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CHAPTER 5: WESTWARD EXPANSION AND REGIONAL DIFFERENCESOUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY“Go West, young man,and grow up withthe country.”BUILDING UNITYThe War of 1812 was, in a sense,a second war of independence thatconfirmed once and for all theAmerican break with England. Withits conclusion, many of the seriousdifficulties that the young republichad faced since the Revolutiondisappeared. National union underthe Constitution brought a balancebetween liberty and order. With alow national debt and a continentawaiting exploration, the prospect ofpeace, prosperity, and social progressopened before the nation.Commerce cemented nationalunity. The privations of war convincedmany of the importance ofprotecting the manufacturers ofAmerica until they could stand aloneagainst foreign competition. Economicindependence, many argued,Newspaper editor Horace Greeley, 1851was as essential as political independence.To foster self-sufficiency,congressional leaders Henry Clay ofKentucky and John C. Calhoun ofSouth Carolina urged a policy of protectionism— imposition of restrictionson imported goods to foster thedevelopment of American industry.The time was propitious for raisingthe customs tariff. The shepherdsof Vermont and Ohio wanted protectionagainst an influx of Englishwool. In Kentucky, a new industryof weaving local hemp into cottonbagging was threatened by the Scottishbagging industry. Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania, already a flourishingcenter of iron smelting, was eager tochallenge British and Swedish ironsuppliers. The tariff enacted in 1816imposed duties high enough to givemanufacturers real protection.In addition, Westerners advo-cated a national system of roads andcanals to link them with Eastern citiesand ports, and to open frontierlands for settlement. However, theywere unsuccessful in pressing theirdemands for a federal role in internalimprovement because of oppositionfrom New England and theSouth. Roads and canals remainedthe province of the states until thepassage of the Federal Aid Road Actof 1916.The position of the federal governmentat this time was greatlystrengthened by several SupremeCourt decisions. A committed Federalist,John Marshall of Virginiabecame chief justice in 1801 andheld office until his death in 1835.The court — weak before his administration— was transformedinto a powerful tribunal, occupyinga position co-equal to the Congressand the president. In a successionof historic decisions, Marshall establishedthe power of the SupremeCourt and strengthened the nationalgovernment.Marshall was the first in a longline of Supreme Court justiceswhose decisions have molded themeaning and application of theConstitution. When he finishedhis long service, the court had decidednearly 50 cases clearly involvingconstitutional issues. In one ofMarshall’s most famous opinions— Marbury v. Madison (1803) — hedecisively established the right of theSupreme Court to review the constitutionalityof any law of Congress orof a state legislature. In McCulloch v.Maryland (1819), he boldly upheldthe Hamiltonian theory that theConstitution by implication givesthe government powers beyondthose expressly stated.EXTENSION OF SLAVERYSlavery, which up to now had receivedlittle public attention, beganto assume much greater importanceas a national issue. In the early yearsof the republic, when the Northernstates were providing for immediateor gradual emancipation of theslaves, many leaders had supposedthat slavery would die out. In 1786George Washington wrote that hedevoutly wished some plan mightbe adopted “by which slavery maybe abolished by slow, sure, and imperceptibledegrees.” Virginians Jefferson,Madison, and Monroe andother leading Southern statesmenmade similar statements.The Northwest Ordinance of 1787had banned slavery in the NorthwestTerritory. As late as 1808, when theinternational slave trade was abolished,there were many Southernerswho thought that slavery wouldsoon end. The expectation provedfalse, for during the next generation,the South became solidly unitedbehind the institution of slavery asnew economic factors made slaveryfar more profitable than it had beenbefore 1790.Chief among these was the rise ofa great cotton-growing industry inthe South, stimulated by the introductionof new types of cotton and112113