Was The Era Of Good Feelings Really Something Good?

Many historians have described the decade following 1812 as the “Era of Good Feelings”, but was it actually something good. The Era of Good Feelings was during Monroe's presidency, during this time period there were no major conflicts between political parties, because the Federalist party had disbanded and the Democratic Republicans were in power. America had just won the war of 1812 and everything had seem to be perfect, but not actually. I disagree with calling this time period the “Era of Good Feelings” because of the Panic of 1819, sectionalism between the North and South, and the opposite views on tariffs. To begin with, the Panic of 1819 was really the first financial crisis the U.S had encountered. The problems brought on by the panic were enormous and destructive. Foreclosures began to skyrocket, many banks began to fail, unemployment increased, and there was a huge slump in agriculture that made the effects of the panic close to home for many Americans. On top of that, manufacturing began to hit roadblocks causing multiple of people to lose their jobs, but the most
The South, being primarily agricultural, opposed tariffs, because they were unable to manufacture the goods they needed and had to import them from Europe or buy them from the North. In the view of the South, tariffs made everything more expensive, and thought that there was unequal distribution of the money derived from the imposition of the tariff. The North, obviously, had a different view on tariffs and favored them. They believed it protected domestic industries from unfair foreign competition and they didn’t have to lower prices on goods to compete with them. At the end of the day, tariffs looked like the North was taxing the South, and this deepened the divide between the two sections, and caused the South to start making plans for