Principles of expansion
The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 creates a government for the territories acquired after the Revolutionary War.
The document outlines how new states can be added to the Union and will have the same rights as the original 13 states.
Interpretation of the role and power of the federal government
The Federalist Party dominates from 1789 to 1801 and views a stronger role of the federal government. The main members are Alexander Hamilton and John Adams.
Jeffersonian ideals: Jeffersonian Republicans or Democratic-Republican party. They favor a decentralized government, and an agrarian country.
Extension of the right to vote
Suffrage is progressively extended to all white males, regardless of possession of property.
Armed Conflicts
Quasi-war of 1798-1800 with France. Trade and alliance disputes almost resulted in an undeclared war between the USA and France. They got resolved by Napoleon.
Barbary Wars: From 1801 to 1815 to fight pirates in the Mediterranean. They were the first military interventions of the USA outside of its borders.
War of 1812 (1812-1815) against the United Kingdom ended with treaty of Ghent in 1815.
Mexican-American war (1846-1848) over the annexation of Texas and border disputes. The treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo established the Rio Grande river as a border between the two countries and granted authority over many western territories.
Territorial expansion
Louisiana Purchase of 1803: France sold mostly authority over the territories west of the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
Florida was purchased from Spain in 1819 through the Adams-Onis Treaty.
The Republic of Texas became a US state in 1845.
The Native American situation
The Treaty of Hopewell of 1785-1786 between the USA and Cherokee, Choctaw and Chikasaw tribes guaranteed an end to westward expansion.
In the 1840s the idea of “Manifest Destiny” fueled colonization of the West.
Indian Removal act of 1830 signed by President Andrew Jackson. The Supreme Court decision in the Cherokee Nation v. Georgia. Jackson ordered the US army to round up the tribe and displace it to an “Indian Territory” in what is today Oklahoma.
Before the Civil War, approximately 20 armed conflicts or wars opposed American Indian tribes to US forces east and west of the Mississippi.
