1830s in the United States

Events and Trends

"For more events, see 19th century in the United States"

* Alexis de Tocqueville travels America, finding a political system developed on the principle of governmental power derived from the people.
* The Toledo War (1835-1836; also known as the Ohio-Michigan War) was the largely bloodless outcome of a boundary dispute between the U.S. state of Ohio and the adjoining territory of Michigan.
* Arkansas becomes the twenty-fifth (25th) state, on June 15, 1836.
* Michigan becomes the twenty-sixth (26th) state, on January 26, 1837.

Leaders

* Andrew Jackson, who had been elected the seventh President of the United States in a landslide in 1828, easily won his bid for reelection in 1832 against a field of three other candidates: Henry Clay (National Republican), William Wirt (Anti-Masonic Party) and John Floyd (an independent who was not a declared candidate but received electoral votes from North Carolina nonetheless). The 1832 election was the first in which the parties held national nominating conventions. Jackson's reelection was based mainly on his populist positions; he was viewed favorably by the electorate as protecting them from a privileged elite. Jackson's second term continued the policies of his first term. He succeeded in destroying the Second Bank of the United States, both by vetoing the renewal of its charter in 1832 and by withdrawing most of the federal funds deposited there in 1833. The demise of the national bank led to an upsurge in state and local banks, increasing the availability of credit and therefore accelerating capital growth. In 1836 Jackson enacted the specie circular, mandating that government lands could only be purchased with hard currency. Many of the smaller state and local banks lacked sufficient specie to exchange for their notes; the demand for specie created by Jackson's order caused many of them to fail and led to a general financial panic in 1837. Jackson also threatened the use of military force against South Carolina, when in 1832 when South Carolina, supported by Jackson's own Vice President, John C. Calhoun, refused to recognize, collect, or enforce tariffs adopted by Congress in 1828, in what is now known as the nullification crisis. Jackson's stand against the right of a state to ignore federally-adopted law or to secede presaged the Civil War. Jackson also very controversially pushed his policy of "Indian removal", which forcibly relocated Native Americans (mainly Cherokee) from their homelands in Georgia to locations further west; by 1838 all Cherokee living in Georgia had either been forcibly removed, or killed.
* Jackson, following the tradition established by George Washington, did not seek a third term. In 1836, Jackson supported his second vice-president, Martin Van Buren as his successor. Van Buren faced three declared and one undeclared candidates from the newly-formed Whig party. The combination of Whig candidates was unable to prevent Van Buren from achieving an electoral majority in the 1836 presidential election, and Van Buren was elected. As the eighth President of the United States, Van Buren mainly followed in Jackson's footsteps. He inherited a very stressed economic situation caused by the economic policies of his predecessor. Defaults (including defaults by states) on international debt angered the British during his term, and tensions with Britain (and especially with Canadian British) were quite high. The economic instability of the time, and Van Buren's inability to substantially resolve it, was very hard on the Democrats, and Whigs made substantial gains in state races during his term, setting them up for victory in the upcoming 1840 election.