We begin our first of two blogs on Jacksonian Antebellum Virginia political history in the years 1810-1850 by first looking at “Sectionalism in Virginia” east and west, “Intellectual Life in the American South” with important Virginia contributions, and “The Second American Party System” explaining the growth of political parties in the states rather than Congressional Caucuses.
We then turn to “Democratizing the Old Dominion” to explain the dramatic expansion of the Virginia electorate before universal manhood suffrage. Finally to address the Virginia Constitutional Conventions of 1829-30 and 1850-51 we look at “Revolution to Secession: Constitution Making”. The second blog will look at the Anti-slavery debates and the rise of the secessionists.
These books are all used in bibliographies found in peer-reviewed surveys of Virginia history of scholarly merit. Insights are used from articles in the Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, the Journal of Southern History and the Journal of American History.
For book reviews of this historical period in other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.
Sectionalism in Virginia
Sectionalism in Virginia, 1776-1861 was written by Charles Henry Ambler in 1910 and reprinted in 2013 and 2017 in the United Kingdom. It illuminates the political divisions within Virginia between eastern and western sections as they developed geographically, ethnically and economically from 1776 to 1861.
Independence, constitutional ratification, the rise of the Jefferson and Federalist parties, the personal entanglements of the National Republican period, and the Democratic-Whig party divisions are analyzed. Issues of internal improvements and slavery, the tariff and nullification, electoral reform, the churches and education are all explored. Learn more to buy “Sectionalism in Virginia” at Amazon.co.uk for your bookshelf.
Conjectures of Order
Conjectures of Order: Intellectual Life and the American South, 1810-1860 was written by Michael O’Brien in 2004. It is a two volume examination of over one hundred southern intellectuals, with Virginians and South Carolinians dominating. Southern intellectuals were nationalists, postcolonialists preferring Continental writers over British, and imperialists seeking to expand white liberty and the black slavery on which it rested.
A late Enlightenment phase in the 1830s emphasizing the self-reliant republican freeholder yielded to a romantic notion of belonging that lamented the passing of family and traditional connections. During the 1850s a generation of realists emerged who conceded that one could not have both power and morality, advancing “an imperial regime of ruthless ambition”.
Southern political thought came to emphasize political economy at the hands of Virginia’s Thomas R. Dew, Charleston’s Jacob Cardozo, Kentucky’s Henry Clay and South Carolina’s John C. Calhoun. An important dimension of the region’s intellectual life addressed slavery. William Harper insisted a defense of slavery required a repudiation of egalitarianism. Henry Hughes rejected individualism for collectivity in a supreme state, and George Fitzhugh denounced individualism and social contract for power and subjection. Learn more to buy “Conjectures of Order” here for your bookshelf.
The Second American Party System
The Second American Party System: Party Formation in the Jacksonian Era was written by Richard P. McCormack in 1966 and reprinted in 1973. Beginning in 1824 with the end of the Jeffersonian Virginia Dynasty and extending to the 1840s, a second American party system developed to elect the president with national party conventions, state caucuses and the extension of voter participation.
In a party system remarkably free of sectional bias, each state among the 24 states in 1824 save South Carolina developed a competitive two party system between Democrats and Whigs. It gave way to a third party system of sectional division only in the 1850s.
McCormick describes the state constitutional and legal frameworks that defined party operation such as changing presidential elector methods, along with the selection of Congressmen and state officials. The parties became engines of candidate nomination and electioneering. The popular rhetoric of both parties made elections an emotional experience, and it fostered the expansion of the electorate. Learn more to buy “Second American Party System” here for your bookshelf.
Democratizing the Old Dominion
Democratizing the Old Dominion: Virginia and the Second Party System, 1824-1861 was written by William G. Shade in 1996. The book explains Virginia’s rapid democratization that preceded the 1851 constitutional introduction of universal manhood suffrage. The engine of change was the vigorous two-party competition between Democrats and Whigs due to Virginia’s rapid economic and social changes.
While the fortunes of the eastern legislative majorities advocated for the declining tobacco interests, the more numerous and influential “new men” of a burgeoning commercial economy made the state on of the nation’s largest exporters of wheat and corn.
Both political parties appealed to the “plain folk” interests for their votes on issues with many-sided coalitions among groups and competing agricultural and industrial interests in a dozen sub-regions in Virginia, in the same way as Northern states did. Only in the 1850s did proslavery sentiment re-emerge to lead Virginians to defend slavery, whether readily or reluctantly. Learn more to buy “Democratizing the Old Dominion” here for your bookshelf.
Constitution Making in the Old Dominion
Revolution to Secession: Constitution Making in the Old Dominion was written by Robert P. Sutton in 1989. It explains that the conflict between republican ideals and sectionalism persisted throughout Virginia’s history until the final break away by West Virginia. The first convention of 1776 and the two in 1829-30 and 1850-51 failed to provide for amendment to accommodate changes in population and regional wealth distribution that drove calls for changes in suffrage and representation.
In both conventions of 1829-30 and 1850-51, the contests among progressives and traditionalists, westerners and easterners, democrats and aristocrats resulted in persistent eastern slave property values dominating state government. The white population of the west which surpassed that of the eastern Tidewater found proportionate representation only in the House of Delegates only after 1850. Learn more to buy “Constitution Making in the Old Dominion” here for your bookshelf.
For book reviews of this historical period in other topics, see the webpage for Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction. General surveys of Virginia History can be found at Virginia History Surveys. Other Virginia history divided by topics and time periods can be found at the webpage Books and Reviews.