Period 4: Expansion, Market Revolution, and Reform, 1800–1848
Jeffersonian and market change
The election of 1800 was a peaceful transfer of power between parties, though the Twelfth Amendment followed the tie. Marbury v. Madison (1803) established judicial review, not legislative supremacy. The Louisiana Purchase (1803) doubled the nation and was explored by Lewis and Clark; the Embargo Act (1807) damaged the economy more than Britain or France. The War of 1812 produced a surge of nationalism and discredited the Hartford Convention's Federalists. After 1815, the market revolution-canals, steamboats, railroads, the cotton gin-linked regions and deepened slavery's expansion.
Democracy and its limits
Jacksonian democracy expanded white male suffrage while excluding women, Native Americans, and free Black people. The Indian Removal Act (1830) led to the Trail of Tears despite Worcester v. Georgia. The nullification crisis tested federal authority; the Bank War and Panic of 1837 revealed economic fragility. The Second Great Awakening fueled reform: abolitionism, temperance, education, and women's rights, culminating at Seneca Falls (1848). The Missouri Compromise (1820) drew the 36°30′ line, and Manifest Destiny drove Texas annexation and the Mexican-American War.
Traps: Marbury did not give the Court power to overrule Congress-it declared a section of the Judiciary Act unconstitutional. 'Era of Good Feelings' was a brief one-party appearance, not harmony. The Missouri line applied to the Louisiana Purchase territory, not all the West. The Wilmot Proviso (1846) banned slavery in Mexican Cession lands but never passed.
Worked example: if asked what most encouraged the market revolution, choose transportation improvements plus the cotton gin and commercial credit, not a single invention.
Rule of thumb: expansion and democracy advanced together for white men-and generated sectional conflict over slavery's extension.