The Growth and Collapse of One American Nation: The Early Republic 1790 - 1861

The Early Republic 1790-1861

Donald J Fraser, Dotti Albertine

• Publisher: Fraser & Associates
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9780997080537
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

Our identity as one nation is fragile today, much as it was when the Civil War erupted in 1861. Lincoln, in closing his first inaugural address, warned: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies.” But too often in our time, we view those we disagree with as enemies, as members of a different nation.

That was the challenge our ancestors faced too, and they allowed their differences to devolve into a civil war. Perhaps that struggle was inevitable, since the overriding moral issue of their time, slavery, had to be eliminated. Today, we continue to face the problems of our heritage, especially racial prejudice, born out of historical experience. Perhaps lessons can be learned from history that will help in finding ways to work together for the common good.

This second volume in the American Nation series focuses on the common bonds that brought the country together during the Early Republic, including the importance of liberty and equality, the gradual growth of democracy, and those shared experiences that helped to build nationhood. It also confronts the issue of slavery, which nearly destroyed the nation. Our ancestors faced the question: Who can be an American? It is an issue with which we continue to struggle, in a diverse nation built on a creedal concept of America.

The Growth and Collapse of One American Nation covers the history of the Early Republic from 1790 to 1861. It also includes biographies of the men who made that history, including the Founding Fathers and the second and third generation of American leaders, men like Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Andrew Jackson, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass.

CHAPTER 1

The Development of the First American Party System

If I could not go to heaven but with a party, I would not go there at all.

—THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1789

It would seem an unusual place to begin a book about the evolution of American nationhood with a discussion of political parties. By their nature parties divide, while nations unify. But in fact, people within every society have differences of opinion and pursue interests that can clash. Recent scholarship in the field of political science indicates that the liberal/conservative divide may be innate to human beings, that individuals are predisposed to certain political orientations and beliefs.¹ In authoritarian societies, governments use brute force to stamp out political differences. This approach is inappropriate in democratic societies, and so governments must find some means to organize these differences and give voice to them, and then allow governing institutions to craft the compromises needed to solve societal problems and avoid a reversion to violence. Well-formed democratic political institutions play this role, including elected legislative and executive bodies, courts, and political parties.

The new American republic faced the same challenge. Despite the anti-party bias of the founders, they soon found it necessary to coalesce into two antagonistic political parties that differed over both domestic and foreign policy issues. Beyond even these policy disputes, they differed over a vision for the future of the newly emerging nation. Because they had little experience working in a partisan environment, each party began to see the other as illegitimate. This tendency was especially strong in the Federalist Party, which held power during the Washington and Adams administrations. As historian Richard Hofstadter writes: “One of the great dangers in newly organized states is that the party in power … claims for itself the exclusive custodianship of the essence of nationality and the exclusive right to interpret the meaning of national welfare.”²

The Federalist view of their opponents, the Republican Party of Jefferson and Madison, was that their criticism on issues was “criticism of all government,” that would ultimately lead to “anarchy, subversion, and disloyalty.” For their part, the Republicans charged the Federalists with undermining popular consent and wanting to create a monarchy in America that would lead to rule by the aristocratic few and overturn the republic.³ The 1790s were a period when the founding generation needed to manage these extensive differences of opinion without allowing the political system to fall either into chaos or dictatorship. The outcome of these disputes was by no means assured as the decade unfolded, and the nation’s experiment with a republic almost failed before the founding generation discovered a path for organizing political differences through competition, debate, and elections, rather than violence. The two-party system would ultimately become one of the hallmarks of American nationhood.

The Nature of Political Differences

Before launching into the history of the 1790s, it may be instructive to take a step back and analyze the nature of political differences that have existed since the beginning of human history. Aristotle wrote that “Man is by nature a political animal.” The Greek philosopher, who lived around 300 BC, was probably onto something. Political scientists John R. Hibbing, Kevin B. Smith, and John R. Alford, in their book, Predisposed: Liberals, Conservatives and the Biology of Political Differences, argue that political differences may in fact be rooted, at least in part, in distinct biological differences between individuals.

It turns out that liberals and conservatives have different tastes not just in politics, but in art, humor, food, life accoutrements, and leisure pursuits; they differ in how they collect information, how they think, and how they view other people and events; they have different neural architecture and display distinct brain waves in certain circumstances; they have different personalities and psychological tendencies; they differ in what their autonomic nervous systems are attuned to; they are aroused by and pay attention to different stimuli; and they might even be different genetically. At least at the far ends of the ideological spectrum, liberals and conservatives are emotionally, preferentially, psychologically, and biologically distinct.⁴

Political differences fall along a continuum from liberal at one end to conservative at the other end. Most people have views that are a mix of liberal and conservative perspectives and fall somewhere along the continuum. It should also be kept in mind that some people have little to no interest in politics. “Certain people are in possession of powerful political predispositions … other people have much weaker political predispositions,” the authors argue.⁵

While specific issues vary over time and between different societies, the authors posit that certain “bedrock social dilemmas” have always divided people and they lie at the heart of our political differences. They divide these bedrock differences into four distinct areas. One involves the importance of tradition versus the need for change. Some people are committed to the tried and true way of doing things, and to traditional values. They feel suspicious when it comes to making changes in society, and they want change to occur slowly, if at all. Others are more open to new experiences and approaches to solving problems in society and are willing to change the moral code as society evolves. A second set of differences deals with the importance of the welfare of the group versus that of the individual. Numerous political disagreements are rooted in divergent views of the extent to which individuals should assume personal responsibility for themselves versus the responsibility we share as a group toward one another. Liberals and conservatives also differ on how to deal with those who exist outside of one’s own kin group, tribe, ethnic group, or nation. Some view outsiders as a threat to their own group, while others see them as nonthreatening and similar to themselves. The final area of difference involves the best way to make decisions in society. Some people prefer top-down leadership, while others believe leaders should act based on input from the group. This area also includes whether leaders should cooperate with each other and find ways to compromise, or whether they should stick with their principles.

