The Elusive Republic

Drew R. McCoy. The Elusive Republic: Political Economy in Jeffersonian America.
University of North Carolina Press, 1980.

One aspect of 18th and 19th century America which is somewhat foreign to modern readers is the concept of "political economy". The idea that politics and economics are two distinct spheres of activity and expertise is so deeply embedded in modern discourse, and so near-universally accepted at face value, it takes a bit of a conceptual leap for 21st century readers to appreciate that for early Americans, the distinction between the two simply didn't exist.

One important condition which dictated the earlier understanding of a political economy was the ideology of Republicanism and the demands it placed on citizens and office holders. The Republican ideology was concerned with the overall development of society, not merely the legal and constitutional order. In order to reconstruct that mentality, McCoy begins with a discussion of the concepts of social decay and corruptions, which obsessed Enlightenment-era thinkers and statesmen. These notions were bound up in natural science as understood at the time, and posited a natural life-cycle for nations and societies. So much of the Republican ideology was based on the desire to avoid corruption and also to delay the "aging" of a society towards old age and decadence.

Therefore, corruption wasn't only caused by bad actors or abuse of power; it was also the result of an unbalanced economy which failed to provide a rough equality for all citizens; an equality which, it was generally accepted, was best provided through widespread land ownership by independent farmers practicing self-sufficiency, home manufacture of necessities, and only a very limited involvement in the market for manufactured goods which were not "luxuries" as defined at the time.

The commercial revolution which early America experienced (along with the British) therefore challenged Republican notions, as it provided numerous opportunities for ordinary citizens to be tempted to engage in "corrupting" economic practices, even as it created the conditions for an increase in speculative business and a more diversified economy.

Throughout the Federalist years, the Jeffersonians perceived threats to the Republic from the Hamiltonian agenda, but once the election of 1800 gave them control over the national government, their own beliefs were constantly challenged by the ways in which the global economy refused to behave in ways republican theory said they should. Most notably, American independence did not translate to fully free trade for American exports, which hurt the US economy but also threatened to create an agricultural surplus which would deprive farmers of the necessary incentive for continued labor and diligence. Or, worse, would create the conditions favorable for large-scale manufacturing and the wage-earning poor who provided the labor for that.

Over the years, through the Madison administration and beyond, the Jeffersonian vision changed to adopt to new situations. Thomas Jefferson himself never moved beyond his agrarian ideal more than absolutely necessary (as he understood it); more problematic was his refusal to reckon with slavery and its cost to his republican ideal. James Madison, on the other hand, was able to consider different ways in which society would need to adjust in order to maintain republican principles even as changing conditions, the inevitable peopling of the vast but finite lands to the west, and the equally inevitable growth of the manufacturing sector, all worked in tandem to change the world in ways that the republicans of the Revolutionary era had considered crucial and necessary.

William Cooper's Town

Alan Taylor. William Cooper's Town: Power and Persuasion on the Frontier of the Early American Republic. Vintage Books, 1995.

Before it became the home of the Baseball Hall of Fame, before it became known as the place where Abner Doubleday almost certainly did not invent baseball itself, Cooperstown, NY was known as the place James Fenimore Cooper immortalized in some of his novels; most notably in his early work The Pioneers. Best known now for introducing the seminal American character of Natty Bumppo, the novel was originally something of a wish-fulfillment reclamation of a lost patrimony by the son of the town's founder and namesake--William Cooper.

William Cooper was a man who worked his way up from a humble beginning as a wheelwright in late colonial society towards being a landlord of means in the new Republic. He did so through measures which were often bold, occasionally reckless, and all too often at odds with the wishes and best interests of his patrons--members of the old elite whom Cooper wanted to impress and eventually count himself among. Cooper proved quite adept--and very lucky--at taking advantage of the disruptions to established social and economic norms in the wake of the upheaval of the Revolution. Soon, he found himself in possession of thousands of acres of upstate New York land, and the status as landlord and patron to a new community.

Cooper never attained the gentility to go with his wealth that he desired, but neither did he embrace the politics of Republicanism that his humble origins and his own life story might have naturally inclined him towards. Rather, Cooper became a staunch Federalist and never wavered from this affiliation, even in the wake of the decline of Federalism in the years after Jefferson's election as President, as Republicans took power at all levels of state government in New York.

His downfall would come not only from the decline of Federalism but from ongoing economic and demographic changes which both challenged his control of his original holdings in the Cooperstown area, and overwhelmed his ability to maintain payments on his ever-growing debts. Cooper, dazzled by his own early success, sought to replicate it elsewhere in New York, to no avail. He over-extended himself, and tangled his estate even further into a web of debts, dubious property claims, and conflicting obligations.

He never resolved those issues, but rather passed them on in a will that was more generous and lucrative towards his heirs on paper than it was in reality. The Cooper children soon discovered that their inheritance was mortgaged to the hilt, and over the next decade and a half (roughly) creditors took it all away. Neither Cooper nor most of his offspring lived to see the final decimation of his once-impressive holdings, but his youngest son James did.

