As the charter of the First Bank of the United States had been allowed to expire in 1811, the federal government was ill-prepared to finance the war and so resorted to such expediencies as the suspension of specie payment and the issuance of Treasury Notes. Those actions set a precedent for future federal responses to financial crises. Also, the exposure of the nation's financial weaknesses partly explained the decision for Congress to charter the Second Bank of the United States in 1816. The readiness of southern leaders, especially John C. Calhoun, to support such a measure also indicates a high degree of national feeling. Perhaps the clearest sign of a new sense of national unity was the victorious Democratic-Republican Party, with its longtime foes, the Federalist Party, vanishing from national politics. The result was an Era of Good Feelings, which had the lowest level of partisanship that was ever seen.