Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-01T05:00:48.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Community and Consensus in Ante-Bellum America

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

B. W. Collins
B. W. Collins
Affiliation:
Middlesex Polytechnic
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

American local history has been much studied, but rarely integrated into the general history of the country. Although greater attention is now being paid to the connexions between local political, social and economic developments and national trends, there is still a very real disparity in historiographical emphasis between national issues and the problems of community life experienced by Americans in the past. For no period, perhaps, is this disparity so graphic as for the mid-nineteenth century; the years from about 1840 to the 1870s or the 1880s were convulsed by sectional rivalries, civil war and reconstruction, to which matters historians have devoted their attention. Steadily, however, the local communities themselves have come under scrutiny. But the major interpretation currently accepted reinforces, rather than qualifies, the general picture we have of that period, since the North, at least, is regarded as buoyant and expansive in the mid-century, pursuing with relentless self-confidence such aims as help to explain the coming, and the winning, of the Civil War; reform, moral and educational improvement, and the opening of economic opportunities to yeomen farmers, artisans and small merchants.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 19 , Issue 3 , September 1976 , pp. 635 - 663
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Wiebe, Robert H.The Search for Order, 1877–1920 (London, 1967), pp. xiii, 2, 44.Google ScholarRandall, J. G. and Donald, DavidThe Civil War and Reconstruction (2nd edn revised, Boston, 1969), pp. 20–1.Google ScholarFoner, EricFree Soil, Free Labor, Free Men. The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (New York, 1970), passim.Google ScholarHugins, Walter (ed.), The Reform Impulse, 1825–1850 (New York, 1972), pp. 1–22.Google ScholarBrock, William R. Conflict and Transformation. The United States, 1844–1827 (Harmondsworth, 1973), pp. 134, 418.Google ScholarFrisch, Michael H. ‘The Community Elite and the Emergence of Urban Politics’ in Thernstrom, Stephan and Sennett, Richard (eds.), Nineteenth-Century Cities (New Haven, 1969), pp. 282–3.Google ScholarPaludan, Phillip S.‘The American Civil War Considered as a Crisis in Law and Order’, American Historical Review, LXXVII (1972), 1013–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For an earlier period, a different argument, that increased urbanization was accompanied by a broadening out of the range of loyalties, to include regional or state-wide organizations, has been forwarded by Brown, Richard D.‘The Emergence of Urban Society in Rural Massachusetts, 1760–1820’, Journal of American History, LXI (1974), 29–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For the ante-bellum period, two helpful examples of the increased attention being given to local and state issues in politics are Silbey, Joel H. (ed.), The Transformation of American Politics, 1840–1860 (Englewood Cliffs, 1967), pp. 1–34,Google ScholarHolt, Michael F.‘The Politics of Impatience: The Origins of Know Nothingism‘, Journal of American History, LX (1973), 3O9–331.Google Scholar

2 McCormick, Richard P.The Second American Party System (Chapel Hill, 1966), pp. 350–1.Google ScholarHofstadter, Richard The Idea of a Party System. The Rise of Legitimate Opposition in the United States, 1780–1840 (Berkeley, 1970), pp. 252–71.Google ScholarFulsom, Burton W.II ‘Party Formation and Development in Jacksonian America: the Old South’, Journal of American Studies, VII (1973), 224–5.Google Scholar

3 Tocqueville, Alexis deDemocracy in America, ed. Bradley, Phillips (2 vols. New York, 1945), II, 293.Google Scholar

4 Paludan, ‘The American Civil War…‘, passim.

5 Wiebe, , The Search for Order, 1877–192O, pp. 44, 111, 127–3Google Scholar

6 Brock, , Conflict and Transformation, p. 134.Google Scholar

7 Brock, , Conflict and Transformation, p. 418.Google Scholar

8 Hofstadter, , The Idea of a Party System, p. 268.Google Scholar

9 Formisano, Ronald P.The Birth of Mass Political Parties. Michigan, 1827–1861 (Princeton, 1971), pp. 60, 72, 77–8, 264, 283, 327–8.Google Scholar For a scathing attack on the evils of party, from a Democrat, see Cooper, James FenimoreThe American Democrat, ed. Dekker, George and Johnston, Larry (Penguin edn, Harmondsworth, 1969), pp. 226–8.Google Scholar