James Cooper (he added the "Fenimore" in his 30's not long before embarking on his wildly successful writing career--the only profession he ever succeeded at) sought to recast the history of his father and his hometown in ways which both restored the family fortune but also restored the ideal of social harmony and deference to betters which both he and his father believed in, despite the relentless tide of democratic leveling the country was going through. Read that way, The Pioneers is an idealized history of the early American republic which pointed the way towards a peaceful, stable, harmonious future which only existed in the dreams of Federalists like William Cooper and in the bestselling books written by his son.

Literary Federalism in the Age of Jefferson

William C. Dowling. Literary Federalism in the Age of Jefferson: Joseph Dennie and The Port Folio, 1801-1811. University of South Carolina Press, 1999.

This is a work of literary study rather than history; it is still an interesting investigation of Federalism as an intellectual movement, grounded in classical republicanism and the American experience.

According to Dowling, the magazine The Port Folio, under the editorship of Joseph Dennie (who died at the age of 44 in 1811) began as a mouthpiece for vigorous Federalist opposition to the rise of Jeffersonian Republicanism (or "American jacobinism") but eventually Dennie came to the conclusion that the rise of the demos (the people) driving Jefferson's triumph would be permanent and irreversible. Therefore, Federalism retreated from being a primarily political and public stance to being a literary mode of thought, one for those who chose to retreat into a transatlantic "republic of letters" in implicit rejection of the vulgar, market-oriented democratic culture which was now in power. This pose of studied resistance and studious withdrawal became the pose of a particular and important strain in American literature, passed along first through Washington Irving and then Thoreau, Melville, and finally culminating in Henry James and Santayana.

This is a short study which approaches the fate of Federalism in a novel way, as according to Dowling, Dennie and others were already resigned to the perpetual marginalization of Federalism even before the War of 1812 and the aftermath of the Hartford Convention.

Tom Paine's America

Seth Cotlar. Tom Paine's America: The Rise and Fall of Radicalism in the Early Republic.
Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 2011.

Cotlar’s provocatively titled book begins with a moving, and slightly pathetic, account of Tom Paine’s less-than-triumphant return to the United States, in 1802. The former bard of Democracy and Revolution was reduced to hoofing it from tavern to tavern in Baltimore looking for one which would provide lodging to a man now widely reviled as an atheist and a “Jacobin.” The contrast between this ignominious episode, and the reference to “Tom Paine’s America” in the title is striking. Thomas Paine found Americans in the early 1800s to be largely either hostile or indifferent to his return and his person, a situation which—as the Epilogue makes clear—would largely continue to this death, and beyond. So what, exactly, was the “America” which Cotlar claims was his, and what happened to it?

The intervening five chapters illuminate the rise and fall of that now largely forgotten America; one which embraced a trans-Atlantic, radical democracy as its ultimate goal. The ‘Paineites’ in Cotlar’s narrative held a view of democracy which was more expansive, all-encompassing, and radical than the purely suffrage-based model we are more familiar with. They considered themselves part of a larger democratic movement, one which took inspiration from other countries as well as crediting Americans for doing the same; devotees of Paine’s teachings saw democratic revolution as a truly universal phenomenon, one which was defined neither by American exceptionalism, nor by a limitation to what is now considered the “political” sphere.

Indeed, the very notion of what was “political” was contested in the early years of the republic, just as what “democracy” meant was. In both cases, the Paineites advocated a broader conception of those concepts; in both cases, their interpretations—which were influential and important during the Revolutionary era—would eventually be discredited by a new, more moderate consensus.

But Paineites did not give up without a fight; for some time after Tom Paine himself left America for France, his followers continued to advocate his ideals; one of Cotlar’s arguments is that Paineites existed in a much more intense and active dialogue with—and understanding of—liberal democratic activism in Europe. It was easy for them to tie their own cause, whether it took shape in nascent working-class activism or in the many Democratic-Republican Societies, to the fate of similar groups espousing similar goals in Great Britain and France. And for a while, this position was both popular and broadly acceptable to many Americans. So while there was always a conservative opposition to Paineite ideology, conservatives such as John Adams felt obligated either to criticize radical democrats obliquely, or in private.

That would change, however; the rise of Jacobin violence in France, and the supposed influence of the Democratic-Republican Societies on the Whiskey Rebellion, began to put Paineites on the defensive. More and more, they were forced to explain their support for movements which seemed to threaten good government, the new Constitution, and social harmony.

The Painites would continue to have a place in the anti-Federalist opposition for some time, but ironically it was the victory of Jefferson and the Republicans in 1800 which sounded the death knell for Paine’s followers as a vital and formidable political force. Jefferson and his followers quickly disassociated themselves from the radical democrats—now routinely disparaged by “respectable” Republicans as well as Federalists as ‘Jacobins’—who had helped them gain power; the Federalist establishment returned the favor by acknowledging that Jefferson and his Republican coalition were much more respectable than the Jacobin rabble. Property was safe, as was respectable political leadership by sober, respectable men. Questions about leveling, ending slavery, and so forth could be safely forgotten. In the end, America was able to avoid the trauma of the French Revolution by taming and restricting the scope of what “democracy” meant and how far it should go.

