The United States Economic System: The American System

Following the War of 1812, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and John Quincy Adams helped form a new political agenda, which promised to meet the needs of America. It was a new nationalist United States. Henry Clay's "American System" was a neofederalist program of a national bank, a tariff to promote and protect industry’s, and financial improvements.

In the United States, citizens have the freedom to speak their mind whether they are speaking about minimum wage, poor working conditions or government policies. Americans have the freedom to choose where they want to live, what kinds of jobs they want to work and have the option to travel across the world without restrictions. U.S citizens have the ability to have whatever kind of religious beliefs they want and can choose whether or not to attend church. The American system was superior because it allowed citizens to choose their own path in life without having to follow the masses. Not only that but the economic system was "booming" in the United States faster than the Soviet Unions.

Transportation began to fuel the American economy during the Market Revolution by adding many different ways to transport goods and to get around the country. These roads were made of mud, which happened to be quite an issue during the different seasons. In the spring,all roads turned to mud, in the summer all roads were dust and in the winter these roads were snow and ice which made it difficult to travel on. The national road was made and was the only road funded by the national government, all of the other roads were funded by private investors. The national road opened up travel through the East and the West, which began to help foster a national community. Canals were starting to expand from not only running North and South, but creating ways to get East and West as well.The farmers began an eight year long project, which was taken over by Irish immigrants and they created the Erie

Entry 1 Market Revolution What was the impact of the Market Revolution? In the beginning of the nineteenth century, people's lives changed remarkably. The typical person living before the Market Revolution focused on individualism. These people often farmed and survived on their own. After the Market Revolution, people started manufacturing and increased trade.

With more wealth, more ideas were beginning to surface on how to better the American lifestyle amongst the states; one of those ideas was “The American System” brought up by Henry Clay. The goals of this system was to increase the country’s wealth with an effective banking system, creating a set of roads and canals throughout the country to unite the states and spread information further, and do all that in correlation to another protective tariff placed on oversea trading. So as you can see because nationalism manifested itself in American politics to unite the country even more, different methods were proposed and carried out to better American lifestyle. Even when congress deemed some methods unconstitutional, the states sought individual ways in which they could improve the U.S like New York’s construction of the Erie Canal. Nevertheless, the country began to undergo positive changes as a result of the political nationalism rising in the country.

The main focus in the early 1800s was to help maintain American products by keeping them in The United States. At this time, Henry Clay, John Calhoun, and John Quincy Adams were the leaders of the Whig Party and were the creators of the American System. The American System was a new form of federalism and was designed for several reasons. The new system was in support of high tariff. Tariff is a tax that is paid on imported and exported goods. This would help protect the American industries. It was also create revenue for the government. Henry Clay was the mastermind behind the argument of tariff. He thought that the West would be in support of the tariff because factory workers would be the consumer of the product. He thought that the South should be for the tariff because of the current cotton industry. However, both the West and the South were opposed to high tariff. The phrase "American System" first came about in 1824, although Clay played around with the idea long before then. The high tariff would finance the development of internal improvements such as roads and canals. The tariff also limited American goods to America (Schultz 2012).

In the novel Andrew Jackson vs. Henry Clay, written by Harry L. Watson, the many differences between our 7th president and the man who tried so often to hold that coveted position are shown in great detail. These two men not only differed on every political issue that came to their attention, but they also had a great hatred toward each other as people. Just as Jackson and Clay were passionate about their beliefs, so were their followers. The Americans who followed Jackson hated Clay just as much as Jackson did and vice versa. This made Jackson’s two term presidency that much sweeter for the “Jackson Party” and Andrew Jackson himself.

it had three points..a strong banking system, a protective tariff, and a federally funded transportation network

Isolationism is defined as a “National policy of avoiding political or economic entanglements with other countries.” (Isolationism). Isolationism was a popular concept in the years between the revolutionary and civil wars. George Washington was a key supporter of isolationism, as he stated in his farewell address, “The nation which indulges toward another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.” (Washington).

After the War of 1812, America experienced a prosperous time due to economic well-being. This was called the “Era of Good Feeling” because there was only one primary political party at the time, Republicans. Henry Clay created the American System, a policy to promote industry in the United States. This system brought along the creation of the Second National Bank, a high protective tariff on imports, and the building of new roads and transportation to link the country together.

In the 1820's the Kentuckian focused on advancing a series of economic proposals dubbed an "American System". These policies would amalgamate various economic interests with regard to industry, agriculture, and commerce into a whole system that would benefit Americans individually and collectively thus binding the nation together. In order to produce the complete fruition of the system, Clay sought to use the federal government as an effective instrument to guide its implementation with measures that would revolve on the two policies of tariff protectionism and infrastructural development. A protectionist tariff, Clay advocated, would promote more domestic production while protecting the market price of goods from foreign commercial competition. Combined with the newly minted Monroe Doctrine which warned European powers about new colonial adventures, the American System, in Henry Clay's view, would create a further hemispheric hegemony. While most American manufacturing was in its infancy, Britain wanted to maintain free trade and laissez-faire policy measures which would keep an industrial balance tilted in their favor. A growing mid-West favored protection, as well as New England, but the southern states, who were emerging into a monolithic economy based on an

The combination of economic chaos and confusion following the American Revolution with the virtually nonexistent economic powers of the federal government under the Articles of Confederation put US in a very poor economic position upon the arrival of the Constitution (American Pageant 161). This, however, changed under the Constitution and thus during the administration of Washington as the federal government could now have a large say in the economics of America. After being put into office, Washington established a cabinet and assigned Alexander Hamilton, one of the founding fathers, to be the Secretary of Treasury. Knowing that debt and the growing interest rates were a very large domestic problem, Hamilton set out to create a plan for a strong economy. He first implemented tariffs, which are taxes on foreign goods coming into the country, into his plan, hoping that it would stimulate manufacturing within the country (Chernow 163). Although this did succeed in stimulating industry within America, it also angered many Americans in the south and west because they did not manufacture many goods, but were rather mainly consumers and merchants who were those being taxed the most (Chernow 153).

The American System was an economic plan of the United States in early 19th century Baxter (1942) describes it as a program of vigorous economic nationalism dependent on active government intervention. The core advocate of the plan was a politician named Henry Clay, who was then a very influential Congressman and founder of Whig party. It consisted of three conjointly fortifying elements, which include tariffs, preservation of the National Bank and federal subsidies. Clay advocated for an imposition of high taxes on imported goods to protect the US industries from foreign competition. He claimed that the increasing internal demand for goods was to promote the American manufacturers and facilitate the growth of the local industries. Congress

Passing information or sending letters took weeks and sometimes months. Sending goods and packages across the country also took months. Divided into very small markets there was no good way of transporting goods within the United States. Trading within the U.S. was very little because of the high cost, such as if they were to bring goods a few miles inland from a port or bringing goods from somewhere as far as Europe, it would range around the same price. Most people, especially farmers, grew and made mostly everything they needed. Self-sufficiency grew as they no longer needed to rely on costly trading however, they occasionally traded few things. The Transportation Revolution is harmful

Slide 1: Introduction Welcome. The point of this presentation is to outline the case for expansion, specifically to becoming a national presence. We have a strong company, but the world is changing and we have to change with it. This is a risky proposition, yes, but if we equip ourselves with knowledge we will be better equipped to make the right decisions going forward. The presentation will focus on the economic conditions in the US, and then conditions in a number of foreign markets that we should be looking at Brazil, Germany and Japan.