10 Pleasants, Samuel A.Fernando Wood of New York (New York, 1948), p. 84.Google ScholarNew York Times, 3 Dec. 1857. Pennsylvania Daily Telegraph, 6 05 1858. (Boston)Google ScholarDaily Advertiser, 2, 3 Dec. 1857. Springfield (Mass.)Google ScholarRepublican, 20 Nov., 4 Dec. 1858.,

11 Klein, Philip S. and Hoogenboom, AriA History of Pennsylvania (New York, 1973), pp. 153, 157.Google ScholarThornbrough, Emma LouIndiana in the Civil War Era, 1850–1880. (The History of Indiana, vol. III) (Indianapolis, 1965), pp. 72, 82Google Scholar (note 74), 84. For the confusion of parties earlier in the 1850s, see Holt, ‘The Politics of Impatience…’, pp. 311–22.

12 Peoria Daily Transcript, 2 Dec. 1857.

13 Randall, and Donald, , The Civil War and Reconstruction, p. 20;Google ScholarFormisano, , The Birth of Mass Political Parties, pp. 102, 110, 125–7;Google ScholarSilbey, , The Transformation of American Politics, p. 13Google Scholar; for Iowa, , Swierenga, Robert P., ‘The Ethnic Voter and the First Lincoln Election’, reprinted in Luebke, Frederick C. (ed.), Ethnic Voters and the Election of Lincoln (Lincoln, Nebraska, 1971), pp. 129–50, esp. pp. 136–7.Google Scholar

14 Silbey, , The Transformation of American Politics, pp. 45, 8–15.Google Scholar

15 Potter, J. ‘The Growth of Population in America, 1700–1860’, in Glass, D. V. and Eversley, D. E. C. (eds.), Population in History. Essays in Historical Demography (London, 1965), p. 686.Google Scholar

16 Dickens, CharlesAmerican Notes (London, 1843), ch. VIII.Google Scholar

17 Mitchell, D. W.Ten Years in the United States (London, 1862), p. 73.Google Scholar

18 Marietta, Ohio, Marietta Republican, 30 Apr. 1858.Google Scholar

19 Freedley, Edwin T. A Practical Treatise on Business: or How to Get, Save, Spend, Give, Lend and Bequeath Money: with an inquiry into the chances of success and causes of failure in Business (Philadelphia, 1852), pp. 216–17.Google Scholar

20 Winslow, Stephen N.Biographies of Successful Philadelphia Merchants (Philadelphia, 1864), pp. 46, 117–18.Google Scholar For the lack of interest felt in politics in St Louis's business community, see (St Louis) Missouri Republican, 13 July 1858.

21 Cleveland, , Weekly Plain Dealer, 11 Nov. 1857.Google Scholar Philadelphia North American, 19 Mar. 1858.

22 Nevins, AllanThe Emergence of Lincoln (New York, 1950) I, 400–4.Google Scholar

23 North American, 17 Sept. 1858.

24 E. G. Waterhouse to E. D. Morgan, 18 Nov. 1858. E. D. Morgan Papers, New York State Library.

25 Pennsylvania Daily Telegraph, 11 Oct. 1858.

26 G. W. Scranton to W. Bigler, 18 May 1858. William Bigler Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

27 Biographical Directory of the American Congress 1774–1961 (Washington, D.C., 1961)Google Scholar, Scranton entry. In 1856, the Democrats had carried the Pennsylvania Xllth congressional district by 10,442 against 7,657 for the Union candidate; but in 1858 the Union candidate, Scranton, won by 10,023 to 6,186. Tribune Almanac for 1859 (New York, 1859), p. 53.Google Scholar

28 ‘Covode Investigation’, U.S. Congress, House Reports, 36 Congr., 1 Sess., No. 648 (Serial 1071), p. 612. This analysis was given by George Sanderson, a life-long Democrat, crea lawyer and banker, who supported Scranton in 1858. Ibid. p. 611.

