Andrew Burstein. America's Jubilee: How A Generation Remembered Fifty Years of Independence.
Alfred A. Knopf, 2001.
Burstein first follows the path taken by the Marquis de Lafayette during his extensive tour of the United States in 1824 and 1825. This famous trip found the aged French hero of the Revolution greeted by adoring crowds, former colleagues and soldiers who had served under him, visiting politicians and legislators, being feted and honored, and also being reunited with Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The meaning of this trip to Americans--a chance to see the last living general of the Revolution, and an opportunity to witness one of the last living links to that founding struggle on the eve of their nation's 50th year anniversary--would be amplified and reinforced in the months to come as the country prepared to celebrate its "Jubilee".
Burstein then "travels" around the United States of 1826 in a similar roving fashion, but does so mostly to examine the lives and reflections of a diverse group of Americans, some of whom were obscure in their own time, others--such as William Wirt--who were important people, names of consequence, in their own era but have since largely been forgotten.
The result is a book which is more episodic than deeply thematic, and which truly seems to be more a work of portraiture than deep analysis--but that is not a complaint. Burnstein's research takes him from New Orleans to Cincinnati to rural Massachusetts and into Canada. His selection of Americans is eclectic, and he has done excellent work bringing them alive and finding broader meaning and resonance in their disparate stories.
The way in which the narrative returns to the "famous" by finishing with the infamous passings of Jefferson and Adams on the very day of the Jubilee--and an extended consideration of the ways in which the two approached aging and their reconciliation--is effective. This book won't challenge any existing historical arguments, because it isn't really making one. But it brings a particular moment in American history alive, in a way which allows the reader to grasp the texture of life, the mental world of the second generation of Americans, with impressive clarity.
Showing posts with label Thomas Jefferson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thomas Jefferson. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 13, 2016
Saturday, September 10, 2016
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.
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.
Saturday, February 14, 2015
The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It
Richard Hofstadter The American Political Tradition and the Men Who Made It. New York: Vintage Books, 1989, 1973, 1948
Hofstadter's book is justly regarded as a classic, and nearly 70 years after its initial publication it remains a compelling and readable interpretation of American political culture. The twelve chapters each focus on a particular figure, except for the first chapter on the Founders (which serves to establish the basis for the political culture which Hofstadter believes has a certain continuity through American history) and Chapter 7, "The Spoilsmen: An Age of Cynicism" which focuses on the politics of the Gilded Age (it culminates in a somewhat damning but not unsympathetic portrait of Grover Cleveland).
This edition is a 1989 reprint of the 1973 edition, which includes a forward by Christopher Lasch. In it, Lasch addresses the characterization of this book as an example of the "consensus" school of historiography to task, by pointing out that Hofstadter was no conservative; that he came to his conclusions from a left-wing perspective and that his understanding of the American political tradition of one of consensus was hardly without implied criticism or fault.
Indeed, it is hard to see how Hofstadter could have been understood as someone celebrating this aspect of American political culture (to the degree which one accepts that his conclusions are valid) given the degree to which his portraits pull these mostly venerated figures down to earth. Even the most sympathetic portrait--that of Lincoln--is moderated with a closing touch of tragedy; Lincoln's belief in the myth of the "self-made man", Hofstadter argues, ultimately let him down--the pressures of being President during a time of war, death, and sacrifice was too high a price for a man of such keen moral sensitivity. The prize he worked towards was a bitter one, and it would kill him.
Perhaps the arguments over whether Hofstadter is "really" a consensus historian are now dated; perhaps his book is now best approached as an important development in American historiography than as a vital interpretation. But perhaps not--Hofstadter's reader-friendly prose can still find audiences today, and surely there are many young readers who are hungry to dig beneath the cynical and tired hagiography surrounding so much of America's political history without succumbing to cheap radicalism and glib revisionism. There is criticism here, but also humanity--Hofstadter pulls these "great men" back down to Earth, but he doesn't thrown them down into the mud. By stripping away myth, he allows the actual people to stand before us.
This edition is a 1989 reprint of the 1973 edition, which includes a forward by Christopher Lasch. In it, Lasch addresses the characterization of this book as an example of the "consensus" school of historiography to task, by pointing out that Hofstadter was no conservative; that he came to his conclusions from a left-wing perspective and that his understanding of the American political tradition of one of consensus was hardly without implied criticism or fault.
Indeed, it is hard to see how Hofstadter could have been understood as someone celebrating this aspect of American political culture (to the degree which one accepts that his conclusions are valid) given the degree to which his portraits pull these mostly venerated figures down to earth. Even the most sympathetic portrait--that of Lincoln--is moderated with a closing touch of tragedy; Lincoln's belief in the myth of the "self-made man", Hofstadter argues, ultimately let him down--the pressures of being President during a time of war, death, and sacrifice was too high a price for a man of such keen moral sensitivity. The prize he worked towards was a bitter one, and it would kill him.
