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.