liberty and power

Liberty and power were seen as adversarial terms when it came to republican government in the 1800’s. The American people of this period did not have a strict definition for liberty, but instead a group of values and ideas they associated with it. These values were freedom to improve yourself, morally and materially, freedom of religion, freedom from a privileged aristocracy, and freedom of expression. Personal liberty was allowed to prosper, as long as it stayed within state and federal constitutions and did not infringe on another man’s liberty. The biggest threat to liberty was power, often used by governments and private authorities to remove rights they did not have control over. The issue of promoting liberty while restricting power was maintainable when America was largely an agrarian society. The yeoman mentality, of a self-sufficient farmer, growing crops to sustain his family, and with any surplus he could sell or trade for what he could not make himself, was the ideal image of personal liberty. As commerce and industry began to create a new economy, the distance between liberty and power became more indiscernible.

The power of the federal government to regulate commerce was an issues that had existed since the chartering of the First Bank of the United States in 1791. Following the War of 1812, a division occurred in the Republican Party between those who supported the new commercial economy and those who believed agriculture was key to American prosperity. During this period Congress often encouraged manufacturing through the passing of numerous tariffs, which protected internal trade and made imported good, mostly British, and more costly. These tariffs did not help all of those in the United States, southern farm...

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...ch allowed Jackson to use force to collect revenues. The tension between South Carolina and the federal government, were eased through a gradual reduction of the tariff, proposed by Henry Clay, which allowed manufacturers time to adjust. The issue of states’ right had grown out of the southern perception of the federal government promoting commerce and northern interests. A push against manufacturing and a focus on the promotion of agriculture, in the south led to the election of Andrew Jackson, and limited the power the federal government had accumulated, and a return to the greater liberty in the south. The liberty the south sought to have more control over their economy, shared similar values to the northern push earlier to protect manufacturing. The largest institution that stood in the way of complete economic liberty was the Second Bank of the United States.