Perhaps the arguments over whether Hofstadter is "really" a consensus historian are now dated; perhaps his book is now best approached as an important development in American historiography than as a vital interpretation. But perhaps not--Hofstadter's reader-friendly prose can still find audiences today, and surely there are many young readers who are hungry to dig beneath the cynical and tired hagiography surrounding so much of America's political history without succumbing to cheap radicalism and glib revisionism. There is criticism here, but also humanity--Hofstadter pulls these "great men" back down to Earth, but he doesn't thrown them down into the mud. By stripping away myth, he allows the actual people to stand before us.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Dominion of Memories
Susan Dunn. Dominion of Memories: Jefferson, Madison, & the Decline of Virginia. New York: Basic Books, 2007.
In this short and readable volume, Dunn recounts the sad, and largely self-inflicted, decline of Virginia in the first several decades of American independence. This decline was multifaceted--economic, political, cultural, and demographic.
The largest and most powerful of the thirteen colonies, Virginia and Virginians naturally assumed a leadership role early in the American Revolution, and it would not cede that status for several decades. One Virginian would lead the Continental Army, and another would write the Declaration of Independence. Later, yet another Virginian would lead the effort to craft a new Constitution, and George Washington would return to public service as the first President of the Country once that Constitution was ratified--thus beginning a near-lock on the leadership of the new country. Most students of American history are familiar with the "Virginia dynasty" which ruled the White House for 32 of the first 36 years under the new government--even as yet another Virginian was defining the previously-vague status of the Supreme Court.
That is all fairly well-known to any casual student of American history. What is somewhat less well-known, and much less edifying, is the subsequent decline of Virginia in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The land, particularly in the older eastern regions, became depleted from over-farming, excessive tobacco cultivation, and inefficient agricultural practices. The relative population declined as other states grew in population faster, and as more and more Virginians fled their unproductive farmlands for opportunities to the west and to the south. The economy faltered as the continued reliance on agriculture bypassed the growing commercial and industrial possibilities of the dynamic economy.
Virginia's political leadership exacerbated the situation at nearly every turn; choosing to resist making the sort of structural changes which would have encouraged entrepreneurial development, and resisting any active governmental support for infrastructure or education. Ultimately, a limited public-private system for supporting internal improvements was adopted, but it was far too meager and suspect to political interests to be effective. And the resistance to funding public schools kept Virginians far less educated and literate than the citizens of the more dynamic, growing northern and western states which were supplanting her once-dominant role in national affairs.
The subtext to much of this reactionary stubbornness was slavery, the defense of which (in the opinion of the eastern slave-holding elite, who held disproportionate power under the undemocratic state Constitution) merited constant sacrifice of state expenditures on measures which might facilitate the rise of a capable middle class which could challenge for suffrage and more. Not to mention an increasingly state's rights position regarding the Federal government.
Much of this backwardness was inflicted on the state and its people by the second generation of Virginia politicians; men like John Randolf of Roanoke and Abel Upshur. However, Dunn is more interested in how the ultimately self-defeating justifications of these reactionary theorists for trapping Virginia in a static deference to an imagined idyllic past were grounded in some--not all, but some--of the writings and arguments of two of the Old Dominion's finest Founders; Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Jefferson and Madison had their differences, even though they were allies for most of their public careers, but they shared a tendency to vacillate between being optimistic, forward-thinking nationalists, and pessimistic, backward-looking Virginia provincialism. The role the two men played in creating the Union that later states-rights politicians would try to destroy was often betrayed by their failure to reckon with the damaged and corrosive effects that their flirtations with nullification, limited government, and the protection of slavery would work on their beloved native state.
Dunn finishes the book with an epilogue bringing the story into contemporary times, arguing that it is not too late for Virginia--and America--to choose between the two conflicting visions Jefferson and Madison embodied and articulated.
In this short and readable volume, Dunn recounts the sad, and largely self-inflicted, decline of Virginia in the first several decades of American independence. This decline was multifaceted--economic, political, cultural, and demographic.
The largest and most powerful of the thirteen colonies, Virginia and Virginians naturally assumed a leadership role early in the American Revolution, and it would not cede that status for several decades. One Virginian would lead the Continental Army, and another would write the Declaration of Independence. Later, yet another Virginian would lead the effort to craft a new Constitution, and George Washington would return to public service as the first President of the Country once that Constitution was ratified--thus beginning a near-lock on the leadership of the new country. Most students of American history are familiar with the "Virginia dynasty" which ruled the White House for 32 of the first 36 years under the new government--even as yet another Virginian was defining the previously-vague status of the Supreme Court.
That is all fairly well-known to any casual student of American history. What is somewhat less well-known, and much less edifying, is the subsequent decline of Virginia in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The land, particularly in the older eastern regions, became depleted from over-farming, excessive tobacco cultivation, and inefficient agricultural practices. The relative population declined as other states grew in population faster, and as more and more Virginians fled their unproductive farmlands for opportunities to the west and to the south. The economy faltered as the continued reliance on agriculture bypassed the growing commercial and industrial possibilities of the dynamic economy.
