The United States came out of her second war with Great Britain a proud and fearless nation, though her record was not, on its face, glorious.  She went to war shockingly unprepared; the people were of divided opinion, and one great section was in open revolt; the military leaders were without distinction; the soldiery was poorly trained and equipped; finances were disordered; the operations on land were mostly failures; and the privateers, which achieved wonders in the early stages of the contest, were driven to cover long before the close; for the restoration of peace the nation had to thank England’s war weariness far more than her own successes; and the Treaty of Ghent did not so much as mention impressment, captures, or any of the other matters mainly at issue when the war was begun.  Peace, however, brought gratitude, enthusiasm, optimism.  Defeats were quickly forgotten; and Jackson’s victory at New Orleans atoned for the humiliations of years.  After all, the contest had been victorious in its larger outcome, for the new world conditions were such as to insure that the claims and practices which had troubled the relations of the United States and Great Britain would never be revived.  The carpings of critics were drowned in the public rejoicings.  The Hartford Convention dissolved unwept and unsung.  Flushed with pride and confidence, the country entered upon a new and richer epoch.

The dominant tone of this dawning period was nationalism.  The nation was to be made great and rich and free; sectional interests and ambitions were to be merged in the greater national purpose.  Congress voiced the sentiment of the day by freely laying tariffs to protect newly risen manufactures, by appropriating money for “internal improvements,” by establishing a second United States Bank, and by giving full support to the annexation of territory for the adjustment of border difficulties and the extension of the country to its natural frontiers.

Under the leadership of John Marshall, the Supreme Court handed down an imposing series of decisions restricting the powers of the States and throwing open the floodgates for the expansion of national functions and activities.  Statesmen of all sections put the nation first in their plans and policies as they had not always done in earlier days.  John C. Calhoun was destined shortly to take rank as the greatest of sectionalists.  Nevertheless, between 1815 and 1820 he voted for protective tariffs, brought in a great bill for internal improvements, and won from John Quincy Adams praise for being “above all sectional...prejudices more than any other statesman of this union” with whom he “had ever acted.”