29 L. R. to Bigler, 10 May 1858. Bigler Papers.

30 ‘Covode Investigation’, p. 613.

31 The impressive performance by the Republican (or Union or People's) party in Pennsylvania in 1858 suggests that the party worthies realized the value of this popular respect for businessmen. The People's Party carried 21 congressional seats in the state; 12 were gains over 1856. Of the 21 Republican members a majority (12) were, as one would expect, lawyers. But 8 were businessmen, who thus constituted an unusually high proportion of the total members. The significance of the businessmen-candidates is perhaps explained when one considers that in twelve districts gained by the People's party in 1858, businessmen were the candidates in six. In nine of these newly captured seats the previous Democratic majorities had been substantial; five of the successful People's party candidates in those seats were businessmen. Thus, in an economic depression, it is possible that the People's party deliberately chose businessmen, and not lawyers, as especially appealing candidates in protection-conscious Pennsylvania. Certainly in the previous major opposition victory in the state's congressional election, in 1854, the proportion of businessmen among the successful Whig-American candidates (five out of nineteen, with eleven lawyers) was smaller than the proportion in 1858; and in 1854 there was no concentration of businessmen in the key swing districts, as there was in 1858. Biographical Directory, passim. Tribune Almanac for 1859, pp. 52–3. Tribune Almanac for 1855 (New York, 1855), pp. 43–4Google Scholar

32 Hofstadter, RichardThe American Political Tradition (New York, 1973 edn), pp. 101–6.Google ScholarFoner, , Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men, pp. 316–17Google Scholar. Brock, , Conflict and Transformation, p. 418.Google Scholar

33 Formisano, , The Birth of Mass Political Parties, pp. 124–6.Google ScholarChalmers, Leonard‘Tammany Hall, Fernando Wood, and the Struggle to Control New York City, 1857–1859’, New York Historical Society Quarterly, LIII (1969), 13–15.Google ScholarNew York Times, 23, 26 Oct. 1857. In the late 1830s and early 1840s, however, the Whigs had a better record of support for humanitarian reform in the state legislatures than did the Democrats. Herbert Ershkowitz and William lates Shade, G.‘Consensus or Conflict? Political Behaviour in the State Legislatures during the Jacksonian Era’, Journal of American History, LVIII (1971), 609–11.Google Scholar

34 Silbey, , The Transformation of American Politics, pp. 14–15.Google Scholar

35 Berwanger, Eugene H.The Frontier Against Slavery (Urbana Ill., 1967), pp. 4–5, 123, 125, 130.Google Scholar

36 Fishlow, Albert‘Levels of Nineteenth Century American Investment in Education’, Journal of Economic History, xxvi (1966), pp. 418–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Fishlow, Albert ‘The American Common School Revival: Fact or Fancy?’ in Rosovsky, H. (ed.), Industrialization in Two Systems: essays in honor of A. Gerschenkron (New York, 1966), pp. 43, 49–55.Google Scholar

37 Thornbrough, , Indiana in the Civil War Era, pp. 465–74, 645.Google Scholar Similar delays occurred in New York state where the principle of completely free schools was accepted in 1850 but not translated into reality until 1867. Fishlow, ‘The American Common School Revival…, p. 53.

38 Roseboom, Eugene H.The Civil War Era: 1850–1873 (A History of the State of Ohio, vol. iv) (Columbus, Ohio, 1944), pp. 177–80.Google Scholar

39 Controllers of Public Schools for the First School District of Pennsylvania, Report for the year ending December 31, 1857 (Philadelphia, 1858), pp. 11–12Google Scholar. Bessie Pierce, Louise, A History of Chicago, II (New York, 1940), 390–1.Google Scholar For Philadelphia's schools, see Warner, Sam Bass Jr., The Private City. Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia, 1968), pp. 118–20.Google Scholar

40 Roseboom, , The Civil War Era, p. 147.Google ScholarAdams, HenryThe Education of Henry Adams (Boston, 1918), pp. 54–5, 65.CrossRefGoogle ScholarNevins, AllanOrdeal of the Union (New York, 1947), II, 544–7.Google Scholar

