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The Era of Good Feelings
Here is history as delightful as it is profound. Exploring the period between Jeffersonian democracy and Jacksonian democracy, George Dangerfield describes the personalities and experiences, American and European, which furthered the political transition "from the great dictum that central government is best when it governs least to the great dictum that central government must sometimes intervene strongly on behalf of the weak and the oppressed and the exploited." The book, winner of the Pulitzer and Bancroft prizes, throws new and fresh light on an important formative period in American history.
540 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1952
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 5, 2020
George Dangerfield's The Era of Good Feelings covers the illusory period between the War of 1812 and Andrew Jackson's election that's remembered as a rare time of political tranquility. There is, unfortunately, little or no truth in that characterization, as Dangerfield devastatingly demonstrates: even during the time when a president (James Monroe) could win election almost unanimously, all-too-familiar partisan struggles and personal rivalries rage around him. The collapse of the Federalist Party leaves only a Democratic Republican Party engorged with outsized personalities (Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, John Calhoun, Henry Clay, William Crawford) who despise each other and each have their eye on the White House. The economy crashes in the Panic of 1819; America nearly provokes a needless war with England and Spain when Jackson launches an impulsive invasion of Florida. And here, national divisions over slavery rear their head for the first time, resulting in a Missouri Compromise that briefly, but unsatisfyingly papers over the conflict everyone knows is coming. The era sees a few triumphs, like Adams' delicate diplomatic achievements as Secretary of State, but his presidency (Dangerfield argues) was largely inert and did little to heal the country's divisions. Dangerfield navigates this largely-overlooked period of American history with grace and wit, showing it more divided (and certainly more dramatic) than most casual readers would imagine.
August 8, 2014
An excellent scholarly work by Dangerfield, covering the period 1812-1829 (or, basically from the War of 1812 up to Andrew Jackson's election to the Presidency). Dangerfield goes in-depth into the negotiations with Great Britain to end the War of 1812. He then talks about the political climate of the U.S. at that time. Much is made of the agrarian interests vs. the Eastern bankers who wanted high tariffs. Dangerfield also gives mini-biographies of the many political titans that dominated the scene back then: Clay, Adams, Jackson, Madison, Monroe, Gallatin, Calhoun, Rush, and Van Buren.
James Monroe's administration is thoroughly reviewed - Dangerfield highlighting how "The Era of Good Feelings" was more of a misnomer than a truth as there was a lot of underlying, sectional tension in the country. Dangerfield does a good job dissecting the disputed election of 1824, the vicious background of Andrew Jackson, the piety of John Quincy Adams, and the political gamesmanship of Martin Van Buren.
I am not giving this more stars only because I found this to be a dense read at times - Dangerfield really explores U.S.-British relations and it is easy to get lost with all of the personalities and issues involved, for example. Plus, he used some uncommon words such as "verdant" and "casuistry," which is a good thing because it forced me to learn what those words meant, but it slowed me down in reading.
James Monroe's administration is thoroughly reviewed - Dangerfield highlighting how "The Era of Good Feelings" was more of a misnomer than a truth as there was a lot of underlying, sectional tension in the country. Dangerfield does a good job dissecting the disputed election of 1824, the vicious background of Andrew Jackson, the piety of John Quincy Adams, and the political gamesmanship of Martin Van Buren.
I am not giving this more stars only because I found this to be a dense read at times - Dangerfield really explores U.S.-British relations and it is easy to get lost with all of the personalities and issues involved, for example. Plus, he used some uncommon words such as "verdant" and "casuistry," which is a good thing because it forced me to learn what those words meant, but it slowed me down in reading.
April 8, 2012
Truly enjoyed this book, the quality of the writing and the author's depth of knowledge.
January 23, 2018
George Dangerfield's book begins with an extensive consideration of the War of 1812. He is concerned above all with the contribution which this "Second War of Independence" made to the development of American nationalism. Though the author's tone is slightly celebratory and his prose suffers from occasional fits of loquacity, there is much to be learned from the book about the- larger significance of the war to the course of American politics. His portrait of the five American negotiators and their struggles at Ghent is striking, as is his description of the events leading up to the war.
