From the 1810s through the early 1830s, the United States was buffeted by a series of crises. Although early in the period geographical expansion and economic growth led the federal government to invest in internal improvements, the War of 1812 soon threatened the nation’s stability and revealed significant regional divisions. The panic of 1819 then threw the nation into economic turmoil and led to demands for expanded voting rights for white men while African American men experienced increased restrictions on their political participation. Regional differences rooted in distinct regional economies—manufacturing in the North, cotton and rice cultivation in the South, and family agriculture in the Midwest—were increasing in the 1810s. They led to greater economic interdependence across regions, but financial insecurity intensified political debates over issues like tariffs. The admission of Missouri similarly heightened debates over slavery as white southerners saw themselves losing out to the North in population growth and political representation. At the same time, continued western expansion escalated conflicts with a diverse array of Indian nations.

In navigating these difficult issues, some Americans sought to find a middle ground. Dolley Madison worked to overcome partisan divisions through social networking. After the death of her husband, James, in 1836, she returned to Washington and transformed her home into a center of elite social life. Although her son’s mismanagement of Montpelier forced her to sell the beloved estate, Dolley secured her old age when Congress purchased President James Madison’s papers from her. Similarly, John Ross wielded his biracial heritage to seek rights for Indians within a white-dominated world. He served as both a lobbyist for Cherokee interests in Washington and an advocate of acculturation to Anglo-American ways among the Cherokee. However, congressional passage of the Indian Removal Act challenged Ross’s efforts to maintain his tribe’s sovereignty and homeland. Henry Clay, too, was widely known for helping to forge key compromises on issues like the admission of Missouri and tariffs. In each case, he brought a deeply divided Congress together and provided time for political leaders to develop more permanent solutions.

Despite the efforts of Madison, Ross, Clay, and others, differences often led to division in the 1820s and 1830s. Indeed, Clay’s success in ensuring John Quincy Adams’s selection as president in 1824 only furthered partisan divisions, leading to the emergence of two distinct political parties: the Democrats and the National Republicans. Andrew Jackson, who led the new Democratic Party, then transformed the process of political campaigning. He gave voice to white workers and frontier farmers, but he also introduced the spoils system to government, smashed the Second Bank of the United States, and forced thousands of Indians off their lands. Indian removal, in turn, fostered the expansion of white settlement southward and westward, contributing to the growth of slavery.

Dolley Madison, who lived into the late 1840s, and John Ross, who survived the Civil War, observed the continuing conflicts created by geographical expansion and partisan agendas. Ross, however, faced much more difficult circumstances as the Cherokee nation divided over whether to accept removal and continued to face internal dissent and pressure from the federal government for years.

Despite the dramatically different backgrounds and careers of Madison and Ross, both worked to bridge differences in the young nation, and both defended it against attack. Ultimately, however, neither had the power to overcome the partisan rivalries and economic crises that shaped the young nation or to halt the rising tensions over Indian lands and slave labor that would continue to plague Americans in the decades to come.