While the elections of Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson were revolutionary and controversial to a degree, they pale in comparison to the effects of the revolution of the U.S. economy between 1800-1860, a revolution whose impact helped divide the nation to the breaking point that would explode during the Civil War as well as one whose effects and impact are still inherent in many concepts of today’s market economy. As is common with great changes in any nation, war was responsible for helping pave the way for such a dramatic transformation. During the War of 1812, the U.S. found that having its economy tied to foreign trade could have deleterious affects on the economy. The war, as most are, was also responsible for a major increase in manufacturing growth and it demonstrated the difficulties of transporting large amounts of supplies across the nation, especially from a time perspective. The end of the war was also responsible for a major influx of capital from Europeans seeking investment opportunities with their capital that had been tied up during the war. Finally, the war also catalyzed the U.S. government to move in a legislative direction aimed at promoting economic development as a means of solidifying nationalism. Once the war was over leadership in American was handed down to a younger generation of men, including John Quincy Adams, who represented “…ardent nationalists eager to use federal power to promote rapid development of the nation. Increasingly dominant within the Republican party, they advocated the ‘New Nationalism,’ a set of economic policies designed to foster the prosperity of all regions of the country and bind the nation more tightly together” (Davidson 309).
During the first two decades of the 1800s, a spirit of nationalism guided most of America’s domestic and foreign policies. During the Andrew Jackson era, sectional differences created by these policies would begin to divide th...