The first major peacetime economic crisis in the United States was the Panic of 1819.
The panic followed years of land speculation, easy credit, and rising commodity prices after the War of 1812. The Second Bank of the United States tightened lending and called in loans, while falling cotton prices weakened borrowers and banks. Numerous state banks suspended specie payments, meaning they could no longer reliably exchange paper notes for gold or silver.
The crisis produced widespread bankruptcies, foreclosures, unemployment, and falling property prices. It also intensified political criticism of the Second Bank and influenced later debates about banking and federal economic power.
The Panic of 1819 is sometimes confused with the Panic of 1837, which was another major U.S. financial crisis nearly two decades later. The earlier panic is especially important because it established a pattern of credit expansion followed by contraction in the young American economy.