John Lauritz Larson. Internal Improvement: National Public Works and the Promise of Popular Government in the Early United States. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press, 2001.
The first sentence of Larson's book is "Why create the American republic?" (1) Early Americans grappled with this question for decades. Repeated failures to create a comprehensive, national transportation network--which can b attributed to neither geography nor logistical challenges, but rather ideological barriers--demonstrate the degree to which this question was never clearly resolved.
For roughly a century, Americans struggled to reconcile a sincere desire to live up to classical republican notions of disinterested public virtue with the demands and desires of an increasingly self-interested, market-oriented electorate. In Larson's telling, the rhetoric of republican virtue increasingly became a trap from which nationally-minded plans for internal improvement could not escape. Voters wanted a robust transportation infrastructure but feared the political mechanisms by which it could be built.
George Washington famously worried about the problems of western settlement without strong economic bonds between the seaboard East and the trans-Appalachian West. His support for a canal along the Potomac was national in scope; yet even he was unable to completely separate self-interest (his own landholdings would have benefited from such a project, if successfully implemented) from public-minded civic duty. And the Jeffersonian Republicans--quick to sniff out the slightest hint of hypocrisy from any Federalist less venerated than Washington (i.e., all of them)--were soon able to undo any notions of top-down internal improvements carried out by a natural aristocracy operating on some variant of noblisse oblige.
Which left the Republicans and eventually their Jacksonian heirs with the quandary of an electorate primed to fear "consolidation" and "corruption"--both of which would be easy to find in any government-controlled infrastructure project--in the abstract, yet desirous of internal improvements that local communities couldn't pay for.
In the end, the country stumbled out of the internal improvements era and into the Railroad Age--complete with robber barons like Jay Gould who achieved a level of "consolidation" and "corruption" far beyond the wildest schemes of Henry Clay--without realizing how it happened, or appreciating their own role in making that consequence inevitable.
Sunday, September 30, 2018
Wednesday, June 6, 2018
Democratizing the Old Dominion
William G. Shade. Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System, 1824-1861. Charlottesville, VA: The University of Virginia Press, 1996.
This history of the rise and fall of the Second Party System in Virginia is also a history of antebellum Virginia's dynamic market economy, and the different geographic, ethnic, sectarian, and class divisions (and coalitions) in the Commonwealth. Shade argues that while national issues were the initial motivating factor which led to the creation of new electoral coalitions which eventually became the Democratic and Whig parties, the Second Party System grew out of both a dynamic market economy and an increase in democratization which largely predated the 1851 state constitution which formally (and belatedly) expanded the electorate to nearly all white men.
The latter was a development which happened earlier in most states, but the delay did not indicate a passive political society. Virginia's first state constitution had been adopted in 1776, and from the beginning there was concern about suffrage restriction and the basis for representation. As the white population grew more diversified in occupation the old property basis for representation (slaves, of course, being the most valuable property in question) the continued dominance by eastern slave owners became more glaring. As the white population continued to move west of the Blue Ridge Mountains--a region where slavery was relatively rare and the population was under-represented in the legislature--calls for reform continued for decades. The eastern conservative elite held off reform as long as they could, but in 1829 they were forced to accede to a convention.
The result of that convention was a state constitution which, unlike so many other state constitutions of the same era, did not fully establish the white male Herrenvolk democracy that was a hallmark of the Jacksonian era soon to come. The conservatives were able to stave off all but the most superficial of compromises and maintain the imbalance of power in favor of the older, slave-holding East.
Yet, this was not the end of the story. Shade argues that the economy of Jacksonian and antebellum Virginia was much healthier and more dynamic than later "old South" mythologizing allowed for; the economy grew along with demands for increased responsiveness from elected officials, who responded in kind.
The two new parties both became well-established, with regular party apparatus such as newspapers, committees, networks of influential supporters, and politicians committed to advancing the policies and priorities of their respective party. Much divided Democrats from Whigs, but the issue of slavery wasn't a fault line for much of this period.
Neither was geography, for while each party had areas of strength both had a presence in their opponent's strongholds. And while the Democrats were the majority party statewide, their advantage was never overwhelming. The Whigs could only occasionally gain control of the state government but they could never be completely shut out of power, either.
It was the east versus west division which ultimately broke the system; the issue over secession versus Union turned the white-majority, non-slaveholding West against the East during the second and final vote on secession in April of 1861. The Second Two Party System died, and with its demise was lost an alternate story of Virginia during the antebellum era which later generations of state leaders aggressively sought to obscure. Shade's account was one of many which forced a reconsideration of the "declining Old Dominion" thesis which dominated for so long.
