As Monroe knew, the "Era of Good Feelings" could not last
forever. It faltered by 1819 and by 1820 the crisis over Missouri
had permanently removed any "good feelings" in the country. Over
the course of his presidency, Monroe handled several major crises,
both foreign and domestic.
Luckily for him, his first major crisis allowed him to
settle an old score. Spain's claim to Florida had long been a thorn
in his side, especially after his fruitless months in Madrid trying
to convince the Spanish government that France had included much
of the land in the Louisiana Purchase. In 1818, Andrew Jackson
from Tennessee invaded Florida in pursuit of marauding Indians,
touching off an international incident. He seized two Spanish forts
in direct violation of international law and his orders from Washington.
Monroe's cabinet split on whether to reprimand Jackson, Crawford
and Calhoun wanted a reprimand but the expansionist-minded Adams pushed
for a more ambitious move. Eventually, Monroe quietly returned
the captured posts to the Spanish, but in doing so, he put the
European country on notice that his forces could readily storm the
territory when needed. He then began treaty negotiations with Spain
and a year later with the threat of war hanging over Spain, the Adams-Onis
Treaty set the new boundaries for Spanish territory in America.
The Spanish, realizing they risked losing the land anyway without
compensation, agreed to settle for up to five million dollars in
claims on the land. The treaty also definitively set the border
with Mexico.
That same year, 1819, Monroe faced his first major domestic
crisis: the collapse of several banks, sketchily linked to the
controversial Bank of the United States. The Panic of 1819 brought
financial ruin not only to the banks but also to many small businesses
around the country. The scope of the financial crisis awed many
observers: In New York State, property values fell by twenty percent
in two years, from $315 million in 1818 to $256 million by 1820.
In Monroe's native capital of Richmond, property figures dropped
by half. Thousands lost their jobs and many were forced into debtors'
prisons. The causes of the panic were complex, but included an
ill-timed contraction by the Bank and a collapse in the price of
cotton. Many were angered by Monroe's lack of response to the problems caused
by the Panic, but he had little control over the nation's financial
system and the problems even stretched far beyond America's borders.
Nevertheless, the Panic left a lasting impression on Monroe's image
and on politics as a whole. The complex Bank would become a focal
point of outrage and the Bank Wars of the 1820s would help define
Jacksonian America.
As if the Florida crisis and the Panic were not enough
for one year, the national debate over slavery erupted in the form
of whether to admit Missouri as a state. The issue of slavery in
the East was largely settled: those states south of the established
Mason-Dixon line were slave, those above the line were free. However,
the line technically ended at the Mississippi, and so the statehood
application of Missouri–on the West side of the river–caused a
conundrum of how to proceed. New York Rep. James Tallmadge began the
crisis in February 1819 by introducing a proposal to restrict slavery
as a condition of admission to the Union. Southerners worried that
the admission of more free states would tip the balance in favor of
free states–which would then move to abolish slavery altogether. In
the north, abolitionist feelings were beginning to heat up and there
was talk of civil war in Missouri if the issue was not settled quickly.
Monroe, distracted by the Panic, looked for a compromise
to settle the growing crisis. A compromise was reached that admitted Missouri
as a slave state but that also admitted the northern counties of
Massachusetts as a free state called Maine. The bill also prohibited
the establishment of any slave states north of the thirty-six degree
thirty' parallel–a sort of ad hoc Mason-Dixon line for the West.
Although far from a perfect solution, both sides supported the compromise
as a way to avoid any bloodshed. Monroe had mixed feelings about
slavery and thought long and hard about the issue before signing
the bill into law.
Monroe and many others in his administration felt the
Missouri issue had been cooked up by former Federalists who looked
to forge a new political party by splitting the nation into slave
and free–in some ways Monroe's thoughts were correct, although
it would take another generation to see the idea to fruition.
Despite the busy and controversial period of 1819–1820,
Monroe remained immensely popular–if only because no opposition existed.
Thus, when he stood for reelection in 1820 he won every electoral
vote but one that went to his secretary of state, Adams.
