Jacksonian Democracy: Race and Cultural Expressions

Introduction to Race in the Jacksonian Era

The previous class focused on the electoral rhetoric, ideology, and economic tensions of Jacksonian political democracy. This lecture shifts to examine the significant and widespread effects of this era on race and the experiences of people of color, extending to electoral politics.

Complexity and Nuance

Today's discussion involves significant nuance, complexity, paradox, and conceptual difficulty, inviting further discussion.

The Concept of "Whiteness"

"Whiteness" as a category of analysis has historical roots:

W. E. B. Du Bois: A leading black activist and intellectual, famously argued in his work on Reconstruction that white workers received a "public and psychological wage" from ideas of race and racism.
David Roediger: A prominent historian who expanded on this concept in the 1990s through historical scholarship on "whiteness."

Important Caveats on Race and Whiteness

Concepts of Race Were Not New: Racist ideas existed before the 1820s and 1830s. The political culture of Jacksonian democracy did not create them but made them more prominent, "concretized" (like cement solidifying), and central to the United States.
No "All Explanatory Power" or Consensus for Whiteness: While "whiteness" is a useful tool to understand racialization in the Jacksonian era, it was not a universally accepted or all-defining identity. People of color vociferously resisted it, and white Americans themselves had no consensus on pivotal issues like slavery, citizenship, or the inclusion/exclusion of non-white people. Alliances between white and black individuals, such as those leading to the Civil War, demonstrate this lack of monolithic identity.

Despite these caveats, the concept of "whiteness" played a crucial role, particularly for two key groups within the Jacksonian Democratic coalition: white workers and enslavers.

Whiteness Among White Workers

As the American economy shifted in the early nineteenth century from artisan independence to industrial, wage-based dependence, many white workers lost autonomy. Their response included defining themselves in opposition to people of color.

Economic Competition: The expansion of slavery in the South and growing free black populations in Northern urban centers led to increased job competition among workers.
Defining Labor: White workers sought to distinguish their labor from slavery and people of color by depicting black Americans as servile, degraded, and inferior.
Linguistic Shifts:
- The term "master" (common in artisan relationships) was replaced by "boss" to avoid sounding like enslavers.
- "Servant" was superseded by "hired hand" or "help."
"Psychological Wage of Whiteness": This provided a sense of superiority in the face of socioeconomic inequality and economic insecurity, allowing white workers to assert their identity and status as distinct from slavery.
Paradoxical Comparison: White workers often compared their conditions to slavery, sometimes arguing their "wage slavery" was worse than chattel slavery. Enslaved people and free people of color served as both a "foil" (contrast) and a "mirror" (comparison) for white workers.
Race-Based Hostility: This hostility became a key component of the alliance between many white laborers and the Jacksonian party, with claims to status relying on distinguishing themselves from African American laborers.
Important Nuance: Not all white workers subscribed to this. Some activism for economic equality in the 1820s and 1830s later translated into anti-slavery agitation by the 1850s, and some interracial alliances were formed.

Whiteness Among Enslavers

In the South, the spread of slavery and its increasing centrality solidified racial identity as essential for defining self among white Southerners, particularly enslavers.

Consumers of Enslaved People: White Southerners, particularly enslavers, saw themselves as "consumers of enslaved people." This was vividly described by Solomon Northup in his account of a market in enslaved people.
Identity Creation: Their hopes and self-definition were deeply intertwined with this marketplace of human beings. Their identity as free and white depended on the ownership and control of enslaved labor.
Harrowing Example: A Louisiana white couple, Edward and Lucy Stewart, debated in letters whether to purchase a young female or male as their first enslaved person, illustrating how their economic, social, and cultural identity was bound up in an enslaved black child.
Paradox of Identity: Enslavers asserted separation and superiority from black Southerners, claiming ownership of their bodies, even as their own freedom, wealth, and household order depended entirely on those same enslaved people. Their identity of "apartness" was drawn through relation, ownership, attempts at extraction, and everyday reliance.

Jacksonian Democracy and the Political Infrastructure of Racial Inequality

Jacksonian democratic rhetoric emphasized white men, forging a cross-regional, race-based identity of "whiteness" by elevating white men and denigrating non-white people. This made race and racism key ingredients in society, culture, and politics.

Racialization of Voting Rights

Expansion for Whites, Disfranchisement for Blacks: Between 1800 and 1830, voting rights expanded for a greater share of white men. Uncoincidentally, this was followed by the disfranchisement (taking away of rights) of free African American men in Northern states.
Examples of Disfranchisement: By 1838, states like New York, Maryland, Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania either outright took away black voting rights or imposed much higher property thresholds, practically disfranchising large segments of the black male population.
New States: Almost every state admitted to the union after 1819, North and South, blocked African Americans from having voting rights.
Shift in Inclusion: With property restrictions disappearing for white men, the line of inclusion for suffrage and political participation explicitly shifted from class to race. Race became the primary determinant.
Paradoxical Use by Activists: Black activists and their white allies simultaneously drew on the broad Jacksonian democratic political culture of mass politics and participation to organize, agitate, and press for their own claims for equality, challenging the exclusivist racial basis of Jacksonian democracy.