This history of the rise and fall of the Second Party System in Virginia is also a history of antebellum Virginia's dynamic market economy, and the different geographic, ethnic, sectarian, and class divisions (and coalitions) in the Commonwealth. Shade argues that while national issues were the initial motivating factor which led to the creation of new electoral coalitions which eventually became the Democratic and Whig parties, the Second Party System grew out of both a dynamic market economy and an increase in democratization which largely predated the 1851 state constitution which formally (and belatedly) expanded the electorate to nearly all white men.
The latter was a development which happened earlier in most states, but the delay did not indicate a passive political society. Virginia's first state constitution had been adopted in 1776, and from the beginning there was concern about suffrage restriction and the basis for representation. As the white population grew more diversified in occupation the old property basis for representation (slaves, of course, being the most valuable property in question) the continued dominance by eastern slave owners became more glaring. As the white population continued to move west of the Blue Ridge Mountains--a region where slavery was relatively rare and the population was under-represented in the legislature--calls for reform continued for decades. The eastern conservative elite held off reform as long as they could, but in 1829 they were forced to accede to a convention.
The result of that convention was a state constitution which, unlike so many other state constitutions of the same era, did not fully establish the white male Herrenvolk democracy that was a hallmark of the Jacksonian era soon to come. The conservatives were able to stave off all but the most superficial of compromises and maintain the imbalance of power in favor of the older, slave-holding East.
Yet, this was not the end of the story. Shade argues that the economy of Jacksonian and antebellum Virginia was much healthier and more dynamic than later "old South" mythologizing allowed for; the economy grew along with demands for increased responsiveness from elected officials, who responded in kind.
The two new parties both became well-established, with regular party apparatus such as newspapers, committees, networks of influential supporters, and politicians committed to advancing the policies and priorities of their respective party. Much divided Democrats from Whigs, but the issue of slavery wasn't a fault line for much of this period.
Neither was geography, for while each party had areas of strength both had a presence in their opponent's strongholds. And while the Democrats were the majority party statewide, their advantage was never overwhelming. The Whigs could only occasionally gain control of the state government but they could never be completely shut out of power, either.
It was the east versus west division which ultimately broke the system; the issue over secession versus Union turned the white-majority, non-slaveholding West against the East during the second and final vote on secession in April of 1861. The Second Two Party System died, and with its demise was lost an alternate story of Virginia during the antebellum era which later generations of state leaders aggressively sought to obscure. Shade's account was one of many which forced a reconsideration of the "declining Old Dominion" thesis which dominated for so long.
Sunday, May 27, 2018
The Political Culture of the American Whigs
Daniel Walker Howe. The Political Culture of the American Whigs. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979.
Howe's study was a landmark in restoring the reputation of the American Whig Party; a project which in retrospect seems to have been long overdue. This is an intellectual history of a political party which several generations of historians had dismissed as being without intellectual substance. It was therefore both an examination of political culture as well as a restoration project.
Because this is a book concerned with abstract concepts and often unstated assumptions, it might have become bogged down in purely theoretical language, but Howe solved that problem by framing his themes in short biographies. As he puts it, "One of the postulates of this book is that social tensions mirror individual tensions. By examining the lives of individual Whigs, we can locate problems that the party as a whole confronted." Using the careers of notable Whigs such as Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Alexander Stephens, and others not only adds a narrative element to what otherwise might have been a mass of supposition and abstracted inquiry, it also emphasizes the degree to which Whig ideology was a product of intellectual and cultural factors along with the economic and social indicators which traditionally defined Whigs in the popular and scholarly imagination.
Howe's central argument is that the Whigs had a coherent and rational ideology which was grounded in a defense of a particular understanding of the relationship between society and the market economy. That balance became untenable by the 1850's, not only due to rising sectional tensions over slavery, but because the growth of the market economy and the industrial revolution undermined the authority and legitimacy of an older, paternal approach to entrepreneurial capitalism.
Howe's study was a landmark in restoring the reputation of the American Whig Party; a project which in retrospect seems to have been long overdue. This is an intellectual history of a political party which several generations of historians had dismissed as being without intellectual substance. It was therefore both an examination of political culture as well as a restoration project.
