The 1st Party System—1790s• Democrats: mainly in the south and middle

colonies, with certain desires, such as land (westward expansion), emphasis on agriculture and small manufactures, democratic rhetoric of equality that attracted ethnic minorities, white supremacy means all whites are equal

• Federalists: mainly in the urban north, elitist. commercially based, interested in foreign affairs if only for stability for trade, mostly English. Uninterested in westward expansion because they were not interested in increasing the power of the “Slaveocracy” in the south. Also tended to withhold suffrage from the poor. Very unpopular.

Expansion and Slavery

• Question on industry vs. agriculture would fuel party system

• Slavery was the key that connected a constellation of issues included manufacturing interests versus agricultural ones, states’ rights versus federal power, and even the very meaning of freedom

• Expansion was a key to nationalism but was ultimately also linked to slavery

• The balance between slave and free states was considered essential to avoiding conflict between regions and holding the US together.

• Anything upsetting that balance could be catastrophic because the Constitution had only stuck because it was seen as a compromise

Expansion means democracy• Vast majority of western emigrants were land-hungry and

poor• New territories immediately got rid of property qualifications

to attract settlers. Now, any white male could vote.• Eastern states followed suit to keep from losing their

populations. This meant universal white male suffrage• Democrats knew their power lay in the masses—farmers in

the south and workers in the North• Therefore, it became Democratic policy to push for

expansion and the creation of new states • The Democratic party was virtually the only party until 1840.

– However:• Northerners still tended to be against slavery’s expansion

into these new territories, though they did want new land. • Southerners pushed for expansion specifically to expand

slavery.

Northern Democrats tended to still push the old federalist economic policies, and proceeded to use the West for building northern trade.

That meant building roads, canals, and eventually railroads in order to furnish raw materials to the factories in the NE.

They also pushed for tariffs on imports/exports to help manufacturing, which was fought bitterly by southern interests.

Problem 1: The Missouri Compromise

Problem 2: Nullification

VP and SC senator John Calhoun

Pres. Andrew Jackson

The Nullification crisis• High protective tariffs on manufactured goods, designed to aid American manufacturing, had the effect of raising prices on goods purchased throughout the country, but especially in the South.

• Support for manufacturing interests was strong in the North, where the population had grown faster, but the South hated it, obviously.

• In 1828 Andrew Jackson's supporters proposed a very high tariff bill that would allow Jackson to look friendly to the North, while supposing the bill would never pass and thus hurt him with southerners

• But then the tariff did pass after all, in 1832.

Nullification doctrine• Southerners rallied behind SC Sen John C Calhoun who

claimed that states had no duty to obey federal laws that hurt local interests. The state declared the tariff null and void and prepared to resist militarily

• President Jackson then got a “Force Bill” passed through Congress allowing him authority to raise an Army.

• SC gave in, but had stated the doctrine of states’ rights--that the Federal government existed to protect the states, so the states, technically, came first.

Nullification--the point? “The nullification controversy is important because of its focus on the issue of states' rights. Most historians believe that behind South Carolina's nullification of the tariff was a deeper concern over the slavery question. The abolitionist movement was gathering steam, and there was fear throughout the South that somehow the federal government might move to abolish slavery. Nullification of the tariff then was seen by some as a test case as to whether or not nullification was viable. President Jackson's reaction and the support from Congress suggested that nullification could not be sustained.”

The (Re)Emergence of the Whigs

• Manufacturers and urban middle class reformers come together in 1830s as the Whig Party

• Promotion of tariffs, a national bank, public works projects to create transportation improvements—a strong central gov’t to enact reforms.

John L. O'Sullivan on Manifest Destiny, 1839

• Yes, we are the nation of progress, of individual freedom, of universal enfranchisement….We must onward to the fulfillment of our mission-freedom of conscience, freedom of person, freedom of trade and business pursuits, universality of freedom and equality. This is our high destiny, and in nature's eternal, inevitable decree of cause and effect we must accomplish it. All this will be our future history, to establish on earth the moral dignity and salvation of man -- the immutable truth and beneficence of God. For this blessed mission to the nations of the world, which are shut out from the life-giving light of truth, has America been chosen; and her high example shall smite unto death the tyranny of kings, hierarchs, and oligarchs, and carry the glad tidings of peace and good will where myriads now endure an existence scarcely more enviable than that of beasts of the field. Who, then, can doubt that our country is destined to be the great nation of futurity?

American Progress—John Gast, 1872

Albert Bierstadt,Yosemite Valley (c. 1863)

The Mexican-American War (1846-1848)

Why did Democrats (meaning: farmers, southerners, and urban workers, generally) support going to war with Mexico?

Why did the Whigs (meaning: industrialists and the urban middle class) tend to attack the war?

“Provided, That, as an express and fundamental condition to the acquisition of any territory from the Republic of Mexico by the United States, by virtue of any treaty which may be negotiated between them, and to the use by the Executive of the moneys herein appropriated, neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall ever exist in any part of said territory, except for crime, whereof the party shall first be duly convicted.”

--The Wilmot Proviso of 1846

The Wilmot Proviso

Wilmot was a Democrat, and a Northerner.

What’s going on?

Historian Leonard Richards writes of disaffected Northern Democrats:“Overall, then, Southern Democrats during the 1840s lost the hard core of their original support. No longer could they count on New England and New York Democrats to provide them with winning margins in the House. … To them [Free Soil Democrats] the movement to acquire Texas, and the fight over the Wilmot Proviso, marked the turning point, when aggressive slavemasters stole the heart and soul of the Democratic Party and began dictating the course of the nation’s destiny

Historian William Cooper presents the exactly opposite southern perspective:“Southern Democrats, for whom slavery had always been central, had little difficulty in perceiving exactly what the proviso meant for them and their party. In the first place the mere existence of the proviso meant the sectional strains that had plagued the Whigs on Texas now beset the Democrats on expansion, the issue the Democrats themselves had chosen as their own. The proviso also announced to southerners that they had to face the challenge of certain northern Democrats who indicated their unwillingness to follow any longer the southern lead on slavery…The southerners had always felt that their northern colleagues must toe the southern line on all slavery-related issues.

Allan Nevins sums up the situation which had been created by the Wilmot Proviso:“Thus the contest was joined on the central issue which was to dominate all American history for the next dozen years, the disposition of the Territories. Two sets of extremists had arisen: Northerners who demanded no new slave territories under any circumstances, and Southerners who demanded free entry for slavery into all territories, the penalty for denial to be secession. For the time being, moderates who hoped to find a way of compromise and to repress the underlying issue of slavery itself – its toleration or non-toleration by a great free Christian state – were overwhelmingly in the majority.”