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Masculinity and the Coming of the American Civil War Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports 2006 Honor, patriarchy, and disunion: Masculinity and the coming of the American Civil War Kenneth A. Deitreich West Virginia University Follow this and additional works at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd Recommended Citation Deitreich, Kenneth A., "Honor, patriarchy, and disunion: Masculinity and the coming of the American Civil War" (2006). Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports. 4224. https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/etd/4224 This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by the The Research Repository @ WVU with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you must obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/ or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in WVU Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports collection by an authorized administrator of The Research Repository @ WVU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Honor, Patriarchy, and Disunion: Masculinity and the Coming of the American Civil War Kenneth A. Deitreich A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in History Kenneth A. Fones-Wolf, Ph.D., Chair Elizabeth A. Fones-Wolf, Ph.D. Ronald L. Lewis, Ph.D. Mary Lou Lustig, Ph.D. Timothy Sweet, Ph.D. Department of History Morgantown, West Virginia 2006 ABSTRACT Honor, Patriarchy, and Disunion: Masculinity and the Coming of the American Civil War Kenneth A. Deitreich The dissertation explores the nature of antebellum masculinity and its role in bringing on the American Civil War. It focuses its attention on two crucial episodes of the sectional crisis: the attack on Senator Sumner and the Secession Crisis of 1861 and on the four individuals, Preston Brooks, Charles Sumner, Jefferson Davis and Abraham Lincoln, who played prominent roles in those episodes. Among the issues it explores are the degree to which Northern and Southern ideas of manhood differed and the degree to which Northerners and Southerners associated manhood with sectional identity. Did Southerners associate being a man with being a Southerner and did Northerners associate being a man with being a Northerner? Did Northerners and Southerners view themselves as more manly than their counterparts? What did people expect from their political leaders and how were those expectations shaped by masculinity? Finally to what degree did political leaders embrace antebellum ideas of masculinity, what influences were they exposed to and how did those influences shape their ideas of masculinity? The biographical profiles illustrate how theoretical notions of masculinity were translated into the experiences of real people. As successful politicians chosen by an exclusively white male electorate, it is reasonable to assume that these individuals were keenly aware of antebellum ideas of masculinity. If nothing else they would have had to at least cater to such ideas to maintain their position. In so doing it demonstrates that 19th century gender roles, and especially 19th century ideas of manhood, played a direct and contributive role in bringing on the sectional crisis and made it inevitable that secession would lead to war. Given the volatile and violent nature of 19th century masculinity, especially that of southerners with its emphasis on honor, violence, and militarism, violent confrontation was not only justified but desirable. In view of such attitudes, war was virtually unavoidable. CONTENTS: CHAPTERS: 1. INTRODUCTION . 1 2. ANTEBELLUM MASCULINITY . 25 PART I: THE SUMNER-BROOKS AFFAIR 3. PRESTON BROOKS . 77 4. CHARLES SUMNER . 102 5. THE CANING OF SUMNER . 126 PART II: THE OUTBREAK OF WAR: 6. JEFFERSON DAVIS . 168 7. ABRAHAM LINCOLN . 193 8. THE SUMTER CRISIS: . 221 9. CONCLUSIONS . 262 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 278 iii 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION On May 2, 1960, David Herbert Donald, Professor of American History at Oxford University, delivered a lecture before that institution entitled AAn Excess of Democracy: The American Civil War and the Social Process.@ In his lecture Donald took strong issue with the then dominant schools of Civil War causation. Donald divided his subject into two basic categories: the AFundamentalists@ such as James Ford Rhodes, Allan Nevins, Frederick Jackson Turner, and Charles A. Beard who emphasized issues like Southern nationalism, slavery, race adjustment, and Asocial and economic cleavages,@ and the ARevisionists@ who included Avery Craven and James G. Randall, who argued that such A>causes= have no demonstrated connexion(sic) with the course of events in the 1850s,@ but who instead emphasized Athe importance of accident, of personality, and of propaganda in shaping history.@1 In Donald=s view neither interpretation was satisfactory. AThe >Fundamentalists= have failed to prove that their underlying >causes= produced the actual outbreak of hostilities.