Henry Clays American System

Henry Clay's American System 1832

Background:

Following the War of 1812, Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, and John Quincy Adams helped form a new political agenda, which promised to meet the needs of America. It was a new nationalist United States. Henry Clay's "American System" was a neofederalist program of a national bank, a tariff to promote and protect industry's, and financial improvements.

Parties Involved:

Henry Clays started as lawyer In Richmond, Virginia. In 1797 he quickly acquired a reputation and a lucrative income from his law practice. At the age of twenty-two, he was elected to a constitutional convention in Kentucky; at twenty-nine, while yet under the age limit of the United States Constitution, he was appointed to an unexpired term during 1806 and 1807 in the United States Senate, where, he at once plunged into business, as though he had been there all his life. He was in favor of improvements in the West. The most important questions with Clay was the various phases of slavery politics and protection of home industries. The distress caused by the effect of disordered currency and the prices of the war of 1812, he Came Up with an idea that he called The American System. The Idea was to tie all the states together From the North, East, South , and West.

Topic:

Henry Clay was a man who had many ideas and thoughts about the way America should be. After the War of 1812 Henry Clay John C. Calhoun and John Quincy Adams came up with and idea that they called The American System. The idea was to tie all the Northern, Southern, Eastern and Western states together. They planned

on doing this by Federal funding such as the Erie Canal, and a series of highways, funded by a raised tariff on imported goods. They planned on using protective tariffs to encourage development of domestic industry and Reliance on domestic financial resources. They were in favor of reducing the tariff rates on all articles not competing with American products, so things would stay fair and so that every one could make a living.

Effects:

Clay argued that the West, which opposed the tariff, should support it since urban factory workers would be consumers of western foods. In Clay's view,