Virginia's political leadership exacerbated the situation at nearly every turn; choosing to resist making the sort of structural changes which would have encouraged entrepreneurial development, and resisting any active governmental support for infrastructure or education. Ultimately, a limited public-private system for supporting internal improvements was adopted, but it was far too meager and suspect to political interests to be effective. And the resistance to funding public schools kept Virginians far less educated and literate than the citizens of the more dynamic, growing northern and western states which were supplanting her once-dominant role in national affairs.
The subtext to much of this reactionary stubbornness was slavery, the defense of which (in the opinion of the eastern slave-holding elite, who held disproportionate power under the undemocratic state Constitution) merited constant sacrifice of state expenditures on measures which might facilitate the rise of a capable middle class which could challenge for suffrage and more. Not to mention an increasingly state's rights position regarding the Federal government.
Much of this backwardness was inflicted on the state and its people by the second generation of Virginia politicians; men like John Randolf of Roanoke and Abel Upshur. However, Dunn is more interested in how the ultimately self-defeating justifications of these reactionary theorists for trapping Virginia in a static deference to an imagined idyllic past were grounded in some--not all, but some--of the writings and arguments of two of the Old Dominion's finest Founders; Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Jefferson and Madison had their differences, even though they were allies for most of their public careers, but they shared a tendency to vacillate between being optimistic, forward-thinking nationalists, and pessimistic, backward-looking Virginia provincialism. The role the two men played in creating the Union that later states-rights politicians would try to destroy was often betrayed by their failure to reckon with the damaged and corrosive effects that their flirtations with nullification, limited government, and the protection of slavery would work on their beloved native state.
Dunn finishes the book with an epilogue bringing the story into contemporary times, arguing that it is not too late for Virginia--and America--to choose between the two conflicting visions Jefferson and Madison embodied and articulated.
Saturday, March 1, 2014
Stumbling over Slavery on the way to the Yeoman's Republic
Roger G. Kennedy. Mr. Jefferson's Lost Cause: Land, Farmers, Slavery, and the Louisiana Purchase. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
In the appendix to this thought-provoking study, Roger Kennedy mentions that his original plan for the book would have mandated a much longer work; as it is this study seems longer than it is. Or perhaps I should say "denser"; the book is not a chore to read. Kennedy is an entertaining stylist, and the story he is telling is compelling and rewards attention. But he is trying to tell a seemingly familiar tale (the Louisiana Purchase and its roles in the spread of slavery in the first half of the nineteenth century) through a novel interpretive approach. Namely, the leading role Jefferson played in opening the new land to slavery by precluding the possibility of multi-racial yeoman farming.
This is also an environmental history, as Kennedy returns again and again to the damage that plantation slavery agriculture inflicted on the landscape of the American South. This is somewhat ironic given Jefferson's well-documented interest in the theory that working the land developed virtue--thus, his oft-quoted belief that the nation would be best served by spreading as a nation of independent small farmers.
The chapters are broken up into many very short, very specific thematic sections; this allows the text to gain thematic depth and richness, but while Kennedy is an able wordsmith sometimes the narrative it a little hard for the general reader to discern; Kennedy assumes a level of basic knowledge that not every reader might possess.
It would be very difficult to summarize this book briefly; there is simply a lot here to mull over. The ways in which Jefferson and Madison tacitly utilized filibustering and other quasi-national adventuring to extend American sovereignty into former Spanish possessions are just one example of how Kennedy manages to alter the perspective of how the Louisiana Purchase came about. This is a book any student of the era would benefit from studying.
Highly recommended.
In the appendix to this thought-provoking study, Roger Kennedy mentions that his original plan for the book would have mandated a much longer work; as it is this study seems longer than it is. Or perhaps I should say "denser"; the book is not a chore to read. Kennedy is an entertaining stylist, and the story he is telling is compelling and rewards attention. But he is trying to tell a seemingly familiar tale (the Louisiana Purchase and its roles in the spread of slavery in the first half of the nineteenth century) through a novel interpretive approach. Namely, the leading role Jefferson played in opening the new land to slavery by precluding the possibility of multi-racial yeoman farming.
This is also an environmental history, as Kennedy returns again and again to the damage that plantation slavery agriculture inflicted on the landscape of the American South. This is somewhat ironic given Jefferson's well-documented interest in the theory that working the land developed virtue--thus, his oft-quoted belief that the nation would be best served by spreading as a nation of independent small farmers.
The chapters are broken up into many very short, very specific thematic sections; this allows the text to gain thematic depth and richness, but while Kennedy is an able wordsmith sometimes the narrative it a little hard for the general reader to discern; Kennedy assumes a level of basic knowledge that not every reader might possess.
It would be very difficult to summarize this book briefly; there is simply a lot here to mull over. The ways in which Jefferson and Madison tacitly utilized filibustering and other quasi-national adventuring to extend American sovereignty into former Spanish possessions are just one example of how Kennedy manages to alter the perspective of how the Louisiana Purchase came about. This is a book any student of the era would benefit from studying.
Highly recommended.
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