41 The American Almanac for 1858 (Boston, 1857), pp. 206–7.Google Scholar

42 Boorstin, DanielThe Americans. The National Experience (New York, 1965), pp. 154–8.Google ScholarNye, Russel B.Society and Culture in America, 1830–1860 (New York, 1974), pp. 389–93.Google Scholar

43 Pomfret, John E. with Shumway, Floyd M.Founding the American Colonies, 1583–1660 (New York, 1970), p. 37.Google Scholar

44 Freedley, , A Practical Treatise on Business, pp. 75, 41–2.Google Scholar Also: Wyllie, Irwin G.The Self-Made Man in America (New York, 1966 edn), p. 101.Google Scholar

45 Winslow, , Biographies of Successful Philadelphia Merchants, p. 137.Google Scholar

46 The Author of ‘Ten Acres Enough’, Derrick and Drill (New York, 1865), p. 24.Google Scholar

47 Burn, D. L. ‘The Genesis of American Engineering Competition, 1850–1870’, reprinted in Saul, S. B. (ed.), Technological Change: The United States and Britain in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1970), p. 77.Google ScholarCurti, Merle, ‘America at the World Fairs, 1851–1893’, American Historical Review, LV (1950), 838–40.Google Scholar

48 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, xxiv (1851), 398, 655Google Scholar; xxv (1851), 141, 144, 266, 400. Bow's, DeReview, xi (1851), 98, 546, 689.Google Scholar

49 The Economist, IX (1851), 683.Google Scholar

50 The Economist, IX (1851), 531–2, 505, 590–1, 475–6, 559–60.Google Scholar

51 On American invention, see Nevins, AllanOrdeal of the Union, II, 251–61.Google Scholar For an example of detailed comparisons with European models of American industrial methods, techniques and attainments, see Bishop, J. LeanderA History of American Manufacturing, III (Philadelphia, 1868), pp. 24, 30–3, 40, 44, 49, 57–8, 72–3, 79, 82, 92Google Scholar: these references are to Philadelphia factories in different types of industry, in the late 1850s.

52 Cist, CharlesSketches and Statistics of Cincinnati in 1859 (Cincinnati, 1859), pp. 200–1.Google Scholar

53 Cist, , Sketches and Statistics, p. 203.Google Scholar

54 Williams, Herman W. Jr., Mirror to the American Past. A Survey of American Genre Painting, 1750–1900 (Greenwich Conn., 1973), pp. 60–2, 84–7, 92–3, 107.Google ScholarNye, , Society and Culture in America, pp. 173–83.Google Scholar

55 Pierce, , A History of Chicago, II, 403.Google Scholar

56 Hunt's Merchants' Magazine, XXXVII (1857), 792.Google ScholarNorth American Review, LXXXVII (1858), 304–5.Google Scholar

57 Klein, and Hoogenboom, , A History of Pennsylvania, pp. 239–42.Google ScholarFolmsbee, Stanley J. et al. Tennessee. A Short history (Knoxville, 1969), pp. 301–2.Google ScholarThornbrough, , Indiana in the Civil War Era, pp. 691–3.Google Scholar

58 Charles Dickens, American Notes, ch. III.

59 Hawthorne, NathanielThe House of Seven Gables (1851), ch. 1.Google Scholar

60 Thornbrough, , Indiana in the Civil War Era, pp. 694–5.Google Scholar

61 Wiebe, , The Search for Order, pp. 2–3.Google Scholar

62 Soltow, LeeMen and Wealth in the United States 1850–1870 (New Haven, 1975), P. 99.Google Scholar

63 Freedley, , A Practical Treatise on Business, pp. 48, 74.Google ScholarWare, NormanThe Industrial Worker, 1840–1860 (Chicago, 1964 edn), p. 119.Google Scholar Average earnings for non-farm employees on in 1860 were $363 per annum. Davis, Lance E.Easterlin, Richard A. and Parker, William N. (eds.), American Economic Growth. An Economist's History of the United States (New York, 1972), p. 212.Google Scholar