Because this is a book concerned with abstract concepts and often unstated assumptions, it might have become bogged down in purely theoretical language, but Howe solved that problem by framing his themes in short biographies. As he puts it, "One of the postulates of this book is that social tensions mirror individual tensions. By examining the lives of individual Whigs, we can locate problems that the party as a whole confronted." Using the careers of notable Whigs such as Henry Clay, John Quincy Adams, Alexander Stephens, and others not only adds a narrative element to what otherwise might have been a mass of supposition and abstracted inquiry, it also emphasizes the degree to which Whig ideology was a product of intellectual and cultural factors along with the economic and social indicators which traditionally defined Whigs in the popular and scholarly imagination.
Howe's central argument is that the Whigs had a coherent and rational ideology which was grounded in a defense of a particular understanding of the relationship between society and the market economy. That balance became untenable by the 1850's, not only due to rising sectional tensions over slavery, but because the growth of the market economy and the industrial revolution undermined the authority and legitimacy of an older, paternal approach to entrepreneurial capitalism.
Saturday, May 26, 2018
1877: America's Year of Living Violently
Michael A. Bellisiles. 1877: America's Year of Living Violently. New York: The New Press, 2010.
Ten years after the publication of his controversial Arming America, Michael A. Bellesiles returned to the public eye with a much less contentious account of what most historians would agree was indeed an exceptionally violent and unsettled year in American history. Eight years after its appearance, none of the controversy over sources and integrity which rightly plagued the reputation of his previous book have arisen. This is a solid, well-supported account of a very bad time in American history.
The book is organized thematically, framed by brief vignettes from the beginning and end of the year. Each chapter covers a particular issue or event--the aftermath of the contested 1876 Presidential election, which led to increased sectional and partisan tensions which many thought would lead to another civil war; the violent re-imposition of white supremacy in the former Confederacy; military actions against Western Indian tribes and Mexican-American citizens; the violent suppression of the labor movement and Women's suffrage; and the increase in homicide and the prevalence of guns in the civilian population.
Bellesiles, doesn't cover much new ground, but he does tie together many different events through extensive research of contemporary newspaper coverage, creating a convincing picture of an overarching national conversation about--and anxiety over--violence overtaking the nation and society. Each chapter is a well-written summary of an important facet of the story, but the book gathers its strength from the overall effect of a year which most Americans were happy to see the end of, but which also shaped much of the social, legal, political, and economic inequalities which marked the next several decades of American history.
Ten years after the publication of his controversial Arming America, Michael A. Bellesiles returned to the public eye with a much less contentious account of what most historians would agree was indeed an exceptionally violent and unsettled year in American history. Eight years after its appearance, none of the controversy over sources and integrity which rightly plagued the reputation of his previous book have arisen. This is a solid, well-supported account of a very bad time in American history.
The book is organized thematically, framed by brief vignettes from the beginning and end of the year. Each chapter covers a particular issue or event--the aftermath of the contested 1876 Presidential election, which led to increased sectional and partisan tensions which many thought would lead to another civil war; the violent re-imposition of white supremacy in the former Confederacy; military actions against Western Indian tribes and Mexican-American citizens; the violent suppression of the labor movement and Women's suffrage; and the increase in homicide and the prevalence of guns in the civilian population.
Bellesiles, doesn't cover much new ground, but he does tie together many different events through extensive research of contemporary newspaper coverage, creating a convincing picture of an overarching national conversation about--and anxiety over--violence overtaking the nation and society. Each chapter is a well-written summary of an important facet of the story, but the book gathers its strength from the overall effect of a year which most Americans were happy to see the end of, but which also shaped much of the social, legal, political, and economic inequalities which marked the next several decades of American history.
Saturday, February 3, 2018
Chants Democratic
Sean Wilentz. Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the Working Class, 1788-1850. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984, 2004.
The American Republic of 1788 was not, in Wilentz's telling, a class-conscious society. The "Artisan Republic" which had taken form by the rise of Jeffersonian Republicanism was predicated on a unity of purpose and interest among a stable, self-regulating artisan class in which there was a harmony of interest between apprentice, journeyman, and master. By the end of the Civil War, the United States had a large, growing, and self-aware working class with decades of activism, cultural and social development, and independent institutional history to draw on. The complicated road from the "Artisan Republic" to working class consciousness played out across the country, but Wilentz argues that in the metropolitan venue of New York City, it did so in particularly acute and influential ways.
