Yonatan Eyal. The and the Transformation of the Democratic Party, 1828-1861. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. xii + 252 pp. $75.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-521-87564-6.

Reviewed by Padraig Riley

Published on H-CivWar (May, 2008)

Yonatan Eyal has written a smart and subtly attempted to transform the ideology and objec‐ provocative new book on the political ideology, tives of the Jacksonian Democratic Party. In his aims, and long-term efects of the Young America study we fnd some familiar characters, such as movement in the Democratic Party. His study Stephen Douglas and John O'Sullivan, recast in should prove both useful and challenging for spe‐ terms of the political worldview of Young Ameri‐ cialists in antebellum political history and the his‐ ca, as well as less-studied fgures ranging from tory of the Democratic Party. But in the end, this August Belmont to Robert F. Stockton to William book, much like the ideology it documents, pro‐ Allen to George Sanders, O'Sullivan's successor at vokes more often than it persuades. Eyal will no Young America's mouthpiece, the Democratic Re‐ doubt cause many historians to rethink the politi‐ view. Eyal has read deeply in the manuscript col‐ cal history of the antebellum Democracy, but lections of these fgures, which are the most im‐ many readers, like this one, will also likely dissent portant sources for his account. from Eyal's sympathetic portrayal of the Young The political side of Young America has been America movement. understudied, as Eyal notes, in part because of it A history of the political side of Young Ameri‐ its relative lack of unity. The of ca, as Eyal notes, is long overdue. While many his‐ the 1840s, Eyal explains, should not be seen "as a torians have studied the literary renaissance asso‐ formal movement, a congressional voting bloc, or ciated with the Young America label, far less at‐ even as one intellectual circle … the mobilization tention has been paid to pivotal Democratic politi‐ discussed in this book was far more ephemeral, cians and editors who articulated a new national‐ inconsistent, and feeting" (p. 10). Eyal's New ism and a new political vision in the decades be‐ Democrats did not even share the collective name fore the Civil War. Eyal rectifes this in a series of of "Young America," or any collective name, for thematic chapters that explain how Young Ameri‐ that matter. They disagreed on some policy issues ca Democrats, whom he terms "New Democrats," while agreeing on others. In the end, they were H-Net Reviews bound together by an often bombastic sense of rooted in suspicion of the market and capitalist their own relative youth and modernity, a "gener‐ institutions. ational self-consciousness" that frequently left For Eyal, Young America's new orientation to them bristling at party elders (p. 9). According to the market is part of a wider break with what he Eyal, this youthful rebellion had considerable sub‐ terms "orthodox Jacksonianism," a political cul‐ stance: New Democrats broke with party ortho‐ ture dominated by strict construction, anti-market doxy in their international orientation, their rela‐ fears, support for slavery, and domestic insularity. tive openness to the capitalist marketplace, their Eyal's portrait of orthodox Jacksonianism helps support for economic development and a federal place Young America in relief, but in many re‐ role in internal improvements, and their moder‐ spects it seems too stereotypical. As Eyal notes, for ate antislavery position. example, Young America's support for internal Eyal's arguments are at their strongest and improvements was very similar to the sentiments most persuasive when it comes to economic de‐ of National Republicans after the War of 1812, velopment and internal improvements. He builds who argued for pro-development policies from a good case that Young America Democrats sup‐ within the Jefersonian coalition. While many Na‐ ported both capitalist expansion and a greater tional Republicans went on to become Whigs, I role for the federal government in facilitating eco‐ am not entirely convinced that they left the Jefer‐ nomic growth. Most famous in this regard would sonian-Jacksonian tradition bereft of support for be Stephen Douglas, and his ambitions for a na‐ economic growth through federal power until the tional railroad, but other Young America days of Young America. Rather than such a stark Democrats were equally ambitious, and equally opposition between "orthodox Jacksonianism" willing to trump their party's commitment to and Eyal's New Democrats, I wonder if it might be strict construction. John Wentworth backed Dou‐ better to see Young America as a moment in a glas's dream of a national railroad, while John much longer argument within the Democratic-Re‐ O'Sullivan argued for federal support for a canal publican and Democratic parties. across Panama. These schemes, Eyal contends, Eyal's analytic paradigm, in which Young were part of a wider shift in Democratic orienta‐ America consistently revolts against Jacksonian tion to the capitalist market. New Democrats, he orthodoxy, is even more dubious in the case of argues, developed a "progressive market ideolo‐ foreign policy. In place of Jacksonian insularity, he gy," driven primarily by pressure from their con‐ argues, Young Americans pursued an aggressive stituents, who desired more goods and services foreign policy, supporting democratic uprisings in and wanted the federal government to help pro‐ Europe and democratic expansion at home. But it vide them. For Eyal, signifcantly, this broader seems a misnomer to describe Jacksonianism, market orientation and relative acceptance of the with its deep roots in the expansion of the early fruits of capitalism is central to the New republic and the conquest of Native American Democrats' wider reformist agenda. Eyal sees the tribes, as "insular." I am also skeptical of classing New Democratic orientation to Europe, for exam‐ the Mexican-American War as part of "A New In‐ ple, as driven not only by sympathy for the revo‐ ternational Consciousness," rather than an out‐ lutions of 1848, but also for the Anti-Corn Law growth of a long previous history of violent con‐ League and the expansion of free trade. His argu‐ quest and a diplomatic agenda focused on territo‐ ments here should challenge scholars who tend to rial expansion. In their support for democracy in view antebellum Democratic reform as primarily Europe and conquest in the West, Young America seems to express less a novel "cosmopolitan per‐