64 For a swashbuckling attack on these more traditional views, see Pessen, EdwardJacksonian America: Society, Personality, and Politics. (Homewood, Ill., 1969), passimGoogle Scholar. At the highest levels there was no reduction under Jackson's administration in the dominance enjoyed by the well-born and affluent over public office. Aronson, Sidney H. Status and Kinship in the Higher Civil Service. Standards of Selection in the Administrations of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Andrew Jackson (Cambridge, Mass., 1964), p. 195.Google Scholar

65 Town officials had to execute many tedious and fairly complex administrative tasks, which required some education. For an example of these responsibilities on the eve of the Jacksonian era, see Richardson, William M.The New-Hampshire Town Officer (Concord, 1829)Google Scholar. This form-book contains 299 pages of instructions and illustrative forms for official use.

66 This consideration may well explain why, for example, some 32 per cent of the city aldermen of Springfield, Massachusetts, were artisans and workingmen in the 1850s. That high proportion dropped, however, during the 1870s when the local upper class increased its hold on public offices. One reason for this change (and Frisch offers others) was probably the increased complexity of urban government and the demands made thereby on local leaders. Frisch, ‘The Community Elite…’, pp. 282–5.

67 Kutolowski, Kathleen S. ‘The Social Composition of Political Leadership. Genesee County, New York, 1821–1860’ (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of Rochester, 1973), pp. 283–96.Google Scholar For the city of Pittsburgh in the late 1850s a slightly more ambiguous picture emerges. During 1855–7 t n e candidates put forward by both parties in Pittsburgh on came from an economic elite: 71 per cent of Republicans and 67 per cent of Democrats possessed wealth in excess of $5,000, and 65 per cent of Republicans and 50 per cent of Democrats held more than $10,000. During 1858–60, however, there was a strong feeling in the city that the top people no longer presented themselves for public office; this was only partly true, for during those years, 56 per cent of the two parties' candidates held over $5,000 in wealth and 49·5 per cent of Republicans and 40 per cent of Democrats owned over $10,000. Strong local factors turned some members of the local upper classes from active politics. Holt, Michael F.Forging A Majority. The Formation of the Republican Party in Pittsburgh, 1848–1860 (New Haven, 1969), pp. 296–8, 349, 361.Google Scholar

68 Rose, Arnold M.The Power Structure. Political Process in American Society (New York, 1967), pp. 159–60.Google Scholar

69 Pennsylvania Daily Telegraph, 30 Jan. 1858. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, The Pennsylvania Manual, LXXXVIII (Harrisburg, 1948), pp. 509–78.Google ScholarGeneral Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Journal of the House of Representatives. 1858 Session. (Harrisburg, 1858), pp. 43–4.Google Scholar Another example is provided by the Ohio senate of 1852. Among 35 senators, the occupations of 28 have been recorded: 13 were lawyers, and farming, with 5 senators, was the next major occupation. ‘ERIE, Legislative Correspondent of the Cleveland True Democrat’, Pencilings in the Senate of Ohio (Columbus, 1852), passimGoogle Scholar. I wish to thank Mr D. J. Ratcliffe for this reference.

70 I have calculated this from lists and biographical entries in Biographical Directory, passim.

71 Thornbrough, , Indiana in the Civil War Era, pp. 557–9.Google Scholar The predominance of agriculture in Indiana's economy was reflected in the overwhelming presence of farmers among party workers in the state; but the political leadership consisted of lawyers. Elbert, E. Duane‘Southern Indiana in the Election of 1860’, Indiana Magazine of History, LXX (1974), 1–23.Google Scholar

72 Boorstin, , The Americans. The National Experience, pp. 35–48, 72–81.Google Scholar

73 Harris, Michael H.‘The Frontier Lawyer's library; Southern Indiana, 1800–1850, as a Test Case’, American Journal of Legal History, xvi (1972), 239–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