The Gag Rule and Silencing Slavery in National Politics

To consolidate its coalition, the Democratic Party actively worked to keep the issue of slavery out of national politics.

Party Ideology: Grounded in states' rights and limited national government. Its coalition included Southern white enslavers and Northerners willing to keep slavery outside federal jurisdiction.
Anti-Slavery Petitions: By the early 1830s, a growing number of radical Northern anti-slavery voices (white and black activists) began sending anti-slavery petitions to Congress, particularly to ban the domestic slave trade or end slavery in Washington D.C., forcing the federal government to confront the issue.
Congressional Response (1836-1844): Congress was bombarded by these petitions. While they could not refuse the right to petition (First Amendment), they adopted a strategy of receiving and then "tabling" (putting away) the petitions without discussion.
The "Gag Rule": Opponents called this the "gag rule," a metaphor for silencing anti-slavery voices. This reinforced the cross-regional, states' rights Jacksonian democratic political coalition, which worked to protect enslaver interests.
Preservation of the Union: For Jacksonian Democrats, the preservation of the Union was based on protecting slavery due to its divisive nature. Andrew Jackson himself referred to the nation's strength and stability depending on "the maintenance of the good faith of those compromises of the constitution" upon which the union was founded (referring to slavery).
Martin Van Buren's Support: Jackson's chief political ally, Martin Van Buren, echoed this, arguing the necessity of tabling anti-slavery petitions.
Connection to "Money Power": The Jacksonian ideology of a "money power" (corrupt elite manipulating politics) later influenced the anti-slavery movement's arguments against the "slave power" in the 1850s, an important element within national reform circles and the Northern electorate.

Ground-Level Racism and Discrimination

Championing enslaver interests and promoting "whiteness" was supported by growing popular prejudice and discrimination by white Northerners and Southerners toward Black Americans.

In the North

Hostility to Free Black Americans: Competition for jobs in wage labor led to hostility from many white Northerners, often in response to the successes of growing and prominent free black communities in cities.
Escalating Discrimination and Violence: The Market Revolution brought socioeconomic upheaval to the urban North, leading to free black people being scapegoated:
- Middle and Upper-Class Whites: Blamed free people of color for the growth of poverty and crime in cities (historically inaccurate).
- White Working Class: Feeling disempowered, they targeted black Americans as an outlet for frustration.
Racial Violence:
- Rhode Island (1824): A mob of hundreds of whites in Providence destroyed some 20 homes belonging to African Americans.
- Cincinnati (1829): 200 to 300 white people attacked African American areas, destroying over 1,000 homes.
Public Culture of Racism:
- Racist Cartoons: Increasingly common in public places (e.g., Philadelphia), these lashed out at the socioeconomic successes of free black communities, trying to block the idea of progress for black Americans.
- Reinforcing the Coalition: This public culture of racism among white Northerners was essential to the Jacksonian Democratic coalition, as racist voters were more likely to accept a cross-sectional coalition that deferred to enslaver interests.

In the South

Restricted Lives for Free Black Southerners: The spread of slavery, rise of cotton, and plantation agriculture had tragic results for enslaved people and negative effects for free black Southerners.
- Decreased Manumission: Manumission (the freedom of enslaved people) became less likely.
- Laws of Surveillance and Restriction: A series of laws surveilled black communities, restricting their mobility and occupations.
- Special Class: Free African Americans faced increasing laws that designated them as a "special class" with far greater restrictions than white Southerners, and even greater restrictions than free black Northerners.
Vulnerability of Freedom: As slavery became more lucrative, freedom itself became more vulnerable for all free black Americans, North and South, putting them at greater risk of being caught in the web of slavery.

Free Black Communities: Resilience and Resistance

Despite pervasive discrimination and violence, free black communities flourished, especially in the North.

Response to Successes: Much of the hostility and violence was a direct response to the successes of these communities.
Community Development: They created:
- Mutual aid societies
- Benevolent organizations
- Educational organizations
- Churches (e.g., a key free black church in Philadelphia in 1829)
Protesting Inequality: They actively protested inequality (as seen in the writings of Maria Stewart and Hosea Easton).
Alliances and Reform: They forged interracial alliances with white allies and organized politically to spirit reform movements.
Greater Rights in the North: Free black Northerners generally had greater (though often only theoretical) rights than free black Southerners (e.g., integrated schools and public conveyances were not always outlawed, creating a space for agitation and autonomy). In the South, dissent was far more perilous.

Conclusion

The rise and triumph of Jacksonian democracy undeniably coincided with a growing racialization of American society and politics. This manifested on both macro-political and social levels, and on the micro-level in the daily experiences of Black Americans. This era reflected and extended racial inequality, making race a central ingredient in the nation's fabric.