This chapter examines the onset of processes of social change that would continue to transform people's lives throughout the nineteenth century. The chapter also explores the multiple ways in which America's diverse regions became knitted together into an increasingly coherent nation, as well as the tensions that resulted from those closer ties. Chapter 9 turns next to a variety of reform movements that sought to achieve social justice and bring the conditions of daily life into conformity with the nation's democratic ideals. In the early republic, Indian-white relations continued to trouble the nation's affairs, as westward migration and newly fashioned Indian policies generated both peaceful accommodation and armed resistance. These complicated issues constitute an additional focus of the chapter. The years of the early nineteenth century also brought important changes in the nation's foreign policy. With the War of 1812, the United States finally escaped the condition of neocolonialism that since independence had left it vulnerable to European wars and pressure. Just as important, the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 created a new framework for relations with other nations in the Americas. Finally, we examine the collapse of the Federalist-Jeffersonian political system and the emergence of a distinctly new style of American politics that was increasingly democratic in temper and forms of party organization.
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