74 Klein, and Hoogenboom, , A History of Pennsylvania, p. 223.Google ScholarGawalt, Gerald W.‘Sources of Anti-Lawyer Sentiment in Massachusetts, 1740–1840’, American Journal of Legal History, xiv (1970), 283–307.CrossRefGoogle ScholarBloomfield, Maxwell‘Law vs. Politics: the Self-image of the American Bar (1830–1860)’, American Journal of Legal History, XII (1968), 306–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

75 For example, Senator Stephen A. Douglas, at the age of twenty, arrived in Illinois from the east; in order to obtain some law books, he was dependent on the aid of a leading attorney in Jacksonville. Johannsen, Robert W.Stephen A. Douglas (New York, 1973), p. 19.Google Scholar

76 Nathaniel Hawthorne, The House of Seven Gables, ch. VIII.

77 Rochester Union and Advertiser, 16 Mar. 1858.

78 Logansport Journal, 10 July 1858.

79 Bureau County Republican, 10 June 1858.

80 Morgan Weekly Herald, 1 Apr. 1858.

81 The information on these politicians' business interests has been derived mainly from the individual entries in the Dictionary of American Biography.

82 Van Deusen, Glyndon G.William Henry Seward (New York, 1967), p. 88.Google Scholar

83 Van Deusen, Glyndon G.Thurlow Weed. Wizard of the Lobby (Boston, 1947), pp. 219–30.Google Scholar

84 Johannsen, , Stephen A. Douglas, p. 37.Google Scholar Of course Democratic leaders were equally involved with major corporations: in the late 1850s, the chairman of the New York state Democratic central committee, Dean Richmond, was the vice-president of the New York Central Railroad; Governor William Packer of Pennsylvania was a director of the Sunbury and Erie Railroad; Senator Jesse B. Bright of Indiana and his brother were deeply involved in the establishment of the Indiana State Bank; Governor Robert Stewart of Missouri was a director of the Hannibal and St Joseph Railroad. Dictumary of American to Biography. Primm, James N., Economic Policy in the Development of a Western State: Missouri, 1820–1860 (Cambridge, Mass., 1954), p. 111.CrossRefGoogle ScholarThornbrough, , Indiana in the Civil War Era, p. 427.Google Scholar

85 Douglas worked hard to obtain the first federal land grant made to a railroad for the Illionis Central. Within a few years of purchasing a plot fo land in Chicago, he sold a portion of that land to the Illinois Central for ten times the sum originally paid for the entire area. Johannsen, , Stephen A. Douglas, pp. 314–17, 335.Google Scholar

86 Hamilton, HolmanPrologue to Conflict. The Crisis and Compromise of 1850 (New York, 1966 edn), pp. 118–32.Google ScholarCohen, HenryBusiness and Politics in America from the Age of Jackson to the Civil War. The Career Biography of W. W. Corcoran (Westport, Conn., 1971), pp. 170–3, 337 (n. 17).Google Scholar

87 Nichols, Roy F.The Disruption of American Democracy (New York, 1967 edn), p. 194.Google Scholar

88 Nichols, , Disruption, pp. 285–6.Google Scholar ‘Covode Investigation’, pp. 140, 150, gives one example of the underhand use of funds for political purposes.

89 Sellers, Charles G. (ed.), The Southerner as American (Chapel Hill, 1960), p. 40.Google ScholarEvitts, William J.A Matter of Allegiances: Maryland from 1850–1861 (Baltimore, 1974), passim.Google ScholarHolt, Michael F.‘Two Roads to Sumter’, Reviews in American History, III (1975), 221–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

90 Hofstadter, RichardThe Paranoid Style in American Politics and other Essays (London, 1966), p. 3.Google ScholarDavis, David B.The Slave Power Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style. (Baton Rouge, 1969), pp. 3, 6–7, 19–21.Google ScholarDavis, David B. (ed.), The Fear of Conspiracy (Ithaca, 1971), p. xvi.Google Scholar

91 I wish to thank the libraries cited for permission to quote from their manuscript collections. I am extremely grateful to my former supervisor, Dr J. R. Pole, for his criticisms of an earlier version of this article. Professor W. Hamilton Bryson and Dr Derek Beales kindly helped me on various points.