A History of the Era of Good Feelings That Emerged After the War of 1812

After the war of 1812, an Era of Good Feelings emerged in American society. Because of the facts that the war had helped bring manufacturing and revenue to the nation. It had helped unite people for a common cause by supporting the national government’s war. And because those who returned from the war were more than happy to help the population grow and spread in the westward direction. These aspects, while they may seem to be negative in certain periods of history, mimic the idea of a “Good Feeling” like that of the Renaissance centuries before in Europe, where people were excited to find an increase in money, population, and development. This Era of Good Feeling, while it lasted for a few years, could not go on beyond the election of 1824, when parties began to develop more of their own ideas, when the patriotism of the war was lost, and when the nation lowly became less unified.

After the war of 1812, the nation was extremely excited to have fought the most powerful nation. In the world and brought the war to a draw; the Treaty of Ghent confirmed our success, and a flood of patriotism spread across the nation. John Krimmel’s painting of the Fourth of July displays the patriotism. And unity that the nation has with soldiers holding arms, peasants helping wealthy folk and wealthy folk playing music with the peasants (Doc 3). Krimmel’s purpose of the painting was to display the extreme unity between the people of different parts of the nation in terms of geography. class, and age. The painting acts as an indicator of increasing equality in the future as well; in this time period, the Good Feeling between all sorts of people inspired the suppressed people to seek rights in the future, with Republican Motherhood for women. The war of 1812, while disputed very much politically, ended with America pulling itself to a draw with British people, which helped completely remove the Federalist party, leaving the nation with only a single party to support. Фdding more to the nation’s unity. In the election of 1820, this one-party system continued, and the nation was united to the point that the election for James Monroe of Virginia was almost unanimous.

After the Federalist party was destroyed. With the Hartford convention and the Republicans had won the war the Federalists had opposed. The entire nation supported the Republicans, hence James Monroe’s super victory (Doc 7). In the election of 1824, however, the maps intend to show the reader that the unity began to fall apart after a few years, signifying the end of the Era of Good Feeling; because people were not as united anymore, more parties and ideological divides appeared, leading to votes being spread across multiple candidates from various states. John C. Calhoun, a South Carolina Congressman recognized the strength of a unified nation, but feared disunion because of the size of the nation, indicating that while the nation was prospering, the future could still seem grim (Doc 3). At the time he made this statement however, he observed the political falling apart of the Federalist party, which likely inspired the fear of the nation’s disunion. As historians now know, the nation became even more unified after the Federalists fell apart.

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