when we left the political narrative it was the end of the war of 1812 and 1815 and there was finally peace there was a lack of threats from Britain so to discuss this era we're first going to run through the elections at the time and then we'll talk about the era in general and the major events so to start the election of 1816 the Madison follows Washington's and technically Jefferson's example and declines to run for president again in 1816. the War of 1812 was over there were no major pressing issues at the moment the Democratic Republicans will nominate James Monroe a Virginian who was backed by both Madison and Jefferson the Federalists will nominate Rufus King who will be becomes the last Federalist candidate for president Monroe absolutely crushes King he becomes the fifth president and the fourth from Virginia jumping ahead 1820 James Monroe runs for a second term unopposed there was no Federalist candidate or party in opposition to the Democratic Republicans there was no one within his own party who uh tried to push against him not in any significant way um big issues had emerged I don't think I have I do have a map obviously um he's got almost every electoral vote but the Federalists were dead at this point there was big issues but the Federalists were dead now Monroe should have had should have actually had every electoral vote but there were a few pieces you see um somebody voted for another of the uh Democratic Republicans John Quincy Adams and then there were three who refused to vote because they saw it as pointless but this should be all Monroe at this point so he should be up there with Washington as having won every electoral vote but because of political BS it didn't happen so those are the the elections right two two terms of James Monroe make up the Era of Good Feelings the Era of Good Feelings was called this because it was one of single Party politics for the most part um nationalism particularly political nationalism increased dramatically after the war particularly after the Battle of New Orleans people were looking for ideas to help the country as a whole this was the first true era of Peace in a decade perhaps since the French and Indian War right there was a small period of time where there wasn't a lot of craziness or at least since before the French Indian War right so before that um foreign countries were finally leaving the us alone I mean they were trading but they weren't you know there was none of the nonsense that we've talked about consistently throughout here in unit two the political situation at home was finally stable again the single party was the Democratic Republicans and they still had many of the original ideals of their party you know going back to Jefferson they wanted to promote an agrarian economy or agricultural economy over industrialization they were mostly against the national bank and they had actually killed the First National Bank in 1811 right before the war of 1812. they claimed that bank's favorite industry over Agriculture and that Banks wanted to limit economic growth but the country had changed much since the 1790s and so much that these ideas seemed outdated to younger politicians and so those who were the warhawks sort of fell in line within the Democratic Republican party but their own little faction called the new Republicans the new generation of politicians was Rising through the ranks and pushing new policies these again were the former warhawks like on the left Henry Clay on the right John C Calhoun though the party should start to uh they thought the party should start to embrace manufacturing and support the bank to evolve and change with the country though they would deny it they were adopting Hamilton's ideas Banks tariffs all of those ideas these younger politicians younger politicians pushed newer and more updated ideas older politicians tend to resist any progress or are only for limited change I mean just look at politicians today even the quote unquote liberal older politicians aren't pushing for major or radical changes there's always exceptions but mostly a liberal politician who's older is going to be much more limited in the reform that they want than a younger liberal politician um I mean age age and term limits are good ideas because ideas need to be refreshed and updated Democratic Republicans will eventually become divided and split into two new parties but not along this age divide and that's something we'll discuss over the next few topics so this has been the setup now we're going to look at the ideas and how this era starts to go from good feelings to broken