Paine himself died a nearly forgotten man, spending his days with a tiny, dwindling band of like-minded artisan deists and radicals, all of whom would strive to keep the flame of radical democracy flickering for future generations to rediscover.

A Revolution in Favor of Government

Max M. Edling. A Revolution in Favor of Government: Origins of he U.S. Constitution and the Making of the American State. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Max Edling examines the ratification debate over the Constitution through the lens of a broader consideration of Federalist literature than most previous studies and scholars had offered. The result isn't just a more complete understanding of Federalist arguments for ratification, but a reconsideration of the larger program and ideology Federalists, in general, advocated for.

Edling argues that orthodox studies of the Federalist position on ratification and the Constitution have been skewed by too heavy an emphasis on the Federalist Papers in general, and the writings of James Madison especially. The Madisonian interpretation is important in American political history, and has been very influential, but "[t]hanks to the publication of The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution, it is now possible to investigate the Federalist side of the debate more inclusively than has previously been the case." (7) In doing so, Edling concludes that the Madisonian argument, rather than either summarizing the main thrust of Federalist thought, or standing in the ideological center of it, was actually in many ways out of sync. While Madison was concerned primarily with structure--such matters as separation of powers, the roles of different branches, etc.--Edling argues that Federalists in general put much more emphasis not on the limits placed on government, but the powers given to it.

Those powers were not general or unspecified--they were the power to tax, and to wage war. The Federalists products of the late eighteenth-century world; a time which saw the rise of the "fiscal-military state" in Europe; according the Edling, the Federalists believed that the only way the new nation could guarantee its safety, prosperity, and continued sovereignty was to adopt the same tools which European powers relied on to create military, diplomatic, and economic power. And they had to do so within the context of a country with a deeply-rooted anti-statist tradition, as well as immature or unformed institutions.

One advantage of looking at Federalism through this interpretive lens is that the broader trends of Anti-Federalist thought actually appears more coherent and consistent than many standard interpretations allow. Edling makes a strong case that both sides were not arguing over "democracy" versus "aristocracy" or other abstract political dichotomies, but rather over the very concrete issues of whether or not the new government under the Constitution would have ultimate power over its citizens through the power to extract resources and commit men to armed conflict.

The bulk of the book considers those two issues--taxation, and a standing army--from both sides of the debate. A debate, Edling argues, which the Federalists wanted to be extensive and deliberate, in contrast to at least some interpretations which picture a well-organized Federalist minority pushing through a little-understand invention before the inchoate opposition could craft a systematic alternative.

Charles Fenton Mercer and the Trial of National Conservatism

Douglas R. Egerton. Charles Fenton Mercer and the Trial of National Conservatism. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1989.

This is the only full-length biography of 19th century Virginia politician Charles Fenton Mercer. Born in 1778, Mercer was a younger generation Federalist-turned-Whig who represented Loudoun County in the House of Delegates and then a northern Virginia district including Loudoun and surrounding counties in the US House of Representatives from 1817 through 1839. He was an important political figure at the time, and Egerton notes that he had an impressive legislative record given that he spent most of his career as a member of a minority party who was usually at odds with majority sentiment in his home state.

Egerton argues that Mercer was an exemplary Whig, perhaps truer to the core principles of the party than more famous figures such as Henry Clay. This was partly due to his ideological and political integrity, and partly to the fact that he represented a "safe" district and could afford to go against the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian majority. His understanding of what would become the American System was nuanced and refined--he saw internal improvements, central banking, a protective tariff, public education, and the colonization of free African-Americans not as disparate economic or reform agendas but as complementary aspects of a comprehensive system.

This system, Egerton argues, was fundamentally conservative. He argues that the modern reinterpretation of the Whigs as optimistic proto-liberals is deeply flawed, and he uses this study of the life and career of this deeply pessimistic, even fatalistic, man to make that argument. Largely, he succeeds--Mercer's statist conservatism accommodated democracy and the "common man" in rhetoric but not in substance. Egerton notes that Mercer's interest in education was as a form of social control of the lower classes--Mercer sensed the social changes that industrialization would bring, and he feared them. Likewise, African colonization of free blacks was not in any way an exercise in nascent abolitionism (no matter what Mercer's often vicious Southern critics often charged), but rather an attempt to rather crudely purge the black "lower class" from American society.

Mercer's political career is noteworthy in Virginia history for his role in the creation of the Fund for Internal Improvements and the Board of Public Works, and nationally for the creation of the American Colonization Society. He fought many losing battles, and seemingly died feeling himself a failure, but in this book Egerton largely succeeds in extracting a larger story about the way in which American conservatism survived the collapse of Federalism and adjusted to the democratic realities of the first half of the nineteenth century.