2 H-Net Reviews spective" than a traditional theme in Democratic- mantic nationalism forestalled political disinte‐ Republican and Democratic political ideology. gration in the 1840s and the early 1850s (pp. Similar problems attend Eyal's arguments 219-220). But they were limited by sectional con‐ about Young America and antislavery. Here too, troversy, which was exacerbated by their own na‐ he contends, Young America broke with the Jack‐ tionalist ambitions. Following Michael Holt, Eyal sonian past, and adopted a moderate antislavery argues that Young America's move toward Whig- stance. Building on work by Jonathan Earle and like economic policies diminished partisan difer‐ others, Eyal argues for a "strong antislavery tradi‐ ence, thus destabilizing the . tion" (p. 194) among antebellum Democrats.[1] But he believes that New Democrats "left behind From the beginning, however, his argument is on valuable precedents" for the future of their party unstable ground. Since much of the antislavery and their country (p. 235). In terms of economic agitation in the Democratic Party came in reac‐ development and federal power, this contention tion to the ascendancy of the Young American seems plausible, though I expect that many schol‐ James Polk and his prosecution of the Mexican- ars more attached to the Jacksonian egalitarian American War, it would seem opposed to impor‐ tradition will object to such an argument. From tant strains of the New Democracy. Moreover, as the perspective of the post-Reconstruction South Earle has argued persuasively, Democratic anti‐ and late nineteenth-century imperialism, the val‐ slavery often took root among constituencies far ue of Young America's precedents is far harder to less open to the capitalist market--and thus far dif‐ discern. ferent from the New Democratic constituencies Eyal is clearly part of a recent scholarly trend and politicians Eyal argues for early on. Eyal ac‐ that seeks to restore a more positive and complex knowledges this contradiction, but he does not portrait of the Jefersonian and Jacksonian tradi‐ sufciently explain it (see p. 186). Many of his ex‐ tion. Antebellum Democrats, says Eyal, were "pro‐ amples of Young Americans opposed to slavery, gressive and forward-looking," rather than simply moreover, are less than convincing. O'Sullivan did "racists and imperialists" (p. 12). In the case of at times oppose slavery in the abstract, but among economic policy, internal improvements, and po‐ his antislavery beliefs was the hope that Texas an‐ litical reform, Eyal supports this claim fairly well, nexation would lead to the difusion of slavery-- and in a manner that should cause some impor‐ an old and, by the 1840s, fundamentally unten‐ tant debate among historians. But when it comes able Jefersonian fantasy. During the Civil War, he to the issues of expansion and slavery, he is both and quite a few other Young Americans sided overly sympathetic to his characters and fre‐ with the Confederacy (p. 200). The case Eyal quently unpersuasive. In portraying the Young makes for Stephen Douglas is equally unpersua‐ Americans in an optimistic light, Eyal pays too lit‐ sive: "Popular sovereignty," he argues, "symbol‐ tle attention to what often seems their callous dis‐ ized a weakening of old Democrats' proslavery regard for those who bore the brunt of western rigidity" (p. 194). This may have been true from expansion and American slavery. In this respect the perspective of some Southern fre-eaters, but too, Young Americans might be described as for‐ the numerous antislavery Democrats who vilifed ward-looking, but the future that they anticipated Douglas for the Kansas-Nebraska Act would dis‐ provides little ground for retrospective sympathy agree with Eyal here. or appreciation. In his fnal chapter, Eyal argues that Young Note America had a "healthy and unifying" efect on [1]. Jonathan Earle, Jacksonian Antislavery the Democratic Party, and suggests that their ro‐ and The Politics of Free Soil, 1824-1854 (Chapel

3 H-Net Reviews

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Sean Wilentz, "Slavery, Antislavery, and Jacksoni‐ an Democracy," in The Market Revolution in America: Social, Political, and Religious Expres‐ sions, 1800"1880, ed. Melvyn Stokes and Stephen Conway (Charlottesville: University Press of Vir‐ ginia, 1996), 202"223; Wilentz, The Rise of Ameri‐ can Democracy: Jeferson to Lincoln (: Norton, 2005); and Daniel Feller, "A Brother in Arms: Benjamin Tappan and the Antislavery Democracy," Journal of American History 88, no. 1 (June 2001): 48-74.

If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-civwar

Citation: Padraig Riley. Review of Eyal, Yonatan. The Young America Movement and the Transformation of the Democratic Party, 1828-1861. H-CivWar, H-Net Reviews. May, 2008.

URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=14495

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

4