The Conservative President: James Monroe

The most conservative president of the 19th century (1801-1900) was James Monroe, who was elected in 1816 (after President James Madison served his two terms and then retired). Monroe was so much against national (federal) power that he had even opposed the ratification of the Constitution as an "Anti-Federalist." But that was decades earlier, and by 1817 he was ready to be President. In many ways he became one of the best presidents in history.

In 1820, the successful "Missouri Compromise" resolved for several decades disputes about whether slavery would be permitted in new territories, and how to admit new states. This Compromise was between the North and the South, neither of which wanted to give up power by adding a state friendly to the other side. The Senate was evenly balanced at this time, and adding just one new state on one side would tip the balance in its favor. At the time there were 11 free states and 11 slave states (note that, perhaps surprisingly, Delaware and Kentucky were slave states).

So the Missouri Compromise added Maine as a free state (which would side with the North), and Missouri as a slave state (which would side with the South until the Civil War, when it refused to join the southern Confederacy). The other new states to be added from the Louisiana Purchase (once they had enough population) would be free: slavery was banned by this Compromise above the latitude of 36 degrees, 30 minutes.

The most lasting contribution of James Monroe was his "Monroe Doctrine" in 1823, which stated that Europe should not add any new colonies in North or South America because Europe's political and economic systems are vastly different from those in America. In fact, Monroe stated that Europe should not interfere further in the Western Hemisphere. To this day presidents continue to cite the Monroe Doctrine whenever a European country tries to do something in that hemisphere.

Jacksonian Democracy

The Democrat Andrew Jackson was the first president to have been born in a log cabin, and he cultivated his image to represent the "common man." His landslide victory in the presidential election of 1828 was a triumph of democracy -- now called "Jacksonian Democracy". Jackson was a firm supporter of the "spoils system," which means that "to the victor goes the spoils": the winner gets to fire all the government workers and replace them with his friends and supporters, no matter how incompetent. (Today conservatives tend to prefer a spoils system because the alternative of an entrenched bureaucracy unresponsive to voters is worse.)

Jackson particularly disliked banks, supposedly because a banker refused to give him a loan as a young man. Jackson vetoed renewal of the national bank, despite the insistence of wealthy bankers (similar to the insistence by Wall Street types today for the $700 billion bailout legislation).

Jackson vetoed federal road projects because he was a strict constitutionalist: if the power is not expressly in the Constitution, then it did not exist, Jackson felt. Jackson's most famous veto of a road construction project was his Maysville Road Veto in 1830, which would have sent money to Kentucky, the State of the influential Senator Henry Clay (known as the "Great Compromiser"). Jackson said there was no national benefit to justify federal funding for the project. Obviously future presidents did authorize interstate highways, because there are so many today.

Jackson disliked others in addition to bankers. For example, Jackson hated the Indians, and treated them very harshly. In 1830, Jackson forcibly evicted Indian tribes as part of the "Indian Removal," which increased Jackson's popularity in the Western frontier States having the most conflicts with Indians.

Jackson did not care much for Southerners who talked about nullifying federal law or seceding (leaving) the United States. Jackson, like President Abraham Lincoln 30 years later, was determined to hold the United States together.

A serious conflict between the North and South began before Jackson was even inaugurated. In 1828, Congress passed the "Tariff of Abominations," which raised tariffs despite a bitter protest by South Carolina. Georgia and Mississippi followed South Carolina in passing resolutions protesting the tariff.

The North-South conflict boiled over in late 1832. The South Carolina legislature went one step further and passed the Ordinance of Nullification, prohibiting the collection of federal duties and declaring that the use of force by the federal government would be justification for South Carolina to secede from the Union. Jackson issued a proclamation that "disunion by armed force is treason." But South Carolina remained defiant. Jackson was furious, declaring that "if a single drop of blood is shed there in opposition to the laws of the United States, then I will hang the first person I can lay my hand on, upon the first tree I can reach." In running for reelection, Jackson replaced Calhoun with Martin Van Buren as his Vice President.

In 1836, Jackson followed the precedent set by George Washington and retired after two terms in office. Jackson's presidency has been described as follows by an historian:

Andrew Jackson was the first modern president, because he was the first one who asserted that the president was not merely a member of the government's symphony: he was its conductor.

Jackson, perhaps more than anyone else, established the powerful tools of the modern presidency. These included vetoing bills of Congress to prevent them from becoming law (Jackson vetoed more bills than all the presidents before him combined), removing people from office when the President disagreed with them, and using executive orders as President to give his views the power of law.