61, p. 36). America declared war against Britain in 1812 partly as a response to British attacks on American shipping: "commercial losses and seamen impressed . . . In April 1812 [Congress] imposed a sixty day embargo, specifically to give American shipowners time to get their vessels to port before they became prizes of war" (p. 42). As it turned out, the War of 1812 bankrupted the U.S. Treasury, "and worse it was $5,500,000 overdrawn. The American coast was blockaded form Georgia to Long Island, and the Federalist representation in Congress was not only larger but abler than before" (p. 46). In other words, all the War of 1812 did economically for the U.S. was to confuse or delay economic maturation. Only after the War, which coincided with the Industrial Revolution, did some rationality come into the economic system, and this was made possible in large part because after the War of 1812 American trade and the integrity of America as a country achieved international standing.
By the time of the Mexican War, the principal economic issue for the U.S. seems to have been that of expansionism. The Monroe Doctrine had codified "a definitive expression of [American] foreign policy [that] was a policy isolationist toward Europe, expansionist toward the North American continent, and toward South America a combination of the two" (Wiltse, 1961, p. 86). The Indian Wars, in which Andrew Jackson participated, were one aspect of the expansionist American frontier, which mirrored the expansion of the political economy as a whole: "Jackson's activities in Florida, as well as United States relations with both Latin America and Canada, can be properly evaluated only in the context of this continental explosion that would be recognized in the next generation as 'manifest destiny'" (p. 83). The Mexican War, ending in 1846, resulted in outright annexation of more territory on the continent, including California; the 1849 Gold Rush was to anchor the e...