Even though the Treaty of Ghent that concluded the War of 1812 offered little more than a return to the status quo, Americans emerged from the conflict with a newfound sense of patriotism and confidence in their nation. The United States had preserved its prewar borders against the most powerful military in the world, had asserted its right to free trade in the Atlantic, and had shattered the British-Indian alliance in the West that had created such serious obstacles to western expansion. Last but not least, after Andrew Jackson’s rise to national heroism with his remarkable (if meaningless) military triumph over the British at New Orleans, the Federalists’ strong opposition to the war had sealed the fate of their party. Out of the ashes of the first party system rose a new political order dominated by traditional Jeffersonian Republicans, on the one hand, and a new breed of National Republicans that pursued quasi-federalist policies, on the other. Only in the Supreme Court did federalism prevail in the powerful role of Chief Justice John Marshall.