9. The end of the Napoleonic Wars saw large portions of the world plunge into an economic depression as expensive wartime economies gave way to peacetime price reductions
In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Europe endured a prolonged period of depression due to the return to peacetime economies. Weavers in the textile industry in England were able to earn as much as 15 shillings for a six-day week in 1803, whilst by 1818 wages had been reduced to less than 5 shillings. Meanwhile, English agriculture suffered enormously, with the aristocracy demanding the imposition of the Corn Laws in 1815 to protect their estates. Instituting protectionist tariffs on foreign imports of grain, the English were forced to buy more expensive, and lower quality, domestic grain.
Not only affecting England, the “Panic of 1819” is generally attributed to the post-Napoleonic depression. A recovery in European agriculture and industry led to a sudden decline in export profits for American farmers and traders. This transition, in turn, resulted in the Second Bank of the United States foreclosing on heavily mortgaged farms and businesses as repayments faltered. Unemployment spiked, with the American nation developing a prolonged and sincere dislike of banking institutions that would precipitate major political upheaval throughout the following decades, notably Jacksonian populism.