Examining the constellation of wrongs committed by England, Dangerfield concludes that the actual casus belli was an American expansionist ideology holding its sway over that part of America touched by the frontier. The war message of President Monroe may have begun with charges of British violations of freedom of the seas, but it ended with a lightly veiled allusion to the American belief that the British had stirred up Indians in the American Northwest and thereby brought about the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek. Dangerfield calls the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek "the first shot in the Har of 18121." With the exception of New England merchants, Americans were united by a fear that the British were in a position to relegate the nation to the status of a self-supporting colony by limiting its territorial growth. War with England came because it was the British who combined the very keenly felt threat of a hostile presence on the American continent with depredations on the high seas, depredations which were admittedly common to both the British and the French.
In the negotiations which brought the war to an end, the British negotiators were not of the same high caliber as were the Americans. This is attributable to the fact that the war in America was for the British a relative sideshow. The negotiations at Vienna occupied center stage for the British. Their negotiators at Ghent were, Dangerfield argues, members of a passing mercantilist generation who reflexively resisted any loss of commercial control in a world were wealth is limited. The unity of the American negotiators forced upon their superior Lord Castlereagh a respect for U.S. expansionist ambitions and thereby did yeoman service in bringing America closer to its territorial destiny and the benighted British into the age of laissez faire (p. 90).
In considering the dissent of New England Federalists, Dangerfield is obvious in his disdain. While John Quincy Adams was laboring to preserve their access to Newfoundland fisheries, those ungrateful souls were plotting secession. The New England Federalists are presented by Dangerfield as selfish sectionalists whose unbounded greed brought them to sacrifice the national interest. It is interesting to note that this book was written in the early 1950s, a time at which America was living out its dream of an American Century. As a member of an American society which had just emerged from an immensely popular war and just begun its engagement in a cold war with the U.S.S.R., could it be that some of this exuberance wore off on the author?
Charles Gates' article provides a more concise overview of the issues of maritime rights and western expansion in the peace negotiations at Ghent. At the outset of peace negotiations, the Monroe administration sought to bring the (British to forswear impressment and withdraw from trade with the Indian tribes south of the international border in the Great Lakes region. The impressment issue was the primary diplomatic issue at the outset, but the success or failure of the negotiations would also be measured by the ability of the American negotiators to prevent a reinstatement of Article III
of the Jay Treaty (which provided the British commercial access to Indians on American territory in the Northwest).
Napoleon was defeated on the continent before the spring of 1814, allowing the British became more assertive in the military effort against the Americans by that time. Their superior military position gave them no cause to negotiate on impressment. By the summer of 1814, when negotiations were in full swing, the question of access to the Northwestern tribes
Examining the constellation of wrongs committed by England, Dangerfield concludes that the actual casus belli was an American expansionist ideology holding its sway over that part of America touched by the frontier. The war message of President Monroe may have begun with charges of British violations of freedom of the seas, but it ended with a lightly veiled allusion to the American belief that the British had stirred up Indians in the American Northwest and thereby brought about the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek. Dangerfield calls the Battle of Tippecanoe Creek "the first shot in the Har of 18121." With the exception of New England merchants, Americans were united by a fear that the British were in a position to relegate the nation to the status of a self-supporting colony by limiting its territorial growth. War with England came because it was the British who combined the very keenly felt threat of a hostile presence on the American continent with depredations on the high seas, depredations which were admittedly common to both the British and the French.
In the negotiations which brought the war to an end, the British negotiators were not of the same high caliber as were the Americans. This is attributable to the fact that the war in America was for the British a relative sideshow. The negotiations at Vienna occupied center stage for the British. Their negotiators at Ghent were, Dangerfield argues, members of a passing mercantilist generation who reflexively resisted any loss of commercial control in a world were wealth is limited. The unity of the American negotiators forced upon their superior Lord Castlereagh a respect for U.S. expansionist ambitions and thereby did yeoman service in bringing America closer to its territorial destiny and the benighted British into the age of laissez faire (p. 90).
In considering the dissent of New England Federalists, Dangerfield is obvious in his disdain. While John Quincy Adams was laboring to preserve their access to Newfoundland fisheries, those ungrateful souls were plotting secession. The New England Federalists are presented by Dangerfield as selfish sectionalists whose unbounded greed brought them to sacrifice the national interest. It is interesting to note that this book was written in the early 1950s, a time at which America was living out its dream of an American Century. As a member of an American society which had just emerged from an immensely popular war and just begun its engagement in a cold war with the U.S.S.R., could it be that some of this exuberance wore off on the author?