This is a roughly chronological account, focused on class formation and working class politics--politics being defined in the broadest sense. It is also over three decades old and certainly there is subsequent research which would complicate the narrative, but it is also a richly detailed and heavily sourced study of its kind. The core of this sprawling saga is the complicated ways in which republican language was used, referred to, and re-imagined to interpret and defend changes and innovations in nascent working-class organization and self-conception. Language of mutuality and republican disinterest was held onto and stretched to--and past--the breaking point. It was a long, convoluted struggle to get from one end of this conceptual journey to the other, and for much longer than might seem reasonable both workers and "capitalists" maintained fidelity to the notion of artisan republicanism. Capitalism, entrepreneurial innovation, and the rise of wage labor at the expense of the apprentice/master relationship eroded the foundations of those older notions, but the language and conceptual frames lingered.
The American Republic of 1788 was not, in Wilentz's telling, a class-conscious society. The "Artisan Republic" which had taken form by the rise of Jeffersonian Republicanism was predicated on a unity of purpose and interest among a stable, self-regulating artisan class in which there was a harmony of interest between apprentice, journeyman, and master. By the end of the Civil War, the United States had a large, growing, and self-aware working class with decades of activism, cultural and social development, and independent institutional history to draw on. The complicated road from the "Artisan Republic" to working class consciousness played out across the country, but Wilentz argues that in the metropolitan venue of New York City, it did so in particularly acute and influential ways.
This is a roughly chronological account, focused on class formation and working class politics--politics being defined in the broadest sense. It is also over three decades old and certainly there is subsequent research which would complicate the narrative, but it is also a richly detailed and heavily sourced study of its kind. The core of this sprawling saga is the complicated ways in which republican language was used, referred to, and re-imagined to interpret and defend changes and innovations in nascent working-class organization and self-conception. Language of mutuality and republican disinterest was held onto and stretched to--and past--the breaking point. It was a long, convoluted struggle to get from one end of this conceptual journey to the other, and for much longer than might seem reasonable both workers and "capitalists" maintained fidelity to the notion of artisan republicanism. Capitalism, entrepreneurial innovation, and the rise of wage labor at the expense of the apprentice/master relationship eroded the foundations of those older notions, but the language and conceptual frames lingered.
Friday, January 26, 2018
Schnitzler's Century
Peter Gay. Schnitzler's Century: The Making of Middle-Class Culture 1815-1914. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002.
This history of the Victorian bourgeoisie is framed by the life and writings (both published and private journals) of Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler. Gay acknowledges that Schnitzler was anything but a typical middle-class man in many ways. However, his peculiarities were those of his time, he grappled with and commented on the cultural and social anxieties of his age, and while he was certainly exceptional he was also very much a man of his time and class. He is a larger presence earlier in the book than in later chapters, but by that point he will have served his purpose as a guide.
Class, more than chronology, shapes this study. The Victorian bourgeoisie certainly varied across time and space (although centered in Europe, the United States is included in this study) but Gay is interested in common attributes and broader themes. The book is organized thematically, and works from the outside in--beginning with a look at the class as a whole in the wider world, and ending with an extended examination of the interior life, ending with a chapter devoted to the very Victorian notion of privacy and a private life.
Beyond this broad survey (made up of discrete thematic parts) this book does have a larger argument--historians and critics then and now have been far too harsh to the Victorian middle class. They were, in Gay's account, much less hypocritical, petty and middle-brow than their reputation. They were, he argues, much more responsible for the best of their era--the reform movements, artistic and cultural innovations, increase in democracy, and regard for the life of the mind--than they have been given credit. Sober and temperate, they may not have been romantic revolutionaries but neither were they smug, provincial vulgarians. Schnitzler had many faults as a young man (snobbishness and relentless womanizing) but in the end he put the best of himself in his art and seemed to grow as a person as he aged and "settled down." His trajectory, and his life, were not a terrible analogy for the best of the middling class who were responsible for much of the best of the Victorian age.
This history of the Victorian bourgeoisie is framed by the life and writings (both published and private journals) of Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler. Gay acknowledges that Schnitzler was anything but a typical middle-class man in many ways. However, his peculiarities were those of his time, he grappled with and commented on the cultural and social anxieties of his age, and while he was certainly exceptional he was also very much a man of his time and class. He is a larger presence earlier in the book than in later chapters, but by that point he will have served his purpose as a guide.
Class, more than chronology, shapes this study. The Victorian bourgeoisie certainly varied across time and space (although centered in Europe, the United States is included in this study) but Gay is interested in common attributes and broader themes. The book is organized thematically, and works from the outside in--beginning with a look at the class as a whole in the wider world, and ending with an extended examination of the interior life, ending with a chapter devoted to the very Victorian notion of privacy and a private life.
