declared its independence from the remains of Portugal and appointed royal family member Pedro I emperor.

Latin America designed its political systems on a generally federal system, but Iturbide, Bolivar and San Martin were brutal dictators who, out of fear of invasion from the French colonies of Haiti, Barbados, Guyana, Jamaica or Barbados, militarised their countries and built up powerful armies which served just as much to protect against foreign intervention as against their rivals in the government. America, equally fearful of the French presence in Quebec and the Caribbean, made pacts with Colombia and Argentina to protect them against French aggression.

In 1829, General Santa Ana wrested control of Mexico away from Iturbide, and when Texan settlers from America began to question his rule in the early 1830's, the stage was set for a clash between the two very different parts of America on either side of the Rio Grande.

Clay, War and Diplomacy 1829-1853
Martin van Buren inherited a country that had been on an economic boom for eleven years. After only ten months in office, the National Bank ran out of money and called in all loans. The Panic of 1830, which the crisis evolved into, was caused by Clark's hands-off approach to tariffs and economic management, but the fallout was handled poorly by van Buren, whose attempts to increase taxes failed miserably. He was saved by an influx of foreign immigrants seeking to escape a violent purge instigated by Napoleon's inner circle, which by 1830 was effectively running the country due to the Emperor's rapidly failing health. The horrors of ethnic cleansing and "Frenchification" drove thousands of Germans, Italians and Poles to America. Van Buren signed an agreement allowing Napoleon to ship his "undesirables" to America where they would be sent to the West or Canadian territories to help settle new land.

Opposition to van Buren's "open-door policy" to immigrants from the French Empire was fierce, and part of the platform Henry Clay ran on in 1832, supported by what was by then known as the National Party. The Democrat's lost in a massive landslide thanks partially to a law they had created expanding the electorate. Clay instituted vast new reforms to the National Bank, the agriculture system and created laws to facilitiate industrial growth in multiple areas of the country. He and his vice president, William H. Harrison, helped establish industry in southern cities like Atlanta, Savannah, Richmond, Charleston and Havana where slaves could be used in factories as well as on plantations. It was in the mid-30's that Puerto Rico was added to the Union and the sugar boom started.

Clay easily coasted to reelection in 1836 over John C. Calhoun, and he and Secretary of State John Tyler turned an eye south towards Texas, which was in the middle of a rebellion against Mexico to become an independent country and possibly join the Union. In 1838, Texas defeated Santa Ana's soldiers at the Battle of San Jacinto, but fearing the assistance of Americans, Santa Ana ordered a preemptive invasion of Louisiana and Arkansas. In 1839, Mexican soldiers assaulted American soldiers stationed in Texas and the Mexican War started.

Clay deferred management of the war to Vice President Harrison, who was known as the Hero of Tippecanoe. The Mexican Army, built up by Iturbide and Santa Ana, had superior training, weaponry and discipline than the American forces. The war raged in Texas, the Sequoyah territory and Arkansas through 1840, soon becoming a battle of attrition. Harrison, embarassed by his failure to bring "swift victory" as he had promised, declined to return to office for the third term Clay sought in 1840. Clay appointed Daniel Webster, a powerful northern Nationalist, to be his new Vice President. They won over the second John C. Calhoun bid for the presidency more narrowly than the last time, and in 1842 Secretary of State John Tyler called the lengthy war with Mexico "a hopeless cause."

In 1844, with Clay realizing that he needed a victory to secure a fourth term against an upstart Democratic challenger, James Polk, tried to gain French assistance in the war, sending Millard Fillmore to France to secure aid and making Zachary Taylor, a decorated general, Chief General of the military, a position which had never existed before. Under Taylor's direction, American soldiers landed at Veracruz in Mexico and opened up a new front in the war. While victory was largely secured by the end of the summer, it was not enough to save Clay and give the longest-tenured President the fourth term he sought. The Democrats returned to power in both the White House and Congress, yet the policies of Polk differed little from those of Clay. With the victory over Mexico in 1845, the United States added Texas, New Mexico and California to their territory. Polk would focus his energies on securing relationships with the new French Emperor, Louis Bonaparte, and fostering settlement of new territories. Polk was defeated by a Nationalist ticket of Zachary Taylor and George Washington Adams, the son of John Quincy Adams and the grandson of the second President, and a former Massachusetts Senator.

Taylor died unexpectedly in 1851 of illness and the second Adams to take the Presidency would be George W. Adams, who would go on to lead the nation into the next great era of American politics.

The Industrial Growth and End of Slavery 1853-1881
George W. Adams took power at a time when new states were being added to the Union almost by the year and the slaveholding South was beginning to feel the pressure of industry in the North, West and Canada. Adams sought to develop a compromise, but found his efforts stunted by Democrats led primarily by Stephen Douglas of Illinois, who envisioned the West as an area of freeholding expansion. The question boiled throughout the Adams presidency until the 1860 election. The Nationalists nominated Franklin Pierce, and the Democrats put forth Douglas, who won an easy victory. Nationalists were whipped into a fury and the abolitionist movement gained steam in the North. Douglas, while from Illinois, was passive on slavery, up until a revolt in the North began to target slaveowners and attempts to begin slave revolts across the South. Douglas sent two of his most trusted generals, Abraham Lincoln of his native Illinois and Ulysses Grant, to quash the Pennsylvania Rebellion of 1861. Southerners raised alarm at the abolitionist uprising, voiced most eloquently by Senator Jefferson Davis, but Douglas managed to hold the trust of the South until 1864.