Chapter 9: Democracy in America

Democracy in the Early Republic

• A wide variety of people participated in early US politics, but ordinary citizens’ direct influence on the government frightened the founding elites
  • Too much participation by the people would “undermine good order” and prevent the creation of a secure and united republican society

The Missouri Crisis

• During the 19th century, American politics shifted toward “sectional” conflict among the states of the North, South, and West
  • Northern states believed that the Southern states (specifically Virginia) had too much influence over politics and that their common interest in protecting slavery was creating a congressional voting bloc that would be difficult for “free states” to overcome
  • The North and the South began to clash over federal policy related to slavery

The Missouri Crisis:

• When white settlers in Missouri applied for statehood, the balance of power between the North and the South dominated the conversation

  • It had been poised to join the southern slave states in Congress
  • The North wanted to maintain the sectional balance of power

• Congressman James Tallmadge (NY) proposed that Congress should admit Missouri as a state only if bringing more enslaved people to Missouri was prohibited and children born to those enslaved there were freed at the age of twenty-five

• Eventually, the two sides came to an agreement

  • The Missouri Compromise contained three parts:
  1. Congress would admit Missouri as a slave state
  2. Congress would admit Maine as a free state (to maintain the balance of free and slave states),
  3. The rest of the Louisiana Purchase territory would be divided along the southern border of Missouri, with slavery prohibited in states north of the line but permitted in states south of the line

The Rise of Andrew Jackson

• The career of Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), the survivor of that backcountry Kentucky duel in 1806, exemplified both the opportunities and the dangers of political life in the early republic
  • A lawyer, enslaver, and general
• In 1828, Jackson’s broad appeal as a military hero won him the presidency
  • He would claim to represent the interests of ordinary white Americans, especially from the South and West, against the country’s wealthy and powerful elite
  • This attitude would lead him and his allies into a series of bitter political struggles

The Nullification Crisis

• One of the key issues dividing Americans during Jackson’s presidency was a sectional dispute over national tax policy that would come to define Jackson’s no-holds-barred approach to government
  • Most southerners had expected him to do away with the hated Tariff of 1828, the so-called Tariff of Abominations
  • Forced them to purchase from the North’s manufacturers at higher prices and it provoked European countries to retaliate with high tariffs of their own, reducing foreign purchases of the South’s raw materials
• When Jackson did not get rid of the tariff the idea of nullification was introduced
  • It was argued that since the states had created the Union, they were still sovereign, so a state could nullify a federal statute it considered unconstitutional and leave the Union if necessary
• Jackson responded dramatically by denouncing nullification and declaring it to be treason

The Eaton Affair and the Politics of Sexuality

• A few months earlier, Senator John Henry Eaton (TN), a friend of Jackson, had married Margaret O’Neale Timberlake, the recent widow of a navy officer
  • During her first marriage, rumors had circulated that she and John Eaton were having an affair while her husband was at sea
  • When John Eaton became secretary of war, the other cabinet members’ wives refused to have anything to do with his wife
• Although women could not vote or hold office, they played an important role in politics as people who controlled influence
  • Margaret Eaton’s social exclusion thus greatly affected Jackson, his cabinet, and the rest of Washington's society
• In one of the most famous presidential meetings in American history, Jackson called together his cabinet members to discuss what they saw as the bedrock of society: women’s position as protectors of the nation’s values
  • The men of the cabinet debated Margaret Eaton’s character, with Jackson delivering a long defense, methodically presenting evidence against her attackers
  • But the men attending the meeting—and their wives—were not swayed, continuing to shun Margaret Eaton
  • The scandal was resolved only with the resignation of four members of the cabinet, including Eaton’s husband

The Bank War

• Andrew Jackson’s first term was full of controversy, with most of his struggles relating to finances
  • He waged a “war” against the Bank of America
• The Bank War was a political struggle that developed over the issue of rechartering the Second Bank
  • This resulted in the shutdown of the Bank and its replacement by state banks

The Panic of 1837

• By late fall in 1836, America’s economic bubbles began to burst
  • The Panic of 1837 led to a general economic depression
  • Normal banking activity did not resume around the nation until late 1842
• During this downturn, eight states and a territorial government defaulted on loans made by British banks to finance internal improvements

The Rise of the Whigs

• The disaster of the Panic of 1837 created an opportunity for the Whig Party, which had grown partly out of the political coalition of John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay and opposed Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party
• However, unable to agree on a consistent national position on slavery, and unable to find another national issue to rally around, the Whigs broke apart by 1856

Anti-Masons, Anti-Immigrants, and the Whig Coalition

• The Whig coalition drew strength from several earlier parties, including two that harnessed American political paranoia
  • The Anti-Masonic Party formed in the 1820s for the purpose of destroying the Freemasons
  • Freemasonry, an international network of social clubs with arcane traditions and rituals, seems to have originated in medieval Europe as a trade organization for stonemasons
    • An important part of men’s social lives
  • Later, anti-immigrant sentiment formed the American Party, also called the Know-Nothings
  • Nativists watched with horror as more and more Catholic immigrants arrived in America, fearing they would bring religious violence to the US

Race and Jacksonian Democracy

• More than anything else, however, it was racial inequality that exposed American democracy’s limits
• During the 1830s, the social tensions that had promoted Andrew Jackson’s rise also worsened race relations
  • Racial and ethnic resentment thus contributed to a wave of riots in American cities during the 1830s

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