Author:   James Madison Date:1819 Annotation: In a direct attack on the new national bank, Maryland actually imposed a tax on its bank notes. The bank sued in federal court and in 1819 the Supreme Court rendered its decision in the landmark case of McCullough v. Maryland, which established the constitutionality of the second bank…

Author:   James Monroe Date:1815 Annotation: Ironically, American and British negotiators in Ghent, Belgium, signed a peace treaty ending the war two weeks before the Battle of New Orleans. A war-weary Britain agreed to return to conditions that existed before the war. Left unmentioned in the peace treaty were the issues over which Americans had…

Date:1815 Annotation: Newspaper articles after the War of 1812. Document: New York Evening Post, 13 February 1815 On Saturday evening, about eight o’clock, arrived the British sloop of war, Favorite, bringing Mr. Carroll, one of the Secretaries attached to the American legation, bearer of a treaty of PEACE between the United States and Great Britain. He came…

Date:1813 Annotation: Newspaper article Document: Columbian Centinel, 13 January 1813 North of the Delaware, there is among all who do not bask or expect to bask in the Executive sunshine but one voice for Peace. South of that river, the general cry is “Open war, O peers!” There are not two hostile nations upon earth whose views…

Date:1812 Annotation: Newspaper articles Document: The Folly of Joining the Army New York Evening Post, 24 January 1812 “Tricks upon Travellers,” or “More Ways than one to kill a Cat.” – Old saws. We are certainly now to have a war, for Congress have voted to have an army. But let me tell you, there is all…

Date:1803 Annotation: To gather information about the geography, natural resources, wildlife, and peoples of Louisiana, President Jefferson dispatched an expedition led by his private secretary Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, a Virginia-born military officer. For 2 years Lewis and Clark led some 30 soldiers and 10 civilians up the Missouri River as far as present-day central…

Date:1803 Annotation: In 1800, Spain secretly ceded the Louisiana territory–the area stretching from Canada to the Gulf Coast and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains–to France, which closed the port of New Orleans to American farmers. Westerners, left without a port from which to export their goods, exploded with anger. Many demanded war. The…

Date:1801 Annotation: Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States on March 4, 1801, after being elected in one of the nation’s closest presidential contests. In this, his first inaugural address, Jefferson sought to reach out to his political opponents and heal the breach between Federalists and Republicans. Jefferson also strongly states his belief…

Date:1799 Annotation: Kentucky Resolution, adopted in response to the Alien and Sedition Acts. Document: RESOLUTIONS IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY THE representatives of the good people of this commonwealth in general assembly convened, having maturely considered the answers of sundry states in the Union, to their resolutions passed at the last session, respecting certain unconstitutional laws of Congress, commonly…

Date:1798 Annotation: Sedition Act of 1798 Document: SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America, in Congress assembled, That if any persons shall unlawfully combine or conspire together, with intent to oppose any measure or measures of the government of the United States, which are or shall…