Hibbing and his co-authors have measured responses to these issues based on a series of questions they have developed, which they call the “Society Works Best” Index. Not surprisingly, conservatives, more so than liberals, tend to score higher on issues involving “traditional values, unbending leaders, punishment for rule breakers … and rewards assigned on the basis of merit rather than need.” And an individual’s score on bedrock social dilemmas also tends to mirror that person’s position on current political issues.⁶

Not only do people have varying tastes and preferences based on deeply imbedded biological predispositions, but these differences seem to extend to placing greater or lesser emphasis on different moral values. Liberals tend to be more concerned with how individuals are treated, whether fairly or unfairly, and are more interested in the “new and novel, a commitment to individual expression, and a tolerance of differences.” Conservatives have a “greater desire for order and security, a commitment to tradition, and group loyalty.”⁷ The evolutionary biologist Avi Tuschman contends that ethnocentrism, the belief in the superiority of one’s own ethnic group, is a hallmark of a conservative point of view. “Conservatives have more positive feelings towards members of their in-group and higher levels of patriotism,” Tuschman writes. “That is why the political right extols the altruistic sacrifice of individual interest for the benefit of the tribe.”⁸ This may explain why conservatives tend to support the use of public resources to pay for national defense and public safety programs, but are opposed to funding programs that involve group sacrifice for individuals, such as welfare or health care programs.

During the course of evolution, both liberal and conservative political orientations have played a role in the survival of our species. As Hibbing and his co-authors point out, early hunter-gatherer societies were likely suspicious of other tribes, since they posed a potential danger. Life during pre-agricultural days was much more dangerous, with deaths in battle as high as 500 out of 100,000 people, compared to the modern world where only .3 out of 100,000 people will die in war. In such an environment, suspicion of out-groups was a smart survival strategy. But as human society began to move to an agricultural base, dangers began to fade. “In such an altered environment, selection pressures for heightened negativity bias, for the tried and true way of doing things, and for deep suspicion of out-groups likely would start to fade,” the authors write. Openness toward new ideas and a willingness to trust outside groups brought certain advantages as well, including the ability to trade with other groups and to learn innovative ways to solve societal problems. Jared Diamond has argued that one of the great advantages that allowed the fertile crescent to become the dominant region was the lack of geographic barriers (rivers, mountains, etc.), allowing for the free flow of new ideas and innovation in that area.⁹

Given the biological foundation for political differences and its deep roots in humankind’s evolution, the founders would have found it impossible to not fall into political disagreement with each other. Tuschman, in his book, Our Political Nature: The Evolutionary Origins of What Divides Us, organizes his concepts differently but comes to remarkably similar conclusions on the importance of biological evolution in influencing political views. One of his core arguments is that a person’s view of inequality is heavily influenced by their political orientation. Liberals tend to “believe in the innate, inner equality of all people, [and] attribute the world’s inequalities to outer, structural injustices.” Liberals want to break down differences that occur due to power relationships, believing this will lead to a more just world. Thomas Jefferson, perhaps more than any other member of the founding generation, represents this point of view. Conservatives believe that “hierarchies reflect inner, individual capabilities,” and that inequalities “reveal the worth of the powerful and the weak,” which makes them more tolerant of inequalities. Alexander Hamilton, more than any other founder, believed in this point of view. Finally, George Washington and James Madison fall somewhere between the two extremes. ¹⁰

Let’s see how the core societal problems identified by Hibbing and his co-authors, and the importance of inequality that Tuschman discusses, relate to Jefferson, Madison, Washington, and Hamilton. Historian Stuart Leibiger places these men on the political continuum from Jefferson at the furthest left, to Madison just left of center, Washington just right of center, and Hamilton furthest to the right.¹¹ This analysis not only reveals the applicability of these problems in American history, but also helps to explain why these men fell into disagreement so quickly. John Ferling has written of Jefferson and Hamilton that “their opposing views are like the twin strands of DNA in the American body politic.”¹² First, we will explore the broadest area of disagreements over human nature, which affects each man’s views on authority and leadership (whether it flows up or down) in society. Then we will review the specific domestic policy issues that divided these men, which illustrate differ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 The Development of the First American Party System
• Chapter 2 The Peaceful Transfer of Power
• Chapter 3 The West and Jefferson’s Empire of Liberty
• Chapter 4 The War of 1812 and the Rise of New Leadership
• Chapter 5 The Era of (Somewhat) Good Feelings
• Chapter 6 The Changing Society of the Early Republic
• Chapter 7 Religion in the Early Republic
• Chapter 8 Andrew Jackson, American Nationhood, and the Expansion of Democracy
• Chapter 9 The First Term: Good Intentions / Questionable Outcomes
• Chapter 10 Nullifiers, Bank Wars Redux, and the King
• Chapter 11 The Abolitionists
• Chapter 12 Texas and the Mexican-American War
• Chapter 13 Politics Unravels in the 1850s
• Chapter 14 The North and South Reach a Tipping Point
• Chapter 15 The Union Collapses
• Epilogue: Who Can be an American?
• Index