The First Quarter of the Century: Monroe and Florida

This revival epidemic spread far beyond the region of the State, particularly into Tennessee, North and South Carolina, and Georgia, where similar phenomena, though on a less extraordinary scale, were presented. Since that era the camp-meeting has been a recognized element in the religious propagandism of the more emotional sects. The wild manifestations just described have been succeeded by less violent exercises, yet camp-meeting and revival conversions still display, though in a milder form, the same tendency to nervous excitement and muscular convulsion.

We may conclude this review with a general statement of the events of importance which occurred during the Monroe administration. James Monroe was elected President in the election of 1816, with Daniel D. Tompkins for Vice-President. Among the more important of the succeeding events was the invasion of Florida by General Jackson. From 1812 difficulties had existed with the Seminole Indians, while many fugitive slaves fled to Northern Florida and amalgamated with these savages. These negroes settled along the Appalachicola River for a distance of fifty miles, defying the American and the Spanish authorities alike. They had been supplied with arms and ammunition by the British, and built a strong fort, which was attacked by Colonel Clinch in 1816. A red-hot ball from a gunboat in the river penetrated the magazine and blew up the fort, only fifty of its three hundred inmates escaping alive. This for a time broke up the negro settlements; but annoyance from the Seminoles continued. In 1818 General Jackson invaded Florida, destroyed the Indian towns, and took forcible possession of the Spanish fort of St. Marks and the city of Pensacola. The diplomatic controversy between Spain and the United States to which this gave rise resulted in the cession of the whole of Florida to the United States, on February 22, 1819. The treaty of cession was ratified on the 19th of February, 1821.

In 1817 piratical settlements which had been formed on Amelia Island, Florida, and at Galveston, Texas, were broken up by the American navy. A more dangerous haunt of pirates, in the West Indies, was attacked in 1822, and over twenty piratical vessels destroyed. In 1823 Commodore Porter sought out and broke up the retreats of the pirates. They afterwards, however, continued their depredations from other hiding-places.

The political state of the country during the Monroe administration differed from its condition before or since. The Federal party had disappeared. The Republican party was yet undivided. Practically there was but one political party in America, and what was known as "the era of good feeling" prevailed. Industrially, however, there came on the land a severe depression. The sudden prosperity that succeeded the war had vanished, and the natural revulsion from abnormally high prices had come. After a brief resumption of specie payments, the banks again suspended. Gold and silver disappeared. The Bank of the United States was in a disorganized condition. It could not collect its debts without a ruinous pressure on business. Ruin and bankruptcy prevailed everywhere. Business and employment sank to a low ebb. In all directions the distress of a financial panic prevailed, from which it took several years for the country to recover.

An interesting event of 1824 was the visit of Lafayette to this country. The venerable visitor was received with an enthusiasm which has never been surpassed in America. His movement through the country was a continual march of joy and triumph. He journeyed five thousand miles through the Union, everywhere feted and caressed. Congress voted him two hundred thousand dollars and a township of land, and on this departure from the country he was conveyed to France in an American frigate prepared specially for his accommodation.

During the period in question the problem of internal improvements came up for the serious consideration of Congress. Large subsidies were demanded from the general government for the building of roads and canals and the improvement of rivers and harbors. Jefferson, Madison, and Monroe alike denied the constitutionality of such an appropriation of the public funds, yet each of them signed many bills for this purpose. The strife finally came to depend upon the simple question whether or not a certain sum of money should be voted by Congress, the discussion of the constitutional point being avoided. At first both sections of the country favored measures of this character, but eventually the South declared against them. The remark of a Louisiana Congressman in 1817, "Louisiana wants no roads," well expressed the ruling principle of the Southern opposition to internal improvement schemes. Yet large appropriations were made for various purposes, for a canal route across Florida, for a national road from Cumberland, Maryland, to Ohio, for the improvement of the navigation of the Ohio, etc. The greatest enterprise of the time, the Erie Canal, was the work of the State of New York. This was commenced on July 4, 1817, and completed in 1825, at a cost of ten million dollars.

Of the other notable events of the period may be mentioned the founding of the Anti-Slavery Association in 1815, with the establishment of a newspaper in its interests; the formation of the first savings-bank, in Philadelphia, in 1816; the founding of colleges and universities in nearly every State; and the crossing of the ocean by the steamer Savannah, in 1819. John Fitch had operated a steam-boat on the Delaware before 1790, while Fulton, in 1807, ran a steamboat more effectively upon the Hudson. The first railroad in America was a short road at Quincy, Massachusetts, worked by horse-power. The first locomotive engine ran from the coal-mines of the Delaware and Hudson Company to Honesdale, Pennsylvania, in 1828.