Charles Gates' article provides a more concise overview of the issues of maritime rights and western expansion in the peace negotiations at Ghent. At the outset of peace negotiations, the Monroe administration sought to bring the (British to forswear impressment and withdraw from trade with the Indian tribes south of the international border in the Great Lakes region. The impressment issue was the primary diplomatic issue at the outset, but the success or failure of the negotiations would also be measured by the ability of the American negotiators to prevent a reinstatement of Article III
of the Jay Treaty (which provided the British commercial access to Indians on American territory in the Northwest).
Napoleon was defeated on the continent before the spring of 1814, allowing the British became more assertive in the military effort against the Americans by that time. Their superior military position gave them no cause to negotiate on impressment. By the summer of 1814, when negotiations were in full swing, the question of access to the Northwestern tribes
November 10, 2022
George Dangerfield was a British historian (1904-1986) who wound up in the U.S. and wrote several books that reached a popular audience. I'd read his The Strange Death of Liberal England some years ago and enjoyed it, so when I spotted this one at a used book sale, I grabbed it.
It's basically an account of the period from the War of 1812 to the election of Andrew Jackson, concentrating on the administrations of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. This was a period when the politics of the young United States were beginning to coalesce along lines recognizable today, with the interests of westward-pushing, rough frontier types pitted against those of Eastern seaboard merchants and bankers. Today's red state/blue state, rural/urban dichotomies can trace their ancestry to this fundamental conflict.
Actually, only the first few years of this period were characterized by the absence of vitriol which gave the era its name; by the time Adams succeeded Monroe, political rivalries were growing bitter. Hovering over everything, of course, was the fraught topic of slavery, to which Dangerfield devotes an excellent chapter. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 kicked the can down the road for a few years, but Dangerfield shows how the impossibility of reconciling slavery with the declared principles of the republic and the economic interests of the north led inexorably to the Civil War.
Dangerfield also writes at length about the place of the young U.S. in the world at large, as Europe recovered from the Napoleonic wars and struggled with conflicts over trade, imperialism and the looming industrial revolution.
It's not an easy read; Dangerfield's style is elaborate, eloquent and difficult at times. There is what you might kindly call a wealth of detail. You will learn more than you ever knew you wanted to know about the personal lives of the principal figures, the political intrigues and the social conditions of the period. But if diving into history is your idea of a good way to pass an evening, this book will keep you happy for a while.
It's basically an account of the period from the War of 1812 to the election of Andrew Jackson, concentrating on the administrations of James Monroe and John Quincy Adams. This was a period when the politics of the young United States were beginning to coalesce along lines recognizable today, with the interests of westward-pushing, rough frontier types pitted against those of Eastern seaboard merchants and bankers. Today's red state/blue state, rural/urban dichotomies can trace their ancestry to this fundamental conflict.
Actually, only the first few years of this period were characterized by the absence of vitriol which gave the era its name; by the time Adams succeeded Monroe, political rivalries were growing bitter. Hovering over everything, of course, was the fraught topic of slavery, to which Dangerfield devotes an excellent chapter. The Missouri Compromise of 1820 kicked the can down the road for a few years, but Dangerfield shows how the impossibility of reconciling slavery with the declared principles of the republic and the economic interests of the north led inexorably to the Civil War.
Dangerfield also writes at length about the place of the young U.S. in the world at large, as Europe recovered from the Napoleonic wars and struggled with conflicts over trade, imperialism and the looming industrial revolution.
It's not an easy read; Dangerfield's style is elaborate, eloquent and difficult at times. There is what you might kindly call a wealth of detail. You will learn more than you ever knew you wanted to know about the personal lives of the principal figures, the political intrigues and the social conditions of the period. But if diving into history is your idea of a good way to pass an evening, this book will keep you happy for a while.
March 31, 2018
Though a little over-detailed at times, this book is a fascinating and well-balanced look at an often overlooked period in American History. Highly recommended.
May 16, 2023
Excellent coverage of a topic that isn't as published as some other time frames or subjects in our early republic.
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews