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LATIN AMERICA AND THE MONROE DOCTRINE During the opening decades of the 19th century, Central and South America turned to revolution . The idea of liberty had stirred the people of Latin America from the time the English colonies gained their free- dom . Napoleon’s conquest of Spain and Portugal in 1808 provided the signal […]

EXTENSION OF SLAVERY Slavery, which up to now had re- ceived little public attention, began to assume much greater importance as a national issue . In the early years of the republic, when the Northern states were providing for immedi- ate or gradual emancipation of the slaves, many leaders had supposed that slavery would die

WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCES “Go West, young man, and grow up with the country.” Newspaper editor Horace Greeley, 1851 OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY 113 ed a national system of roads and canals to link them with Eastern cit- ies and ports, and to open frontier lands for settlement . However, they were unsuccessful in

BUILDING UNITY The War of 1812 was, in a sense, a second war of independence that confirmed once and for all the American break with England . With its conclusion, many of the serious difficulties that the young republic had faced since the Revolution dis- appeared . National union under the Constitution brought a balance

Transforming a nation The United States transformed itself again in the 19th and early 20th centuries. A rural, agricultural nation became an industrial power whose backbone was steel and coal, railroads, and steam power. A young country once bound by the Mississippi River expanded across the North American continent, and on to overseas territories. A

THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING In the Appalachian region, the revival took on characteristics similar to the Great Awakening of the previous century. But here, the center of the revival was the camp meeting, a religious service of several days’ length, for a group that was obliged to take shelter on the spot because of the

THE WAR OF 1812 The nation went to war bitterly divided . While the South and West favored the conflict, New York and New England opposed it because it interfered with their commerce . The U .S . military was weak . The army had fewer than 7,000 regular soldiers, distributed in widely scat- tered

LOUISIANA AND BRITAIN One of Jefferson’s acts doubled the area of the country . At the end of the Seven Years’ War, France had ceded its territory west of the Mississippi River to Spain . Access to the port of New Orleans near its mouth was vital for the shipment of American products from the

ADAMS AND JEFFERSON Washington retired in 1797, firm- ly declining to serve for more than eight years as the nation’s head . Thomas Jefferson of Virginia (Re- publican) and John Adams (Federal- ist) vied to succeed him . Adams won a narrow election victory . From the beginning, however, he was at the head of

CITIZEN GENET AND FOREIGN POLICY Although one of the first tasks of the new government was to strengthen the domestic economy and make the nation financially secure, the United States could not ignore foreign affairs . The corner- stones of Washington’s foreign pol- icy were to preserve peace, to give the country time to recover