Beyond this broad survey (made up of discrete thematic parts) this book does have a larger argument--historians and critics then and now have been far too harsh to the Victorian middle class. They were, in Gay's account, much less hypocritical, petty and middle-brow than their reputation. They were, he argues, much more responsible for the best of their era--the reform movements, artistic and cultural innovations, increase in democracy, and regard for the life of the mind--than they have been given credit. Sober and temperate, they may not have been romantic revolutionaries but neither were they smug, provincial vulgarians. Schnitzler had many faults as a young man (snobbishness and relentless womanizing) but in the end he put the best of himself in his art and seemed to grow as a person as he aged and "settled down." His trajectory, and his life, were not a terrible analogy for the best of the middling class who were responsible for much of the best of the Victorian age.
Tuesday, January 9, 2018
A House Dividing
John Majewski. A House Dividing: Economic Development in Pennsylvania and Virginia Before the Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2000
In order to examine the role that slavery played in retarding the economic development in the antebellum South, Majewski has written a work of comparative history contrasting Albemarle County, Virginia, and Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Both counties were somewhat inland but directly connected to the Atlantic economy, and both were settled in the colonial era. Furthermore, Virginia and Pennsylvania shared certain characteristics that the latter wouldn't share with a Deep South state--they were both former colonies, and both had a trans-Allegheny hinterland which proved a challenge for early transportation improvements to surmount. In fact, Pennsylvania's efforts were expensive and not always successful in that endeavor, and Virginia's were complete failures.
Both states utilized "developmental corporations", with both private and public (State) financing, to build turnpikes and canals originally. However, issues with canals--which were much more expensive than turnpikes per mile--put a high strain on local financing. Getting statewide political support for transportation initiatives which would favor one county, town, or region over another proved very difficult. In the end, Pennsylvania was able to get the Mainline Canal (which also included rail sections) built largely because of the critical mass of interested investment capital in Philadelphia and also Pittsburgh.
Virginia, on the other hand, did not have any cities anywhere near as big in absolute or relative (to the rest of the state population) as Philadelphia. While Majewski cites geography as part of the reason, he argues that slavery was the root cause. The plantation economy encouraged low population density growth, and the minimal processing needs of the tobacco industry discouraged the development of central places and towns. Rather than a Boston or a Philadelphia or a New York City--or even a Charleston, SC or New Orleans--Virgina had several relatively small urban centers along the fall line from north to south, none of which had as diverse a manufacturing economy as Philadelphia did.
Every step of the way, Virginia's structural weaknesses compounded the issue, as a lack of development led to lagging growth, which could not fund further needed development, and so on. Majewski makes a strong case but further examination into the developmental possibilities and limitations of slave labor would strengthen his argument.
In order to examine the role that slavery played in retarding the economic development in the antebellum South, Majewski has written a work of comparative history contrasting Albemarle County, Virginia, and Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. Both counties were somewhat inland but directly connected to the Atlantic economy, and both were settled in the colonial era. Furthermore, Virginia and Pennsylvania shared certain characteristics that the latter wouldn't share with a Deep South state--they were both former colonies, and both had a trans-Allegheny hinterland which proved a challenge for early transportation improvements to surmount. In fact, Pennsylvania's efforts were expensive and not always successful in that endeavor, and Virginia's were complete failures.
Both states utilized "developmental corporations", with both private and public (State) financing, to build turnpikes and canals originally. However, issues with canals--which were much more expensive than turnpikes per mile--put a high strain on local financing. Getting statewide political support for transportation initiatives which would favor one county, town, or region over another proved very difficult. In the end, Pennsylvania was able to get the Mainline Canal (which also included rail sections) built largely because of the critical mass of interested investment capital in Philadelphia and also Pittsburgh.
Virginia, on the other hand, did not have any cities anywhere near as big in absolute or relative (to the rest of the state population) as Philadelphia. While Majewski cites geography as part of the reason, he argues that slavery was the root cause. The plantation economy encouraged low population density growth, and the minimal processing needs of the tobacco industry discouraged the development of central places and towns. Rather than a Boston or a Philadelphia or a New York City--or even a Charleston, SC or New Orleans--Virgina had several relatively small urban centers along the fall line from north to south, none of which had as diverse a manufacturing economy as Philadelphia did.
Every step of the way, Virginia's structural weaknesses compounded the issue, as a lack of development led to lagging growth, which could not fund further needed development, and so on. Majewski makes a strong case but further examination into the developmental possibilities and limitations of slave labor would strengthen his argument.
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