@ Furthermore their explanations Arely upon stereotypes which have little relation to the complex social reality of the United States in the 1850's.@ But at the same time Revisionists= arguments Athat apparently random developments-such as the Kansas-Nebraska Bill or John Brown=s Raid-produced the war@ seemed to Donald equally improbable. Do we not have to inquire why public opinion, North and South, grew so sensitive over what appears to be an abstract and unimportant point (as the spread of slavery into the territories)? And if we agree that the 1850's saw a failure of American statesmanship, do we not have to seek 2 why this disaster afflicted the United States at this particular time and in this peculiar manner? 1David Herbert Donald, An Excess of Democracy: The American Civil War and the Social Process. An Inaugural Lecture Delivered Before the University of Oxford on 2 May 1960, (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1960) 4, 6 & 8. 2Ibid., 6-7. 2 The Civil War rather than being the result of accident or Aconflicting sectional interests@ resulted from the influence Aof social processes which affected the entire United States during the first half of the nineteenth century@ or what Donald called Aan excess of Democracy.@ In other words the democratic impulses unleashed during the Jeffersonian and Jacksonian eras had made the electoral system so responsive to the popular will that it had allowed marginal issues such as abolitionism and states= rights to exert a disproportional influence on the political process.3 While it must be admitted that Donald was quite perceptive in pointing out the failings of these then-contemporary schools of thought, still it seems that his concept of AAn Excess of Democracy@ does not quite reach the mark of explaining the war. In attempting to understand what caused the Civil War it is necessary to ask two fundamental questions: why did the South secede and why did secession lead to war? Cultural dissonance, economic grievances, antislavery agitation and states= rights may explain the South=s decision to secede but they cannot tell us why that decision led to war. Clearly something more was at work. As Donald himself phrased it: AIf Jefferson Davis=s government had refused to fight for independence, there could, of course, have been no war. Similarly, if Lincoln=s administration had acquiesced in the peaceful secession of the South, there would have been no conflict.@4 If we are to understand why Davis chose to fight and why Lincoln chose not to Aacquiesce@ it is not enough to merely 3Ibid., 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, & 28.. 4Ibid., 5-6. 3 speak of Athe influence of social forces on the government.@ It is necessary to understand the nature of those social forces.5 This dissertation represents an attempt to better understand those social forces that played such a crucial role in bringing on the Civil War. It seeks to do this through an examination of the ways in which 19th century masculinity contributed to the coming of the Civil War. In so doing it will attempt to answer two questions: what was antebellum masculinity and what role did it play in bringing on the war. It will focus its attention on the years 1848-1861, the period during which the North-South rivalry degenerated from a political debate into a series of increasingly violent episodes.6 The dissertation begins, in Chapter Two, with an in-depth examination of the concept of antebellum masculinity, which it will define in a theoretical sense and trace its origins and development during the years preceding the Civil War. Subsequent chapters will explore the role of masculinity in bringing on the Civil War through an examination of two key incidents of the antebellum period: the Caning of Sumner and the Sumter Crisis of 1861 and the four individuals who played key roles in those incidents and who also represented significant geographic regions and socio-economic groups--Preston Brooks, Charles Sumner, Jefferson Davis, and Abraham Lincoln. A series of biographical profiles of these men will demonstrate both how theoretical concepts of masculinity were translated into the daily lives of individuals and how masculinity helped shape the character and actions of four individuals who were the main participants in two key incidents which helped to bring on the Civil War. 5Ibid.; see also, The Causes of the Civil War, Kenneth M. Stampp ed., (Englewood Hills, N.J.: Prentice- Hall, Inc, 1959). 6David M. Potter, The Impending Crisis: 1848-1861 Completed and Edited by Don E. Fehrenbacher, (New York: Harper & Row, 1976) 6, 16-17. 4 It is not my contention that Brooks, Sumner, Davis and Lincoln comprise anything like a representative sampling of 19th century American society. On the contrary they are decidedly unrepresentative, being composed entirely of white Protestants.
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